Arriving at work and fearing the day
My inner world destroyed and neglected
I would walk, and look for my guiding light
If you were there, the lights would be on
and I could see that long thin greenish light
from hundreds of feet away and it would be like
the lighthouse in the storm
and I would warm my tattered mind in it
know that I would see you

And it was always a disappointment
You don't care about me, only yourself, your job, your family
I am noticed for what I can do to help you with these things
Or for a brief ****** moment as you glance and flirt
Like a tasty little high

Today I walk, my eyes averted from your office
trying to soothe my shattered inner world
and take care of it like a wounded child
and build my own warmth
my own fire within
to nurture and sustain me.

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've been told, I live in the past
I am aghast.
Always looking that way,
just live in today
it's so easy you see
not for me
I give up hope
Just do, throw down the anchor on a rope
and just sit
Such a perfect view on the way it was
and only because it was this way
have I a problem now
In a boat, on a sunny day, on a lake
I sit, am rocked by a wake
of a passing cruiser
Around me is a moat made by me
you can't really see it, it's not real
I can see out
but not touch anything,
and I doubt
I will ever move again,
reach for the rope!
pull the anchor up!
put my chin up!
stiff upper lip!
What have we? quick! man the oars!
Plug the drain!
onward mates, haven't got all day!
I lift my eyes and ponder the horizon
balanced on  the moving water
shrouded by fog,
is my future
I look at it, still floating like a log...it's all I can do

"She's on the inside track to get this whole thing started," that's what he said to them
And that was awhile ago, can't really remember when
But not so secretly he doubted, and he worried and wrung his hands
He really didn't believe me, when I said, "Yes, I can."

And now I've done did it
It's history and then
Someone high said "now it's started, it will make a nice job for my friend."

So out I went, quickly, faster and better than the eye can see
And so, there was only the one great role there left for me

When tears seep out
it doesn't smear
the cosmetics I use
to cover and accentuate
as is expected of me
a little urn
tasteful walnut box
paw print on pottery
I admit, I shook it
to see if anything rattled about
but thankfully there was silence
Sometimes we lose
what we most want to keep
Every living thing
is precious
irreplaceable
I want to get a little black kitten
with some white on his chest
but it won't be my little black kitty
it won't be the one I found
on a road
next to the beach in Haifa
covered in tar and fleas
skin and bones and ear mites
and who became
a member of my family
my Shakour

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.

I don't want that part
So don't even start
I have to walk away
every dog has its day
and I've had mine
sure it's been some time
but reality can't be denied
and from your actions I can't hide
So I am retiring from this drama
it's bring me too much trauma
so good luck with the new one
and I'll just be gone

Lymphoma
There was a  fundraising run for lymphoma and other cancers
A little notice for it on top of the garbage can
at a home grown Jamba Juice right off the BART in Berkeley

It hit home: what I was up against
People don't run through the streets casually
and my cat had lymphoma

I couldn't find him last night for the first time
He had his weekly appointment and I brought in
something that didn't look at all like he was the week before

They paged the vet and she came in
saying thing like he needed an IV and tests and
wasn't there nothing else to do
didn't she say that
he needs hospitalization--his liver
we can't tell you what to do
but it would all go in a circle and come back
to a suffering being who had
come to the end of what science could do for him
what she was trying to tell me in her barrage of words
came through loud and clear

They brought him in
with a blanket and a catheter
and he struggled until he got warm and then rested
I wanted him to see me, as the last thing he saw in this world

She took the three syringes out of her white coat
Don't hurt him, just don't hurt him
my only request
There was no pain
Only relaxation, sleep and then at last no heartbeat
Her ability, her smoothness of execution was perfect
and he went limp in my arms
not suffering

The nurse took his body away
"It's the last gift we can give them" she said
and I imagined a man, a stereotypical
image of a man pacing back and forth in a white coat in front
of a lecture hall full of vet students saying that
exact thing and there was a serious air in the classroom and some wrote this down,
it was so true, sound, capable and final
but this woman said it
this veterinarian from Michigan
and through my tears and grief
there was some kind of undercurrent
of relief, that there is no more pain for him
He no longer suffers
and I did all I could do

You have high blood pressure
She says it was easier without you
And she works with you
And you are called into the office to be fired
When you volunteer for work no one
Wants and are ignored
Be comfortable
In the skin that defines your outline
Be present as she says she thinks you are no good
Be here and reach for the pain
And explore it .  To touch it
And just be

And it will be ok.

