i love asheville.

I danced my *** off at the Highland Brewing Company to a live band, smoked good bud before hitting Rosettas, wandered downtown, walked through a sketchy alley way.

I’ve met the coolest of people
{and some of the not so coolest}

but the good far outweigh the bad here.

this city has swallowed me whole

rolled me around on its tongue

and i covered me with its shimmering saliva— because everyone in aville sparkles, y’all
and i marvel at the inside of its beautiful mouth

there is power in these mountains
and good mojo in the air

we just need better water.

How do you tell someone that you’re tired of existing?
    No one has done anything wrong, and by all normal standards this day has been quite nice, but something in me
can’t
handle
that.
Something in me can’t stand this constant standard of  
                                                                                            “surviving”
Being exhausted of simply being is draining and no amount of stimulant can correct this.  

How do you tell someone that it takes all of you to simply wake up in the morning? To wake, to breathe. How do you tell them that it’s nothing they’ve done, but you just can’t do it anymore.
                How do you say **** like this?
How do I think **** like this?

        Where could I go?
France?
Scotland?
        How far would I have to run for these hounds to stop their pursuit of me?
Will they stop this chase?
            The answer is no. No, I don’t think they will.
I think they’ll keep ******* chasing me.
                    They’ll keep coming. They’ll keep
this race no matter how run-ragged I may be. They’ll keep pace, keep biting at my ankles, keep snarling, snuffling, tearing the ground with their paws. They’ll hunt me until the end— no matter how many rivers or oceans I cross. Or maybe the river Styx will clog their all-knowing-noses….I shouldn’t have given them my scent. But they know it now. They know it and they want more.

I’m living off jolts of too much caffeine right now. What way is that to live? Living, though is an overstatement.
I’m not living— I’m just taking up space.
Taking up space and filling up volumes with these hollow words— as if I don’t know how stale I sound.

So where can I go? What do I do?
                What the hell do I do when I can’t even decide if I want to be Alive?
What do I WANT to do?
        I WANT a house in the mountains.
I want an herb garden planted in the shape of a sacred spiral. I want a river to bathe in, a fire place to cast into,
a cat to hate and watch suspiciously,
a dog to keep the hounds at bay,
a kitchen to make magick and medicine in, and a bed warmed by someone else.

I want cold nights and mornings warm
only because there is skin against my back.
I
want not to be a prisoner of my own words.
I want to stop dreading the day that I run out of words-- because the day I run out of words will be the day I let the hounds catch up to me.
I want moonlight&moonshine.;
I want sunlight and dizzy sun spots.
I want trees and the sound of a roaring tuck.
I want sweat and the smell of Wood.
I want woods and warm skin at my back.

And I hate you.

every time I draw in a ***** hot breath

when I hate myself

for everyday that the word

           FAT

crosses my mind

everyday that a smaller pants size is a bigger victory than

published poems

for ever calorie

counted— because numbers are so much more than digits; they’re definitions of who you are. they’re nights of smiles and laughter, or they are nights on the floor of my bathroom, leaning over a porcelain bowl.  
1234567891011121314151617181920(we’re okay…)304050(getting into dangerous territory)60708090100(going to far, stop now. this is enough for the day)200300400500(stop.)6007008009001000(I can burn this off. I wont eat tomorrow..)1100120013001500(you’re disgusting)

for every list of food I’ve made

for every time i can look at a plate of food and accurately assign each food a number

for every day you’ve made having an eating disorder okay

{buti’mnotthinenoughforaneatingdisorder, right?}

I hate you—

almost as much as I hate myself.

eating disorders are so hard to

                  Kick

because your eating disorder becomes your

closest most

                     honest

most

             Vicious

friend.

your eating disorder will never abandon you.

it will never ignore you it will never

leave

        you

                                      ­    ALONE

at the End of the day, it’s just you and her.

and I say {HER} because mine is a real *****.

your eating disorder is always there to

                     whisper-scream

in your

         ear.

always

there to swim in your aching(empty)(toofull)

                    stomach

to claw at your skull to

break your heart.

she, my vicious friend, comforts me.

because even though I’m being

               destroyed

               ripped apart

at least I’m not alone.

hell, she even gives me an excuse as to WHY

I am

                         alone

itsnotmeitsmyweightnoonecouldeverwantafatgirl

itsnotmeits­myweightthatkeepspeoplefromgettingclosefromLOVINGme

She knows me better than anyone— knows how b

                                                              ­  r

                                                            ­       o

                                                              ­ k

                                                              ­        e

                                                      ­            n

i am.

as much as I ‘recover’

she is there— curled under my brain matter

like a troll in a fairy tale.

she is there

waiting

watching

counting

smiling

because i always come

back.

i miss that light

                       i might die

buzz that I used to have.

it wasn’t the amphetamine high--

it was the empty stomach

i don’t have to eat

high

every meal skipped was power

as if we were otherworldly creatures

whose stomachs would only contain naughty water and faerie food.

we were hollowing out
and i loved it.

the lightness of my bones, the way my cheek bones were shining through

and my ribs were getting

                               e                
                                 a              
                                    s    

                                   i
                                 e
                                r

to count.

