Author Archive
And if I could gather my thoughts, I would awe all of you with my insight and deep deep…depth. I would kiss all of you with my unfathomable words of love and encouragement, and make the 1% experience remorse. I would change minds, change sleep patterns, change weather patterns, change diapers with my mind-blowing wealth of knowledge. I would allow all of you into this treacherous never-ending chasm of stomach churning blood chilling stream of consciousness I call my brain, or sometimes I call it my dome, but most of the time it’s my brain. But instead I must carry this weight on my own shoulders, in heavy silence, down these rainy streets and unraked alleys, until the day I can find a pen.
I watched love walking down the street today. There were two sets, both men were tall and the women were old, one with long long flowing locks of gray hair down her back, pinned in a ponytail. I couldn’t help but watch them part ways, the four of them, hugging and holding like it could be there last goodbye. I treasured the moment for them, because of the innocence and the notion that I was spying. They had no idea that I was watching, and I preferred it that way, as I’m sure they did too. The four of them loved each other, as old friends do, with the kind of gentle caresses and arm rubs and long holds that years together create. I couldn’t help but be happy for them in their time of great leisure, because I experienced it from afar and knew what they were feeling within.
I felt it too. For the dear friends I know now and the ones in the making, and the kindred soul I hold closest to my heart these days. When I got to Carlton’s house I went out for a smoke and a head raise toward the stars. I felt things for the old earth and for the spirits that roam it. I gazed at the street lamps and the house lamps and the rain coating every living thing in luxury. The grass looked especially appealing and I bent down to it, biting it, feeling it’s wet fresh flavor between my teeth. I crunched it and let it rest on my tongue, because it felt as brand new as I do. The cool crisp greens sitting on my life force reminded me of cattle and unending fences and spring mornings full of light. How could I not bite it? How could I not want to feel it first hand? Tonight when I brushed my teeth there were tiny bits of green grass floating in the sink. It reminded me of life, and how badly I want to live it.
There lies the last year of our lives.
The muscles in our thighs
combined with the soil
to allow our tiny moments to rise.
Yours and mine,
with the moon in our eyes.
The neighbor cries herself to sleep late in the evening.
I can hear it through my walls even when my windows are shut.
Its a lone deep howl of a cry, the sort of painful sob that can’t be consoled. Sometimes I lay in bed and wonder who she cries for.
She cries like someone is missing, long swept away in the world’s memory.
I’ve considered walking across my lawn, through the daffodils that line our lawns and up to her door, just to see if she is alright.
But after months of listening to her sobbing, I know there is nothing I can do for her. I know that this is the only way she will find sleep.
Just throw it to me already.
My brother is standing at the other end of the living room in cut off jean shorts and an OP tank top. The really skinny kind of tank top, where the straps are so thin they barely holding the fabric together. It is blue, like the sea and like the future. He is getting impatient. Just throw the damn ball. I do. I throw the Nerf ball as hard as I can because I think that’s what I’m suppose to do to impress, but I guess I don’t know my own strength and it flies above his head and knocks a glass Avon votive off the wall. I shriek and he yelps in laughter, holding his mouth half scared and half entertained. WHAT IS GOING ON?? That’s my mother. She hollers from the hallway, the ever long hallway that I roller-skate down and wedge myself between to climb up the wood paneling and scratch my name into the popcorn ceiling. The hallway where we each write our height; mine, my brother’s, my sister’s, and every one of my dogs.
We get punished and we are sent to our rooms. This is when we lay on our bellies and slowly inch out from our bedrooms that face each other, until just our toes are resting on the carpet and the rest of our bodies are free. This is the time when we define freedom as our upper halves lying on the cool linoleum floor, knowing Mom is in a good enough mood to ignore us. Jeff winds up his egg shaped tops and spins them as far as he can toward me and I decide to showcase his Soundwave Transformer, the one he thought he’d lost.
Eventually I work my way to his room and he shows me the mask he made in High School the other day where he’s a tenth grader, which is so scary and such a big deal I can’t quite get over it. Then he asks me if I know the hole at the end of the house beneath his bedroom window and I say yes, I do know. And he says well don’t go near it because the mask belongs to the face of the Boogieman who calls that hole home. This is when I scream and cry and call Mom and we get in trouble all over again.
This is when the truest of you are allowed into the room. oh sure, you’ve got your fuck buddies and your baby dogs, but really, you’re an adult trying to grow up. I never felt grown up until I admitted all I wanted was to be loved. That didn’t seem like an immature thing to do. Surely, hundreds of people who care deeply and wholeheartedly for your well being are still unsure of your commitment to righting every wrong. Can you blame them? Wanting to do good doesn’t mean you can’t do bad. It means your spirit has come to the right place, but your nature is catching up. Nature is always trying to catch up.
Follow the exquisitely tiny hallway to the back and wade through the heaping garbage and feces covering the floor. At the end turn to your right, that is the door to go through. Open it up and you’ll see the cramped box of chain link fencing holding you in and to your left, there is the grassy mound. It’s only about four feet tall but it seems taller and muddier when you climb it. You can already see the edge of the mattress and yes, it is a California King. Get on top of it and you will see the handyman that’s just finishing up nailing the last board to the wooden frame of the merry-go-round horse protruding from the center of the cushions; that is the horse that controls this machine. You can ask the handyman if he’s coming with you but it’ll be easy to tell by his torn pants and mussed hair that he is going nowhere. You will crawl across the inches of bedding and decide not to touch the wooden horse, because of its sad eyes and faraway look. Instead you’ll notice Mount Hood in the distance, looking better than ever. You can go ahead and lie on your back and feel the soft down caress your body; the handyman is going to do the same. Not caress you, but lie down. He lays beside you for a few minutes, not touching but staring at the sky with you and then says he has to go and you say, “This feels like the ocean,” and he leaves with no reply. You know this horse and its mattress is going to take you places as the whole contraption starts to rise and gently shake your bones. You are going to a place called Blessa.
