Please forgive me, but it was so tempting, you see
And I know that doesn't excuse me
I looked them up again, my X and his catch
I found something I hadn't seen, a video they had made from the NY Times
I turned green, or maybe it was a shade of lime 
Of course I had to watch it, I'm in the bar, might as well order ***** and tip a dime
He seemed nervous, professing his 26 year love symbolized by a picture
Said he knew who he was now, mumbled other things a muddled lecture
This photo as a kind of insurance?  Always hidden from me
She was 41, feeling the pressure to combine for the world to see
He made a big rush at her, I guess that's fine
His love based on a brief event in high school 25 years ago, a moment in time
But no one cares what happened then, that's just too old
You're just a kid, your memories by now are covered in mold
She couldn't see through it, and they couldn't have ***
They skyped for hours a day, what would come next?
Just pining and dreaming, a 19th century romance
Waiting, hoping to meet to take the chance
But then her friends said "this is crazy, he's just mooching off of you"
As his father told my parents when they complained, he's a shlemiel through and through
That means a mooch, a user, a parasite
If you've got what he wants he'll be there overnight
So pressured and blinded by a simpletons idea of romance
(she edits dime novels for a living by candlelight by chance)
They met in a whirl in Switzerland
Of course that makes it better, being abroad makes him kin
And quickly he worked and they were engaged
And suddenly they were "an item," all the rage
In the Times video they walk through ***** New York snow,
and stop at a cupcake store and feed each other, you know
And it's all staged so perfectly but somehow doesn't ring true
All smiles, all closeness, but there's greyness, coldness in their hue
and as he speaks I feel like I'm watching a police video where a criminal lies
Says he didn't do it, and he was somewhere else besides
And I shouldn't of done it, shouldn't of googled them, I admit I'm bad
But even through the loss of my own dream with him, her situation looks kind of sad
So in my future, I'm sure I'll seek romance
But I'll take it easy, go slow and listen to my friends
For this man nearly destroyed me, brought me to my knees
And I can't ever go through that again, so other's advice I'll seek

Maybe it's you who found me
Ferals born beneath a classroom
Wasn't fast enough to trap you
Actually what I meant to do
was get there before your mom made you
but nature works so quickly
and I was busy, so busy
and before I knew, well it's silly
cute little kittens
and then one injured sitting
at my old apartment
Couldn't let you stay in darkness
You all found me
and together we're a kind of family
Cats and people, similar emotionally
It's been proven scientifically

Because I see things and find things and sometimes they remind me
of sad things that lead to thoughts of other sad things and today I found
dusty dried roses from the first play I did last year at the school
and the girl who gave them to me is very sweet and talented
and now she looks away from me, and talks to me in a guarded way
Because she's just a kid and I'm not her drama teacher anymore
I must get over this, so I threw them all away and then I thought
about my engagement ring and how a therapist told me to have the diamond
reset, to preserve the fact that I was loved and I thought, I must get over
this and mostly I thought about how I needed he money so I sold it
for half of what my X claimed it was worth and I regret that.
I found the leashes for my beautiful black cat who died,
I would take him for walks when he was healthy and he had two different styles: flashy silver
and leopard.  And he looked good in both and what I wouldn't give to
have him back with me, all healthy and shiny and purring with his great roar of a purr that people could hear over the telephone with him sitting in my lap.
Things we have are given, and are taken away.
Even life itself, our own and those we love.
And I went back to the garbage, and underneath
coffee grinds and wet paper towels I retrieved a dry red rose
Because I was appreciated once, and I saved it.

How I wish I could believe that this time the ******
of innocents will result in real, substantive change
to prevent this from ever happening again

And that's why I gave him my number
and never asked for his
because not that I like him so much
I have deep doubts about that
Not that I think he's so cute
Luke warm here
It's just, for him to call
would prove something to me
about me, and yes I know, it's this kind of thing
you must never need from the outside
In my head I know this
But in my heart? This is why dating is a horrific drag over
brass tacks for
I don't like them, but I want them to want me
to need me, and I don't even want them
And this is how it goes
And he may never call this whole vacation
And what an insult that would be, although
I may have a better time, yes, I may have a better time

