Passages 2:3

"I hung some fabric I found over the doorway to create some privacy (having put the door aside), found a blanket which was clean and lay it over the mattress, then lifted her up under her arms so that her weight was evenly over my shoulder and staggered over to the mattress where I fell to my knees to lay her gently upon it. She was saying something softly, I know not what. She must be cold, I thought, so I took a wool coat I found in the piles and draped it over her. She turned sideways and rested her head on her hands. I lay down beside her and fell quickly to sleep."


Excerpt from Maze
Book 2, Chapter 3


NOTE: In this scene, Ame, the protagonist, has just met Kell in a former home of catholic charity. Kell is living there in squalor. Ame and Kell are connected by blood. When she finds her sister there, she comforts her.

Passages 2:10

"They were always in debt no matter how long or hard their father worked in the factory, for he did not know how to manage money; he acquired several credit cards which he maxed out at high interest rates; the reps in the malls at the little tables with pamphlets and applications kept convincing him it was a good idea to sign up for cards. He (Maze’s father) felt like a man with all of the plastic he kept in his rawhide wallet, but soon the wallet became a reminder of all the money he owed and could not pay off, and he put it in the drawer of his bedside table and cursed Discover. In his prayers, he forgave American Express and Mastercard every night before passing out, for ruining his chance to buy the Mustang on the lot and forcing him to walk to work in the waterlogged boots he could not afford to replace, and every day American Express and Mastercard refused to forgive him back. And when his wife left him with his son, Maze, he prayed to the credit card gods she die a terrible death."

Excerpt from Maze 

Book 2, Chapter X

NOTE: This passage was clipped from a description of Maze's family of origin. His father is human and an alcoholic. His mother took him to LA and they got away from the abusive situation.

how to be alone

I would be happy to live out my days as a recluse. I think it would be pretty fun. I could do all sorts of scientific experiments. Study up on Thoreau. I'm only gonna have one food group a day. I will start with starches, mashed potatoes, and then move to tomatoes, and if there are leftover tomatoes I will find a skunk and spray another animal so I can use them for a tomato bath. Then they will owe me a wonderful debt of gratitude. The animals will become my little helpers. If there are leftover potatoes I will post them for a lookout, take advantage of all those eyes. I hate how they look at me before I beat them with the masher. When I am filled with guilt I can sit by the stagnant pond and write a treatise on human nature. Find a swell theory to overcome my remorse. You are not what you do, your actions do not define you. Oh! If I can realize one of my shelved dreams and colonize the famous lac bug, I will study and write a book about proper usage of shellaq for dyeing winter wools for sweaters. I will call it Shellacrilage. Hopefully my animals will be agreeable to lending their winter coats for testing dyes, though it might confuse the foxes when the badgers all turn red.

you, me and the blinking ghosts

Ya you got lost like I did    And came around eventually     Getting lost was part of life     Part of the deal     Finding your way was so surreal     Now you're not who you were     Are you sure?

I will bet you a dollar you can make it from here to there
But I cannot make it I don't think I can
I'll bet you a buck you can

I was just as likely to devour the blinking ghosts before they turned solid and came after me. I really didn't want to eat them at all, but if you don't eat them I'm told they will wind you like a clock then disappear you. I'm not ready to disappear! Not at all.

You can come out of hiding
Really  Show up if you can
We've all been dying to meet you
Dying

All we were was lost
Not faded. Something out there polished us
Now we are shiny and smooth
Not a statistic
More realistic

monologue of a cat lady lost her mind in twenty ten

NAILS PAINTED BLUE



FAITH is all i have after all i have was my heart now falling out like the rest of everything i ever knew, well worn. faith featured prominently like a celebrity, LESS the paparazzi the stalkers the money being chased around....LESS the icon devotees, the groupies, leeches, attorneys, public relation characters, travel agents, lifecoaches... LESS nights smiling and getting progressively wasted on champagne, cosmos and weed at the pre and after parties, LESS socializing to point of discomfort, exposure, sunburn, hangover, and LESS dreary lost weekends watching projected television on one wall, feeling flat as the flatscreen... LESS mindful of the discomfort inside, mirror to the discomfort outside, kin to the discomfort of solitude. MORE wondering why.


