{ The End. }

{ Okay, Kids. }

My hands are stained and feel like sandpaper.  The dirt just ravaged them.  But I am excited for the food I will eat in future months.  I've decided to keep it simple.  There will be so much kale.  And tomatoes.

What do I say?
Something has been lost here.  Great transition is afoot.  It's thrilling and terrifying.  It is also much needed.

For a long time I was very afraid.  I realize that now.  And I feel sorry about it, because inevitably it cost me a lot.  A lot of time hiding.  Tucked away beneath the bar stool.  Buried in my thoughts.  The hardest part is crawling out of that place.  Writing is a tense place for me.  I've grown so accustomed to the comfortable ways of doing it.  Without certain facets I feel as though I can't get the right thoughts out in the right order to say the right things.  My mouth is dry.   

{ I'm Not. }

I stopped because it hurt much to say anything.  The substance sounds like drivel.  The entirety of everything seemed to become so large, yet my want is always larger.  Maybe my apathy is killing me more than the smoke.  More than the sleepless nights and wine.  My knowledge of what needs to be done seems so difficult.  Like the road I can't walk up; too vertical.  My lungs are burnt.  But there's still pink in there.  Even if a little.  There's still hope.  I don't feel so poorly, or lost as I was before.  What grips me is the fear of inability.  What stifles me is the supposition of inadequacy.  I want to write about all the good.  I want to right myself into all things good.  I want to tell you a blessed bedtime story.  "This is how we make it better."  This is where the light shines in.  But in truth, I can't make that light.  I can't spark that flint within my spirit.  I work and I sleep and I moan.  And I am sick of all of those things.  I'm sick of feeling like the proverbial fuck up with a fancy life.  Nothing is that wrong.  My mind is a friend and enemy.  And my strengths dovetail my weaknesses.  They sleep together and make no babies.  They fondle each other and confuse me. 

I want.  I am both hopeful and desperate.  A walking dichotomy.  Make it well. 

{ Catch Up. }

How did it get to be 1am? I am tired, world. I am a childless mother, holding babies all day long, kissing them, loving them as though they were my own, only to hand them off (rather gladly) to other people. I am comfortable with that. The repercussions of not being asleep prior to midnight are disastrous. The equivalent of delinquent sleeping patterns.  I'm sorry I've done so poorly at "keeping up."  Will work on that, loves.

{ in any moment, this is the day. }

A means to the end. I don't serve a god of condemnation. And he is here now. He does come here, to the bar, where I've found myself again. It is not bad. I am not as bad as I was at a time. But I've come here in lieu of a craving. I feel a false safety. I know. I don't want to drink. I crave fellowship. I want friends. And they aren't here. Truly, there is nothing good here. In all honesty, I can here for a hidden, smoking patio. And maybe the charm of the broken folk, like myself. But I am alone, in this place. Because no one wants to talk about god. Or maybe they do. But the only reason I ever came here was to go as far away as possible. To pare my thoughts down the a muddled hum. Something seemingly more manageable. Nasty habits.

It is three pm. The weekends have been beautiful and rough around the edges, so much like myself. The day is charming. Lord. Last night I puked my guts out, and towards the end of that endeavor my nose stared gushing gobs of blood. It was horrible. My body went into shock. I recognized it. And stood in the shower for a very long time handing it over to a higher power. These strange things. Very.

It smells deliciously sweet. The aroma of alcohol speaks convoluted love songs to me, whispering soft hymns of future elation. All creepy-like and dizzifying. Numbs the word. Hush up. I have to keep heading forward. I have always had many friends to drink with. To destroy with. Most anyone will be that for you. It's true. But I don't see them anymore. I think of their familiar faces often. And I miss them.

Grant me excitement for this venture. It is fifty-five degrees. It is March 15th, 2009. It is a Sunday. Tomorrow is going to be a Monday. I am twenty-four years old. And I am blessed.

Process is a portion of the all encompassing organism. It is not the organism itself. Process is the intangible road of thought. It is not action. The internal notion of equation. An emotional path, past and future. But always the flutter of hope for something more. I wonder why the chest flutters. Vagal response.

I am Norwegian. Also Irish. But that doesn't really matter too much, if at all. Sometimes I want to tell the world about all the things I am. Everything that accumulates into the definition of my person hood. Not all of those things are complementary to any life anywhere. And truth be told, none of them make any specific difference. But for some reason, they seem to clothe me. Although, however relevant, this too, is not true, or consequential.