7/13/10/
there was this moment just now, when i realized i had peed forever. the pee started because Stand By Me had been on until the part where you realize your brother is gone and you have had to pee so bad that it hurt standing and sitting and going. Pee. When you discover that to be something you actually have control over, it’s funny and amazing and terrifying if you are a girl. Because girls know that all boys pee standing up at an appropriate age, and all girls want to be able to be the girl that does it too. And for a few years you think it’s going to be you and then one day you hear that Ashley Shank, the babeliest girl at Creswell Middle School, not only drives a 4×4 but she indeed has also attended Hunter’s Safety Course and at this very moment she is gutting her 5-point on the backside of Cougar Reservoir, just south of where your brother lay; and you decide that today’s the day you’re going to _____ yourself.
Not the gurgle of the calf that dropped from Harold’s heifer weeks before, or the one eyed cat buried in the basket of felines left in the front pasture…not one of these things you felt for could outweigh the counting paces of your dried out roots, beating to the sun of yours and mine. The hush of the single blue heron’s thoughts on the pond your dad dug is enough to quiet a month’s worth of cattle calls, even if there were only two cattle. And so came the day when you told little golden Crystal that her mother was never returning to the house on the Swale and that she would have to inhabit the rope swing forever, because you thought it sounded dreamy and romantic and a thousand other words a child doesn’t know until they’re older.
None of this could quiet the misery for you. It has long since been by my side, in a blur of gray quiet silences and drawn out further than usual moments, gently securing my chin at the direst of interactions.
When that happens you will find it as awkward as hell, girl. You’ll be like, are you serious?? Are you serious right now? This shit actually happened to me? I cannot believe this is going on, because I am under control. I have all this shit figured out and those friends o’mine who think they do are all twisted as shit. I can’t believe you would actually look at me that way. What in the fuck is that look suppose to mean? Is it real? IS IT REAL?! Of course it’s fucking real!!! They don’t even know where I came from. Seriously, they do not. My friends of friends carry rifles like lunch boxes in rear window views. They say it’ll come in handy when I can’t hold it till Wilbur’s caught. Wilbur is the big One that they’re all searching for. When my dad catches it, or Harvey, but mostly my dad, he holds it up with a large East to West swinging grin, to let the world know he found what it was he was looking for here. Which is the look we are all looking for when we come here.
This morning the rain fell hardest. i drove to work without my seat belt on, thinking it was just enough rebellion for 7:30 on a Sunday. Forty-five minutes earlier I had woken up to the sounds of the Northwest out my window, and my cat stretched out like some kind of canvas beside me, face full of slumber, dreaming dreams I could only imagine. These are the mornings it’s the toughest for me to get a move on, when everything I care for is comfortable around me. Once I get going though, it’s a rush of sorts, feeling like I’m the only person I know awake at such a sleepy crack of dawn. The two minute drive to work is a straight stretch, free from lights or stops and just long enough for me to pretend I’m letting her rip on the open road, destination arguably unknown.
You think you know a dog and then you get him out in an early morning downpour and learn a new perspective on things. Some of them behave just as you would expect. Most of them don’t. The wily ones whimper at the gate and cast you doe-eyed gazes that prove they aren’t as rascally wearing a wet suit and raindrops on their nose. The more mellow ones step out of their shells, running laps and going ape shit, especially if they’re with a sibling. In particular, Bela and Marco had a brand new sparkle to their dispositions, charging each other til one ended up bottomed out on the other’s back. They resemble something like koalas, and their owners were sure to let the whole joint know that they are in fact two of only 160-something in the world of whatever the hell breed it is that crosses a marsupial and teaches it to sit.
Then there’s the old ones. These are my favorite. They gladly bebop down the ramp and through the puddles, splashing their way to a half hour of relaxation in the great outdoors. They truly could care less that its pouring buckets with no end in sight and I’m the one with the rain gear. They’ll sit near you, most often in the downpour or on the edge of the inlet where I stand with a roof over my head, just sniffing the air in satisfaction as freight trains roar by. Every so often you receive a kind sideways glance from their gray gentle faces, one that seems to say they’re happy to just be because they know it’s not for much longer. That’s when I step out from under cover and stand with them, letting the heavy fall pound my back and my shoulders and echo into my hood. They usually get comfortable with my presence then, if we haven’t met before, and honor me with a small gesture of trust. Most often they’ll lean in, slowly resting their drizzled heads just above my kneecap, giving me the go ahead that we can be pals. They’ll sit like that forever, thoroughly enjoying themselves as we both let our minds wander through the torrent around us. Little do they know I’m as pleased to share their company.
This tub is my full length feature
two peaks bobbing as Wizard Islands
wrestle the faucet and slide the porcelain slopes
under water its quieter where your childhood rests
you could move on, or end here
analyze untitled shapes of your body
study the sugar ant resting on the rim
this bath gets intimate if you let it
with the rose hip soap and the gentle quake of water
you could become famous here
with your angles and crevasses
letting the nonsense steam off
the tiny audience has doubled on the rim.