LOVE was all the RAGE and you know the images of love? So very embraced here where i live, planet earth i mean, images watched without censor, images of love! the smiles, the gestures of invitation, the hugging and kissing the loving oh my god! oh my god! - timeout! adrenaline RUSH! Oxytocin tsunami and believe me some welcoming party, a nation of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, Indians, Islanders, Egyptians, Greek, English, Spanish, and Croatian.


All of them excepting a few of them, most of them addicted to images like us, images of love, enough said! the SPACES in between more noticeable more glaring more frightening more indicative of ABSENCE, sister of SOLITUDE, daughters of MISERY, related however intrinsically to the good-natured cousin EMPTINESS -- the smiling buddha of spaces, the proclaimer of all things inverted. In discordance from the 5 or more senses the sentients carried and utilized on a continuum directly mathematically correlated to their ability to see what was really going on here. Para dice had been rolled. Para dime took his place. But of course their was a SHIFT. Energy to the left. Consciousness to the right. Revolution across the Arabian sea of peoples in cities with fervor fighting the once accepted now scorned leaders cemented for 3 to 4 decades in place. Intractable. Embedded. Atom Feed = FED. On Planet EARTH again, the masses were FED up. Pretty cool, awfully tasty, is it not? Antigravity chambermaid serving astronaut ice cream to the men and women needing no sustenance, other than the passion described by their countenance.


STILL -- all that changed so, also remained unchanged. The smiling buddha offering up emptiness continued to be frowned upon, not even half-smiles could be drawn out of them! Meanwhile back in the places inbetween... scattered showers. (at best). getting bad forecasts by the meteorologists. here. On planet Earth. How we digest these, the images of love! getting wet, better yet, soaked, deluged, goodbye they waved to the empty rural devalued stains that separated these ones, these ones addicted to the images of love...always seeking, always stubborn, always taking, excepting a few.


Most TAKING, some GIVING, some small percentage would not catch attention of those paying most attention to the good/bad better/worse, petty kinda necessary kinda labeling as librarians label books-- that is, with the best of INTENTION and certainly not to disown any novel of its SELF, just to find a place for it to sit somewhere in the grand halls of the reading rooms of New York City Public Library, the Harold Washington in Chicago, through the many colors of Stained Glass in Ivy League and Big Ten Reading Rooms, Masonic lodge lounging, Alumnus arrives by bus...Okay. All of this measures up -- to the thrill of us.

All this steering around navigating sentient life, like a ride through virgin snow over familiar territory now mad crackling black ice. Unknown! untravelled! and witnessed by fresh eyes diving to sudden flashes of well worn land, to shelter or cushion imevitable crashes. Leaning one way, leaning the other. Looking for balance. Brother, brother! where have you gone? I meant to see you so long ago so long, it has me weary all this time between us. All the ashes, all the dust, tell me do you know? What line was drawn so heavily permanent? Marked so decisively in the middle of CONFUSION, the heart of CHOICE? the son of FREEDOM.


What will they say when they map out our history? All of this PAIN all of this LOSS for you for me, for us, I see. I feel it deep down in my bones. The pain now inked across my arm. I moan at night in half conscious memories, how we got along then you, and me. The reality has now become dream. The dream, reality. Is this what we fought for? what we learned? how we survive today? Do we really source from what they call LOVE once we see it? Or do we turn away to be truly marked and known by the source of all great and relative SADNESS? The broth the reservoir they all call SOLACE? Daughter of REGRET?