Holidays--everyone should reconnect
even with people you see everyday but
never speak to because you can tell
you won't like them...
show them some sunshine and brighten their day
overheard while showering in the women's locker room:
"How's the baby?"  "He's four and a half."
Whoops
"Hows Max?"
"He's in Rehab, he's not coaching"
"Ah,oh, ah"
Clothed, she rushes for the door
Continuation with another as I toweled off
"The pool at Concord is cold" "is not" "is" "is not" "well, the air there is cold"
(it's' only five minutes away from here)
Let's try this again, shall we? "So what do you do? I mean, besides swim?"
"I go to water aerobics in the morning
then I swim, then I pick up my kids and swim again. And we had a party and some doctors came over (she looks around, especially at my less than perfect physique,
she is about to expel a naughty, bad word that should never meet the ears of polite company
her eyes are red and look like they will fall out of their sockets
like those little ****** dogs
My friend the vet said one's eyeball fell out during an operation
So he put it back
she's roughly my age, but she has a natural tan in the middle of winter
and the sun has written it's thin lined signature all over her face creating the look
of a satellite image of an area once filled with rivulets of water,
but now experiencing a severe drought
but she truly is 99% fat free)
and they were...OBESE.  Can you believe it?"
L'horror.

I've slept for two days minus some hours I went out to buy cat food
Today I went to the pool in the rain, and chugged along back and forth
out of breath, encased in a partial wetsuit, watching the water steam at
times, and then glitter, with bright designs as the sun came out for a moment
And I return home to a monumental mess.  
Somehow it just didn't matter, this mess as I struggled at work, fighting
a lame diagnosis that "you are just too anxious for this job because you get nervous
before evaluations" from a man easily as anxious as I am, but much less aware of it
The work rained down on me like a waterfall, and I couldn't stay dry
Weekends gave way to endless work sessions and some sleep
Suddenly, as if for the first time, I see how much paper is strewn on the floor,
arranged by cats who inhabit this place far more than I do.
The piles of unsorted things I would "get to on vacation" are now
there, waiting to be gotten to.
It's clear I am one who values work above housekeeping and the happiness of the
little creatures who inhabit my world before order.
And that's just fine with me.

Is precious, should have a "handle with care" label on it
Guard against defamation that comes from the outside
But most especially support and protect what is true on the inside
Align with your true self, strengthen it, learn to love it and you will always be OK

Behind my apartment complex
is a small creek
dry most of the year and filled
with trash
it gurgles this time of year with
brown foamy water
the wash of industrial civilization
at first the smell is foul, but now
is merely murky and there is no
smell and a pleasing sound of water

I look for signs of coziness around me
and I notice steam rising from the laundry
room that is visible in the cold
like a chimney puffing comfy smoke
into the rainy air

And I think of you and I'm afraid
I thought of you in Walmart
My life--this is the real thing
there are no romantic castles, only
a wet shopping cart in a crowded exploitive store
As I passed by the packaged vegetables
and stared at the racks and racks of ugly clothes
I thought, I am in control

The fear wells up inside of me
fear of HIM.  That him who squashed me
who took over my mind
I think of all the books I read, as people pass
by with very important shopping to do and
a homeless man makes a decision about which milk to buy
and he smells horrible, like decay and wetness
and people resent him and I wish
there were no homeless people
I wish there was more caring and less brutality in our world.

The key is not to care about HIM until you know who he is
The key is to keep your distanced mind in judgement
And I must remember this key because I swear
no one will ever hurt me that much again.

I am a hidden creek, a pristine one, because I would
never hurt the natural world as we have
He cannot see it, or any other he, until
I know exactly who he is.

Oh, it was so romantic
and he put it on his computer
where I have my password taped
that I look at every day and can't remember
and I didn't ask for his, and I left it all up in the air
where it should stay, and at times I can barely remember his name
So the same, stepping lightly out over the abyss
will I float or fall or float for awhile and then careen down to
the ground and smash?  And It was in the teacher's lounge and he still
gave me that look of genuine interest that makes me sure
he wonders what I look like naked, and
I wonder if he's cute enough or if he'll be mean
Because a lot of them are I've found and for some
reason an early memory surfaces from a dinner long past
with my boyfriend who I'd marry,
and we were finding out about a dinner party me and my boyfriend
who became my husband and what
was to be served and the Madame said "Eet will be a fish and
eet will be cold."  And we laughed later and it was a cold fish but not fishy,
and not good, because who wants to eat a cold fish
in December in NewYork?
And now my number is on a Post-it on his computer and I can only
wait and see and I do admit I wonder what he looks like naked.