It is fifty degrees. The hail comes down in clicks and pings. at three forty-five on Sunday, march 15th. 2009. I am twenty-four years old. My friends of destruction are all long gone, and I am here now. Alone at the bar. Where still no one wants to talk about god, and we are all drowning. And the only reason that does matter, the only reason that is relevant, is because of process. And because of something infinitely better.

If I am anything at all, it is totally naked. Surrounded by everyone and all alone. The supposed quintessential worst nightmare. But honestly, sturdy relief is impending a much desired substantial humility. Because once my identity is completely stripped, I am divinely handed my actual garments. The ones I am supposed to be wearing. Even now, I am still learning how to best adorn my sacred wardrobe. Occasionally finding myself putting on the old clothes, and every damn time I feel so damn ugly. And I keep forgetting. For whatever stupid reason I am still uncomfortable. Yet this is part of my process. And not the whole organism. I am the entire organism. Naked and awkward and stupid. Always trying. Constantly redeemed. The hail stops. And it is till Fifty degrees.

{ I don't feel like it

{ a story. }

I wanted to write a story about a time and place, as though it were my own. So I began. I'd been reading old letters that had slipped behind my desk; they were unopened and filmy. I remember years ago setting them in a specific pile at the top left portion of my desk and saying, I'll get to those later. Put off and off and off. Let's be honest, I had good intentions for those letters, but I never really felt compelled to read them. They didn't artificially make my heart burst with emotional blood when I opened the mailbox and there they were. I didn't grab my chest. I was flattered, but not enthralled. They were mine, but I didn't care. The desire to care was present, but impossible to force into submission.

{ tricky trade-offs & the limbo of love. }

There are many things I say "hi" to in the morning. I think about this often. Hot feet hit freezing floorboards and there's a hello. I throw my dress on over my nightgown. Hello to coffee, hello to cream, hello to kitties and kitchens and mirrors and washing machines. Before I fall asleep at night, I always say the "Our Father." It's what I've done since I was a kid, sans 2002-2006ish. I will talk with God for a time and pray for things, and attempt to seal the envelope of the day, send it off to eternity. Wonder if I'll remember anything about it a week from now. Some prayers are new, and others I have prayed day in and out for years, most of those prayers make me ashamed of myself for not being better. Then I wonder whether or not said shame is necessary or appropriate or debilitating. I wonder when I will be fixed and ready. I try to balance reality with all these lingering or fleeting feelings. Then I imagine myself being good and ready. Good being key, here. Ready being the product of good. I've come to the conclusion that I will never be ready. I will never have it all together. Never know for sure. Never be satisfied as I would like in this life. That realization is somewhat satisfying, however. I can be confident in that knowledge. I can rest assured, and say to God, "Well, tomorrow is a new day, and THAT is exciting, and I long to say 'hey' to you when it arrives." Recently, I've been wondering if I will stop breathing in my sleep. Suddenly, the gig is up, and I'm up shit creek without a paddle. And I have nothing. But I sleep, and I rise. And I say "hey" to a lot of things throughout the morning, before I remember to say "hey " to God. And I am ashamed of myself. I feel a great sadness. And I am ashamed of myself for that too. I'm not ready. Shame. Not fixed. Shame. Not anything I thought I would be, nothing is happening I perceived, nothing is how I wanted it to become in this life. But I do have all these self-absorbed thoughts, and those are dumb. Shame shame shame. I feel a great sadness. But know that I am not sad. It's just a feeling. I feel death, but am not death. I feel alive, and am living, but I also feel the greater life that is passing through me. The Good Blood. I didn't make it. I didn't put it there. I only know that it was given to me, and I don't deserve it. And that it doesn't matter that I don't deserve it. I understand this and simultaneously don't at all. But I do enough to say, "ok. I'll have that, if it'll have me."

{ false moves. }

there is life and green growth in these trees

the sun heats the west side of the house

while I sit facing east, held up in the shadows

afraid of all that good light

it sees me too well

knows when I close my eyes

the flinting mechanism turns to sandstone

melts away with the good feelings

day splits again, a dart through a down heart

feathers burst forth and fly everywhere

great gravity directs me downward

don't let them take me

sometimes I feel an awful enemy exists

studying all these words

ready to shove them back in my face

force them down a vulnerable gullet

it all goes down so easy.

the song shifts

in my heart

we've lost rhythm

we've lost touch

we are lost

great gravity pulls us down so easy.