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

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

I called so he could hear it,
I know he likes it
my home town, and me, and he
talking
how weird
what is going on?  
how am I to know?
he couldn't hear the ocean through the phone
and what will happen, I don't know

He is not to be spoken of, although many topics are covered
and I can be grateful, I suppose, because I am determined to pay for him
despite your objections, my parents who I mistakenly went to for comfort
He is, as the vet informed me, doing quite well with his treatment
and conversation about him is avoided as assiduously as if he were the
elephant in the living room
that no one sees
how many elephants have there been in our family?
Thousands, so it should be no surprise that there is now a pancreatic cat who
can live well with treatment
and if I need any reminder of the abyss that separates us, that eternal canyon
that destroyed me as a child, it is this cat, who in the last times of his life, seems rather
comfortable now with his medications and fluids and
our values, our beings are as far apart as the Snake River Canyon
a yawning space, which I wanted so much to fill as a child
and now I see men there on the other side, and I want to connect with them,
because that is what a child like me becomes as an adult
the desire to heal is there, but I will never fill that void
and can only do certain things like attend to my pancreatic cat
and avoid your wrath about him, and look over at the men
who so tempt me, who I desire not so much because of who they are
but what they represent, shadows on the landscape, like you were,
but I must learn to acknowledge my powerlessness at bridging this gap
look at the shadows, and turn away,
to what I can control, like caring for my pancreatic cat

Why did he?
What did I do?
When did he start to change?
Why is this happening?
It's not the right question
There are things, people, not in our control
We are only ourselves, our fragile human form
When our thoughts are spurting forth, frothing over the mountain top
like a mountain river in spring
and invade every corner of our mind, filling it like a bubbling tide trapped in rocks,
then let the tide pull back into the Bay to reveal
what we know, what lies beneath, like tender sea anenomes,  in our certain hearts

But not much
except that we are really self contained
so a drug will make our day or not
or a feeling we have is our entire universe and
that is just the nature of what and who we are
and we are not objective by any means but only by
sheer effort can we really see ourselves for who
we are, an image projected on a screen
and it is only us, inside our own skin

I come back and see I have facebook friends I don't even know
and now they're loaded in my phone
and there's way too much information at my fingertips
and I may slip up and find something I don't want know
and what were my dreams trying to warm me about
and how can I find peace between my ears?
i didn't have a good childhood so now I imagine one
back in my home town with the parent I never had and
feeling loved and warm throughout the day, and not
looking out the window and wondering what I did wrong to cause my mother
to leave and realizing, knowing now after 500 years of therapy that it was about
her and not me, and my boss is not my mother and after 500 years of therapy
you'd think I'd know that but it's hard sometimes...
what we have to do is come back to what we know to be true
past all the chatter and shoulds and inner cruelties
you may have to obey someone but you don't have to respect him
inside although you play act at meetings and all
A lot of staying sane seems to be, knowing what you know
when you are really in your true self and being able to hang on
to that, you know, that is hard but not as hard
as all the chatter and self recriminations
so it is worth it, my friend, it is very worth it.

And extreme desire
and he was calling my name
and it was so good
And I opened my eyes
and withstood
the fact that again I'm alone
and it's good
it's just fine
this private pleasure shrine

