among the wildflowers

I am imagining your beautiful skull
clean and white and gleaming in another forest
as beautiful as when it was covered by your skin
soft and creased and lips puckering to welcome mine

I am imagining the creatures that are feasting on you, much as I clung to the words we shared, the love we shared, surrounding you and enclosing you as you surrounded and enclosed me

You have given yourself to the world as you have yourself to me, completely and unabashedly.

You are the most unselfish person. The only way to continue is to follow your lead.

the backyard at Brian’s – Sundown Wild Forest

thursday evening, 8:18p 4th september 2025

I miss your kisses
There haven’t been any since I kissed you last.
I can hear you telling me that I need to be kissed.
I miss the way you look at me
the way you see me
There has not been any of that, either
except in the glimmer I catch from the corner of my vision
People listen to me, for a time, because I have interesting and useful things to say
but then they go.
You stayed, staid.
Sturdy and safe, secure.
My haven in the wilderness.
The wilderness surrounding me seems to be balancing out, equalizing with the wilderness within
much as a bucket of water surrounding a bag of hard clay will soften it.
I sit in your chair, having eaten, smoking
I can feel your huge hands on my shoulders, surprising you the first time you did so by how hard they are, belying the soft surroundings
I grinned at you, happy to have pleased you, pleased myself with my complexity.

I wasn’t done with our conversation.
It is unfinished.
There is so much more to say.

comfort.

Sitting in your chair, reading your newspaper, using your lighter, waiting for the wash
I can see you puttering around this place
even if nearly all of what we did here was talk and eat and love and sleep.
Delighting in the chairside lamp that with a touch(!)
turns on and warm and warmer
just as your touch turns on and warm and warmer
I can see your face peeking around the corner from the kitchen, looking at me with raised eyebrows and pursed lips.
The love on your face, the sheer delight is unending.
I can see you picking up each of these things, finding a stopping place in your book and putting a bookmark there.
All of these things that came before me and now no more discussion to be had.
So I will find you myself.
I have forever.

been waiting such a long time part 2. four years later.

I know how close I have been to the end. I know how very very close I have come and if it weren’t for the fact that I was frozen in place and could do nothing other than think about the fact that if I could think myself dead I would, and then shied away from even thinking that because what if I was magical? What if I could just make that happen?

I know how close I have been. I know what the maw looks like. I have seen its gnashing teeth and its grasping claws. I have heard its seductive whisper.

And in the spaces and in between, I have seen glimpses, flashes of what could be, what can be, what is.

What is, now.
For now.

I live my life this way.
גם זה יעבור גם זו לטובה
“This too shall pass and it is all for the good.”

The only thing constant is change.
This is how I am able to survive the furthest of downs, knowing that there will always be an up.
No guarantee of how far or how fast or for how long but there will always be an up.

Four years ago today I had a psychotic break.
Four years ago today was a day of insanity
of despair so wretched, so deep.
An aloneness in this universe. Alone among others. Alone in joyful company.

Today,
today.

Today I feel the love of my community.
I feel the love of near-strangers I share my story with.
I watch their faces, see the hair rise on their skin,
hear them “yes please!” to “can I give you a hug?”
I see fascination and wonderment and joy and it really feels real.
I can feel it to my bones.
It permeates me.
I am living, proof.
I feel it as flowers feel the sun.

I am shining.

550p 7 march 2024

feeling soft
and wounded
made smaller and out of shape, pushed
quieted,
pushed aside.

Tomorrow will be loud.
And tomorrow.

then more quiet, but mine, this time.

i don’t like that the shadow of the dog is in the scarcest corner of my view
barely even the hintiest hint of a shape
not the scratchy pointiness of its usual form, no.

an edgeless thing
sliding into/outof sight

I haven’t seen it for a long time
(it sniffs and slinks around the curves of things
seeking sustenance
)
I feel the whiplash of the day, days.
straining, strangling the happy hold I had on my present, my future
I saw a future.
A few days ago I would have told it,
“there is nothing here for you.”
(Of course there is, there always will be.
The wolf you feed, etm.)

I am trying to unravel the why, as always, as always
when I already know the answer.

There is no miracle, there is no magic bullet, there is no bulletproof. It is always there, lurking in the background like the black dog.

I can be grateful for the happy I have had,
I know there will be more.
I don’t, though.
I don’t.
I want to believe.
I have proof that I felt that way, I have proof of how good it was.
Even if I can’t feel it, I can watch it, over and over again.