I know this is not true

only the human persuasion

a simple sooth of false sophistication

professing identities of drought

feeding me a line

when my guard is down

and I have no fight

the greater gravity sings ascent

as bones buckled, white knuckled

forgive me, it is so easy

to confess the sadder bits

the minor riffs of being

remain a simple sinner

yet

good gravity persists ascent

and always does

with grace

{ all hush. }

I suppose I'll tell you a story.
It's raining.
And I'm outside.
But as long as you're okay with that,
I am too.

I feel as though I've lived three lives upon arriving to this shore-less shore.
This plot in the middle of nowhere. An ancient stone house I call my home for now.

Actually this won't be a story at all. I'm just going to verbally vomit for a time.
You have been warned...


I have almost been consumed by a deep underlying anxiety and the stagnant sensibilities that follow closely behind. Within myself and this time I experience the surefire sensation of meaning. It's hard for me to ever feel too far from meaning, I need it. I need to feel like I'm assisting in this story, this plot line, the greater scheme of proverbial things. If this feeling doesn't meet me frequently, I start to lose life. I start to implode and misplace direction. The meaning. I lose the meaning; it's very important to me. Often there are "side-notes" within the further meaning of life, but really, it all fits into the same sacred package of what this existence is all about. Even though I wish so much and so often that I could just live. I can't very easily; I don't know how. It takes time to learn to live.


I am at the place of stillness. My little, red canoe has been rocking violently for sometime. The waters around me, the waves and ripples of thought and breath have been gradually raging, climbing and echoing dissonant, as I'm yelling stop-stop-stop. So they were allowed to stop. And everything got real quiet. Everything became really really quiet. The boat, the life, the breath, all hush. Not even the birds dare speak in times like these. For fear of treading on grounds they don't belong.

I careen down the river. Half awake. Trying to be awake. Awake enough to undergo the process. Enough to comprehend what is happening to me. I feel like a mutant. With unmanageable superpowers. All good life is built within me by other hands. A structure made, infantile and finite. Still feeling out the foundation. But as the dust settles, I know my roots. I know the true vine. That grows up before me, separate from myself, but fused with my blood. And I know that this vine is infinitely bigger than my body as it presses and hopes to burst through my breastplate. That this vine will make the fruit of good good living. And I want that. I want it like the best supper. The truest sustenance. The truth impregnates me.

But I am at a place of stillness. Sitting in my little, red canoe. The world and all aspects within it and without have hushed. Left me alone, to wonder what happens when I decide to allow, or disallow, this life to tip over. What happens when I say, "Ok. ok. Let me tip and turn. Let me plunge into the briny deeps of living. Let me bask in the promised depths. Let me feel that it is so perfect to not know what the murky water looks like as I enter, and simply trust that I am held up within its mystery."

I know I am clinging to the last of all that is my secret self.
The bolts and screws of lesser living.
No one can serve two masters.
This lady surely cannot.
I've been shown and naked a million times over.
I am used goods and loved regardless.


I can't help but feel that this is why I am here today. Why I am writing this. And it took me a long while to come to a still place to write these things. And that is okay. I'm alright with that process. I know the knowing better is best.

This boat is about to tip, ladies and gentlemen.
All these supposed goods are about to splash into a baptism.
That is good. And pleasing. And perfect.

{ like a heartbeat drives you mad. }

There is little to distract me at the moment.

It's two am. And I am drinking bourbon.

Smoking cigarettes.

This is a recipe, and I am the Martha Stewart of ill-conceived notions.

A meticulously prepared undertaker of affection.

I could bake you ten cakes in twenty minutes filled with feelings of adulation.

But there's no one here to eat them. These temporal delicacies.

And I can smoke and drink all night long next to hoping,

My best fairweather friend.

Listening to Stevie Nicks spill her guts all over my frontal lobes,

Behind her, thoughts beckon, as to what I do in stead,

What I do after this. The proverbial “then what.”

I've probably felt more alone than this,

The reasons differ,

But not enough to matter.

Nothing about tonight feels especially successful.

This is an absolutely beautiful moment,

In which I have done nothing

Except feel:

My superpower, my kryptonite.

Always has been, always will be.

Since I was a kid and my dad told me to know better.

"Don't let those tears drag you all around town."

He says.

Daddy I am trying,

But sometimes life is so alone and I don't know what else to do.