It was a glorious affair in the high school cafeteria  
and my boss said hello to me and I sang along with
the band..."I'm Yours"
And somehow you ended up across from me so here I am
with three men surrounding me when I don't feel that popular
but you have taken a peculiar interest in me like when I can't
count up all the tardies, and you help me out in a meeting
and I fixed the copy machine and you could make a thousand and one
copies of dissections, but there you were again.  
And you found a way to put your dead preserved animal away
because I was upset.  No one would do that for me they just make fun
if I don't like poor dead creatures displayed to children.
The admin supervising over
us like we're a bunch of kids...and there you are with your inquisitive face
and I always thought you were the cutest teacher...but you brushed me off and
brought another woman to my play and I understood except now you
are talking about what I'm doing over break and it's the second time you asked
me and you remember what I said I was doing over the summer, except my
cat died so I didn't finish my script.  And you just have that look.  
When a man is looking into my eyes wondering what it would feel like to
be next to me naked and would I take care of him like his mother did?
And I am wondering if you are a skillful lover and do you snore?
And so maybe we will make plans, or maybe not.  But that was definitely
a love spark, my friend.

There's one e-mail I always delete and it's yours
and it's not the boring repetitive ones or the ones that have nothing at all
to do with me, I can let those stack up in my mail box
I have a collection, thousands of them
But you and yours, make me ill.  How you brag and have
taken over what was my job last year and is now so clearly yours
and have you ever, ever even said a word to me, even though I was
the one to do the ***** work to get it all started?  No, I am just
so last year to you.  I don't exist.  I see your bragging testimonials
to your greatness followed by pleading ones for money--teddy grams?
Really. And the one time I did see you, you were not nice.  
So I delete your e-mail and really I'd like to delete the whole experience from
my mind.  All those late hours in that cold theater with undisciplined kids
Always thinking, I am doing this to have a job for the future.
This is why.  And then you just waltz in and you were so excited
I sent you my acknowledgement you were given the job and you were
so breathless oh can I tell everyone?  Like you just won the lottery and
now I want to send you an e-mail to tell you, do not contact me about this again
Leave me completely alone if you can't be nice.  
I don't like your play and I don't like you and this was all a bad experience in total.
I want to delete you, not just your mail.  I want to delete you from my mind and my experience
and all the rest of the people involved in this whole sorry affair.

Fingers trembling
sweat on the keyboard
shoulders ache
the sky is black now
as when I woke up
but my task is complete
that dreaded thing is over
and done and I feel a pleasant
lightness beginning as my whole
apartment once again seems like a home

Why do we remember some moments like a photograph
and others only forgotten or through a haze
Santa Cruz High School theater we were called in to get
our PSAT scores, since there was no internet and it was only paper
and I didn't know what the PSAT was or anything and the counselor said
this is really not a prediction of your life you are not a loser if you score low
and went on and on and I got mine and opened it and I was in the 96th percentile
in language and I couldn't believe it so I called my mother on the school payphone
I can even remember the wire connecting the phone to the box and she was so
blase--not higher? Oh, and that's compared to kids in the expensive prep schools.
and I realized that she knew there were expensive prep schools and I wasn't at one
but later, I opened the gate to my flute teacher's driveway and it was full of
splinters and I remember this so clearly as I touched the gate and thought
I am in the 96th percentile despite not going to those expensive prep schools
and I felt like I was smart and capable and I could really escape my parents
and figure things out

I stayed home today
to work, when being in a cafe
would be nicer, but there
would be no cats and this ones brother died
and I don't know how much more cat snoring
there will be
my favorite cat
a human snore will send me into a fit
on a French train, a bullet train a man
snored as we passed a nuclear power plant
a big one near a lake with beautiful giant lili pads
floating with flowers in the golden evening sun
and I could have
thrown him out even though he was
in the back far away from me
and I used to kick my husband
when he slept and choked on his own flesh
making that vibration, not a kind
or tolerant wife when it came to snoring
but my cat snores and it's cute and soothing

