readers help writers

How and why? Did a part of me die? The madness in my art described the sadness in my heart. Then someone walked by. The circling of my toe inscribed a path inside the snow. They told me about the sky, and how to use that space. My teeth were misaligned, you saw them in my face. Then the kittens came, a-crying for some milk. I went to find some sweet cream, I found it in a dream. The readers read my mind. I signed their hearts, with love. A part of me was healed. The message was not mine, the envelope was sealed. It came from up above. I told them about the sky, and how to use that space. Some fled, some stayed. They stayed with me, in grace.

author. city cemetery.

Journal # 04.29.15

You were the one who was there for me, when I needed you. You were the one who found me by the door, with my back against the wall, spent and scared. Someone had tried to grab me off my bike that night. You came down and said my name with urgency, seeing the state I was in. You pulled me up and dusted me off. You looked into my eyes. I had a really large backpack with half my life in it, and you took it off my shoulders and carried it up two flight of stairs. I was hanging behind you, guided by your voice. You cared for me. You let me cry into your arms. You held me. You kept saying it's going to be okay, Katya, it's going to be. 

And it was not okay.  
No, not at all.
And then
it was  

untitled

i don't owe you

but i get by giving
anyway

sun won't stop tearing cross
the sky in slowest motion

face and eyes cast up
over cast-iron
with steam

coffee consoles me
the television gone
the radio on

believe me
like i believe in you
or don't believe
and i won't

either
neither
or

a drop of magic

to stop this racing world of time
and trouble

the teardrop spreads like wine
staining paper covered
party tables

out of doors
the magic ends
we do our chores

god finds us
on the floors

EXCERPT

He waited for her with all the women waiting to get their ombres and bangs, in the forefront of a high-end salon halfway into Berkeley on College Avenue. He was the only man in the place. The glass storefront so clear one was likely to crash into it, were it not for the Helvetica script lettered across it. And he felt out of place but he didn't care. She was lying back in the barber's chair with half her head dipped in a basin, and as the stylist massaged the soap out her hair into the rinse, she shut her eyes. They had traveled together in the early morning chill promising a warm summer day, to get here. He rode his skateboard, she pushed pedals on her ten-speed. Witness the weaving in and out, threading one another's tracks coming together, then apart. Talking. Laughing. Cheerful and melodic bursts into cool and receptive air. They were to meet his friend for coffee next door. Soon. She felt her head dissolve into a warm glow around her. The scattered voices of women like birds, had vanished as the water rose above the ear canals. And though she was not smiling, it was only because her smile peeled off her and sank, rocking then spinning slowly down to the granite floor of the basin, and while she was not looking, one of her eyes popped out from under the lid, and floated across the surface like a buoy marker, and nested in some soap suds. And as her mind marveled over the fresh instance of love tingling all over her body, her boyfriend uncomfortably shifted on the charcoal seat cushions not ten yards away, a Madameoiselle magazine in his hands with the image of a gorgeous Parisian cover model unimpressive to him now. His eyes moved hawkishly about the room to get a glimpse; raising him up with them to see down the middle aisle of stylists at work, past the smoke and mirrors and chirping, to the hollow toward the back of the same room where she was.  Her brain matter unraveled into a labrynthine interpretative submersive dance. Seemed like half of eternity, lost. Then swept away she was to thoughtless clarity, by the sudden opening of the drain, the lifting of her head, the watery fingers of her locks gripping the back of her neck, the half-smile pinioned to her lips, the eyeball slipping back under the lashes and lid. The sound of birds chirping. Only the thoughts had flushed on down the drain, for what use are thoughts in love's possession? The stylist was telling her something, and blowing it away. Posits and remarks, littering the floor. Her body still tingling, the glow had not left her. Just cooling in air along with the hair. She could not now help her eyes from lifting her up, in the chair as they circled around, and found him in there. Waiting for her. She found in him in there -- again, life was a blur.

-- Excerpt. Daughter of Darkness. Book #2

Journal # 04.26.15

These days stories need embellishment like farm-raised corn-fed fish. You can try and capture the minds and hearts of your immediate audience by relating to them the story of the latest tragedy on Highway 99. Good luck. Particularly if you cap it off with a stirring account of ripping off your receipt of gratitude. The dewy eyes around you have glazed like Krispy Kremes. The secret devils in the room are already lost in your recollection, having taken a turn into the guardrail earlier and immolated the shoulder, just to put us all down sooner and spare us the pain of the ordeal. Newspapers went into the fireplace a long time ago, for the same. So the wandering eyes of next weekend's guests would not alight on old expired news. No, these days stories need salt and pepper. Maybe a well-designed website with graphics and videos and ads for your favorite products. Don't count on being the first to relay any news. Someone already knows you got cancer. They googled it a couple days before your doctor told you. They also know the odds are in favor of you surviving it, because no one who entertains the way you do, ever dies young. When I say you, trust me, I mean me, too. God have I bored a room full of people. It happens. We get tired or scared or we prepare too carefully for our publicity stunts. Spontaneity is teeming with life. But we forget and (American) culture teaches us we must be prepared in order to succeed. Well what? Did you prepare to come out of the womb of your mother in order to live on earth? Did you align your head and neck just so? Sorry. Plans and river dams cannot defend us against the most spectacular moments of our lives. I think I will walk out of my house today without any story to tell, after sitting down to write without any story to tell, and let the story tell itself. What a concept.

Journal # 04.25.15

I saw you in the rain. Your eyes were tired, and the train far above our heads under this matrix of Chicago downtown loop metallics, weary following the rails. Your eyes were vital. The tired was actually around them, not in them. Not of them. Your eyes were fresh from canvas oils passionate kissing the canvas off the lashes of the brush. Sparks fell from the rails and evaporated in the heavy shadows of high rises. My pulse quickened. I had not seen you in so long. I had been tethered to one special coffeehouse where they served home roast Papa New Guinea in imperial pints. Your eyes saw mine and both of us fell out of the urban grind like a shot of cool almond milk dousing the fire of a bitter brew. Two hours and three minutes ago I screamed fuck you at a cab almost ran me down in a crosswalk. Then went on my way. People are half asleep. We wake one another up, in the city. Moment to moment. We express ourselves. I have a typewritten page of fresh madness for you, my love. My friend. Come here so we can embrace. You are the creation I am. Everthing here will be gone, and yet the shadows of the high rises will thicken over time. I like how we still get the fresh air from Lake Michigan. It's a goddamn ocean it's so large! Hallelujah. Some young hoodie bumped into you as he weaved his way down a busy thoroughfare, rush hour, and he spun you around and then elbowed his way through a couple corporate fobs. That was ten minutes and ten seconds ago. You dialed up a beautiful you won't make it in time, asshole! and saw the hood turn ever so slightly back so you caught a profile. One eye glaring back. Just before a briefcase came crashing into his back. I know you. Brilliant because you photoshopped the instant in your mind and will have that hood, that eye, splashed into your work someday, maybe today a quick sketch. Nine minutes ago. As we traveled toward one another, block to block. City life. Love and hate. Awaken the sleepy heads. Watch all the people come together and amalgamate and mate. Oh it feels good to hold you. Our hearts beat alike.