FAITH is all i have, better yet -- after all i have my heart now falling out like the rest of everything i ever knew, well worn! FORLORN. I got to fake the faith I confess! I feature her prominently like a heroine. But here. on this nonpaper. I also turn. On planet earth. With the revolutions of her. Feet in the earth, in the garden, you know the one. And inspired by the Palestinians, the Egyptians, The Libyans, the Somalis, the peoples of Yemen, the Iranians, inspired so so so so....


I can LESS the bullshit, ya know. Minus it. Balance out and outbalance the deficits, the liabilities of life here. On planet earth. Feet in the soil. All i once learned on the recoil. Feeling it now? MORE wondering why and living the wonderful tragedy OUT.... to the shook OUT of the unbuttoned cuffs, OUT the arteries blue like my nails but less prominently so. OUT to branching out of fingers five on either side, and disciplined focus dispels the energy , the love thats all the rage, the rage that rages on! OUT the echoing off the lips of the song. My nails painted blue painted blue, my nails true. True BLUE. Blue i notice and must study in the cafes and bookstores, the reading rooms, libraries, cathedrals! OUT looking down as though reading words, yet, studying the karmic law i know is true, true as the sky, true as my nails...


As my nails painted blue.

milky ways last forever

Here comes the full moon. Our street probably won't get any kids on Halloween, we never do. There's only one side of the street with houses, the other side is a park and a school. It's a raw deal to walk down a street with only half as many houses as the other streets, you're liable to get only half as many treats. I don't blame them at all, hell, if I was a kid I would avoid our street like the plague. Most of the kids around here, the ones who really know what's going on, go up to the Fabulous 40s on Halloween. The people live up there are all politicians, doctors and lawyers, CEOs and stuff. I mean money. They probably drop a K on Halloween decorations like it's nothing. Gimme that giant spider there. That drone, I want that witch ona drone. Can you gimme all the mummies you got in the back, please? They need a goddam assistant to open the warehouse doors in the back by the alley, just to unload all that crap into the SUV. Mummies coming out the sunroof! Amazing. Will you take a personal check? They probably have stamps for signatures they write so many checks up there in the fab forties. Ya, if I was a kid I would hit that for sure. Bring a Macy's bag or something, cause they're liable to drop the kitchen sink. Don't bother coming around my block. My neighbor says he still has candy from last year he's planning to use, just in case anyone shows. Maybe two years old now, he can't remember. Snickers bars don't go bad, anyway, all those damn preservatives. Milky ways last forever.

conditions on earth

On the one extreme there were those who were dangerous and knew they were dangerous, just like in the wild, and embraced it, and even decided that society and law ought to have its face put in the dirt and extinguished, and so went beyond what was natural (hunting for survival) and went on a violent tear for assertion. On the other extreme were those who championed law to such an extent they would turn on their own family if the law demanded they do so, even if law was corrupt and nonsense. They believed in safety to a point where no one was any longer safe. In the middle somewhere was you and me, trying to keep a grip, hoping to survive, and letting our intuition guide us especially in places and times where reason alone did not suffice, when everyone seemed discouraged, and it could be said by measure of population on planet earth, we have outdone ourselves for sure.

saturday. am

The carpets were thick and we moved quietly about the house. We met in the middle and held hands. The cartoons were moving pictures around the screen, blacks and oranges and purples, a latchkey kid lost in visions. Church was all tomorrows and the grasses were not so uniform if you were hiding in them looking. The flapjacks were thick and we moved quietly about house. We met in the middle and wiggled our toes. The leaves on the trees were patching final shadows before they fell, which was sad if you thought about it, but if you focused on the colors it was gorgeous. The walls broke out in patchy spots and we moved quietly about. I did not have to dream about you when you were real.