Finally earned my Santa Cruz creds
after decades
My first wetsuit
O'Niel in pretty purple and pink
across my ******* and I look like I'm
wearing rubber muscles like actors playing
action heroes but I feel like I am water proof
at last, have come of age finally
A member of the tribe of cold water human fish
as I swim on in the slanted winter light

one little flower
in a sea of flowers and sitting
in a meadow looking at how the white faded
to pale yellow and brown and it was small
and prickly and they looked better when seen as a mass
hungry, and prepared with lunch
I walked off the trail to find
another meadow spot with a better view
and my foot plunged into an abyss and the ground met
my head suddenly...but it was OK

Why I still think in a few French words
when the man who made me like that has long since
passed from my life?
Vacance, just the same, so I can dream, and survive
another brutalizing week
but then I will float along water
propelled only by my own muscles
Lie for a moment in a little winter sun
Re-enter the lives of my characters and
end their stories at last? They have been
waiting for me for years, to be considered worthy
of another's eyes
Hike in cold hills nearby and come home to
home cooked food
Exercise for hours and meet up with strangers
and stay up until really late and maybe see snow
explore life inside and out
After one more hellish week

I must ask myself, why this keeps happening and I know the answer
its because I'm afraid of you, my partner, who is supposed to work with me
but we only met a few months ago and I'm already sensing you'd rather feed
me to the dogs than change yourself, which is what they, the company asked you to do
So I said yes, and of course I used to think: this is only a problem in love
In love I get kicked around, but I'm OK with everything else but that's not true
it's the same **** thing with you who I will never be in love with because you are
a woman and just like me
and I don't even know if you know about yourself what I know and that is it is obvious
to me that you feel like you are invulnerable
but I have just survived a battle, and garnered a little respect and some advice from
someone who should know and now I do have a little bit of leverage
oh, how I cried to a stone who could no hear me and tallied it up to me being crazy
but if I'm to keep this job, I can't let you steam roll me again, you see,
because my shoulders hurt and I've been up since the crack of dawn on a day off
correcting a zillion papers that I knew would appear if I agreed with you
but at that moment when you were bellowing at me, to back down seemed the
only thing to do.  but now, with no break and feeling like I'm sick just because I've
been sitting here all day with a warm laptop on my legs and no swimming or even
going out to do anything but laundry and it's still not done I know that
I can't I must I must learn to stand up for myself in my terror, the
terror of a small child inside.

All that is left are silent pictures
I wish I could reach out and touch you
Your ashes, all I have left
of you my friend, gone too soon, why?
Nature is cruel, and final
what I wouldn't do to have you back again

The blows come, the lies
the incompetence that frames you
the person who doesn't mind destroying you
if it will make her life easier for a moment
We are rocks beaten by waves every day
Sometimes a storm, but always that ceaseless battle
And yet, inside ourselves can be a safe haven
or a basement of agony, if we side with our attackers
against ourselves.

An aquafer, underneath Saudi Arabia
As far down as an oil well, maybe further
A desert country with too many people and
for five years, the desert bloomed
then the well ran dry
as it has for us
and we don't even know
We can't feel it through our wealth.

Little girl synchronized swimmers moving to a piano beat
Toes pointed, smiles on, gotta keep that happy going
I remember in the haze of childhood, a faint clip
walking around our WW II housing turned Married Student Housing
Underneath empty clothing wires--why sugar and spice?
Which spice and could I really live up to being so nice?

And for the scary boys who liked to tear the tails off little puppies
Why did adults arrange things like this.
Polar opposites.  I was supposed to love a boy
with a ****** tail in his hand?