There are babes I wish to kiss goodnight, that don't exist.

And if they did, they wouldn't know what to do either.

“Can the child within my heart rise above?”

She says.

Everything within me just wants to wait this out in the wake.

What's the point of sleeping through.

I crave something too great.

I want the ocean.

But all I have is this glass of whiskey.

And the sweet songs of a broken lady,

Like me,

And what does she know.

{ mama says I think too much. }

Every time I write, I am hoping to somehow forge my identity. I want to be figuring something out, in some capacity of life. Each time it's painful, like giving birth. But I imagine, when one gives birth, the resulting "product" is almost always "perfect" in the eyes of the mother. I have a hard time imagining a woman going through all the pains of labour, only to see her child and say, "Hmmm... eh." So either this is not at all like giving birth, or I am a terribly vain mother.

I am broken, I know. That thought is rarely far from my mind. And if that knowledge ever dissipates for a moment or two, the emotion I experience in its stead I can only ascribe to the Divine desiring that I would feel as I should indeed feel, instead of how I tell myself I should feel. The problem with me is that I am so often reticent to adhere to what the Divine says. I don't think any of us are, and therein lies the greatest struggle of life. I believe that.

I have always lived in story. For as long as I can remember dreaming through the waking hours, I have crafted a story for myself. The majority of this story lies in my head. But tonight as I was driving through the nighttime countryside, through the fields now devoid of corn and wheat, I tried to imagine myself in a story that wasn't written by me at all. In that story, I had just spent the evening with my dad, watching movies and playing with kittens, and was on my way back to my now deceased Grama's house, listening to Afro-Panamanian music from the 60's and 70's, smoking a cigarette, trekking over railroads and bridges in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. All the while, my mind was pulling so hard at placing me in some other setting. Some other place in time. And I wanted so much to be exactly where I was, knowing exactly where I had in fact been. This is one of my deepest struggles.

There is a constant discussion as to whether or not fate exists. Some of us call it predestination. Most people seem to hold to either extreme conclusion, it does or does not exist. I can't say I can know for sure in this life, but I can suppose that it falls somewhere in the middle. Rather, it is both. It does exist as an inevitable story that has already been written- what is going to happen is going to happen, absolutely. But what inevitably happens in the story that was already inevitable, is still the result of most of the decisions we very freely and intentionally make. Although I will say that in this life A does not always surely equal B, and B does not always surely equal C. This world is perpetually upside down in most ways. So perceiving life as some sort of mathematical equation will certainly disappoint.

For as unsure as I often am in this life, that last paragraph contained a great many words describing a sense of some absolute. But being unsure is one thing, understanding one's lack of control over most things is another. Maybe this is pointless to speculate about or delve into. It seems impossible to try to explain it, and I am beginning to fumble my thoughts. Although, I know I am on to something. A potentially arrogant remark. But saying that now, I believe I am. The fact still remains however, that trying to explain what I am actually thinking is near impossible. My brain just does not carry the words I need at present.

Anyway. What does any of this say about my identity? Not a damn thing. I don't know my ass from my elbow for the most part. And having to travel to Ohio was not something I asked for, although I accept it so warmly. I love that I could spend time with my Grama, live in her house and tend to her things for a time after her passing. It is good healing. And hopefully healing in other ways I can hardly perceive at this point. Life feels so often like Limbo. The whole mess of it, like a free-for-all waiting room. So deciding on what exactly I am going to do while I am waiting always eludes me. And maybe it's my perpetual inclination to feel like I have to decide something, which leads me astray. Heaven help me. This baby's got too many questions for her own good. But that being said, I think we are all crafted in a certain way, specific to a cause, and this is why community is such a gift. I overlook this often. For example, my roommate is a man very different from myself. I believe we share the same ideas of living, values and perceptions on the world, similar interests and hopes, all things to make for an excellent living situation. However, our internal wiring, our synapses, fire very differently, and coming to a place where I have an idea of why he does what he does, or his idea of why I do what I do has been almost difficult. I should say, his persona differs from mine to an extreme. But if it weren't for that difference, I would not have learned as much as I have from him. I can see, where in knowing him, some of the rough inner edges of my heart have been smoothed out. He was placed in my life. And for that I am very grateful. It almost makes me aim to seek others who are so seemingly unfamiliar in thought than myself. I'm not sure if that last sentence made sense. Regardless, it should be said that due to this, any sense I have of my specific identity is irrelevant. Along the road, that is both inevitable and free, I am forever changing. And if I were to decide on several things to define me, some rock solid attributes that I decided to forever follow my name, I would be doing myself a great disservice. Why would I ever want to be so solidly affiliated with anything, save the Divine, which at this point is all I can direct my hand towards when asked who I am. Saying that makes me uneasy. But I see truth in it, which is not to say I won't spend the rest of my life, however long that may be, hashing it out with God. I'm not generally one for religion, but I do wholeheartedly support relationship. Because all humanity was built for it. It's in everything we do. And THAT is something I am going to think about for the rest of the night. And you, dear reader, might want to do the same.