M. of the intergalactic planetary alliance

Oh hastening retrograde, dear Mercury!... Shout out to you who placed yourself in harms way of suns ray, so as to protect our dearest milky blue baby earth from the diabolical burn of our dying star... alas the 100,000 spf ring oozed in orbit by atlantis was only the thinnest layer of banana boat generic and apocryphal in its promises! Oh mercury, you selfless spinning wonder! You and your secret services catching the bullets the solar flares, sacrificing your lifeless little self. If we may pay infinitisemal acknowledgment to your heroism, may we tribute you in full view of the planetary alliance eye (in lieu of the usual vacuous ingratitude under the oft overworshipped darkside of the sun).  xxx  K.

illuminated (by a screen)

Anything I do not have and want is not gonna change how I am or how I feel about myself when I am alone, is it true? I would ask the internet but the internet may not be my friend. If the ghost comes to walk me through my past many years from now, when I am an old lady staring at the sun through my stigmatism,  enjoy the walk and be bored to death by the hours upon hours regarding the young lady in her apartment typing away at the computer, i mean, the ghost will drift away (hoping I won't notice) to someone else's brilliant past I am sure. Oh well. I am illuminated by my goddam screen. So what. I don't and won't have kids. So what. I stopped doing half the things I loved to do. So what. I'm a gen X internet baby. So what. Anything you do not have and want is not gonna change how you are or how you feel about yourself when you are alone. So there!  xxxx  - K

Passages 2:9

"Life with Maze was magic when we were on. Not often were we on the same page or in the same mood, but when our energy synched you better watch out, we would rip a hole in the sky and dive into it; refrigerators got hot and shuddered and the elements burnt out; radios picked up our signal, clocks ran the other way. We determined time and not the other way around, the contrast favorable like primary colors overlapping; the sunlight in the room left marks, the wooden furniture gave sap. Any cotton on me did not stand a chance."     - Maze 2:9

may the force be with you!

katya selfie star wars

katya 

selfie star wars k

k by k self

star wars katya

katya by katya

star wars k by k

k by k selfie starwars

k by k starwars

starwars selfie

character sketches (writing process)

the personality how do we bring fullness to the personality in words. words are limiting but not as limiting as one might think. anyone who is well read would know that. maybe we limit ourselves by thinking about how limited we are. the personality. unearthing character traits of course, disposition, moodiness, relation to self and society. then of course the motivations, what gets the character out of bed in the morning (presuming they get out of bed at all, in some famous works, characters hardly ever get out of bed). personality will be more than all that, there are other elements. how does a character walk and talk, how do they think? do they touch upon repetitive thoughts and actions? well, everyone does. rituals. what about nature and nurture? are they defined by a microcosm? trapped there? how does the macrocosm feel about all that. freedom, mobility, immobility, inaction. mental health or illness. where's the spirit in all of that. oh! words are great for that, capturing spirit over time. meaning pages. you can paint a spirit over the course of a novella or novel for sure. or even in a poem if you're really good.

you were the one all alone

The skies were always one way or another, laughing or crying back then. The horizons were wide and unflawed, or you couldn't see them at all. You traveled another highway, singing to yourself. The sea was waiting for you, carbonated foam rolling up and reaching out for anyone and you. You would walk in and never be seen again. But not today. Not today. The kids smiled when they saw you, immortal in your pain, you smiled, too, for you both knew forever, in a day the way you walked, your hands half in your pockets caught on the loops. The little hands they wouldn't ever let go.  But not today. Not today. You were the one all alone.

ORION

Orion and I was tryin to love you but it was hard. We cannot always be sure of ourselves in every way, and when I broke out (in anger) the words hurling and curling their way lugubrious in the chill of autumn air,  and you there; I seemed unable to stop myself so righteous and defiant for a five minute drive home from dinner.  God it was the worst of me. Of course I took to rest by the sounds of postseason baseball curious to the darker mood. I wanted the electricity back. But we all sometimes short circuit. I woke with an apology on my lips and typed it into a text. You were calling, calling me, but in these early hours of the morning on my free days the only one i talk to is in my slippers out on the back porch with the long hooded sweater woven black and white around me staring up to the heavens missing the moon, I mean Orion.