Four messages on my phone, his is the last
"You're more difficult to get a hold of than I am, see you at work."
Rejection assumed, blow her off, see her at the copy machine
I call, already feeling like I'm invading his space, since he's said
see you at work and that's a week away
But he answers and it turns out he is injured from mud football
Sitting there, in pain, wondering if he's bleeding internally
An Emergency room down the street.  He'll tough it out.
My X.  Rugby. He scored and exploded a part of his spine in his neck
but we went to three bars that night and he refused to go to the ER
which was just down the street.
I woke up alone, he came back floating on meds, an X-ray in tow, asking for warm things
I found an electric neck wrap, then
he was plastered onto the floor
fast asleep, neck wrap on high, the cord stretched taught across the living room.
Never fully recovered.  His muscular arms, the right one, withered away.
One day I gasped in internal horror as I saw it, smooth, looking more like mine
extending out from the now loose fabric ring of a sleeve of a polo shirt
His left arm now the muscular one, filling out the shirt on the other side
It was sickly, and unattractive, and I lost some faith him that moment, and felt guilty
and his pain, it never fully left him
When we divorced he blamed me for not stopping him
from playing Rugby that day.
We had to divorce, or I was going to end up like his right arm
I tell this new one--go to the ER.
So he decides to.  Why does he need a woman to tell
him to make sure he is not bleeding internally?
"it hurts, it usually doesn't" stating the obvious
"I'll take some magazines" he says, now showing a bit of initiative
Sure, I think,  make sure to take some ****, to pass the time and take away the pain
And that's all there is, no time for conversation
Except when I talk he likes it, but then has to go real quick
How many men have died without a woman to tell them to get help?
Same old...how to just let it go
How to not get wrapped up?
How not to care, but just eye him
as an object d'art, noticing his features
a reporter, taking in his personality
But resisting the urge to dive in
Leave it hazy, just walk away
it's not worth it, at least not yet

Should I call you "Supreme Leader" little man?
Smarmy narcissist, frightened one, I have found you out
Holding court in the lunch room we are all supposed to lick your boots
as your partner does
follow your example
as you do evil things, behind our backs
You order your little partner about, hither and thither, although she is supposed to be an equal
You played a role in eliminating me because I think for myself
As you lean back in your chair, directing the conversation
cutting people off in mid sentence, if it doesn't please you
Rudeness is not something you know of
nothing is sweeter than the sound of your own voice
you can learn from dissent, but this you don't understand.
That is how you make a better product.
You can value diversity and learn how people from different points of view
see things through a different lens, and maybe they see more clearly
But all you want is to listen, to that sound of your own voice
to dominate and shut out, and shut down, until there is no one left but you,
the Supreme Leader and no one to challenge you
and I hope someday, you will be left, all alone

if you want to know what it's like
come to my home town
and you might be scared
but I've never felt more here than when I'm there
there is diversity,
and open homosexuality
and all kinds of weird clothes
and vegan places on little roads
and tattoos and non judgemental stares
and street people strutting their wares
and you may think its crazy
but to me it's amazing
if only I could come back
live here, I'd be on track

Social Darwinism
How we fight each other
in the marketplace of scarce resources
come scarcer
How I remember the claws of a rooster
flapping his wings
protecting his flock of unfed hens
so starving they'd eat their own eggs
His claws scratches my legs
The wings flapped and air
moved around him
like a small storm
I was so young

Today, working in a place
that's like a rock offshore where thousands have been
washed away, and drowned
and we are still there on those small slippery
places trying to do our jobs
and not get knocked off
by a passing wave
or a rude shove of desperation as someone falls

Invisible demons
Rumors and gossip drive this place
Men, not women, rule it
Impatient men who are scared for themselves
on the higher rocks
still feeling the spray
watching the struggling toil of those below
and turning inward to their own sadness and fear

All there is, the only safe place
can be inside
and yet for me it's not there either
An attack comes and part of me takes that side
A being eating itself, destroying itself
Thinking at the same time that this will solve the problem
If only enough flesh can be cut, if only enough suffering
can be wrought
I will be purged of these feelings

For as long as there has been a cerebral cortex, there has been teaching
Humans, even the dumbest among us, for knowledge we are reaching
But somethings happened to the state of our education
And I speak from experience, in the trenches of our education nation
Something is wrong, something must be done, the war cry began
Teachers were fired, and some couldn't get up again.
Schools went their separate ways, like fighting friends
Some took up the new approaches like the latest fashion trends
Skinny jeans now, but bell bottoms were all the rage I remember when
Then there were the school takeovers by the State and army then
School became a grind, of test scores and dead students filling in bubbles
And that's pretty much where we're at, and still, yeah, there's troubles.

