I am.
they say this is a false self,
clinging to my feelings.

but they are there, I feel them.

"The poet, the wise philosopher, and the saint not only reach a wide luminous consciousness, but they gain certain knowledge of substantial reality." says Patanjali.

but this poet clings to her self, because she feels, and they say this is wrong, I am doing this wrong, this wisdom, this living.

I know I am doing this wrong because I keep getting kicked out, exiled, left out, forgotten, ignored, smeared; and so my feelings keep happening, and I continue to cling, to cherish, only myself, because no one else does.

It cannot be that a mother is happy
when her child is not.
Where is the logic to a mother's joy
and a child's sorrow?
Sacrilege to the balance and order of life
if a mother's dreams emerge
while her offspring withers during the hours of the day.
This cannot be.

It is the child that brings the joy to the whole of the world.
They are the moisture that springs life into being,
children are the songs that move our lives,
the rhythms that pound us into motion.

How can a mother feel the high notes when her child is morose?
Even if she wanted to laugh, her heart would pierce itself with a dagger sent from the mind,
"Your child is miserable.
It is not right for you to feel happiness now."

You didn’t know me. We kind of pretended to like each other because we wanted ***. And so we pretended to have a relationship. But  we really didn’t. This is a hardship. This is a struggle. Something to take on together. Otherwise, we are just living our own individual lives in tandem. This is the first piece of honesty that has shown itself in our relationship. This is the first sign of weakness. No, I don’t want it to happen again. I want to be cured of it. I want it expelled from my heart by the power of love. I want someone to wrap me up tightly in their arms and shush me as they rock me back and forth promising they will help me to overcome. I want their patience, acceptance, and understanding to be stronger than the anger and frustration that boils me inside. I want their kindness and devotion to give me the time to get better. I want them to watch over me as I grow. I am still the 19 year old girl living in her own flat for the first time in her life. I am still the maiden waiting to be molded by the man who becomes captivated by her youth and beauty. She has never been found, she is still waiting, hoping. Until…time runs out, and then she is thinking of building the walls, so she shares herself with no one, for their own protection.

There is no way to find happiness between us,
with the amount of suffering we have caused one another.

I’ll not cross your path again, and you should not cross mine.

Even though I long for what we had,
I know it will never be the same.

I lost myself in some cranny
as I moved west to east.

My blue jeans fell off
somewhere along the road
and I can't see myself clearly.

I was wearing dust along my skin
with a tan, raggedy hair, and a cat.

I sang loudly with the radio
opened the window to let in the heat
let the wind dry my lips
and made plans, always making plans.

I had hope, and spirit, I let the worries of the world
roll off the hood of my car.
I followed the sacred om to the edge of the desert
and tried to heal.

I lost her somewhere in the din of the fat.
I have to find her again,
I have to shed the weight.

I'll find her again,
As soon as I am alone.

Because no one else will.
Grace and mercy,
How can you live
On when your soul is dead?

“You should be ashamed of yourself”
That is what he said
A woman my age
How dare you behave
With such violence
Towards someone
You cared about!

Old ladies shrieking
Screaming at people.

“I would never treat
The person I cared about like that.”
No, you would just think
That we don’t know what we are talking about,
that you are better than all
The rest of us, treating us
Like morons, like we didn’t know what we are talking about,
so I yelled at you, and you refused to have that in your life.
I need to forgive myself and stay away
from people who drive me to screaming.
I do care about people,
And I do care about myself,
And I don’t know why I get so crazy,
But I need to forgive myself.

You are better now, sleeping with your money in a clean bed waiting for the next beautiful girl to ****** and enjoy. You are rid of my old hag life. Happiness and laughter are right outside your door, knocking, waiting to come in.

I was not like this here. This was not how I wanted to be here. This behavior was not part of my new life here. I have to forgive myself and forget everything that happened here.

I am a tyrant
Abusive by nature
Evil and impatient
Hysterical and hostile.
Undeserving of love
A person to be avoided
All my good deeds are abolished
By one act of violence.

No one ever did love me,
Even when I was gentil.
My tyrant did not surface
Until I was …it was there
All along.