GO north and run away from everything
Live off of lizards tails and country music
Sit in a mobile home with no heat
Half-freeze to death
Awaken with a shiver


Come south for your life in the sun
Refuse to grow up
Grow down. Find your roots

I think they are
over there

Date someone you met at Starbux
Who got the same drink as you

Cause you have one thing
in common

super plain adults

I was explaining something to you and the wheels were turning but pretty slow like bicycles. Your dog began to bark at me and I got quiet. Can you throw him a tennis ball or something? The circus was in town and let's hope they tightened the bolts on the tea cups. I went to the kitchen and got the coffeepot and it was half full. I brought it to you and filled your mug and then mine. Sugar? You shook your head, you wanted milk. The moon was cut in half and the planets glittering and outshining stars. Orion was stretching out like a superhero. We could hear through the walls of the garage, your kids on guitars. Remember when we were kids? and super kids we were, really, babysitting for a dime. Three or four brats at a time. They came home late late late nights. Woke you up with a smile to go home with a yawn. Alcohol on their breath. That was so long ago it feels like a past life. You wannanother coffee? God it's late why the hell are we drinking coffee? But it's okay. We are super plain adults. We can do whatever the hell we wanna do.

excavating manhattan in the year 2030

All the civilizations and past lives are buried beneath us because they did not hire enough people to keep sweeping. Had they hired enough sweepers, we would have all the treasures of the past among us. We have the street sweepers now, machines, but they go about sweeping the roads which have paved over the past. Shouldn't we all be digging down into our gardens, down into the deep to unearth all the treasures? We all know how. One of the first things they gave us was a bucket and a shovel and a sandbox and naturally we began digging. In two hundred years all our treasures will be buried with us, and the future will be walking on our graves! Sure, some of the treasures will be exhumed and put on display. But what about your heirlooms? What about your creations? Like rings of a tree, the superficial layers of the earth if taken out by cross-section will tell of our lives and our tragedies. In New York City, in the year 2310, someone will excavate Manhattan and find that one thin ring of chalkdust from nine eleven and put the pieces together again so nothing will be lost on the timeline. On either side of that ring will be the slick almost watery syrup of the life and times of the most powerful nation on earth. I'm sure my grandmother's ballet slippers will be in there. And not far from that, ashes from my grandfather's cuban cigar. There will be reams of paper mulch on one side, and the other will be tested for trace amounts of silicon and plastic. The movement from the daily morning predawn paper delivery boy to the bloggers and vloggers logging onto their apples. The countryside will have imperceptible layers of poisons in the corn, and fluoride and pharmaceuticals will test positive all over the cities for sure. They will have to really work to determine why we brushed our teeth so rigorously back then. I mean now.

you could believe in drugs

You could believe in drugs you could. You would want to have them always around and rely on them to get you out of a jam, rely on them to help you produce, rely on them for energy, rely on them for creativity, rely on them for calm. You could believe in drugs and demand they make you feel better when you are in pain or feel differently when you are sad, differently when you are upset. You could put faith into drugs. Or you could try and believe in yourself.

me and my pumpkin

I ate a pumpkin seed whole without chewing and a pumpkin grew off of the vine that pushed out of my navel. I was very surprised but not shocked because of the season. The pumpkin turned orange and I had to drink a ton of water to get it that color. I really felt dehydrated and drained but my pumpkin looked grand so I felt better though I looked terrible. The people who used to be my friends wouldn't talk to me no more or go to the clubs with me looking like that, dragging my pumpkin behind me. Cars got really angry, well their drivers did, they made their cars honk at me and my pumpkin crossing the streets. We were in the crosswalk, okay, so exercise a little patience, people. Only the children seemed to really like me anymore, and they followed me and kicked it with my pumpkin. After Halloween my pumpkin and I sat sorrowful at the dinner table, as I prayed for guidance. My pumpkin spoke to me through the vine, I swear, it told me it was okay. I know you think I'm crazy but you all stopped coming by anyway, so what would I care what you thought anymore? And don't even try. When the kids circle round, we will celebrate the season and eat pumpkin pie. You won't be invited and that's why.