Journal # 04.24.15

Love would come around the corner and look at me and smile, and I would have to smile right back or else love would be gone. On a rainy day, love would show up while I was busy looking for rainbows, love would be right there next to me but would not tap me on the shoulder. I would be rubbing the fog of my breath off the glass, when love would disappear. Love would be there in the park watching me with my head in my hands trying to sort it all out, and a squirrel would come by and I would not pay attention, and a child would come over and I would avert my eyes or hang my head deeper between my elbows, hiding. And when I finally got to looking up with all of it sorted out, love would be gone. Love would be in line, waiting in line, and I was waiting in line, too. Tapping my foot or fidgeting around. Trying to look cool or at least interesting. Wearing my sunglasses indoors. Waiting for my number to be called. All that waiting and love was right there beside me, waiting, too, and when I wondered much later why I had not had a chance at love, I would worry myself about it and wonder what was possibly so wrong with me, and not even realize that love was right there waiting for me when I was not even thinking about it. And so I might even get so lost in my feeling, lost in my thinking, lost in my doing, that I could weave deeper into a rooted sadness with all the laughter and sunshine around me, and then even identify with the sadness so to make it stay when it might have passed by but not now. And the ones that came to play would demand I play, and stomp on my feet if necessary, talk my thinking right out of my head, hold my hand and pull me away from myself. And it was like love forcing itself upon me, attacking me, and I could either fight for my sadness or put up. And heaven is a place on earth when the change comes along and you let it. Earth is a place on earth. And a good place when you get with it. Mess yourself up in the dirt. Work really hard and get tired. Like you mean it and then you realize you do, you do mean it. And then it's like a spring or source of fullness inside, out. And it is bright. And you remember it from a long time ago, even though it's now. And you might be singing, dancing, or crying. With friends or without. Inside or out. Rain or sunshine. Happiness or pain. Whatever the condition don't matter anymore, cause love has got ahold of you and it's nothing like it ever was before except relentless and freeing. Go now. Share it.

GUEST BLOG

Here is the Guest Blog I did for Jen Winters 

Guest blogger: Katya Mills On Mood Manufacturing
by Jen Winters


I am a mood perfectionist, which has put me into business in mood manufacturing. Yes, it is a confession. I cannot often just sit down and write, and not worry about setting my mood just so. I grew up in the eighties, and my parents bought me an original Mac Plus for school. This computer was the coolest. I taught myself how to type. I realized I could open a Word document and stare at a white screen. The ‘tabula rasa’: Latin for ‘blank slate’. Which is what every artist faces, almost every day. I remember staring at the screen and feeling something in my heart which yearned to be expressed, but how to put that in words? The little cursor was blinking, just counting the seconds, endlessly waiting for me.

Self-publishing today is a luxury, just as computers were luxurious back then. My appreciation of both comes from having been born in a world without either. A world without the internet. Thank God for all the hackers in their garages who dreamed of this day, and worked toward their dreams! What a gift. In the eighties you could never reach a wide audience so quickly. Readers in China, Russia, Germany, Romania? Forget about it! I would be lucky to get my next door neighbor interested.

Today everything is in place for the indie authors of the world to succeed. Once you have your story the way you want it, complete and intact, you can follow in the footsteps of successful writers. Cookie-cutter. Only the creative process remains enigmatic. To me, the creative process must trump everything else. Which means I need to find the ideal conditions (for me) to write. A very personal process. It starts with noticing how I interact with my environment.

Now I have written in a boarding house full of noise, on a laptop so beat up I had to tie the screen back with zipties and twists, with a keyboard whose keys I had to superglue back on. I have written in a room with an (ex) boyfriend whose paranoia and jealousy could turn on me in a second. I have written despite real and imagined voices on the other sides of walls. I have written under threat of being momentarily evicted. I have written with the sun in my face and heavy metal in my ears, and no money in my pocket. I have written in a bar, in a car, in the cloud of someone’s cigar.

I came to realize how external conditions never defeated me. My problem was really internal! My moods are like weather patterns in the Jetstream. Unpredictable. So I developed my mood manufacturing industry. I thought I could figure out ways and means to boil my moods down into a mind-state conducive to writing the next bestseller.

I will spare you the details, except to say that this business failed! I struggled and struggled, trying to control my mind. A real turkey shoot! Many suns set without my having pulled the screen up, at all. Today, I am back to the basics. Focusing on the practice of writing. Get to writing, one word at a time.

What I realized in the end, was I gotta let go. Have some faith in the process. Stop trying to control things and manufacture the perfect mood. I gotta surrender. Trust. I have to sit myself down, every day, and do it. I have to be kind and encouraging to myself. I have to remember why I write, and the rewards of the creative life. The self-insight. Getting in touch with my feelings. Expressing myself deeply. Healing.

In the end, I write for my life.

INTERVIEW

Here is an interview I did with Jen Winters, which was published on her wordpress blog just the other day...

JEN: You all know how much I adored this woman’s book, Grand Theft Life . Her book was utterly fantastic and I am privileged and honored to have her here today for an interview.

You write contemporary fantasy fiction. Do you read it as well?

KATYA: Yes I do. I firmly believe in the importance of taking the time and getting to know your peers. I must admit that when I am intimately involved with my WIP’s, I tend to minimize my exposure to other works. I may be superstitious but I worry about other writing styles leading me off and away from my own process. Lately I have been reading Paul Kater, Dean Koontz, and Steven W. White’s ‘New World: A Frontier Fantasy Novel’.

There are a lot of low cost to free books one can add to one’s kindle every day, and then you get to carry a library in your hands. I recommend people get one if you don’t have one. Yes, it IS a better feeling holding a paperback, for sure. But some Kindles are backlit, so you can read them in the dark! And no, I do not work for Amazon.