Quaking with fear all day
as I was going to follow through
with plans to say what I believe to be true
and now to have my thoughts known to authoriy
to say it into the air in his private space
in the company of the protection
Tears could be squelched
I felt wobbly and drained but not defeated
The aftermath was solid ground, not road ****
A strange new world of dignity for myself

How long this day seemed
Every minute was an hour
Every hour was at least three
the big question: how bad
And the even bigger how bad
would I be?
But after one day that seemed like three it
wasn't good, but not so bad
So there is still a struggle, a slight hope
And I feel like I am floating: it's over

Is the hardest struggle
Especially when it has torn you down
made you believe you are nothing and
first you have to believe I am something
that leap in your own mind is a chasm
a leap of faith and then comes action
riding on a cloud, your small difficult
glimmer of hope to change your outer world
I see why oppression can last for centuries
When one is trodden upon, even that first inner step
is monumental

When faced with forces
more powerful than you
Even when there is little hope
It's good to know, someone has your
back.  You may go down
but not alone. Not in silence
Not as a number, or a name
no one knows or cares of
but someone bears witness
Unions, never a help to me
have finally helped today with
my withered and strangled nerves
someone will be there with me
trying to see everything
is fair, a small miracle in
a pool of sharks, someone
has put a cage around me

And clawed and hacked at everything she hated
about herself.
My original ultimate authority: my mother
a woman who does not know who she is
I remember her being so tall and powerful
In the kitchen opening the refrigerator on Kaines street
A cold box with rounded corners and the brand in cursive
as I passed by through the garage where there
were mice the cat wouldn't catch she was furious and
I was scared about what she would do to the cat
So I went out into the overgrown yard, and made a little maze
I flattened down the long grass leaves and sat, protected
from her rage in the warm Berkeley sun
a rage to venomous and frightening I thought
it would **** me, or the cat, so I mustn't get too attached
to the cat because she may just vanish suddenly
and my mother is just an older woman now
but her ghost, lives on
my bosses, the authorities of my adult hell
scare me as only she could
But they are not her ghosts
No one will ever have such power again

Fatigue is setting in giving my affect a kind of relaxed
hereness, because there is very little energy for anything else
Tomorrow remains a mystery, but there will be a battle, I know
the forces will arrive, armed with ipads or paper or their phones
and their judgemental brains of varying sizes and capacities
I am tired, and I need to avoid the unecessary confrontation and most
especially desist from worrying about anything that isn't happening in the moment
the battery is low,  I have no grenades only a small shield and that's
not really enough to battle with, and really, I've always been out armed
and totally outnumbered and overpowered and yet somehow I'm still here
through sheer cleverness.  But I make mistakes and there is so little power left now at
the end that I must be shrewd and watch them like a lioness watching a herd of gazelles

The corporate sports shop has erased the swim section with snow sports
and I can't find those jagged ear plugs I like there
must go back local to where I got half a wet suit
made by O'Niel, the inventor from my home town
and I remember a friend who was a great skier and even
better ski ***, and he hung out with Tommy Moe in Wyoming and
he almost put his eye out going down a Black Diamond ***** ******
and maybe that's brave, but I don't think so really because true bravery in
my mind is rarely physical, and most commonly, but perhaps rarely mental
as I see the Christmas shoppers like every year doing the same things and dysfunctional
families everywhere pretending to get along when they'd rather **** each other
understanding why, like Freud first tried to show us, in his strange 19th century way
has led to a situation where everyone could understand why, what really drives them
and so few do, because it is scary and expensive and long term and frustrating and you have to go back
over and over and realize you are doing the same **** thing over and over and it's worse than
school when you were a kid, when it was just over and over and a teacher blaring at you until
you finally got it and moved on, because that can really happen.  You can get it and move
on and you won't need the salve of the alcohol or the forty big screen TVs or endless ballgames
watched as if they held some kind of key to a special universe and if just one more game, like one more quarter in that slot machine, and what you are really running away from is yourself and your pain.
And I am different, it is true, because that inner journey to understanding is essential to me and
psychology is amazing, how the mind tries to protect us from ourselves by creating more distraction
when we all have that Black Diamond ***** to go down and it is scary and frustrating
and we may fall but in the end we will understand.  And that is the most important thing.