No one should love me,
Rich men and delicate women
Look down on me,
I am rejected and ejected
From their homes.
All my kindness
Is forgotten
By one act of frustration,
Exasperation,
But it is more than one act,
It is the makeup of my soul,
It is who I am
It is how they will define me,
It is my nature
My character
It is who I am.

This is what my 30th year looked like:

Running around naked in front of windows

Eureka, California in the summer

A side yard 40 ft by 40 ft shaded by a mature some kinda tree.

No job, just trying to get a life put together

Sitting cross legged across from two two year olds

Your infectious giggle cracking you up

Snapping timeless surf side photos of your sun streaked curls

Making a home at the health food store

Looking for family amongst familiar strangers

I will return to my own land
That sits lost between continents
And the countries of other people.

I’ll not look for a place to fit in,
Wanting acceptance and for them to fall in love.

Goodbye to following hopeless trails. Them always doing just as they please and me always dying over them to please.

Traveling solo.

Finding the world that opens its arms to me.

Not worried that they are lusting after something tastier.

$139 to get to Puerto Rico.
Arms squeezed in between two solid arms,
Seats could not be more than 16 inches on center.

Brown people going home,
White people going to get brown.
This is a 3 hour and 39 minute flight. One quarter of the time it takes me to drive to Kansas.

Dead expectations are grinding away at my heart. The only consolation is that I won him at a game of chess. But the end is in sight. How long can it last when he runs into the arms of another?

We’re sitting at the gate, our first romantic getaway together.

It was really supposed to be my first “out of the country with a passport “ trip of my own.
The El Salvadorian didn’t want to take me home with him, so his **** him, I’ll go my own **** self!

Enter Him.
And then the next thing I know we are on our way to Puerto Rico,
Don’t even NEED a passport.

So we’re sitting there,
At the gate,
He’s talking about the next trip we go on
Will be HIS choice,
As if he didn’t pick this one.

Then I say, “Then the next one after that I will REALLY pick!”

And he says, “Greece.” Like a whisper.
And I say, “That’s your pick.”

Thinking, he says, “Greece, Italy, yes, Italy.”
“I thought we were going to Guyana.”
“I’m going there on my own. Maybe Germany.” Where his ex wife lives.

Huh….interesting. Here he invaded MY private getaway, yeah, I let him. But never again.

Wow, what a heartbreak. And here I thought we were on a roll. And here he is, planning a getaway without me, to go visit his ex no less. Fantastic.

Bubble burst before liftoff.

I've always wanted to record my poetry and maybe set it to music.
My brother is a musician.

Here is me, playing around with poetic sound composition...

https://youtu.be/RapNkrkIdho

What makes things sad?

Why is the grey on the streets sad? Why is the song in our minds miserable and slicing up our spirits as we walk home from school?
Why do we tell ourselves that we are no good, a failure, ugly, untalented? Why do we **** ourselves or think about killing ourselves on a monthly basis? Why are we no good?

Dreams, you wake up from them.
Fantasies great and small,
too lost in your own vision
dancing in formal gowns
your hair done in a bouffant
He is twirling you around
and you are the only woman
he ever wants to hold.

That is your dream.

His looks more like a harem
with hundreds of women feeding him
bathing  him, grape after grape.
Oils being drizzled over his chest
massaged into his skin.

He may dream of that,
but he rarely will pursue it.

What he won't do either, is love you
the way you dream of being loved.
He gave that to another woman
who shattered his love into
a billion stars.

What you find time and again,
are men who like you only
enough to sleep with you
take your soul's time
distract you from your own music
and leave you wanting something better.

Love is the most imbalanced of things.
teetering heavy like gallons of paint on one end,
while on the other there is a child enjoying the lift.

You wish for someone to value your dreams as much as you do,
someone who will take your image of yourself seriously
invest the time and effort into making you who you want to be,

I guess at the end of the day that is our job,
to be aloof, dive into our arts,
ignore the hearts of the people around us.