JEN: HA! I recommend getting a Kindle too, but that’s because I’m an ebook published author ;)

Is there an author that makes you strive to be a better writer? Who is it and why?

KATYA: There are plenty. Always been a big fan of Anne Rice. She gets me deeply involved with her lead characters and anti-heros. I love her worlds, both ex and interior. I can always turn to the Russians for a spark. Great storytellers. I am reading Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ for the x-teenth time. And Paul Kater is a Dutch writer who I met recently by way of social media. I am blown away by his work ethic and trying to emulate.

JEN: I am always amazed at how many amazing authors are out there just waiting for us to find them.

What do you think you bring to your books that makes you unique?

KATYA: Sensitivity. I have always been a hypersensitive creature, myself. This has worked for and against me. I am single by choice because intimate relationships tend to overstimulate me. I breathe rather shallow because deep breathing breaks up my peace of mind with the fullness of emotions under the surface. Sound strange? Well, I probably am. But honestly, this quality in me lends itself very well to the worlds I create in my books.

Experience. I never write very far away from my internal experience. For sure I code it into my characters.

Style. I like to say I write from the inside out. I have my own fingerprint. Some readers call it poetic. Some describe it as similar to magic realism. Others enjoy my ability to paint an image in the mind. I tend to naturally thread in social commentaries, though I try not to preach. My books are character-driven, and I tend to place the characters in (physically) real yet dystopian urban settings.

JEN: Reading your book was certainly a unique and incredible experience for me. Some books I read and it’s a good book, but yours, I read and it was an experience.

What is that one moment you have had as a writer that made you realize you were actually a real author?

KATYA: When I self-published my first novel, in 2013. Girl Without Borders.

JEN: Now that is the kind of moment I can connect to. I had been touting myself as an aspiring author for long enough when I saw my book online after hitting that publish button, I knew. I was an author.

What started you on the path to becoming an author?

KATYA: I did a ton of reading as a kid. The first novel that totally wrapped its arms around me and wouldn’t let go, was Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’. I was about eleven or twelve years old. I was enraptured! And it was a big thick paperback, so I was really proud to be reading such a large volume. From then on I aspired to write a book. Around the same time, a classmate and I got notebooks on our own, and tried to write novels in them. My idea. Before then, my grandmother was cutting full page images out of magazines, pasting them on one side of a notebook, and asking me to write stories about the images. That’s how I began to tell stories in ink.

JEN: Your grandmother’s idea was fantastic. I might kype that!

How did you work your advertising and build your following?

KATYA: I have a facebook page which does not generate much interest. Mostly I am building a following through my website (circa 2007), and through the Google Plus community. I offer up something to somebody every day online. I also buy copies of my books, and hand paperbacks out to local bookstores and friends. In the past two years, I have joined Goodreads, WordPress and Twitter. I have linked up my social media to my author profile on Amazon. I may get back out to the coffeehouses and grab an open mic. I try and maximize the points of contact I have, and am willing to create more. But I definitely have a lot to learn about advertising, marketing, promotion.

There’s a cool website I found for Independents, called http://www.theindieview.com . Self-published authors can query a list of reviewers who will review your work for free. I stand behind all my published work, but I am still mostly unknown. None of it matters so long as I am excited about what I am writing, and dedicated.

JEN: Cool. Thank you for the referral! And indie’s first few years are a hard time full of expenses!

As an author, what is that one memory that will always stick with you?

KATYA: Being in Palm Springs earlier this year (on vacation) and waking up predawn to write to the full moon over the mountains, just outside my hotel window. Going to the lobby to get the free coffee and granola bars, and spending most of my week-long vacation inside my hotel room, feverishly completing my novella. I was clocking twelve hour days with my kitten by my side, and I had no hesitation working across my entire ‘vacation’! I was inside a tractor beam of energy. A true labor of love <3 br="">
JEN: Oh wow! That is inspiring! I’m not sure I could type for that long on any given day, but it certainly shows your dedication to your craft.

How have your aspirations as a writer changed over time?

KATYA: I suppose I always harbored a desire to be widely read, or published. Ten years ago I shopped a manuscript around to some of the majors, and found the process tedious and discouraging. The conventions were slightly less discouraging. I mostly enjoyed sharing my work with friends and doing spoken word. When I started blogging in 2007, I found I had access to anyone online. This brought some adrenaline back. But writing has remained mostly a healing process. My life has at times been in chaos. Fractured relationships and jobs, unemployment and relocations. Now I am a little older and found a simpler way of life. A calmer environment. A less stressful job. I still aspire to have my work read far and wide. But I feel fortunate I have this ritual and healing process to turn to when times get rough. Writing is good medicine.

JEN: It certainly is! I wrote my first after a rather harsh implosion of my life and it was the best therapy I could afford. Also, Kissing Demons was rewritten so that it wasn’t so much puke on a page. Haha.

Have you quit your day job yet or are you planning to anytime in the future?

KATYA: Wouldn’t that be nice? Haha – sure! I’m okay with my career, in fact I really like it. I’m a social worker and I meet and work with wonderful people every day. I work the nightshift, which is usually less stressful than the other shifts. I feel I can be helpful to people struggling with mental illness.

I enjoy coming home when the sun rises and keep a simple routine, making a clearing every day to write. Enjoy the process of writing and sharing and reading. Quit my job? Maybe. But I like my life right now and feel fortunate to have something else that excites me besides writing.

JEN: That is beautiful. I’m glad you have two things in your life that make it good right now.

What drives a fantasy for you and makes it something you want to read/write?

KATYA: Trying to put into words impossible things. Magical things. Superhuman potentials. Spirit life. Extraordinary abilities. Subtle sense possibilities. Things our five senses do not pick up! Energetics. But regardless of genre, a book is driven by its characters. You gotta have real characters who you care about. Yes, world-building is a critical part of fantasy fiction. I try and have fun with it, get creative.

JEN: You certainly manage! I thought your characters drove your story into this functionality I couldn’t see until I read it the second time around. It was one of those masterpieces of fiction that is like a good painting: no matter how many times you look at it, you see something new.

What are you working on now?

KATYA: I am working on Book Two of ‘Daughter of Darkness’. I have about 50,000 words, first draft, to play with. This will condense down to about half of that, or another novella. I expect to release Book Two this year.

JEN: Woot! I’ll be looking for that release day!

Tell us a little about your previous works and how we can get our hands on them.