Oh, I need a man, that will solve it
is what my brain tells me
No, really I need 500 new friends for my life
to really be
but the only thing happening is I'm getting kind of
nervous
and my brain has these few packaged things
that repeat over and over like customer service

Rain all around, and then a clear sky
I went looking for a place to swim, but all lanes were deserted
I ended up down in a basement pool, backstroking with a view of a roof
and I began to feel dizzy, like I drank something 150 proof
So I got out and put on my brightest warmest best
Made it to that cheap old grocery store,
and they gave me a free bobble head
and as I walked out to the parking lot a sweet old lady said,
"You f'n b--, for hatin' that N--" and I looked, could I have imagined it?
And a younger woman sat and  just looked on
and the old lady with the Santa hat well she just wouldn't stop
and I thought, maybe she'd like my bobble head
maybe then she'd calm down, but I wasn't brave enough
so I got in my car and drove on

to feel a part of this world, to feel the air that is being cleansed
of the filth and rot of civilization and to see the dry creek out
back that kids built a fort around last summer, with a filthy mattress as a bridge
fill to the brim with cold muddy water that will run through the artificial pipes and what little is
left of what was once a beautiful and natural valley, now paved over and trod upon and
suffocated by humans and the cold rain touches my bare arm and reminds me that I am
a part of this world, even as I struggle against it as we humans do.  And I wish I was far
away from this place, far away from all this crowding and muck and ceaseless competition
and wrong moves and attacks and I wish I could have only the silence of a loud storm
cleanse my consciousness and make me believe again that there is hope in this world and the
rain hits my watering can with a ping, ping sound and wind roars into my third floor apartment
and I feel alive.

and I woke up to hear it and see it because I love the rain
it is cleansing and renewing like a good cry and it changes
the landscape and makes it quiet as nature asserts herself over us
and we need more rain.  we need more tears to wash away the sadness and
stress the envelops the world and my cats are here with me, warm and dry
and afraid of the thunder and little Julietta wants to go out but there is too much
water and I with my sorrows am soothed by the sound of water washing over
my world, sliding off my shelter and running down a little stream.

I have a dream of a house full of cats and more outside
there will be plenty of black ones and lots of kittens and all will be street cats
given a new chance at life.  And there will be adoptions and trap, neuter, return for the ferels
and a low cost spay and neuter clinic close by to everyone in need and I will be
surrounded by cats, little beautiful creatures living out there lives near me
and there will be a cat's house in Haifa, and children and their families will
comes and learn about these animals and how to take care of them and not abuse
and surrounded by cats and infused with education, people will learn to be
what they can be, gentle, good and kind to the voiceless little survivors

for one in a series of misrepresentations
at last the army went home for dinner
after I threw a grenade
one given to me by the union
and my friends
one from a small cache
all I have against their hundreds
but it's the first thing to come over the wall
clink down into a safe a well
and do it's best to detonate and make alot of noise
and it reminded them there's something alive
on the other side

She gave it to me in a ceremonious way, since she's advised me to have rocks before
because they ground you when you hold them and it's better if they mean something to
you because then it is more powerful and I've had plenty of rocks, but none have really
worked so well as this one.
And I hold it with me nearly all day and it makes me feisty, and I feel strong because it
comes from her office, this island of sanity where I can suddenly let go of all the fear and
guilt and self hatred and realize it's them, not me.  No matter how much I want to believe it
is me, that they are good and if I only change.
But some people are not good, or wise or kind and they can decide that you'd make a nice target and
self laceration will not make them stop stabbing and stabbing, ceaselessly until you are nothing but
road **** on the floor because it is a great relief to them to let go of all that onto someone else
and so you must fight back and that means, you believe in yourself and you fight for that self and this rock came from her office and it came from under a plant and she wiped it off after my mind was
clear from another tornado of self hatred and punishment and she said, this rock comes from this office
and I didn't want to take it because I thought the plant needed it but she said not to worry that she
had plenty of rocks and now I hold  it
And I've been fighting, fighting against those dark forces and the darkest of them all, the one who
has made my life a scary mess for months now today he finally said he was sorry for misunderstanding me.  He said it twice and I think: this is a breakthrough and he may still take me down, because the future is far from certain but I would say you may take me down, but I'm going to take a piece of you with me. And I felt the power of the sanity in that rock and I hung on.  I hung on.