We are going to bomb them so that they will stop the rocket fire
Says the memshellah: prime minister, in 2014
Funny how that seems like a transparency
Of what the memshellah said in 2004, 2003...
Sounds something like what was being said
On the bus to the University of Haifa
Radio Turned up by the Bus Driver:
mmm--eeem, mmm-eeem, mmmm-eeem
Which must have meant: we have bombed them
and now the violence will stop

Do we have the memories of a fruit fly?
Every twenty four hours, a new death, a new day
Begins and the same thing is done
An endless repeat of a survival
with no wisdom, no intelligence

Pilgrims on their knees, travel to the church
in Mexico
Like pilgrims and tourists, gawk at the treasures of
Jerusalem: to be near God
God has wisdom

So what does God have to say?
Looking down, the next bomb drops
And for awhile, after the blood spatter and tears,
Or maybe after the explosion and the body meat
is picked up and put in plastic bags
And it begins anew

What can God say, to make it stop?

And I welcome it
How strange
A completely whacked out bad day
And I can't fight anymore
I am rolling in a truck
out of control
down a mountain
Might as well try to just go along for the ride

Nothing new here to this community
we are one in our creative unity
You know when you get that creative spark
Like as asteroid in the dark
And its so exciting
You can't wait to start writing
But before your fingers touch the keys
you find yourself ill at ease
Take solace, my friends, you must just push through
You'll find your path and it will be new
That wall of water may be there
But it won't be so bad if you don't care
if that great idea is really so good
because another will come, it's just the way in this 'hood.

Those profiteers of animals, the devastating news I found
this summer,
They finally wrote back, after I told them exactly what I thought
that killing is not a happy ending
that animals have fear, and know when they are facing death
They wrote back, those with the big bank accounts from the Big East
who tried to stop No **** San Francisco to protect their friends at the **** shelters
They wrote back, those that we fought off, because we are in the right
and money and power and influence cannot stop justice and we are right,
not them,
And they finally acknowledged me, and the wrote back,
trying to show how kind they are
Their over dressed CEO walks down a carpeted stairway to give a woman her dog
and they wrote back
because at the end of the day I have nothing to hide
only justice at my side
and they can sit in their fancy Eastern clothes
and they can wallow in their power and influence
but at the end of the day
it's the little animal lives that matter, those they don't save
and justice is more powerful than any earthly prop
and it will win

You come up to me and say "ain't seen you in awhile"
You lookin' mighty fine and I always love your smile
Before I know we talkin' sweet and you're all up in my life
I'm thinking yeah I remember this, and it hurt just like a knife

But now there's just a scar and it don't hurt me no more
And yeah, here you back, knockin' at my door
Oh, it feels so good, your eyes all over me
And yes, I know, you like what you see

So really I should say, I'm way too old for this
I've seen a lot of trouble, I've taken lots of hits
And does that ever stop me, from seeing you again?
It should, I don't know, I'm just trying to see around that bend.

So for once in my life, I take a chance and close that door
You sweet baby, I know, but I don't need you anymore

I walked on, years ago
Listening to the roar of the surf
Watching the tide go out and come back in
to greet me
I saw what nature brings
during a storm
debris: driftwood and death

I didn't know you then
And I walked along
the same landscape
the same sands
was a part of the same eternal beat of time
and I was fine and
I will do this again

A paper on my door saying I hadn't payed my rent and was to be evicted, thrown out
in three days
This morning as I was measuring laundry detergent into a washer at 6:30 AM a lady
stopped and asked if I knew where a certain address was written on a lease on a clip board
and I didn't know, but thought that must be repo-lady, or collection-lady or eviction-lady

Two lovely Chinese older ladies in the office.  Under new management.  Every year it's
"under new management" and why was I so angry?  It was frightful
Another eviction notice posted on my door after they found I actually DID pay my rent
Oh, look, here it is, you don't have to look in your computer
They said, confiding, about the sins of the OTHER
A lot of people don't pay their rent after the Holidays
Moneys gone, they just "forget."

