What I Wanted to Wear for Halloween

…is not what you wanted me to wear for Halloween.
I wanted to be one of those girls in the comic books,
spinning around in high-heeled boots, high-strung ponytails, and miniskirts.
You convinced me to be Mulan.
It was the 90’s, after all.
And she was pretty cool. I guess.
I loved it more when I realized she had a sword. I planned to cut my hair with it.
But when I asked for her sword, you handed me a fan, told me to have fun with my friends.
My best friend wore a real kimono that year – all thick and purple and bright –
her father brought it back from Japan.
We were both Mulan. I guess.
But she loved her fan and silk and uppy hair up-do.
Mine had already taken a tumble for the worse.
And that is exactly what I see, many years later, as I stare in the mirror – finally in my boots.
I keep them on when I sit at the keyboard and type in her name
M-U-L-A-N
The truth comes after H-U-A
After twelve years of fighting, and dying, and winning, and fighting by her side,
China didn’t even know she was a woman.
They couldn’t have cared less at all.

If I can unwind
the strings of your heart
and pull them until
your heart pulls apart
and looks like a nest
blown down from a tree
then I will say yes
if you still want to be.  x

I 've been up since 7:00 AM.
The time has flown,
It's raining and somber outside.
A day easy to ignore.
It's nearing now 5:00 PM
I sit here yet in my Bathrobe,
As I have done all day long.
Never did that before.

I apologize to no one,
Not even myself. It was not
Sloth or depression inspired,
It was an overpowering need
For massive doses of Poetry
That caught and held my attention.

Passion or obsession, who is to judge?
And what truly is the difference?

Steal everything you have ever loved.
Set it to another verse
of borrowed phrases
and humble pie.
Somewhere in the spaces
between the song-writer's ohm
and the poet's demise,
others will form your stolen loot,
your dead-sea scrolls,
into the multitude of inspiration
that constitutes your Self.

The banks are running dry.
All freedom is restrained
to the ticking of a box
and the punching of a clock.
There is no shame in stealing
a resonant thought.
It is the way Revolution happens,
an idea projected, then repeated,
repeated, re-written and spoken
in one thousand tongues.
If your lover leaves you,
it is nothing special.

Yet if a stranger's words steal your breath,
stripped to a naked consciousness,
you have every right to pilfer their mind,
to bridge understanding,
to share in a longing,
to replicate a sentence
in which truth was left unconfined.

I don't get bigotry, never have.

I don't get born again Christians,
Weren't they born once already?
I don't get do nothing Tea Party Republicans,
Who as it turns out are mostly the same
Born Again people.

I don't get any fake *** politicians,
They aren't people they're a product.
Manufactured and packaged to please
the tastes of the gullible public.

I don't get why super rich people would
want to go to Washington and take
(For them) a low paying job in Congress
and then sit on their hands and do nothing?
With their money they could go buy a lush
Island in the sun and lay about and really
do nothing while drinking a ice cold beer.
Which sounds like lots more fun.  

I don't get bad wars fought for bad reasons.

I don't get people that **** other people
of the same religion for no discernible reason.
While yelling "God Is Good or Great!" or what ever.
I don't get why they'd think "God" would even
appreciate that.

But then, I don't get people that **** people.
Or insanity, religious insanity is even worse.

I don't get still using oil to power things
while we know **** well there are good
viable alternatives.

I don't get the rabid Right To Lifers,
who want to dictate to all woman
their "One And Only Solution".

I guess I don't get why
People tell you they love you,
Then later change their minds.

I don't get kids killing kids
on school yards with guns.
Or the fools that do not lock
up their guns that their kids
find and use to **** other kids
on school yards.

I don't get why so many people
want things to stand still,
just because they can't keep up.

I don't get those folks that swear
that global warming is not a reality,
while every day the oceans rise
a little more.

I don't get why we little people let the
one per centers run our country and lives.

I don't get why we allow Big Business
to out source millions of jobs to other lands
when people here at home are unemployed.

I get "Humanitarian Aid" but why do we send
billions of dollars to countries that hate us?

I don't get why we need a dozen TV channels
of 24 hour news, (Some of which distort the truth
to fit their political leanings) news repeated and
repeated until we are scared and numb and
don't know truth from pure old *******.

I don't get where honest "News Men" like
Mr. Cronkite and his breed, guys that made
sure of their facts and would only dispense
the truth, went and why there are no more
of them?

I don't get why Bush and Cheney are not
in the slammer for their many lies and
outright Treason! Starting wars that never
end and shouting WMDs when none existed.

The simple answer to all this,
"these things that I do not get", is,
"It's all ******* and It's Bad For Ya' ."