KATYA: They are all published on Amazon, so you can find them by a single link to my Author page…

http://www.amazon.com/Katya-Mills/e/B00F5DWHGC

JEN: Thank you Katya for coming and spending time with me today! As always, it was a pleasure to hear from you. And thank you, Reader. We appreciate your likes, shares, and comments.

Journal #04.22.15

I cannot stand the sand and how I sink, I have to think and quick or drink the gristly whole wheat farina. All the condiments in the world cannot sweeten the blackheart taste of life that chases me like a demon through both day and night. The way my mind goes wrong on me, envisioning the whole world a few thousand years from now forgetting all of us. We cannot hope to be remembered. So come the tears and sighs and vexations as I rage against my mind. I take an ink-drained ballpoint to the box in my living room. Fifty of my books ready to be signed and sent back out in four directions. Then I fall asleep and dream I am rescuing people from a plane crash. The plane has landed on its belly just outside my door, in a park. It is sitting there steaming, and me and about a half dozen witnesses go about cautiously approaching with the hopes to be helpful. Finally I am inside the plane where all is silent and everyone is alive and belted in and breathing. But all of them are in such a deep stage of shock, they neither move nor speak. I am told we must await the coming out of shock. And I awaken from my own long deep sleep and the creeping thought again of being ultimately forgotten comes pushing into my moment. And gets me to get up. Terror motivates. I confess I want to write a number of bestsellers to guarantee my place in the pantheon of beloved authors who will be remembered for a hundred years or more. From there I can go for half a millenium? I cannot seem to help myself with dead end thinking.

cats guard shipment of books

Ovid 43BC-17AD laughs in my face.
Stilpo 360-280BC spits coffee all over his shirt.
Archimedes 287-212BC high-fives Plutarch 45-120AD.
Thales 624-556BC gives me the most charitable smile.
Solon 6--? - 558BC holds a lottery for anyone who can guess his birthday.

I think I must go. Feed my cats
come out of shock and
forget myself.

predated murderous material mayhem (a poem)

Who can release such metals?
out upon us all?

some time and space bomb
predated to settle with
unsettling precision

we see them to the door
split you the good lord
hit you

you had a chance you chose to clothe
your body in a militant strapped stance
a chance

got violent it was condoned
saw yourself going to be cloned
not sure where you're going
but it's not alone

out in the desert heat
white as a sheet
under the sun
burning
all but the flag

we cannot forgive you
your violent nature
we used you for
tax dollars well
spent

must you forgive
yourself you let
your blood run cold you
find your way
you will
or you won't
it's up to you

what says the door
kissing off an ammo
whore

out into the fire
ashes in your wake
breathing but not awake

murderous material mayhem
polished out your hate

crazed mother
scared so scared
so far from getting straight

our tears come of your hate
your tears come of our hate
what you gonna say?

nothing
cause you're down
half-dead

caught the
boomerang

by the
head

Journal # 04.20.15

I am listening to the kids playing in the park across the way. I know adults who sound so giddy. They also have been entrusted little to no responsibility. They can line up for lunch in the parks. They can play silly games and do things that seem irrational. Nobody really listens. And no one picks the adults up at the end of the day, unless it's the law. I am listening to the kids and then the birds. I cannot see the birds unless i inspect the trees closely. Same goes with everthing else. I try my very best to mimic the different birds. The cat looks at me despairingly. I give him a plate with an oval of cream. He laps it up, then licks his whiskers and dreams of the mother he never knew. The cream holds its shape well. I step on the scale. The sound of the mechanism rocking into place. Finding me a number to hold onto today. XXX. Within fifteen pounds of the weight I have been within fifteen pounds of since I was fourteen. I am thirty pounds heavier today than I was then. Hopefully it is all in my mind.

My toenails are painted silver and nobody sees them. My fingernails are not painted. Nobody sees them. My highlights have grown out, so what could excite me anymore? I cannot look forward to sleep. The passage of time disturbs me. From moment to moment, life seems so simple you cannot let it get away from you. And then it gets away from you. I wanna think of you and the kids and the adults seem like kids but don't get picked up at the end of the day. Unless it's the law. A good day is a day I have not much interest in myself. I listen to the birds and the bells of the church ring the hour. I try my hand at mimicry. Then fight to have my voice back. I am tired of the me and my shadow. Whatever happens to me now, is not my concern. Terrible things have happened. Incredible things. And many endless dull days in between. I set my course for the stars, and when I arrive they are city lights and desires. So I struck out for friendship in the night. The times are amazing and I am loved and hated. In the end I got only one thing and that was out of there, alive.

Journal # 04.19.15

 I think we could make real good friends and maybe more. You can hit dandelions off the front lines with an iron, and I will yell 'Four!' We can cheat our taxes together, itemize our weekend getaways, then commingle our refunds for more weekend getaways. It's okay if you drink Diet Coke and I prefer Coke. I don't care that much about soda anymore, to cross you off my list. Ours is such a compelling tryst. Don't you need me to rub suntan lotion on your back? I was the model fingerpaint artist in elementary, when you were in juvenile penitentiary. Whose gonna do you right, if not me? Whose back will I climb, to reach the branches of the old oak tree? Summer come and we will be sailing off planks into the dreamy submerge. Then come winter, our voices collect to chime the elemental dirge. Spring is here, and the trees are expression, shaking their leaves in decided direction. I lay my head upon your knee in the meadow. You twist my hair with such care. Your favorite season, I want only to live through you and your memory. In your mom's tummy so many years ago, and how warm you became, safe and vacuum-packed for delivery, on that special lovely day we now share, you are with me, when I make your favorite dish, the curry stew, and I love you until the Fall, when we can drop off our clothes under the threat of snowed in, and forget it all.