And I thought of all the people on spending sprees I saw during the Holidays with a gleam in their eye sort of like people get in Casinos carrying out huge boxes of things and stuff
and it's all so happy and festive and I wondered where do people get all that money?

I see nothing but blackness
Hear only voices
of authority I don't trust
Knowing I'm among people I fear
These days, there is no safety
Try to get inside their reality
The owners, the deciders
Can't
I don't know  IDK
What will happen?

Hurry fingers across the keyboard
deadline, deadline approaching fast
soon an observation
endless lamentation on my mind
why to live like this?
from illness to work and back again
perceptions amiss from pure nervousness
I am squeezed and hurried
worried, ever worried

So much to be done
eyes hurt, feet hurt
cat hisses at nothing, only frustration
cramming work into minutes making time seem like it's squished
together and blending into itself, one minute overlapping the next
try to keep a clear mind from work to grocery store
to home, to clean to eat to, to,
my verbs, of what must be done, are rising over the top
of what is possible.

Years ago: 93-94
NYC: Columbia
trying to finish that thesis script
in Butler library
sitting at a wooden table in a room full of wooden tables
covered in a vast ceiling
creativity squeezed from my brain
my boyfriend waiting for me
only a notebook, a row of payphones on the first floor
a line forms as undergrads wait for the inter-college phone

Today, 2012
Berkeley: Doe library
Looks like Butler but nicely painted
not ravaged by the weather and city
rows of wooden desks with lamps and outlets
I write on my laptop, a cell phone in my bag
The row of payphones on the first floor are just empty booths

I feel like, I could look up, and you would be standing there
You, my boyfriend, who became my husband
My best friend, a difficult one who I stood by against the odds
You would be standing there, or maybe sitting down reading a
large novel in French, and we would get up and leave together for a dinner on Broadway

I look up.  The room is quiet and clear.
The air is fresh, no sounds of the inner city
You are not there
You live only in my mind
I wonder, how it was for you, years ago, in your year here at Berkeley
before you ran home, uncomfortable on this strange coast, this new world

I wish I could say to you
doe library looks like butler library
isn't that interesting
when I'm here, I feel like I'm there
But you, my past persecutor and abuser, would not listen
you new wife would be horrified.
It's such a simple thought
I don't want anything more
I'm afraid of you
Just wish I could connect, with that good part
at an innocent time when things were working

"You never get closure in an abusive relationship"
the advocate looked at me, softly, as she could waiting to see the hard news
soak in
the other women in the room were silent
Their "hes" were still around town, coming in and out
interfering, lying low, but at least paying attention,
abandonment is worse than punishment I thought
I was on the other side of the world, a reverse time zone
falling into the abyss
He took my wedding ring and engagement ring out of my luggage
then brought it up the stairs to me
and waited for the shuttle to come
I hugged him, but he didn't hug back, he shoved the bags inside
I was crying, he was stone cold, he payed the driver of the "sherute"
the shuttle to the airport in Hebrew, people stared but I didn't
care anymore, I was so used to people staring as he now
spoke to me and offered me a cigarette in front of the Mercez Horev, the mall
siting on the ***** concrete benches watching the line of people having
their bags checked before going in
Here I was smoking like I'd done my army service and gotten bored
and smoked to relieve the boredom and the stress
then something would go wrong and he'd get up, screaming at me
in English, and I'd run after
I didn't look at anyone in the sherute but I just knew they felt sorry for me
as we pulled away, after twelve years together, the last I saw of him
was him heading down the stairs
and now, the people at that job
I am learning new things in my classes
and, for one crazy moment I think:
I want to share this with them
so I write to my former boss
and that's the last thing he would ever want from me
He is the smart one, I am not, no one is smarter than him
He will never listen to me
Like I hugged my husband
not knowing he'd stolen my engagement ring and my wedding band
just like the Tel Aviv lawyer told me he would
the end. you never get closure in an abusive relationship

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

Today can't depend on you
on what you decide to do or not do
I have to learn to get that warmth from the inside
Or else I'll live forever in fright
And be happy or suffer and write about it at night

Today can't depend on the outside
There has to be something about me
that is solid, can't be denied
So no matter what blow the world may deal me today
I know that I am a good person, that I'm OK

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

As I girl, I thought heartbreak was only reserved for love
What does a child know? Only that desperate need for warmth and reassurance
Earning my way in the world, I work, passion leading my way
I learn how work, that holistic toil, with full body and mind
will make you dependent, on the trust, the goodwill of others
those others with power, who supervise your toil, looking down at you, arms crossed, in judgement
You ask your silent soul: am I building something for myself?