Only I've seen lovers love
through the years holding one another
nurturing each soul
being the sounding board that
bounces the words up and down
until they fall into just the right place
and only the most accurate words,
to create a vision of life that
wins awards.

Those types of love affairs do exist,
after you wake up from the dream.

Here is an image of me  walking down a long staircase
stone stairs
cool and dusty in the shade of the rising sun
chalk white stairs
Maybe somewhere in Greece or Italy
Birds sing their morning song
The air is cool
of course I am wearing white
my hair has somehow returned to it's chestnut brown hue
because now I am young again
walking down these stairs
strolling in the day
with nothing to do
except think
and now I will mourn all the losses I've ever known
the weight of them
rested in my heart
and I'll not feel poorly for feeling sad
because sadness makes life real
and I could even be the deity of sad
because it is like a blessing to hold sadness
living with it,
accepting it,
and living the next day with it.

Intensity of life
When you look into my eyes
do you see a shallow child?

Depth-
into the dark caverns of the soul
where people roam lost
onto trails in black woods
of uncertainty
wandering blind
newborn
looking for their answer.

Their seriousness,
they were real, worth your time,
worth your commitment,
Something about their lives
touched you to the point of allowing yourself to experience pain.

A beauty found
in the lines of their eyes
mouths, the color of their hair,
the motion of their figure,
moved you to blend yourself
until your colors all ran together.

Then there is us.
Some of us are simply clouds,
puffy, white, silently passing by.

When days are fine
What shall we write on?
William Saroyan
And the cold day
In San Francisco.
Regular things like
Panging for touch
In the 3 o’clock hour,
Scratching mosquito bites
While studying portraits.

If all the days of my life
Led to this one
Where I had you
In communique,
Meeting you,
Sharing time,
Mixing our histories
Our pathways
It might not mean a thing to you
For me it has been a pleasure.

Portraits and laughter
Reviewing the song
Of your life
Colorful passion
Making leaps
I wonder where you will land.

In this early hour of the morning
I can only be overjoyed
That I might have the pleasure
Of you at least once more,
Uncertain how long you will
Be in my story.

If I didn't care who loved me, then I would wear my hair any old way, curled, ******* in knots, shaved, I would try a new style every six months if I could.

I would be fat one year just to see how that felt, and see if I could get back down to skinny again.

I would dress up in costume and wander through town singing loudly operatic.

I might speak at an open mic, publish my poems that didn't sound too good, laugh more at things I thought were funny, not worry if things were cool or chic or hip or fire.

I would enjoy the sun for just what it is, a great glowing ball of fire.

I could be content in my skin and comfort others struggling with surviving because they can't see their own value in the eyes of all the others

A slate chill
Beating morning
Chuckling
Drips of life.

February 23, 2023

Story idea:

Two sadhakas are walking on the road, looking down, walking quietly in peace, until they bump into each other.

They are startled out of their meditation, look at one another in the eyes, and instantly fall in love. They are wrapped up and swirled in a whirlwind of love, affectionate words, feelings, making love.

And then when it all stops, they realize they are walking in opposite directions. One turns white, the other black, or silver and gold, or some other colors. They shed tears, spend a few days and nights saying their goodbyes.

And then ultimately continue on their ways.

The sun sets, the moon rises and sets, and the sun rises, and butterflies flutter.

It’s the death of who I was, who I might have been, who I could have been. Your eyes will never see me again. It is the loss of everything that might have been, but blown to bits from drink. I’m wilting, my garden is more dead now. You looked and looked away. You saw and left. It’s okay. Not everyone buys.

And I’m left talking to myself again.

Today is a death, I remember two weeks ago as I listened to poetry, it was a birth, a start, there was an addition that propelled me and fueled my search and discovery. I finally had someone to share my knowledge with, my discoveries, my growth. Now death has covered that breath, like a ****** in a night and my home feels like a crime scene. The thrill of the attraction that filled all the moments until I saw you is dead now, killed by my own hunger for you. You were a quick meal I devoured or a prey that escaped my death clutch. I had my teeth in you, drinking, vampiric like, not really wanting you to suffer my fate, to live 1000 returning lifetimes, only you survived, got away, back to your own, to meet your people again, and I am left alone, standing alone, hoping again this aloneness comes to life again somehow with electricity and the mystery of discovering a whole person. But it won’t, never again with the same flavor, sound, hum, storyline. That song is sung

Like mustard gas,
suffocating.