I am not here, but somewhere else
feel like I cannot face another day like the last one
that it's a catch 22 if I believe him, then I can't move, can't work
But believing in me is so new, and the muscles are not strong
And I fall down into his opinion of me, which kills me
incapacitates me because it's not true
but I believed my mother as a child
had no choice and now it's habit
so I must keep pushing those tiny tired muscles so I can keep going on

and much maligned
As beasts, dangerous and endangered
hunted to the last and yet they are exquisite
the most beautiful animal and the small and
vulnerable ones are also endangered
fed to pit bulls or smashed in crush videos or just killed in a shelter with a heartstick
but they are the strong ones
surviving even on their own, even despised
by stealth, intense sensitivities and that will to survive
I am a cat

Is the priority
because no one is looking out for me
but me and it's hard for me
to look out and see people I wanted to like
and hate them
See corrupt manipulators and just accept it
Like somehow that makes it harder
But if for some reason you find yourself
stranded in a rock forest with little water or
provisions and only the merciless sun beating down
on you as a companion it does no good to say
I am at a lovely beach under a canopy
That doesn't help you find a way back home
You have to look out and acknowledge this harsh
hostility and try to navigate it as best you can
accept that there is harshness and rocks and a burning sun
and you stand a chance to stay alive

War around me, and it's like I've got a ****** at my back
I'm in his gunsights and he follows me around with no
friendliness how I ever could have thought I could be friends
with this person and I need so much the strength within and I
am standing there and there is no me inside and I can't let this happen
because I am in his sightlines and others, too and it's completely different
a battlefield every day and I can't let myself go, the strength has to stay
and he is only my enemy, trying to shoot me down and I can't
I have to stay and fight because there is no choice and this is
so wrong but it doesn't matter things never matter I am a member
of a much maligned group, and it doesn't help but what I can do
is not lose me. I may go down but I will go down with myself intact
my opinions that I know and not believing their lies which come
flying at me every day now a new one.  And I can hear the disrespect
and sarcasm and belittlement and the value on the stupid and I will
stay with my own thoughts this time.  I will not abandon me and what
I know.  I will not let them take over my mind.  What happens on the
outside I can't control.  But my opinion of them, of what they're doing
it will be mine and it will matter to me and I will believe it this time. I swear.

When malicious daggers fly through the air and attack
And the poison, through your skull reaches your brain
The most important thing
is to hold on
to what you know, what you think
Even if your voice is never listened to
Even if you have no power
You know that this is wrong, you are right
and must hold onto that no matter what they may say or do
to you, how they may slander and attack
Not to let your thinking be infected by their poison is
the most important thing

It's condescention.  120 proof
And I am woozy, the room is spinning
and I feel sick like I have to get out of here
get out of this place
and you were supposed to help me, protect me
and can't you see I am going through
what you did?  can't you see?

And I really do mean men.  And mostly white men.
I learned that at Columbia film school
In LA, at USC, all those male filmmakers were somewhat suspect
What they made, could not often be called "art" but even worse
they tended to extreme geekines
They wore ***** athletic shoes everywhere and spent long hours on sets
in t-shirts, wearing caps with the name of their film on them and not smelling particularly fresh
They were not particularly athletic in a city that sport "muscle beach."
But here, they were MEN.  They could hold their own in any test of masculinity
as art is a serious undertaking, and requires great powers of the intellect
And here, where most life is spent indoors, the men dressed well,
in proper leather shoes that had names, and followed the fashion of the bohemian moment
which was not considered bad, maybe because you need clothes so much there
You are always freezing or sweltering and sweating.  You freeze outside in winter
and you sweat when you come indoors.  In the summer you boil outside in hot
and air conditioned New York, like you are in purgatory, and then freeze again in the air conditioning
To have that artistic authority, no woman can come close
It isn't a woman's world, at least in the early nineties in New York, it wasn't
Such a dissapointment for me since I thought I could somehow slip through by sheer cleverness
It's like a black person hoping to be identified as white.  It can't be done.
There was a place for me, like no matter where I hid in a cinematography class
in the front, middle or back I always became the woman who is photographed
to demonstrate lighting
"You learn the most up here" said Beta Badka, in a thick Ukrainian accent as he set me on a stool
But that's not where I wanted to be
I longed to be taken seriously, telling stories about women, about girls
and having them be respected with that same cache
that came with stories of men