Journal # 04.18.15

 I had to let the world in, so I could come out right. Like hitchhiking. I only did that a few times. Me and my friend hitchhiked from an outlying town in Georgia to the base of the Appalachian Trail. The man who gave us a ride was a sheep herder from way back. He was embarking on an endeavor to herd Llamas. We were on to summit Blood Mountain on a hot summer day. You can see the world pretty well from up there. I think so. I let the world in, so I could come out right. Like camping. Enduring great changes in temperature, through the fabric of a tent. Freezing. Sweating. Burning. Drinking water from a stream. Getting sick. Eating the wrong plant. Being mauled by a mountain lion. You know. The kinda life Ralph Waldo Emerson envisioned. Or was it Thoreau? Oh I don't know. Letting the world in. Getting older to look more like monkeys. Feeling more human. Running on full, running on empty. Running on diesel. On vegetable oil. Writing books at forty, cause I have no kids. Interfacing more, face-to-facing less. Extracurricular inactivity. I've already lost my appetite. You don't have to let the world in. It will break the door down without knocking. And pick you up some. I got picked up some by the sound of thunder, carried in sheets of rain. I got picked up some and fired up like a steam train. Something fierce turnin' over and over 'til my spit become blood and blood was spit, and I will never be the same, picked up some and never be the same, no, let the world in and came out right, and never be the same.

underwood

underwood oh
underwood

i saw
you in the five
and dime

underwood
would you
be mine

       let me upright
live before your tumbling
    cascade of
                keys

touch you tack
alacka lacka
lack

my thoughts

your serious gray
bod we could be the
mod

situated for day long
reverie

pressed true
into the sheets

your sexy silver
chassis

pressed you

underwood oh
underwood

press my life
into ribbons
please

eyes that could be would be opened

The shelling was compelling, for though it destroyed many a home and many a life, it was something London (among others) learned to live with during the Allies war against Germany and the Axis. These times are long gone now. And yet someone somewhere being shelled shouts 'look at me! look at me!' (Palestine? Ukraine? Syria? Honduras? Yemen?). Shelling is a poor repeat performance of the human race. Let's disturb and destroy the perceived enemy's civilian population, by tossing from a cowardly distance and protected by armour (tank, missile, barracks), an explosive device into your family's sacred space. Peace swept off the table like porridge by the careless arm of a drunkard. Then the machines begin to pack up with ammunition and roll. The mechanism is diabolical for it cannot be stopped by a simple soldier with god and country behind him. Morality was annihilated in boot camp. The heart again subservient to the great mind. A human failing, repeated.

The shelling was compelling. How dare you say that? You must have grown up in an era of peace and flat-footedness. You must never have served your country!

True. And I say again, bearing witness to history and human nature; the shelling was compelling. For it woke up the civilians. The ones who lost their homes. The ones who knew the ones who lost their lives. The revolution began with loss. Set up an indispensable activism by proxy. Eyes that could be would be opened. The shelling was compelling. For all the pain and hurt and loss it caused. It caused a reaction that would change the world. It caused families who once had no interest in one another, other than typical mundane interaction, to become intimately involved with one another, and thus an extended family was realized. The potential was limitless. Just like any location any ghetto any land of lack or violence. The families become greater families become movements become love and compassion in motion.

The shelling was compelling. For by it, the best of human nature was yanked forefront into the world. The photographers flocked to the location and fired away. The photos would go down forever flat on coffee tables worldwide. The children would pan through the images and find out what their little hearts really can do. Seeing the decimated lands and homes. The sacred places where people came together to survive. Victims of attempted holocaust or genocide or declared war in the name of anything money could buy. Innocents. Angels. Hands reaching to embrace total strangers. Marches in the name of the sacred. Principles and spaces. Interlaces. What a dream. The shelling was compelling, only by the effect it produced which rippled around the world. Eyes that could be, would be opened.

Journal #04.15.15

The earth still looks a healthy shade of blue from space. My depression, a healthy blue. All it does is stop me from inane exercises like calculating my taxes. You cannot take nothing from nothing much, without getting much in return. A healthy blue. Meaning I could tap into the wind chimes in the dead of night when even the air begins to shift about, uncomfortably. The grey cat sits like a statue, staring effortlessly at nothing. This town will go nowhere, slow. This is what I like about it. The city of trees. There is only one known city to have so many trees. Paris. How delicious to have both cities in the same breath. What a wealthy contrast. Sacramento is but a small production among the musings of an absinthe drinker in Paris. And I but an understudy to the lead.

KatYa's chemex Peruvian roast

I saw an old friend. We met at a diner for breakfast. It has been about a decade. His beard is turning silver in places. Looks distinguished. All I could do was smile. What memories we conjured together, from Mississippi to Chicago to New Hampshire to Ohio and back. The young and the reckless. He told me how he decided I had gone crazy, when we talked a few years ago. We laughed. I almost laughed myself under the table. I believe listening to the Reds broadcasts in Cincinatti kept him sane all these years. Nothing like my rosy blues. I wished him safe travels down to Santa Cruz, and gave him a copy of my novella in exchange for three albums he cut on CD. Oso Negro. Not sure who got a better deal. Probably both of us. I saw Pete Rose sliding headfirst into second base, without regard to anyone or anything, just pure fire ripping cherry red into royal blues. Fuckin-A! righteous!

Royal-cherry-Blue.

Journal # 04.14.15

Black jade helps protect me in times of trouble. What has been given me by loved ones and friends, whether material or immaterial, offer the most viable potency. White light can be summoned in meditation or even given to someone i meet who i feels needs it. The elements are pure and not to be trifled with -- at one's own risk. Use of fire, water, air, earth, for any purpose must be sacred. Fear is a constant companion and must be seen and dissolved throughout the day. Present moment carries the most access points for carrying anything out. Not to diminish the potentials in time travel, visions, or other possible use of the temporal. Love is a word easily tossed about in a modern world. I can only experience love anymore through action not words. I do not identify as anything. I only know what i know and what i do not know. I may wear many hats, but each one can be replaced. mystic. author. poet. counselor. empath. androgyn. intuitive. lover. friend. sister. daughter. athlete. addict. punk. schizo. Lucky numbers #4. #444. #7. #8. #11. Astrology can help. Pagan can help. Transpersonal can help. Mindfulness, prayer, light, energy, consciousness. Then go out of the head. Stop the thought and find source energy. Cycle. Recycle. Who knows? Maybe something wonderful will come of it all?

Sylvia Plath made a bath (a poem)

'Sylvia Plath made a bath'
by KatYa

yes i told a lie
when you wanted one
i told the truth
to no one
who was not
ready

no i do not know
are you ready
for it

oh sure it could be
controlling
ego

yes yes
the judgment

just slow down
oh you thought
i meant speed
up?

oh i forgive you
now disappear
(not forever)

time to breathe
time to formulate the
many ways i
miss you

they call me a dreamer
it is my reality
the nightmare of my
mentality

so i learned to dissolve the
ring around my heart
with heavy chemicals

sylvia plath
made a bath

once the tub
is clean the ring is
emerald green

just like the hills
at height of

spring

Journal # 04.13.15

Consider yourself Crazy, rolling along the hills of Virginia and West Virginia, in the heart of Appalachia, Patsy Cline in your ears and leather wrapped around your fingers, and form, and the '66 engine sounds like a boat as you step on it, and your favorite one beside you steps on the volume with a painted fingernail to the dial, and the sky wraps around your eyes, a tinted line more blue than ever real could be blue, striped across the top of the curving windshield, and in the rearview the dreamy haze of the past hugs the heat of the highway where you leave it, in an exhaustive try, you leave it and let her slide around your mind. Life is still beautiful... in forms... but can you even stand to care?