Or, am I digging a large hole, piling dirt up on one side
Sweating, my palms earning blisters, that form pop and bleed and form again,
and then am I to fill the hole back up again?
with the same dirt? leading nowhere, a futile mobius strip?
A hamster running at amazing speed on a wheel? Around and around.

Attachment comes to the outcome
What they told you--the bosses, the people with power
How this would help you with your work
How this would improve your world, your hours, your seconds

And when success comes, despite the popped blisters
and the ache in the back, and the dirt lodged underneath your nails,
dirt and sweat rubbed into your very being
When that promise is taken away by those same bosses
who only see you as a number, not a human being
A unit who works, like an electric drill
doing a job here, and easily moved to bore the next hole
when this happens, there is no other choice
but to let go

Let the Gods take your life somewhere else
Be lifted up by the wind of change and enjoy the dizzy ride
You have lost control, so lose it again, give yourself up to the world
And you will land in a new direction, with only the pain of disorientation
Eyes wide, ears alert, only the struggle into the frightening unknown,
A clean break with the past, made by your decision as you regain control and choose
to let go

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

Wish I'd never met you
even though there's things I like
Still what's mostly true is you were trouble at first sight
Or,maybe should I say "bite?"
Because I feel like I've been stung by Cupid's arrow
A mortal wound, keeps opening and bleeding until tomorrow
Until I can get a hold of myself again
Somehow stop, don't go down that bend
For once, choose that other path
for every pleasure there's three times pain, that's the math
I must forget you, I've done this before
With other guys who weren't good for me anymore
If I look at the last one, I could care less
But there was a time, if I was without him, I'd be a hot mess
So I've done it before, even though it's hard to believe
And now is the time: it's you I must leave

Driving down the streets of Berkeley
Everything is irking me
And I've got hypnosis today
What is going to become of me?

I'm coming here to deal with grief
and maybe a little anxiety
but when I sit in the office you see
I'm calm and my eyes are dry

And I get put into a relaxed state
Although it didn't feel like something rgreat
but it was fun and kind of interesting

But when I arrive back home
and open the mailbox
Suddenly I get caught

A letter from the vet
consoling me for the death
of my beloved pet
Shakour

Twelve years, two continents
and countless moves
he really was there and saw me through
and suddenly the tears just come pouring out

And I'm caught off guard in a storm of sadness and doubt

Cat, Mouse
Beach, Sand
Cookies, Milk
Coffee Bar, Toilet

abandonment, wired for
panic
how can I explain if but
if you ever wonder why women chase men they don't like
or keep them around when they are hurting them
I explain that
it's the panic of abandonment because to feel nothing
nothing, is worse than pain
any pain of the relationship
because abandonment is more life threatening
to a child,
who is not a child but now an adult with a child inside
and the child panics and the woman
chases the man who hurts her
like an addict chases down a drug

Looking in your eyes
for my life

A flirtatious pout
lips part
fresh vulnerabilities
innocence of a dew dipped flower

A clever remark
An ******* laugh
that leads to the universe

Connection
In your arms
And I am still alone

Into pain
I go
Aloneness
No companion can cure

The knife edge
I balance on
digging deeper
to find relief

It was him, inviting me, to be again in his cadre of contacts
Excitement rippled through me, wanting to know all his aspects

I imagined us smoothing everything over
All forgotten, starting anew,
We would meet for coffee, that would do
And since that went well, we'd make other plans
Soon we'd travel together all over the land
And romance and perfection would be in the air
He'd love everything about me, kiss me with his hands in my hair
A happy wedding would follow, just as I like
Finally, everything would be all right