I had no idea what this baby would look like. For the most part, it was a relatively painless labour. At the end of it however, when I look at it, I can hardly see a resemblance between the two of us. I still think, "Hmmm... eh." And I wonder why this baby has so many damn questions. And why she won't shut up.

{ spider / wino. }

Giant spider on my bottle of wine. Get outta there.

My brother told me the story of how spiders came to be yesterday.

We were driving to the cigar and wine shop. He was clad in full military uniform, hat and all. He looked real nice. "You see," He said. "In Greek mythology, there was this lady named Arachne, who was an incomparable mortal weaver, and eventually began to boast that she was the best weaver ever, hands down. So. Athena, whose godly domain just happens to include weaving, caught wind of this and got mighty pissed and decided to do something about all this malarkey. So Athena, assuming the form of an old woman and goes to see Arachne and warm her not to miff the gods, because it never ends well. And Arachne is all like, 'PSH! If only there could be a contest, then we'd see who's best." Of course, Arachne doesn't realize this is actually Athena, who now drops the guise of hag, turns back into actual Athena and is obviously super pissed, and it's on, the "weave-off" begins. Athena weaves Poseidon's victory that leads to Athens being named after Athena. Cute. And Arachne, clever girl as she is, weaves the twenty-one infidelities of Zeus. Yeow. Zeus is totally Athena's dad, but Athena doesn't have a mom so it's a tender subject, blah blah blah, long story. Anyway, Athena is super pissed now, with a raging fury, because a.) Arachne's tapestry is in FACT better than hers and b.) because Arachne just knocked her dad twenty-one times. Malapropos like whoa. Athena gets so mad that she destroys Arachne's tapestry and kills her. But then feels bad and brings her back to life as a spider. There you have it. Spiders."

I really liked that story.

I just wrote my Grama's obituary with my Aunt Connie. I think it was most fitting.

Somehow another

day has come to a dark end

I just realized

it's almost midnight. Again.

I kind of feel like a wino today. These nights alone are wearing on me.

I always hear people say that the world lacks wonder, or at least people who wonder within it. I'm afraid I maybe wonder too much. It's important for me to write things down, because otherwise I would just be sitting, anxiously awake and wondering dreamy-like until I realized it was far too late to be doing so and should probably go to bed. I will say however, that I am glad to be here. I suppose instead of wondering about everything else it would serve me well to simply just sit, and be here. So that's what I'm gonna do now.

{ gush. }

Words don't seem like much without the music to back them
So I'll just do my best to make this sound real sweet
I don't have an instrument
But I got these fingers
And the nerve to practice
Until you hear the symphony of my heart strings

{ instrumental. }

I'm sitting on the front porch. Up to my eyeballs in daydreams and fuzzy thoughts. It was a simple day. I did simple things. Here is a list of them: dentist, sandwich, play with kittens, computer, made a bed, watch football, made a pizza. I am presently adding drink bourbon and smoke cigarette, and will polish off the night with clean kitchen and fall asleep. My sleep schedule is a disaster. And my dress is too tight and too short. I'm wearing a jacket, a coat, a stocking cap, and flip flops. I just read about astrology and then felt stupid. So here I am now. Listening to dogs bark in the distance, the evenings eternal cricket song, and the hum of traffic a long way off. I want to write about my Grama, but I can't do that right now. I want to be held, but that won't happen right now. I want to feel beautiful, but the point is mute. I want to see my friends, but they are all far away in some direction or another. I want someone to play me a song, or read me a story while I fall asleep. I want a lot of things that I can't quite put my finger on, and that cumulative sensation once again draws me back to that ever encroaching hope for eternity, which might not ever make a lick of sense until I die. But I don't want to die. Not yet. I feel the urge to drive around the country and drink coffee incessantly.

