in order to hit oil
you have to drill
you have to focus on where the sweet spots are
and you have to work them
long and hard
until you strike the geyser
so i am going to start drilling
moving snaking working
until the oil in my veins hits my joints
loosens my hips
lifts my chin
and puts me to work for something
outside of me
yet inside me
and in me
i am sick of mining
my memories my scars
and my meanings for
peddling and pawning.
when can i cry out?
and by cry i don’t mean
call to arms nor do i
want a spotlight i mean
cry and feel pain and tears
snaking down my neck
like sunshower streams.
i want to cry with the roots
beneath my feet asking them
who live under the world
to let me see what hold
the earth and let it spin.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqm1CqxJ5s
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIOxMe2TEMY
[some sick part of me
tells herself she has needs
healthy needs and leanings
a healthy willingness to do
great things with great people]
acknowledgment is a birthright
stolen from me and from
people like me when it comes
to love and happiness in dark
dank crowded spaces
the sand works its way
into small crevices of me
but i love
and the dew slicks and dries
my brown skin but i love
the sun crisps and browns
where it can shine and i love
the moon beams and buoys
through the blinds and i love
somehow the earth finds me
happiness is a leather-dried
drum skin beaten by slender
fingers and steady palms
happy is the player who
plays prayerfully best
happy straps my shoes onto
flat feet happy keeps my hat
balanced and tipped happy
hugs my thighs enough to care
happy breathes on my neck
if love and happiness follow
each breath and beating heart
each movement and pause
then seamless souls should thank
our corporal bodies for once
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=248800002
There are times I wish I tied my name to my online work. I wish I didn’t feel so far removed from my community. I feel as though a lifelong track through school has changed me for the worse instead of for the better. Now I’m graduating from school on May 11th, planning to start a job with lots of tedium and very demanding clients. I’m thousands of dollars in debt, swimming in my own indiscreet spending to keep up with my colleagues or to improve my immediate condition. i avoided reality through gold cards.
All this week some very raw feelings and thoughts have taken hold of my consciousness. If I really don’t want to be distracted by other things and I want to focus on my work and duties, I have to put in the extra work to clear the distractions. No matter how hard it looks, no matter how long it takes.
i want to be the kind of sexy that says
i’m actually naked
these threads and seams are just
superfluous
to lay my head goes beyond
eggs & wickerbaskets
hell & handbaskets
everywhere i try to lie down
lets gravity take hold & yank
cant relax no relaxer
cant sit down no stool softener
cant dance on a seesaw wobble
blinded by cinders ash wednesday
hems as dusters midnight volleys
gotta keep moving forward slope
the weight travels from head to toe
if leaning forward trends negative
the counters changers crash down
with no more to turn over
cant trade in the tits
not forever warranted &
cant get by on my ass
when liability is limited
unsteady dancers to the left
tipping tripping spinning around
until ankle exits stage left
hips move house right
heads off in dead center
everything moves but im still
breathe heel down move
step head up move
breathe heel up move
step head down bent
caught cracks shift twist out pop
shit im down im down
hands and knees im down
full grown ass woman marching
expecting high rises &
brought to a crawl & down
Be not deceived:
the lady’s orisons
doth not sleep about
her visage as
a coronet
of flowers, nor
a bonnet, nor a
dewy spring to flame:
her orisons,
bathed throughly with
thy sins, only be
remembered once:
when her eyes bear
sons of mourning;
but betray her
not as the soft
O of her lips
cries at dawn. For
upon her a light
hast stirred her muse.
Nor should thee think
she walks about verse
as golden stones
line country lanes,
as men trip near
graves and cradle
skulls, infinite
jest in death’s knell;
the only head prized
is her own, she
holds it high while
flitting amongst flora.
The fauna knight
her Goddess; she
humbly dwells ‘twixt
poplar willows,
charming troops of
dandelions,
weeding out camps
of alligators.
She lies about there,
lies about us,
lying all while
we prey on her;
as a cloud, peace
settles her root
but not our voice;
as a howl, love
nettles her skin
but not our call;
as a cry, pain
rustles her hems
but not our pins;
her privates we,
cradling the belt
of her Fortune,
faith cradling proud
to her hips — nay,
her lips welcome
our majesties.
Along pages, leaves
go we, go we;
between stiff spines
we dance unbound;
in margins lined
we cross and weave,
blank spaces bogged
and swamped in sound;
in penned black bursts
go she and we,
fighting white lines
as bayonets,
dipped deep inside
an abyss of naught.
On all living
she scrawls aside,
with men and thief:
her hobby-horse
is not forgot —
poor lots of lore.
The problem is I can’t go up to a person and say that I want to have coffee with them when my honest thought is I want to have an orgasm with them. I would feel like I’m lying. Coffee, gratefully, is not orgasmic for me. (Get me the right tea brew and some creamed honey and we might get somewhere.) But I’m already grappling with sexual repression, recovering from sexual abuse, and sheer fucking negotiation between learning the legal system and civil disobedience through personal autonomy, and if I can’t walk up to someone and say that we should engage in some good sexin’, then I have to learn this ridiculous cat-and-mouse game of relating between being. And it’s such a fucking STUPID game. Can’t we just fuck?
I think I’d like to believe the cultural assumptions about people hold true so these games work well. But I know so many people for whom the most fundamental cultural assumptions are the most damaging. The most endangering. The most inaccurate and malignant. But cutting the bullshit when you live as a visible and invisible minority feels damned near impossible. And very often, doing the impossible is how I live day to day. I hate how many circles I find myself tacitly reinforcing as unproblematic just to get from home to school to assignments to work to bills to home again. My care is subordinate; the world’s precious processes become paramount.
Would it kill me to say “hello, how are you, let’s share a coffee and share some superficial banter” and be done? No, theoretically. But the crass, uncouth, home-training-lacking, ign’ant, silly, horny part of me wants to say, “look, you are attractive and pretty damned awesome — let us fuck.” The last three words coming from Zack and Miri, yeah, but… the point is why aren’t we fucking right now? These words are replacing quality boot knocking time. I can’t look at your face without wondering what your skin tastes like. It very likely does not taste like coffee. Therefore, I would be wasting my time.
And in my backasswards mind, this all makes sense! It makes perfect sense even as I know socially this is very, very stupid and wrong. I can’t simplify it to nothing because for me, when I am attracted to someone, it is a big deal. I’ve been through a lot and the acknowledgment stage is very difficult. I don’t understand how to exist in a society where I am always already a sexual being by my very existence as a woman, and at the same time downplay that sexuality for the comfort of others like me and unlike me. At the same time, I can’t adopt a totally sexual presentiment; I still carry my damage on my back like an invisible explosive vest. But I am not repressed in that I am very aware of my physicality. I am very aware of what arouses me. And it is very difficult to fight the urge to shut it off when I feel it, to be in the moment, to avoid the desire to harm myself so I can stop feeling.
And in the midst of all this, there’s some coffee I’d love to be grinding.
And moreover, there are obligations I must meet, other issues I must address…
I wish I knew where normal was. I’d travel there to live, and I’d pack my neuroses, my aches and pains, my fantasies and desires, my avoidances and undesirables, and my favorite music. I’d live in normal and everything would have its right place.
If you dissect a bird
To diagram the tongue
You’ll cut the chord
Articulating song.
If you flay a beast
To marvel at the mane
You’ll wreck the rest
From which the fur began.
If you pluck out the heart
To find what makes it move,
You’ll halt the clock
That syncopates our love.
Syllable by Syllable 