Journal # 04.12.15

Sometimes I won't listen to music lately. Because I wanna remember how to feel on my own. Yes. There, there, now I remember a little. The way you come into me. Can I welcome you inside? Do I have room there for anger and grief, laughter and joy? Or must I stop you with a silver spike gripped by brass knuckles, facing out from me and my shadow tonight?

No, no, come, come. Come into my arms. There now. Let me hold you like you were my child. Let us pass into a new understanding, the kind you find where there are no more secrets.

The thing that upsets me most is the amnesia. Or let's say, the limits of human memory. I feel I cannot endure your forgetfulness. Or mine. Who am I to forget everything or anything you ever told me. The things you told me with great difficulty, especially. Let's pretend I really was listening the first time, not cycling through my own internal. And so now there is only the matter of recall. There is the train whistle, subdued like a foghorn. No longer shrill anymore. Oh, this I remember. There is the haunting call of the fox and the wolf, the loon and the whippoorwill. These I could never forget. But you, you have told me the story of your life.

You have told me the story of your life, and now it continues. Now it continues on from where you left off. And you have my rapt attention, today, just like once I had yours. And there could be tears in your eyes, my dear, or are they just allergies, and I am present with you fully and I absorb your pain like a freight train I have willfully put myself before. Standing really in your place, though. To  only feel the feelings you felt. To only know you that intimately. More than I sometimes know myself.

Sometimes I won't listen to music anymore. Because I need to remember how to feel on my own. I am sorry I forgot what you told me. I see the hurt in your eyes. Now this I know succinctly. I can honestly say I am sorry I could not stand in front of the freight train of your full speed feelings you conveyed. These, my dear, are only for you to feel, alone.

Journal # 04.11.15

When i lay me down to sleep last night,
i forgave the world
otherwise insomnia, and flashes of the past
the friendships that went down in flames,
and new ones might not last

What the restless feeling?
watch it wick away
i lit a tea candle into a box of amber glass
with faces on four sides.


Another one had died last year
another man i knew.
i was a year behind in knowing
and now that makes two.

you see i left my past in oakland or so i really tried.

absconded the norepinephrine
left me to die

rolled my life in flour with tilapia,
pan-fried with lemon butter
send me down
the Nile

a truck on a street
no friends and no life
willing to go

you can go to hell if you want
thinking you know all the answers
visualizing a dead end

or stay and discover
live through the pain
do it for someone other than yourself

making most of your time
diving into your passion
immersion in words

that's freedom

Tiresias and me

There was someone in front of me. A smiling face. I half smiled back then reached into them with second vision and saw beyond the smiling face a sad and impoverished beauty. I told them.. please, be who you are and that smiling face went ghost and the sad beauty was there before me, asking help me, please. 

I matched the affect with some lustre, and they saw themselves and beauty. They were perplexed. Listen, sad beauty, the beauty goes with sad. You can show it. I know it. They did not trust me yet, but I put faith in them. They split into three and put their hands upon me. They carried me to swift currents and lay me in there. I was scared, it was cold, but the frothy foam protected me like a nest of spittle bug holding me safe.

The waters took me away, and the three of them waved goodbye in sepia monochrome. The sky was dark and wild. Someone's laundry I passed billowing on the line. Then some dirty formerly white sheep trailing a black sheep to the grazing grounds. All of the sounds on the land were drowned by the rushing waters. There was a poor family in an eddy, playing in the muck. They saw me passing by and wished me luck.

I passed my former self and family, thinking on the banks. My satchel of books made of canvas. My shoes made of canvas. My overalls made of canvas. My hat made of canvas. My family, made of canvas. The birds, made of canvas. The sky.

The sky, made of denim. I tumbled over and over and over. I could not arrest the motion. A wise old man as blind as a mole, caught me in my tumble. I thought he was surprised but he was calm. A toothy grin spread across his face. Tiresias! He shushed me right away, put his long and bony finger to my lips and came close then cast his gaze back upon the sun now blasting from the haze.

The waters here were murky still. I could hear the sounds upon the lands. Tiresias and I, we listened to the song birds singing. We could neither see them. All we needed was the song. Tiresias he held my hands in his, lovingly, while still stretching back toward the sun yet leaning toward me, in robes so old they must have come from ancient Greece. His white hair wild upon his head! The night air was whistling in on shadowed hills of black licorice.

The grateful way the loving way he shook and held my hands! I cannot express the feeling given over, simply by the nurturing of fingers laced with mine. Then cupping both his hands around mine, when the whipporwhill she sang!

While we were there, holding hands, blinded by her soporific sound, two serpents slithered up out of the reedy marsh beside us. Suddenly Tiresias gripped my hands with alarming strength, and then I felt my body quiver and my whole entire being shake.. I had no time to cry out, as my being was sucked into his palm and gone was I, or anti-gone.

One snake struck out at my lifeless form, and my dead leg began to bleed black blood. I was safely gone by then. Or anti-gone, anon.

Tiresias finally turned his head back from the sun, enlightened robes falling all around us. He struck out at the serpents quick! with a stick! and next I knew he was gone or anti-gone. A woman made by Hera stood lightly in his place. The river had subsided into the porous earth and left her ballet toes perched up upon the sand. I know not where I was. But I was safe, wherever that may be. Gone but antigone.

She cupped her hands around my bleeding lifeless leg, and gathered up the black of blood, and sweetly scooped it to her mouth. Black licorice indeed, with a chicory after taste. Everything would never be the same.

Journal # 04.09.15

I was in bed and the blankets smothered me and I was unable to do my work because I think I was dead. I walked through a couple of walls before I figured it out. My cats could still see me, evidenced by swishing of tails. All of my social responsibilities washed off of my formlessness. I felt pretty good, maybe better than when I was formed. My apartment of course was no longer mine, but you couldn't tell me that. I thought I would never get used to the jerk who took over. He watched television constantly and jerked off a lot. He was quite abusive to his girlfriends, none of whom knew one another. But I changed my mind about him, the night I saw him holding a frame with an old photo of his mother. I saw he had love in his heart. I petted him, but no use. I scrubbed his aura clean, it was the least I could do. His energy picked up a little, and he even opened the cans of tuna I left in the cabinet and put it out on the back porch for the stray cats. Which were my cats, of course.