So, to follow course, here is a list of things I do have, which presently please me: Time with my family, a nice, stiff drink and a smoke, (albeit, gads, one of these days... nevermore.) a lovely sitting space, food in my belly, roof over head, hands, feet, eyes and ears, walks to the river, and a God who keeps tugging at my shirt tails, even though I have the tendency to be an obstinate shit. Lord have mercy, I am a selfish woman. Drawn by the caprices. Whimsy whimsy whimsy. Wondering if she will ever be satisfied.

The phrase that has been passing through my head for the past 34 hours has been "The man who tries to save his life will loose it, but that man who looses his life will save it." It's big, that thought, those words. They mean a lot, and I have been masticating their purpose in my life. My dad said that to me the other day, and I don't remember why. But he has a history of saying the right thing at the right time. 99% of the time.

I'm sorry for getting lonely and thinking too much. I'm sorry for always wanting to be alone and never quite realizing in that moment that it's usually an ill-conceived idea. I'm sorry for currently having a negative outlook.

If I'm honest with myself, all this is very exciting. There is much before me. A smorgasbord of good, good gravy. I can smell it. And it's chock full of drippings. Sit still little mind, and take a load off. Worry is a liar and a thief. And life is good. I'm sorry I forget that often. Such a child.

Part of all of this anxiety is my strong, unending desire to share my life with someone. I know a lot of people don't think this way, or pretend that they don't, but confound it, I sure would like to get married. That just sounds really nice. I have very rarely thought of what that might look like, in the material sense. You know, how girls dream of what their wedding might look like, I don't mean it like that. I just want to dish it out with someone, and fight and love and make chicken and drink water and pull stray hairs and take naps and get pissed and be sorry and tell someone how I'm feeling even though I know they might not get it and have someone shave my legs for me and brush my hair while we watch movies and miss someone and get drunk with someone and sing songs with someone and drive to stupid places and flirt and have them tell me what I'm bad at and bite my tongue and run my thumb across eyebrows and rub feet and kiss shoulders and own commitment and have some kids and be very very very naked in all ways possible. I want all that to play out until I'm all old and ugly, while I watch someone I love get all old and ugly, and love them for it.

My mom says she has some ideas. I told her to pray I don't marry a douche bag.

Sometimes I feel like a sucker. And sometimes I want to live in Mississippi again. Or at least the south. Man, do I like elements of the south, like any other place. But right now I miss Portland. And I have added listening to The Microphones, drink more bourbon and smoke more cigarettes to my list.

{ death may be a handsome man. }

These days creep away in slow motion. I feel they get the better of me sometimes.

So this is it. I'm trying to be in the moment. Which has forever proven itself to be difficult for me. It breeds too much intellectual planning and little result. I lay down for a nap next to Grama and the dog. I am so tired and wish to daydream along the edge of sleep. Like a walk on the beach. But that isn't where I am, I'm not on the beach. I'm in the bed I slept in as a child with my cousins. All four of us together, drawing straws to see who received the untimely fate of slumber on the edge of the bed, next to the closet we dredded. It brought us to tears, as it was full of bullfrogs and raccoons. They only came out at night.

I don't think I ever lost the draw, but I usually sacrificed, and took the edge.

Twenty years later I am lying in that same bed. Next to my Grama and her labored, curdled breathing. "I am here," my mind enters the present, and I take its hand along with my Grama's. And we rest for hours.

Upon wake, drowsy I stammer, "Grama... I dreamed I was in your orchard. We were all in your orchard. And there was a handsome man chopping wood. I didn't get to ask his name... But he was so handsome." She smiles and asks for water.

I don't know where this is headed. In some ways I do. Death is creeping. Before I fall into sleep I wonder if He is in the house. If the dog barks at Him. If He is kind and gentle. I look for Him as my eyes close. I am keeping watch.

I sit on my Grama's front porch and she rests inside, along with my mother and aunt. I am trying to move towards sleep. But lately, the laying down portion doesn't come so easily. I am in seven different worlds at once. Leaning on them all for support. And I don't know what I look like.

So let's stop thinking about all this for the night. Let's rest our eyes.

Give Grama her morphine at 2am.

Wake up at 8am.

Have a glass of milk.

Take some pills.

Get her dressed and bathed.

Read her the letters they are sending.

Feed her toast.

Walk to the river.