& i miss that heart exploding dilated eyes

rush. not for the high

but for the simple matter that i was bird thin

empty.

not thin enough, but on my way.

i miss it, and it misses me.

i am strong enough…aren’t i?

i could do it again.

and this time—

                      i wont need the pills.

self loathing is fuel enough.

i want that power— every bite I don’t take is a boy who

told me i wasn’t good enough.

every skipped meal is a small triumph against myself.

i can do it.

it would be easy and no one would notice.

but i wont.

i am an animal— should I not delight in this?
Should I not celebrate
                                  bare skin and bared teeth?
Should I not
dance
barefoot in the light of the moon, jubilating in all that I am?

I praise this body that moves me— from the too rough soles of my feet, the hungry churn of my stomach, the burn between my legs. I give thanks to broken skim and bruises; these are the evidence of my life force.

I sit in a Labyrinth, a holy place where my brother & sister stones give me solemn council.
I feel life.
I smell it, I hear it, I taste it on cold air.
Life energies flitting all around me. I soak it up as my skin drinks the sun.

Am I thankful for life in this place?
                                                        No.
But I am happy to greet it. I accept its presence for another day and I move with it, dancing and contorting as I ought. I stretch my muscles and fill my lungs.
And in this moment I feel no fear.

When you do not fear Death how can you fear Life?
How can I fear anything in this life when death—full of the unknowing dark, full of the unblinking darkness, full of that which is unspoken— is known as a friend?

When you welcome death into yourself, you gain and lose life simultaneously.
While you see the day in a different light— more pure, calmer, brighter that you ever could have imagined— this light you are observing doesn’t really
reach you. It doesn’t
wash nor warm you as it
                                          once
                                                     did.
Everything
becomes Colder.
Everything becomes colder, but the cold doesn’t hurt
quite
          as
much.
It’s there, but distant— ebbing at the edges of my nerve endings, but my body doesn’t dispel it nor does it coil away, spitting. Rather, it embraces it. Grows little white flowers in its dark shade and growls merrily from the frozen ground.
        
Let Winter come
and let it awaken the dead-tree creature living within me, somewhere between my
spine
and
my
rib-bones.
Let the cold douse the fire and let that which is pale and hungry roam. Let it breathe its own fire amid the skeletons of Elms and Pine. Let this feverish animal breathe steam into the night air. Let it roam, choking and coughing on a too hot stomach {too much burbon and hot chemical fire}. Let it run itself back into the ground, squirming with the grubs and the centipedes, blind and snuffling, frantic.

You cannot cage your own animal nature.
It will only grow Wilder there. Wilder and hateful— it will turn on that which tried to lock it away. Let it live free, by Bone and by Fire, by Water and by Stone— let it come Alive.

Something made of teeth lives there, breathing shakily, bleeding and slithering in the dark we all try to put away from the light of social normality. Something anthropomorphic and angry. You can’t hide away that which is within you. Maybe it lives at the center of the Labyrinth, waiting on you to stumble upon it. Maybe it only lives at the Labyrinth’s edges— skittering around  outside walls, keeping you fighting within it.
You could drown this creature with bourbon and whiskey, but it will only laugh and dance out of your throat. You could stab this animal, but it will only bleed ink and raven feathers. Ink from words left unwritten and thoughts unsaid.
            I am the snake, the bird, the cat, the wasp, the human.
        The Animal.
I am the mother, the daughter, the grandmother.
                            I am Alive.
There is power in the bones.
May mine rattle in the hollow night, may mine howl, hungry at the moon. May I crave blood, may I hunger for its life as my body hungers for sustenance.

& I have loved every moment of it.

This summer has drawn me in with heat and rain,
and spit me out as a whole new animal.

I have danced drunk around bonfires, done rituals in the damp woods, cried on swing-sets, screamed about the stupidity of boys, and smoked too many American Spirits.

My heart has been opened to others as well as myself.
I have met the most wonderful of people and some of the not so wonderful.
With Nicole I have found a family that has no blood ties to me.
I’ve found a
HOME
not just a room where I’ve created a home for myself.

My feet have found pleasure in the heat of the earth after a hard storm and my lungs the heaviness of summer air.
Love has become a thing I demand rather than crave.

I’ve found my strength in bottles of red (&chocolate;) wine and in the embers of a fire.

I have found myself knowing that I am enough.

I may be confused in the ways of my future, but I have a place to figure it all out. I have a family dwelling in my bear-heart. I carry them in my chest and in my soul.