Rollys evil eye by KatYa

If I struggled much, with ceaseless concentration, I found I could cause the door to vibrate and move. I opened the apartment for my cats at night, while he was sleeping. They were so happy to see me. I saw that I had a true shadow, well not as thick as the human. I could run up and down the wall for my cats to play with me by my shadow. We had endless fun! I was as cold as the night air, and as warm as the sun made the day. I could walk through the fog and all the skunks and squirrels and animals would follow me. I spent hours in the backyard, scaring the crows. The man began gardening, at night. He grew tomatoes and giant pumpkins. The vines pushed over the ground and sprawled out. An idea began to seed in my mind. I evolved my telekinetic, and stole some spray paint, well, floated it on out of the hardware store. I spray-painted myself black and walked through the wall one day and petrified the human host. Within 48 hours he packed up and was gone. I vibrated the doors open for my cats and the skunks and the squirrels. We all convened on the bed, which was mine. A california king sleigh bed and big enough to hold our little family. I crept under the blankets and closed my eyes to sleep. I awoke to living breathing life again! Damn. I gotta pay my rent and check my messages.

Journal # 04.08.15

I was thinking about a friend, today, when thunder gave us a taste of the sky. Frozen water burst upon impact. The fragments bouncing around my feet on the porch. I stood at the threshold. Lightning gave me a sense of the sky. Torrents of rain. God was it sacred! I was thinking about a lost friend of mine. The storm soon passed overhead, and I lay myself down and cried. Softly to sleep with my little black and gold tigers sprawled out on the blanket around me. How come we lose our way with one another? I was not careful was I?

                                                  Look what damage was done. The clouds made magnificent drawn across the sky. The depth. You and me - we sounded so good once! Now we are haunted like a train whistle you hear far away, and you get excited thinking it's coming... but really is passing away.

Oh how we become lost to one another, when we are not careful with each other. I can see us all across the years. I cannot touch you or bring us close. The space between us - vast as the rolling thunder. The aperture getting smaller. The portal closing in. The emotional upheaval still swirling somewhere like a phantom. The hail as hard as rocks, pelting us now. God it hurts. There is nowhere to hide out there. My tears turn blue. Flashes of light spaced further apart in a darkened day. The streets are empty.

                             Would we patch it all together through these flashes of light? Seen and in an instant gone? How does that kinda love survive? Oh look! What damage was done. How we become ghosts, when we are not careful.

Journal # 04.07.15

I was busy landscaping indoors when some giant teak speakers began to hum. They were so large I could not see them. I was not at home. The humming soon inspired me. I decided to gut one of the speakers, so all was left was a large and very handsome teak box. I affixed the proper postage and an address overseas, then pulled the side off the other speaker for a cover, in reverse chronological order. I lifted the box on to my back and dragged it outside to where the mailbox was situated. I brought a blanket, pillow, gallon of water, and some breadcrusts from the pantry. I left a reasonable amount of cash for all the items, and a note on the coffee table.

Stingray'15 by KatYa

 'For one handsome teak box, borrowed for necessary and genuine purposes.'


I seated myself in the center of the box, on the pillow. I wrapped myself in the blanket. The food and water beside me. I leaned as far forward as I could reach over my legs, and situated the cover over the box, then used my staple gun to fasten it from the inside. Then waited. Some time in the future, in the dark with some light to hold on to at the edges, they shipped me to a distant land. And this is how my journey began.

The tragic fate of an object

Someone hand-crafted a special toy for a child once. The child was very pleased with this gift. Someone saw this toy and thought every kid should have one. Someone heard the idea. An ear got cornered and could not escape. Someone believed every kid could have one, after all. The craftsman was party to a meeting. A discussion was had. The craftsman felt proud and honored, and could use some pennies. He was almost penniless with big ideas and a small family needed supporting.

Everyone stood to benefit. A plan was drafted. The craftsman got to work. The orders came in. The kids were delighted. The objects were full of love and good energy. The businessman worked hard to spread the word. Inventory became important. Accounting became important. The books grew. The craftsman was getting tired. The numbers grew. The kids were delighted. They wanted more. The craftsman hired within his family and moved to a larger space. The landlord shook hands. The craftsman's wife slept alone. She made roasts and pies. She encouraged her husband to sleep and eat, and come home.

The family operation grew. The objects were gems. The kids around the world were delighted. The craftsmanship was quality. The businessman had larger ventures in mind. He saw the craftsman's craft as his bread and butter, his cash cow. He pressed for larger operations, and signed a few larger orders behind the craftsman's back. The craftsman shrugged his shoulders. There were bags under his eyes. He knew not what to do with the money. Investment advisors came to roost. They rang the doorbell and bothered his wife. They tried to intercept him at work and home, and out upon the town. They succeeded.

The tax man came a knocking. The kids were delighted. The bed was untouched. The wife felt like someone had died. The craftsman was proud and exhausted. Contracts running through his mind. He kept to his craft. He taught others. He was the master. His apprentices lorded over new charges. Outside the family. New digs. New operations. The businessman was wearing fine leathers and silks. His office overlooked central park. His bank account kept growing. He found politicians friendly toward his big idea ventures. He funded their campaigns and they took office. Architects and Tax attorneys and local celebrities paid him visits. New ventures were seeded.

One day the craftsman was too tired and getting sick. He retired and left his craft for his best apprentices to carry out. The spirit carried over for some time. But corners were cut. Some people worked to make money, and with the money hoped to start their own ideas going. The objects of art and master craft, became victim to mass production. Every one seemed the same. Some of the moving parts were made immobile, for the sake of saving time and money. The orders were relentless overseas. No one seemed to notice the sacrifice. Which encouraged more cost cutting. The brand was plastered over half the world. Everyone stood behind it. Everyone. The discrepancy in craftsmanship was overlooked. No one knew the mastercraftsman had no part in the craft anymore, other than the mastercraftsman, his wife and his family. All that mattered was the seal of the brand. The insignia.

The kids were no longer delighted. The objects were no longer sacred. The cost of the item was less. The value of the item was also less. You could buy it any store. Kids showed off their new objects to careless eyes. Everyone knew about that. Some had the same. Some had bought it in the same store. The objects were put next to the bottlecaps and pet rocks and one shelf beneath the treasured dolls and sea glass and family heirlooms passed down. Still, the objects kept coming, and the adults who were not yet in touch with the kids, kept buying and giving the dull things off as gifts.