Read the Bible.

Say a prayer.

Do the laundry.

Empty the dishwasher.

Bake a pie.

Feed the Brothers.

Check the mail.

Take all of this, one day at a time.

Because that's all I've got.

That's all anyone has.

{ where we are from. }

"It's Saturday, right?" I ask my dad as we drive.

"'Fraid not. It's Sunday."

"Really? No way." It feels like Saturday, but then, come to think of it, I don't know what day it feels like.

"Oh it's Sunday alright." He chuckles as the corn streams past the truck like a sea of gold ripe for the plowing. Soon the combines will be out. I can already smell burning leaves in the evening. And the cicadas have all died, their simple songs hushed for another season. It's almost 11:00 am. We were supposed to leave at 10:00, but I took my sweet, sleepy time, still acclimating to the three hour difference. Ate the omelet my dad made, checked my email, took a shower, made some coffee.

The matriarch is dying. And I've come to the Midwest to take part in the reverent process of death. It has a rich feeling. So rich everyone is tired. She looks twice as tired as she did yesterday. Lying in her bed, doped up, adorning silk. The dog sits at her side, staring up at an unfamiliar master. I rub lotion on her cold legs, and she says how nice it feels.

"I've had this movie sticking to my mind..." she says.

"What movie?"

"I don't know.."

"Who's in it?"

"I don't know that either, it's just sticking in my mind. It's so lovely. That's the hardest part. Not being able to put the pieces all together. Not being able to connect the dots."

I rub lotion on her feet, and she falls asleep. I kiss her forehead and hold her hand.

"I love you." she says.

The house is thick with family and well-wishers, bringing pies and casseroles. I have known these people all my life. They enter the bedroom and kiss her forehead. They enter the room and say such lovely things about love without talking. The neighbor comes over, the one with cancer, redheaded and eighty-five, "I went to church today, for the first time in 10 weeks, and I prayed and prayed and prayed for help for us little old ladies... you know how much I love you." This love is hushing. It grabs your heart firmly and kisses it with warm and gentle lips. I feel my throat close and I stop breathing for fear of tears. Not yet, I say. Not yet. The grandkids are almost all here, looking at pictures, flooding the kitchen and eating the cookies. She would love it. She would be making us all tuna sandwiches if she could. She would say, "How the hell am I supposed to feed all of you?" and inwardly adore the preparation. That's how she is, absolutely snarky and all love. Don't you ever forget that.

I haven't smoked in a few days. This is my trial for a specific epoch, to quit smoking, to take care of my Grama. But tonight I drove around for an hour, five different gas stations, asking for a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. Driving down familiar back-roads. Everything is familiar and distant when you come home. So many lived and forgotten things. So much silt of memory accumulates and forms a bedrock behind my brain. And presently it is breaking through. Sometimes it seems like I remember everything at once, and I hit it with a pick axe. The scent and sediment of it flying forward so fast into my thoughts. I am struck with such a specific and peculiar sense of living one life. It wells up here, like a dream I know I lived. How much was on purpose, how much was on accident. And where is it going? In this time and place I haven't the slightest idea. I am still so freshly fallen from the world I was living two days ago. A home I enjoyed, a few friends I loved, a man, the music, the food, doldrums of work, too much whiskey and smoke. It feels good to be home. It feels good to have purpose. But it is so very hard to place a finger on life and say, "This is it. This is where we are going." At times that notion of inability makes me wonder heavily, at others, it causes me to stir with the greatest hope.

{ she holds a phantom. }

We speak the common language of hope,
and this specific tongue exists everywhere.
The world breaths it in.
All the time.

Lately I have been hoping again in the dream of much good love. Heaven help me. There are so many songs about love, and half of them are about fools in it. The majority are lamentations. Sincere beseechings. I often feel my hopes are misdirected.

When the air cools, and the leaves turn, the ebb of summer approaching, I get the fever. A chill of the skin breeds a desire for otherness, closer proximity, a human cloak is my hope. The hairs of my arms stand on end. All the while, a stillness hums beneath my breast reminding me that the fire in my gut can't be quenched. Nothing will satisfy my eternal pining.
Nothing on Earth. Heaven help me.