My hope is that the resulting down is not equal to how good I have been feeling because I don’t know that I can survive that.
But forewarned is forearmed.

I need softness, I need quiet.
I don’t know how to get that.

1157a 72823

i hate wanting things

i hate thinking im going to make it the month without stress because I am not

but i want things want things

nothing expensive everything cheap everything good but I CAN’T AFFORD THEM

they are all good things but i dont need any of them
not a single one

i did fine without them
this is what happens
this is what happens
this is what happens

739a 26 may 2023

I read the things that I wrote when I know I was desperate
When the desperate was upon me
when it was the only thing near me, surrounding me
perched on my shoulders like a raptor
(waiting for me to succumb just the tiniest bit)
my already hard as stone flesh under the digging sharpness, not giving way
I am stronger than you in my pain
I am more than you even in my terror.

That pain, that terror, it lives in my body.
Just as I know that too many crunches or coughs or orgasms can make my body feel anxious even though it is simply muscle memory.

My body contracts when I am terrified; it attempts to make itself smaller
as if I could instantly transform a 228-pound half-ton-lifting body into something smaller

What if
What if instead of contracting I

e x p a n d e d
instead?
Took up more room.
Reached out for more explanation.
I know that
(you know how you get)
I know that I only used to have rage as a solution.
I know that instant inner and outer screaming was the only possibility.
I don’t feel that way anymore
(you know how you get)
I haven’t felt that way for some time
(you know how you get)
I feel so much more able to unroll the things in front of me
(you know how you get)
Keep the center fast
(you know how you get)

It is so much to shut out.
Take smaller bites, then.
Stop reading when you begin to go elsewhere.
Pull back.
Enforce your boundaries.

(you know how you get)

Yes, I do. It’s too much to be and still stay standing.

Let go of the things that hurt and don’t serve.

“I dream of who I am outside of capitalism.”

715a 17 may 2023

“I dream of who I am outside of capitalism.”

Maybe an odd statement coming from someone who sells their work, from a person who is trying to make a living, selling her work.

It has never been about the selling of the work. Not ever.

It has always been about the making of the work. I have found as perfect an outlet as I can for the noise the absolute noise and froth that fills me completely. My art, my writing. This is where it goes.

I don’t have a choice as to the making of the things. I have to. I have to work I have to work on my work. It is only by doing so that there becomes enough open space inside for me to breathe.

All of the processing, all of the talking, all of the telling of my story, all of the spiraling and twisting and understanding the eventual understanding the light bulb the eureka the oh!

Yes.

I pour myself into my work have been pouring myself into my work my entire life.
It is such a generous thing.
It allows me creation.
It takes on all of the energy all of that focused energy
Transforms, transformative, that focused energy.
It allows me to assess and reassess my progress in a purely physical way
Allows me to follow my mind on what has been Becoming a more steady way, a surer way
A more intentional way.
I see the evolution in my work as I see the evolution in my self.

That is how I defend my work.
That is how I know it is good.
It has taken everything I have and has survived.

737a 4 may, 2023

The things that I would say
The things that I would say to you if I had your ear again

I mean of course how much I love you and fucking Christ I miss you but also
How much I miss massaging your hands the way you like
That yes please write my Etsy descriptions for me so that I don’t have to and
I am so sorry that I said no when you offered. What was I thinking??
I wasn’t.

If you thought I was scattered before
It’s like pistachio shells on the pavement now.
The ravens are noisy overhead, more so than usual
as I sit outside in the grey.

If I were someone who saw signs in things
I would definitely feel that you are close.

But I don’t, so what do I do?

Push past, through.
Know the next immediate steps for today.
Focus on coming home.

early morning 24 february 2023

Stay here.
Stay here stay here stay here
(repeating ad infinitum into the dark,
into the open windows of my car
out to the night
)
stay here
please
so much more for you so much more please stay.

I look out into the night, look into my mind to remember the things that are waiting for me.
please stay.
I know you feel unwelcome but please stay.
I know that you feel that there is no room for you and that you need to be by yourself but please stay.

Please stay.

I smoke and I smoke and I smoke and I smoke
I smoke until finally I find something that makes me laugh, I comment, “thank you, that finally made me laugh.”
knowing that it will only last until it doesn’t.

And now it is gone again.

Stay.
Please.