The kids accepted objects with weak smiles fronting disappointed eyes and care less feelings. They soon decided to make new use of the objects. Turns out Cherry Bombs could really blow these fuckers up good!!

Journal # 04.05.15

The curious case of a furious pace we establish over the mean dream of time. The still life was painted all around me. I was a blur. A gif instead of an image anymore. Do you see me clearly? What I mean is what you mean to me. Yes I find myself blasting the walls with forgetfulness. Whitewashing the pain. The photos of my family getting old and unimaginable. The dust settling. In a time exposure it collects like snow. That mean dream of time. I want you all to stay still for a moment, can you, while I inhale you? Drive through and discard the materials. Take the Home and leave the Depot. Inhale me. Leave me with your days of heartfelt laughter, nights of lonely pain. Do not worry. Together we will walk the tracks. Then momma rings the bell and calls us home. I will see you clearly through windexed windows but we cannot touch through the glass. There will be white gloves today, and soft hands. Church-like.

katya by katya '15

Underneath the facades the fingers with fingerprints hold the history of all our lives. The indelible mark the world has made on you and me. Watch me close as I play a song out of my tummy on my breath, and call the fingerprint up like a cobra, unraveling and floating into the air. Then we will wrap it like ink into a sleeve around our arms and be amazed. You are much more than you ever intended. Blow up your french pressed purposes and back to the source. The single origin flat whites in the whistling sand of the Sahara. The white cottons will protect and camouflage us from the drones delivering x and y boxes to the consumers. This is not our business. We are on pilgrimage by the path of our black and blueprints. Many days together, all alone, in the open space of many flavored silences. The nuances will delight us. The flood is coming. It comes from within. Do not distract away from your own birth rights. The pain is only immediate, flashing. The redemption is outside the club. In the cool night air. Passing the smokers remanded to their habit, hugging the walls, friends for life. I talked to them. I was a blur. I chased my fingerprint without demur. The dream become reality. A furious pace. A curious case.

Journal # 04.04.15

I awoke one night not a month ago, with madness in my face and eyes, about to scream. I awoke alone in my bed with a kitten or two beside me, and sat up straight with such a rush of adrenaline uncommon at an early hour. I awoke with a wave of nausea spreading up through me, and a clear vision of my nightmare just had. I awoke knowing the evil in my dream had found a new tactic around my defenses, and come up from inside me. I awoke spitting, trying to spit out her venom. I awoke spitting and hyperventilating now, trying to exhale the toxicity inside me. Was I possessed? Was it a succubus? Who had it out for me, I wondered. And in the days to come, I was worried. Very worried. I was tired. Very tired and feeling the residuals of the terror of that night. I finally reached out for help, just today, to a friend. My intuition told me he was the one. And the way I translated all that he offered, was as follows... We may naturally want to gather good energy and hold it close to our hearts, to heal us. We cannot hold on to energy. This blocks the source.  It is crucial we let it cycle through us and release it back out into the world. "We want to  continuously flow the good energies out of us, on a permanent basis." You cannot capture good energy. It will spoil and become toxic. Everything I have, I must give away. I reached out for help and help was there. Indigo. I got away from the world and I kneeled down to pray. Indigo. My friend had given me that which I lacked. Indigo. I saw myself standing. I saw myself running. I saw myself holding and blocking the source. What I realized was the evil in the dream, the entity, was myself. She was me. I saw myself and then my self disappeared and reappeared inside me, frothy and toxic. Part of my self. What I must do is let go of the goodness I have been receiving, release it back into the world. And it starts at my fingertips, typing away on the keyboard, giving you back what I have been given.

Journal # 04.03.15

Some kinda reverse osmosis then the water's all gone the tears cycled through you and cannot be collected again like a path once traveled to great heights now overgrown by ferns and hidden and passed by unseen... and only the lucky one who walks slowly enough and dismisses the calls to catch up may find the way to the great heights we all remembered. And only the sun stops and awaits this ascent from the darkness where shade cools the blade of the fern and the shoulder of the one who has stretched off the spine to divine with the fear falling down like a spear to the ground and still.

No one around.

Journal # 04.02.15

The onus was on the wind to carry the dandelion seeds to the earth. The onus was on the rain to push the seeds into the soil. The onus was on the earth worms to stir the soil. The onus was on the nutrients in the soil to warm and hatch the dandelion out of its seed. The onus was on the dandelion to make its way to break into light. The onus was on the sun to give the little dandelion the strength to rise up and awaken into a new world.

The onus was on the man to feed his children. The onus was on the woman. The onus was on the town to provide something to do. The man was hired to wake up before dawn on sweltering summer days. He slammed his fist down on the alarm clock on the carpet under the couch. The television was local static. Not even the infomercials were up at this ungodly hour. The blanket had moth holes in it and had not done a good job keeping him warm. The eight bottles of Molson Golden made up the difference. He was still intoxicated. He broke out the Yuban and spilled it out onto the formica. Half of it landed in the coffee filter splayed out like a cotton bleached sunflower. He grabbed it up by its edges and tossed it into the coffee maker. The hard pharmaceutically enhanced, chlorinated tap water blasted into the pot so he almost dropped it into the basin. Seven of his beer bottles were in there. The other was on the coffee table by the couch, half full of warm beer.

Half a pot of coffee brought his buzz back. Worked nicely with the pastry against the lingering effect of alcohol. This would get him through half the morning okay. He fired up the mower then stepped aside for a moment. He took a shallow breath and lit a cigarrette. He looked out across the acre lot ahead of him. The damn thing was like a meadow of gold. Dandelions. Fucking dandelions. He couldn't wait to annihilate them all!

wild (a poem)

'wild'-- by KatYa
(image © words)


i tell you what
there will always be fresh lands
for us

see them out past the tears
past the years
recreate. old memory

the coffeehouse was
a fill-up station for
humans

i accelerated on out of there
and stopped only for
the child

looking
at me

i was a quick study
slowdown
i got down. low down

time disappeared
into a wrinkle in
the sky

i thanked the curious
eye

the little
one

i smiled not too wide
a little. one

to know it's
okay

how to?

mom today. dad today.
little brother on the way

i am emotional
too. i am a child
like you

you are
too

like a child
too

wild
too

me and
you