ShadowDancer

snowy-bright morning and i
am embracing my shadow
she is dancing within me
one half-beat behind and i've
become her audience. dance,
i tell her, not tauntingly but
with sincere heart. dance, for
i see the distinction within
and know that her movements
are her own. she is a child
needing expression and gentle
guidance--hush whispered no-no's
in place of yellings and spankings
she is a child--real and existing,
not good or bad. strong like a seed,
but not fully empowered, and so
i simply open my arms to her
offer a place to rest on my breast
where i can offer her Love
and constructive suggestions
for other ways to move, without thwarting
her most earnest efforts

today
i am brave
enough to face
your lack of place
in my existance:
don't tease me again
with your
almost
hellos!
i am
hollow
and sad
but tired
of trying
to imagine
some other
alternative
way
to view
my loneliness
when it is thus!
my stories
are habits
from solitare mornings
tangle-haired
kid growing up
in no neighborhood
then, i was focused
on visions of better homes
bareley gracing the present
with my presence
never percieving much
of Love besides intoxicants
rape scenarios and wishes
battered child
daydream child
so alone
for so long
and i thought,
how sadand
for once i let it be that, and then
it was clear how little has changed
when my truest Love
and my energies go out
to a return-to-sender address
a one-way message
machine

i quit!
do you hear that, universe?
this must stop now!
i quit! i quit!
take my dreams from me
please
and replace them anew
for i'm finished
with this kind of
Loving which
essentially
is nothing
but nothing
after all--
i bid adieu to my
nameless
faceless
Yous on the horizon--
goodbye to my wishes and daydreams--
my standards have changed
and i'm through
wanting
the ungiving
You
i am brave enough now
to see sadness
and accept
the truth

ChickenDance

I didn't
Know how to
Communicate
With you
So I made
A wierd kind of
Squaking sound
And when you
Turned around
Raised eyebrows
I pretended
Not to know
Where the sound
Came From

White Sunday

Whitewash. My emotions it seems, as well as the scenery. Snow has a way of making me feel so trapped. I weigh at least half my weight extra on days like these, which may be why I never like to trouble with donning the layers of clothes required to keep warm. Such thick clothes--wool and down and such. No thank you...I prefer bare skin and a soft blanket by fire. I lie on the Navajo blanket legs spread and begin stretching. Side bends and sit-ups; whole sections of memorized dance routines that never left my body even after my last day at the studio. It's noon; I have just arisen but a nap will undoubtedly follow this routine, with only perhaps a cup of tea in between. The cabin is silent and for a moment, like one refrain of a chorus, I sit with the notion that depression is much sexier when one has a lover. Passing full days in bed making love is romantic...while the time alone turns into unchanged sheets, unwashed hair, dirt under toenails. Earwax and unplucked eyebrows. Commentary from Others on what is "healthy." Thoughts don't seem to stick around too long these days. It seems somehow, I've passed the point of ruminating on my sadness. I guess I still do miss someone but it's melting away...or perhaps, just buried beneath the heavy snow.

Choices

My mind has stated its
Disinterest
In coloring this severed-head
Chicken chase
Glistening gold
For one more moon beam
Night

Yet my body
Still assumes
The movements
So accustomed--
Statuesque
Awaiting
In shadows

As if Self
Can somehow hide
Unseen
From Ego...

Brain Shivers

Why is it that sometimes swallowing a pill is just
So damned difficult? I used to
Buy them 40-bucks a pop and swallow
To the beat of thumping drum and bass big city music
For night after sleepless insane grin twist night
Sweating and beaming, loved and carefree. The irony...
One single white pill now each day by day
Is my lifeline, and I regard it (sometimes) with true hate...
The bain and the undisputed reason for my very existence...
This morning I awoke with Brain Shivers--
This is the term for the drug-withdrawl feeling
That occurs when I skip too many days...
Literally a shaking feeling inside my
Head, as though I've hit it hard against the ground
While tumbling a small child somersault and for a moment
Upside down sideways rightside up afraid then fine again
They come in waves throughout the day until I settle
Back into the swallowing pattern...
Not just a pill this time but a B-vitamin too because
I've let myself get out of whack...then certain foods--
Salt and carbohydrates beg to be my diet on these days
And I am a fool if I don't comply...indeed
The quick-fix complex sugar breakdown conjoined
With an upsurge of my too-low blood pressure
And it helps to get me through the imbalance day...
Like a hit to an addict but more controlled, or so I'm told...
A sedative for the anger sadness violence desperate hope
Which all comingle to create one single feeling--
One intolerable instant--
Like too much substance trying to squeeze its way out of
Some wirey sphincter...
I am fighting to not explode, knowing now that if I can find a way
To wait it out, this feeling will pass
Stay present, I beg myself, and don't cave
Into the flood of awaiting tears that so love to pull me down
And hold me there, just as the rapist used to do--
I am fighting, every day, and although it's always easier to live
When I learn tricks like breath and food and swallowing pills
I am fighting, and it feels like harmony some days, until
Still these times come back to remind me that I have not escaped...
Echoing demon whispers from the realm of the deceased...
There is No Escape...

Change!

I faced Westward tonight--
Taking wind-whispered starlight advice,
Watching pink and purple clouds burn out
And sizzle down into the distant
Red-rock desert,
Out of my deepest blue sky sight.
The new moon reminder: Let go!
Let go! illuminates my sorry Truth: that I
Cannot stop Loving you,
However much I'm wanting to
And so my feeble change instead avowed
To face only West or North for evermore
As long as Ever continues to include
The memory of you.

I will not miss the Southward view--
The horizon snowy mountains
Hold no beauty without the sight
Of you returning up that sloping
Gravel approaching drive. And East
Is worse: whence looking there, I whisper
Prayers upon the wind
And blow them toward the birds,
And send them echoing through canyons
Far off toward the Oceanside house
Where you sit, hearing my phrases
As you graciously lean in to kiss
Some other lover's
Deceptive puppet lips
Smiling back at you and leading
You to each and every nightly bed