It was a front cover picture of Oliver Stone on some New York magazine
New York has a different magazine for every hour of the day
He was standing there, legs apart, looking a bit heavy,
In front of a cement wall or something dreary (who has time for aesthetics when art is being made)
And he looked off to one side at something much more important than the camera
He wore a black wool New York coat
I thought, if I could be like that, I would be in Nirvana
He was so important, he didn't have to look at the camera and charm
all he had to do was say his great words and the room would fall silent listening to
his wisdom
The power of being so powerful
I was twenty three and at that age, a lot of superficial things can be taken for real
I put on my recently purchased black wool coat and looked off to one side, my eyes
averted back to my bathroom mirror.  
If it were today, I would 've taken a picture of myself with a cell phone

Your eyes should be on the bottom of the pool
Not a very interesting place
A blue line of tiles interrupted by black ones that cross and then make a T
The sign the you better take a last breath and flip over or your cranium will make serious contact with cement
It is a kind of meditation, watching those little blue tiles glide by
as you flail around doing your swimmer's best on the surface
Like counting breaths, who could be anxious here?
At one point, my imagination flies away with me and I am
arguing in that dreaded meeting and cruel words are being spoken
and there is no stillness, so I grab for the gutter on one end, close my eyes and wait for it to stop
I hope the lifeguard doesn't think I need to be taken out of the water.
It's only panic.  
Then I return, really focusing again on climbing up that blue line

Went to film school, want to be a filmmaker still
My dream unfulfilled, but still unfolding
I look at what used to inspire me: magazine articles about
the great directors.  always male. even today.  I used to want
to be the female version.  Not anymore

The New Yorker has a piece on one
Describes the process: a demanding scene where
Julia Roberts walks down a street and then gives a LOOK
This is not drama.  drama is conflict.  the new yorker doesn't know this
describes the making of "art" as the shot is repeated with different LOOKS
It's all taken so seriously: a large photo of the ARTIST on the facing page
He has four o-clock shadow times a few days.  this is the look of a filmmaker
you will see it in the second half of the semester at any film school
and he looks worried, intense, confused...gassy?  artists are never happy
is life a pretty picture?  the artist knows this and cannot, will not smile

Later, "the Brille Building," in New York.  wow.  a building with a name no less
a building where many films are edited, have been edited over the years.  
a sweatshop for editors of picture and sound, and a place for the director
to continue, now out of the shadow of the STAR

He's using a lot of profanity now. Just because he's an old white geek don't think
for a minute he ain't kool, he ain't street.
Actually, go ahead and keep thinking that, because you're right
Amazingly enough, he, from his heights of artistry, is slumming it with take-out
Oh, the dedication.  Oh, the fear of ever leaving the building and being reminded
there is a whole world outside that doesn't care about you

His brother is the editor (no, don't say there is nepotism in this business, it's your imagination)
They review the shots of THE LOOK
There are many takes and now, this director who adapted someone else's novel
to the screen now claims, he wrote it.  Really.  It is all his.  

Yes I still love making films but I've never loved the biz
And as I get older, the more I think that real artists don't get written up
in the New Yorker with such verve because they'd think it was just too silly

She says, over and over again
Get here, with me
the frustration--how can I just change my mental state
especially when I'm so upset.
All there is, is this moment.
I breathe, count the breaths
Suffocate myself a little with carbon monoxide just like in Adam 12
My hands are the paper bag
And gradually, I can do it, in the protection of her office
I build the muscles of my mind

Let me reframe this for you and show you the positive side
After I sit and listen to accusations he believes are so true
and he has the power and he can take this job from me as he likes
and my saying what I think will likely have no impact
But it is the most important thing in the world
It's more important than having the job or not
To live and be here, in yourself and what you know to be true
in spite of attacks from authority, to live in that moment
and know: this is not true, I don't agree with you
Is everything

I have them written down for the big scary meeting
Yet my mind races, reviews the scene again, creates dialogue
find new innuendo
Anxiety.
It can be quiet now
I know what will happen, I know how I will be painted
as an incompetent
And I now what I will say in return...variations on
I don't agree