Better keep me contained,
Don't get me on your hands.

My home is a death chamber,
a spider's web.

Like the naked man running out of
Jeffery Dahmer's apartment.

Like the poison apple
offered to Snow White.

Better leave that money on the ground,
you don't know where it's been.

Fall away
               s
                                        i          ,
          ­              then    a         r                               &


s                           p                         a                          c                             e


and

l   s   .

My grandmother was a beautiful woman
like a movie star beautiful,
even Jewish, beautiful.

My grandfather loved her
beyond measure. She held his
eyes for so long, he could never
look away.

Chosen as an act of owning,
keeping, knowing what he wanted.
Never regretting or changing his choice.

Staying, playing house, for years
despite the tragedy, the bad day,
the undiscovered dreams you threw away,
the changes in opportunities, changes in mind, out growth.

Two children, barely grown, till death.

Maybe I'll buy a home, a cave of a home, and paint the walls, make my mark, cave art, and save the home, so someone will know, that I was here.

petty worries.

that's all I can think of when I imagine the sheer piercing inconceivable survival happening today. People waking up wondering if this will in fact be their last day. Couples dying for wanting to breath in a certain way, of their own choosing.

what do I have to complain about?

my life is a walk spent dodging traps
I walk into with my mouth open to them,
even though I don't want to get caught,
I also don't want to be alone,
so I trap myself with men who
stop me in my tracks
keeping me from where I am really going,
which is nowhere at the moment,
except that I want it to be somewhere,
only I'm having trouble finding the path where
I am walking unrestrained, the winds freely blowing past my body
and the people are still there with me only they are walking with me
rather than being in front of me like a concrete blockade or a tar pit
something I might run head on into or die being stuck.

Water,
The ocean is the most desperate vacuum
Where I can ride out over it’s dangerous dark water, driving the boat towards an unreachable port, sailing on into forever, sobbing into the wild Atlantic winds, running away from misery, boundaries, barriers, and dreams impossible to achieve.

The idea that you would sacrifice your life for me is a ridiculous fantasy I can play through my mind like a film with an emotionally roaring soundtrack and as much as I crave your bond, my dream imagination gets shaken awake by reason.

I will hide here
Holding my breath.
Music shreds the fibers
Of my muscles.
Leaving me to bleed out,
laughing at me.

Siren song
I’ll point you
Towards the gate
Holding my broken heart
Walking backwards
Leaving you in the garden
To enjoy the flavor.

A woman wants to be wanted
she wants to be pursued everyday to exhaustion.
She wants you to keep coming back, letting her know you have definitively chosen her above all others, and then she wants the option of breaking your heart, saying "No" to you. But she wants you to run after her everyday. She wants you to always make the first move, so she knows you want her more than she wants you.

It's always been this way. On the playground, when the game of chase was on, who was chasing and who was screaming with the thrill of the hunt, screaming not to be caught, because what would being caught mean?  It would mean capture, loss of freedom, and maybe something worse....a kiss.

Because if it were the other way, if she chased after you, you would call her names, ***** to your friends, make fun of her, and get sick of her fast. If she called you everyday, you would get tired of it, you would want more space, you would find a woman who was more aloof. You would blow her off, stop calling her back. You might keep ******* her if she showed up to your house, but you might feel bad about yourself afterwards and promise yourself and all your friends that was the last time.

when I am old will I swing in a hammock reading stories of ancient times
or small stories of the travels and trials of humanity?
Will I need to bother myself with any of these collected thoughts,
or will I be contented to enjoy the sunwarmth on my resting skin?

a person's life
because I read your book,
I can hear the song of your life,
I can imagine your flight from
youth, to newly emerging young man,
to pain, to the next road traveled.