I got updates about his new connections, saw his face
No messages, just that old picture, served up in my e-mail like on a plate
Then my fear started to grow
What if he's up to something, how would I know?
"You know he's just a Facebook **"
Said a friend, who could ask for more?
That means he has way too many "friends"
And two years ago I had to let go, let it end
So now he's doing the same on a different site
So I went in, and I deleted him, which took all my might
And I see that when it comes to men, I'm ******
Need more work on this, just stay steady, let it go

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 shoulda known going out of my league
I thought this would be nice, if only it's easy
but it sure aint' at all and I'm really in the fall
flat on the cement, body parts evident, splattered all over the place
even some in my own face, body meat spray, just like Israel on a day
of a suicide bomb
spent lunch time in a sob
why I am such a dumb one?
Why do I fall for such pond ****
ok, maybe he's a diamond
to someone I can't find um
but my darling he's out with someone else right now
and I'm on the shelf
four vodkas to my name
and it's such a shame
can't keep torturing myself.
should have not fallen at all
but I did, and it's true, this love
ain't gonna do, cuz as soon as I was out of sight
he ran with all his might
into another's arms
and that's really ok
because come what may
only I'm not ready for this
not playing this dating game,
not waiting for a kiss
and that's all there is
just me, vulnerable and amiss
and I thought, he's not like me
he's playing the field
and of course I was right
and now I'm out of my league
lonely
in the night
but that's gotta be the way it is.

cuz that's who I is
right now
just still a kind of pudding
of a loving human being
easily squashed and
the pain is too much
so that's how it goes
just me and the ***** and forgeting
everything that goes

Al Capone called a hit from some Chicago hideout
and there was a ****** of a bunch of other mobsters
and a reporter came in and said I had more brains on my shoes
than in my head
and isn't that funny?

I took a risk, I know I'm a crazy loon when it comes to guys
some guy I don't even like that much but I turn to him in my
pain trying to get through my days, now
and I try to get him to go out but no there are excuses
and suggestions of him drinking a bunch of beers when one
makes him whoozy
and it was a Thursday, and I was back after two days
trying to plan my new life and everyone there was so nice
so I come back to "that place" to do my sentence, and
I can't find him at his normal spot--he's hiding in a little room
in a bunch of chemicals
and we talk and I ask him about going out after work
and he states flatly I have a date

And it's like I've been hit by an invisible bomb
I don't know what registered on my face
adrenaline rush in my stomach and just trying to fake it kool
like no big deal, I can't get you to come out, but
his ex girlfriend set him up with a woman and he "has to" go
and I translate in my mind, you "want to" go
and it feels sickening things were a
little more hopeful, driving through the fields of Monterey and a friendly
department at Cal State Monterey Bay

And wind, and sand dunes, and a hope for a better future
and now this. So I stammer out a couple of lame things
and he tells me he doesn't like girlfriends and will be single until he's 75
and I don't know what happens then and he's 41 and only been with someone for three
months, tops and I just sit there,

the kids, high school romance all around and hearts and chocolate and balloons
and stuffed animals and they ask me what I'm doing for Valentine's day
and I say, the guy I liked just told me he's going out with someone else

So I come home and mix up some crystal light and ***** like four times
until i'm talking to myself in a Southern Accent and explaining to myself
why this hurts and my cat lies across my face and purrs so all I can hear
is a smooth soothing sound and I cry and cry

And I know, I'm not ready for the dating game.  Because if I was
I'd have someone up my sleeve too and I'd be comparing and contrasting
and all of that
but I don't
I just took a risk on a flirt and I knew I could get hurt

and all the empty desperation of my child self abandoned floods back
in and my friend says you don't want him, really

and it's true and I cry again and nothing makes sense

All those young bodies
so trained, taught and tight
all put together for more than a few nights
only the elite athletes are allowed in the village
no partners, no spouses no one to investigate

Apparently that leads to lots of hook ups
Celebrations, commiserations, there's a lot of stuff to do up
So the villagers are supplied with fifteen condoms each
And all around, there is fun in heaps