society has come to polish off the self

I need complete silence for as many hours of every day and as many minutes of every hour and as many seconds of every minute as I can get. There are big ideas circulating which will otherwise be lost to dark matter, casualties of the smart phone alert system. And if comprehension of these ideas are lost, I will be lost with them. Society has decided communal is the only way, at the expense of any self. Myself, yourself. Society has declared the individual no longer to be trusted, no longer significant. Society has come to the internet to polish off the self. There is a war being waged for control over the web, a war of individuals demanding free expression against the ever matriculating constituents of the giant dark formless blob. Hold on to your hats!

the trembling vine

We are in the thick of October and stab the pumpkins repeatedly with knives after pulling them from the trembling vine. We light candles in memoriam and place them inside the hollowed out heads. Now we can see in the darkness the grotesque faces we carve upon them and smile. We bake their insides and salt and devour. Then we smash them in the streets just to hear the sound. Or let them die another death turning black by thanksgiving, like the teeth in our head eroded by sugars. Halloween. what a blast.

depression weighs a ton

women marching and i was walking
the opposite direction and saw a man
who got an erection and everyone
stood tall

but just for a second

 dollar sign stores and lots of whores
boosting from the system
if you had a lot of change and it stayed
the same

got rolled when you swung
and missed them

waking up with a dream in yer head
and you don't know where you are
dizziness come from a
spinning earth

by the minute on an out of tune
secondhand
guitar

bosses looking at their wives
wonderin' who they are

before midnight come
take a stab at the sun
tear ducts gutter and the gentlemen
 shudder

the depression weighs a ton

Black Chasm and the zombie kids

Me, my friend Tom and his motorcycle were surrounded at Black Chasm in Volcano, California by a bunch of little kids. They wanted us to play zombies with them. Tom cautioned them not to touch the hot pipes. Eli was the littlest. His hair was cut adorably in an overgrown mohawk and he had very blue and wide open eyes. Adriana was like a little 4th grade Madonna, standing making poses, dark eyes and hair and very beautiful and she knew it. She announced to everybody, if anyone touches my hair, i will kill you. She was friends and schoolmates with Ariel, who had a devious look in her eyes so you knew she was not to be trusted. I was scared of her and refused to play zombies. She made it through an entire bag of doritos while sitting there on a log talking to us, and her tongue turned orange and the adult at her campsite called her away and scolded her for ruining her dinner. There was an older boy, maybe eleven, with wavy, dark hair, who assured us he had a girlfriend but wouldn't give any details. He had a lot of factual information and could be relied on for the truth. The others continued walking into fantasy. Adriana said she was getting married. Ariel was apparently already married. Eli had an adorable lisp and told me in words falling over themselves, he knew a man with wires for a leg whose head was in his chest and had an arm inside his arm and brains oozing out his neck. He seemed to believe everything he said. Anyway, I strapped my helmet with yellow flames back over my ears to encourage Tom we should get the hell out of there before something happened and the kids turned to zombies on us. I took some final swigs of my green apple gatorade and finished my elk jerky. Tom wasn't frightened whatsoever and ignored my body language completely. I kept breathing while Adriana arched her back and threw her hands forward like a mechanical doll. Ariel turned into a goblin and chewed a hole in Tom's boot. Blood was everywhere. Before I knew it, Eli's eyes turned dark and he grew claws and slashed my shirt open. Tom shouted for me to get on the bike and I did, goddam evil kids, get us the hell outta here! We fired up the bike and ascended up out of Black Chasm and the town of Volcano, known only for the first ever hanging in Amador County. There wasn't even a goddam volcano.