You life is now a movie in my mind,
and I will complete the story for you
hundreds of versions rewritten, played out,
crying at some endings, and being jolted from disaster at others.
No...disaster endings do not come to mind for you.

If asked what is the purpose of all the learning,
my answer now might be hollow.
To earn money, to have a house.
I am not an inventor,
I am not a powerful business person, I am not rich.
I can't answer this question with authority.
I am only a teacher and they tell me that all this learning is important.

If I could tell you one thing to be good at for success in your life,
I would say, please learn how to make friends. That great book,
that first primer on success,
"How to Make Friends and Influence People", read that!

If I were Elon Musk, I might have a different answer.
He knows why all this learning is important, but for me,
any learning has yet to really pay off, except I do have a job,
and I might be on the upswing. No learning has paid off really yet.
I am still hand to mouth.

Does learning gain you influence?  
It might, but George Santos might beg to differ.
Rather isn't it how you relate and manipulate
people that gets you where you want to go?
I mean, isn't that the secret ingredient?
Isn't that the one variable all the most successful people have in common?

Will all your learning get you what you want? There is no guarantee.

It's like
a story we can't tell
it's like
we ****** ourselves into pain and risk on purpose.
It's like
we don't look before we leap.
It's like
we run into the fire.

Only now
I am stopping
before the edge of the cliff.
I am not jumping
straight away,
I am looking
over the edge and listening first.

taking a very long listen, I've heard that wind before, no, I am not mesmerized this time. This time I will observe for a while and believe my soul when it runs away from the inside.

writing as an old lady 50
going extinct
white woman dying in a growing world of colors
perpetuate the species
raising my voice in the midst of 20 yr olds
I have to yell louder to get my experience heard
is there any wisdom in my story?
Or did I do it all wrong?

Why do we always bring up God and Satan or wisdom?
There are people who don't believe in that at all.
We talk about it as though it gives us depth,
but everyone talks about it like they have a secret knowledge of God,
Like their walk on the planet has opened hidden passageways
where they've found the answers to life.

It doesn't matter what the new, young people write or think,
they will only be repeating what has always been.
They think they have new thoughts or understandings,
and maybe they can know how to get to Mars when we didn't,
but they won't be doing anything different as humans when they get there.
They will still be human, doomed to feel, crave, want, hope dream for all the same things we have always wanted and come to the same realizations we have always reached.

I'm going to read your poem or your story or your novel and write a response.
Not a response, but a reply, or rather, answer you.

It will be a song in meter and stanza that might flow like a soft conversation.
When I am finished, you will have a time to answer back.

This will go on for a while.

Baltimore will change you. Seen through the eyes, ears, and hearts of Black American, your liberal effort will be read as a white occupation.

It doesn't matter your intentions, if you've meditated on it all year long, if you yell at a black face, you have cast the whip.

You're not allowed to have emotions, you have to subservient yourself to the trauma of your students, your fellow teachers, the parents walking on the street. Your trauma no longer matters. It is not the same. It might not even be exist. Or rather, you're over 50, haven't you processed that **** yet?

Oh, Baltimore will change you. When you came here you wanted to help, you wanted to solve the problem of racism, of less than equal, you wanted to uplift like MLK and make real the sentiments of your 60s parents. Then you met the attitude, the snares as you walked through the Aldi on Orleans Street, the ostracization of your Black colleagues, the Black clicks, the Black power, and the side glances and suspicion waiting for you to be racist and oppressive. The questioning eyes looking at your old white face and grey hair, expecting you to control or belittle the Black man, woman, and child. Why did you come here to teach our children? What do you want with our children?

You face the slow walk of the Black man and woman. Why are they moving so slowly? Don't they know I am in a hurry? Are they doing that on purpose because of the years of white control and oppression? Are they punishing me for all the sins of the Whites? Or is it because that person is big, slow in pace because of the sheer weight they have to carry? Is that racist to think that? Does the butcher move slow at the meat counter because he wants to make me wait? Why am I even thinking this? I never thought this before! Baltimore is changing me.