nightmare no.5

I was toward the top of a large apartment building coming out of a window grabbing hold of material cascading down to the ground, I was watching myself like a movie climbing down, it was dusk, I was many stories up when some husky woman threw her head of hair out a jaundiced square of light above me and I could not see her face, and began to cut away at the material with a large kitchen knife, vigorously, and then the whole scene shook and skipped like a film, and the next slide and the next, changing ever so slightly, keeping me alive for the film was no longer rolling. The tone was sepia and the mood was horror. I was hoping I would survive. The woman in the window turned into a jackal and beat it out of there; the moonlight fell over sepia, spilling blue and black into the monotony. The masonry was far from uniform. I was awakened by the  scene. So close to Halloween.

number 4

I thought i was pretty damn cool and i didnt have a cigarette hanging off my lip and i hadnt died by 27 like all the rock stars, no, the stars are bright the stars are light the stars come out tonight and its fresh after the rains and i think im pretty cool but i don't rock the latest iphone or anything, i don't even broadcast on Instagram, the night is here and these quiet hours are mine all mine, cause im feeling pretty righteous but i dont subscribe to no religion, no, i got my own apartment and im an independent woman and an independent author, i think im pretty cool but im not on any bestseller lists, i think im pretty sweet but you wouldnt wanna cross me, no, i dont own any guns im no Hunter S. Thompson but i do believe in civil rights, ya, i dont drink or carry a medical maryjane card, i light up pumpkin candles and let my cats run free, but ive learned im only as capable as i believe i can be,  ya, you and me can only make it if we give it our all, dripping wet with paint off the canvas in the hall, i think im pretty cool, but not because of anything i have or anybody you think i am, no, i like to keep my blood pumping and circulating through the web, call it an obsession and it might be in my head, but if the motivation is to shine a light for anyone in the darkness, the hope, and these long early hours of quiet and calm so the life i have lived which has by no means been nice can channel through me to the distant lands where life is something terrible and senseless, and someone needs some help or to know you're not alone, to find you and discover your story of survival- of dreaming- of reality- of you and me together through the thick layers of media glaze that keeps us groping in the haze, our heads held high, uncool, unfashionable, looking like losers getting old, feeling like freaks, impoverished on the streets sometimes, depressed for fuckin weeks, without a friend in the world, burnin through bridges and pages and pages, ceaseless in our inquiry, agnostic to the core, fighting for the mystery, in love with number 4.

k by k selfie at home

rotting carcass of an eighties band

If you dance like i dance you dance rarely and when you dance you dance the paint off the walls. Most other times you refuse to dance, not that you're shy or embarrassed or no fun, no, but everyone at the goddam wedding will dance to a conclusion, while you sip your bloody mary and gnaw on a celery stalk. They will bloody feel bad for you, you dance rarely and they won't understand, and better to be misunderstood than to let them force you up on the B-52's or some other rotting carcass of an eighties band, my god.  The only way you might get me up there anymore is if I were in love and I'm not.

fluffy white towels the kind you find in only the finest hotels

When all the bridges have been burned and all congeniality has been lost, looking at the river you will not feel the same as before, wondering how to cross it alone, wandering, then discover you can swim if you start by floating on your back, belly up,  staring up at the sky, even with horizon with the dying. You must continue on to farther shore, for there i await you, my child, with an oversized fluffy white towel the kind you find in only the finest hotels, to wrap around your dear self, and as you drip dry i will say nothing, just clasp my arms around your neck and lean into you so you can feel your strength and the beating of my heart with yours, in the valley, verdant of all that arise by the sun, solitary, captivated by the life.

Katya at home. 2015

reading backwards

i dont know why but i did grow up in the USA thinking that what was bad for me was good for me and went after it like a turkey hunter after thanksgiving dinner in a secret desire to die. i dont know why but i made it here. where we renounce all that and try to live for the living and its like reading backwards sometimes its so hard. i dont know what but whatever it is it doesnt matter much cause it comes and it goes. i dont know who but they usually love me or hate me and are equally essential if im gonna understand. i don't know when but if its not now i oughta not bother with it. i dont know where but feel safest at home. i dont know how this all happened but i did start over and starting from scratch is the hardest cause youve got nothing to back you and you pray someone will take you for your word though they must be a fool to do that. i dont know how but not without faith and not without help and knowing what happens (and its nothing nice) when you stop trying and dont give in just give up. its like reading backwards sometimes its so hard.

yummy gummy vitamins

My heart feels gummy like vitamins, flexible like you could push on it with the heel of your hand and it would bounce back so you knew i was still young to the faint drip of baseball through the radio in October, the Royals were unbelievably good again and I had been having a lot of contact. I guess I am still young. But I don't see much of children anymore. I think they are a different kind of young, up to ten, still dreaming of the past lives while flying through the air, pendulums on swings. You could push on them with the heel of your hand and they would bounce back. God forbid they might fall from great heights, they would walk away unharmed, all cartilage, saved by being unformed. Not believing in death yet, wondering about the new life. Which adult was gonna boss them around next. That sorta thing... Kansas City was like a waystation back when the most important thing in the world was the goddam railroad and all those guys like Leland Stanford who got rich by it. Even my family lived there, generations ago, and they say fifty or sixty years ago it was what Vegas is now. Maybe I know too much. I go blank in the eyes when I remember ten years old, the pendulum, swinging, believing I was immortal. Really sorry to see the adults go, why cannot they live forever, too? Whose gonna boss me around then? I'm not gonna do my chores. I'm just gonna keep kicking my legs up and out to the sky. Why would I stop? I'm not on any clock, my heart is full of vitamins and I have been having a lot of contact. You can push me around. I won't fall and even when I do, it won't hurt. You can't hurt me unless I let you. Come, let's fall in love. We can live and love and last forever.

Book Review

LINK: Grand Theft Life Daughter of Darkness, # 1: 
 By: Katya Mills          
 This book blew me away!    

-- Review posted by Nefarious Writer! at 9:08 AM 

the author. 2015

normal sucks

 There was no time to have a nervous breakdown so I had to find another way to fall apart. One idea was going numb, it was quiet and unexpected and not violent until the very end. I had tried that method but the end never came. Sun, fresh air and alka seltzer got me back to baseline. I began interrupting my mother during our long talks when she was the only one talking. I started pacing and thinking and talking to myself, which was much more normal-like; there were even five expressions for my face, all of them different shades of unrealistic. I could fall apart that way maybe. By diving into a fantasy. I did this for a while and I got bored as hell. I had begun to give up on ever falling apart in a way that was acceptable to society. There was even less time anymore for a nervous breakdown. I was walking through a strip mall with my head down, depressed, when I saw a dollar store. Well, the pavement in front of a dollar store where someone had spraypainted 99c in blue. I went in to press my luck. Every dollar store has something unexpected that you didn't know you needed, and usually it's not a dollar. I saw them and had to have them. The slippers. Blue, purple and white stripes. Fuzzy and open at the heels. My feet were aching in my usual black shoes with no support and black soles. I bought the slippers and put them on and went to work in them. Everyone was totally impressed. I'm not sure if it was the slippers, or the fact that I came to work in them. I didn't really care, either. My feet congratulated the floor. It was totally unacceptable.

searching

I was looking for you, after the rains came, searching for you in the mist, a cool night in the early hours of the morning. No one knew what year it was. No one cared. You had a smoke somewhere with a stranger, you stood high and carelessly tall. All I knew was it was Fall and some day I will stop searching. I did not know what day it was, in the middle of the night, the leaves were still on the trees where they could play with the light and bend to make shadows on the streets below. I was caught inside a maple, walking with a staple in my stomach. I don't know how it got there, but I had worked in an office too long. There would be no children. The roosters started out from the backs of their skinny throats, it was never too early. I thought I was awake, but when I woke up I realized I was not awake before, and I wondered if I could wake up from this. Life would be easy on your own. No one knew the time. Neither did I. The stranger, he didn't know a goddam thing, he didn't know anything at all. The day I stop searching is the day I die. Hell. Everybody knows that.