You face the fast driving and the motocross culture of danger, noise, and recklessness. You meet the street fights our your front door, parents surrounding their children, cheering them on to kick the other 15year old's ***.  You get called a white ***** time and time again simply because you speak your mind. Or...did I do something wrong?  WAS I oppressive? I just wanted to....how can I even breath here? I might do it in a way that hurts the Black community. Why are they that fragile? Are they that fragile?

Baltimore will make you ask, where should I stand as the Black community moves into it's place? It will make you ask, "Why am I defending the white man? Why do I feel a need to play devil's advocate?" But why do I need to feel obliged to step aside for the Black? Isn't that the sentiment I have felt all my life? Move over for the Black. White people have had the lead for too long. Move out of the way for Black people, let them get ahead. Let them get ahead?  Like I hold the keys to the door? We were told (by MLK) that the dream was for us to play side by side, hold hands, walk up or down the mountain together. That is so hard. For both sides. Why are there sides?

A frozen house stilled mid-life,
while the lives within shed
blood from a tear mid-stride.

hearts stopped beating,
loving strokes suspended mid-brush,
her dappling with the voice of another
pulled her love into adultery's pouch.

his seduction cloaked in friendship,
his lie of never leaving,
his deception of true nature,
he could have known he would never love her.

her home barren of family noise,
empty, gutted, a winter's frozen shell.
she will lie now in the out-lands upon the ground,
freezing alone, unforgivable, a harlot, wishing, hoping for death.

Mother Rock, I sit solidly on the porch
as the May wind blows the lanterns.
I am the family stone, I hold this space
while the children's lives soldier on
to the fields of hearts, where swords and shields
penetrate and cover, where new blood is drawn.

I am finally finished playing at war.
My position is still, as the wind washes past my solid form.
This day moves all around me,
washing me away, eroding with each brush of breeze,
my blue jeans fade in sunshine,
my gray hair streaks, as it lingers to my shoulders.

Too much happiness is like an illness
that you lie in bed for waiting until it
leaves your body.

Just as you are laughing, cracking up,
closing your eyes and throwing your head back,
you get well again. And stop laughing.

I couldn't imagine a lifetime of being sick
with happiness. I've never been sick for
more than a week. My immune system
is far too strong.

a mother's joy is
not to watch the child grow,
but watch them grow old.

I can't figure it out, but I am forever planning an escape
2. or a solution to this problem of going nowhere
3. in life you have to risk safety in order to find
4. an oasis hidden in the visions.

1. Or a solution to this problem of going nowhere
2. will in perpetuity evade your grip
3. An oasis hidden in the visions
4. of calicoed men, quilted with jacquard and eastern tapestries.

1.Will in perpetuity evade your grip
2. from your lack of complexity
3. of calicoed men, quilted with jacquard and eastern tapestries,
4. tangled between silken limbs.

1. From your lack of complexity,
2.  I can't figure it out, but I am forever planning an escape
3. tangled between silken limbs.
4.  In life you have to risk safety in order to find.

There is a tide,
I need a conversation,
my language is empty
because I have no one to talk with.

In order for life and art to flourish,
there must be nourishment,
food given through moments of lust,
passion, devotion, desire, and hope.

My people have abandoned this
moment in time, found color in famous shops
and deserted poverty.

An ache
high pitched like a headache
tapping the roof of my mouth
as weeping tightens the skin around my bloodshot eyes.

two years this time
of moons falling, suns rising
morning kisses and making love
trying to learn again, like virgins
or bad lovers.

lying again, knowing
each time he thanked me on his way home
like a ***** he'd paid,
there would be an end.

left again. unchosen again.
desperate again.

isolated
solitary
deserted
abandoned
forsaken
forlorn
friendless
­desolate
solo
singly
solus
only
hermit
unaccompanied
detached
lon­esome
unmarried
unassisted
stag
apart
destitute

crying in the darkness or light
you tears falling out of your eyes
onto your cheeks
sobs

the silence after you weep
rings
and you think
God must be watching.

But in life,
only pain follows sadness
cloaked in robes of temporary joy,
waiting to undress
and reveal itself once more.

It's then you realize,
God only watches,
it is Satan who listens.