At present I am sitting in a golden closet.
It is suitable and pleasant. Dim and delightful.
I came here to drink a golden drink
And attempt to make a wealthy worth of lonely thoughts.
Cultivate hope. Press through the longing and the darkest parts of day.
I don't feel much like going home anymore.
There is a handsome man on my mind, often of late.
It is very possible I am just bored.
As autumn sets in, so does the cold and the wanton sigh for warmer hands.
The ones that don't belong to me.
This man I understand little about.
I don't know him, his friends, his opinions or positions on anything or everything.
I'm haphazardly crafting affection for a mystery, simply because it is a mystery, and the warmth of its unknowings soothes me. I confess, I kindle and quell. My heart creates a tide pool of artificial adulation, and as much as I work to fill it, I work similarly to flush it out. For the sake of my sanity. My thoughts, one part whiskey, one part water, plant a kiss on the bank of burdened feeling. Plant a kiss on the hope of my individuality, that a separate mind might take note.

If nothing else, I gladly wonder at God, for creating such a handsome man.


I would love to sit with you.
Just to know.
I would enjoy that quite a bit.

I haven't been writing, because it is so difficult to express myself in ways that don't seem so trite. But come back to the hope, that I can do it well enough for someone to listen. And for the both of us to know I mean for the good of all parties.

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" -Romans 8

{ the basement. }

It's mostly quiet. The dogs are having dreams.
I've learned to use my dad's cigarette machine. But I pack them too tightly, and they are difficult to smoke. Everyone is in bed by now. My hair is longer. It keeps falling into the glass of bourbon before me; I suckle alcoholic strands, and everything is gold. Everything is quiet, to the point where my ears begin to fabricate cricket fiddles. What makes the brain create counterfeit sound? I did see many crickets today.

Flies are buzzing by my face down here in the basement. I am awake.
I'm trying to be right here. Which is why I must quit drinking. Most days everything within me wants to be somewhere else, a dream, a waking life, the prospects of other places arouse. I do have a real dream now. It pumps through me. It is building an artery beneath my blood, and I have no idea where it will take me. Or how I will arrive.

When I drive through the country I know that I am supposed to be there.
It presents a right feeling. I'm not a city girl. I thought I could be once, thought it would be nice, enjoyable. But I'm not a city girl. I require God's country to tell me what to do, and I will readily bow my knees at the dirt in reverence. At soil's very edge I recognize my size. My minuteness becomes so real, my breath so deep. "Dust to Dust," I think, as though I could dive right in. Here I will lay. Here is where many have found their fleshy rest.

Back to the earth. Back to the bone of creation.

But I must keep this dream in the Really Real.
I can't allow it to be like the others, those imaginative revelries. The fabricated story I wrote on the back of my brain for no reason, save it pleased me momentarily. I can still remember very many of them, the ones that kept hold of me the longest. They never were. I'm almost sorry that I made them. I didn't really need their company amidst this extraordinary life, as simple as it is, as human as it is. I still like it. I'll like it better as I begin to take it up to a higher place. Or allow that Higher Place to lift me up.

{ alone in a lonely world. }

This is where I write my saddest songs. Where the constancy of time pretends to hum me towards direction, where I drift into the distraction of waking sleep, far from home. Where I heap up all the empty feelings, and hope tomorrow can place them in the compost, on the altar, and anticipate regenerative matter and fertility. Tomorrow seems a long way off.

Alone in a lonely world the phone rings. Thumbs instigate ignorance. Where is the ache, I say, Leave me be, can’t you see I’m aching? Let me ache. Sorry soul and what a pity, to think that there is such freedom at fingers length.

My Goliath is so tiny. He comes in 12oz bottles and little boxes of twenty. He flits through the spark of ill-conceived synapses. Makes a bed of my tongue, settles in the lung, so minute, like a virus infiltrating the finer fibers of being. I wail, bemoaning all good things, I drown in effervescence and smoke; this dream, this reality. This is my Goliath, too small for me to harness, too chemically immaterial to capture or comprehend. I alone, in a lonely world, cannot.

Here I am and dreaming. And within these dreams, beyond them even, I hear the wispy song of betterment softly purposing my heart; a soothe totally separate, and anything but wrought within myself. And this betterment creates the howl, makes me fondle my Goliath with confusion and awkward love. I’ve written my Goliath many letters on rice paper. Many modest proposals beseeching the relinquishment of my secret spirit. But these letters are burnt up, along with all the oxygen. So I’ll sleep till Sunday, I say, Forget the in between, it’s all over. Am I such a Magdalene, I wonder.

Here, no one can see my sad blood. No one can taste its truest meaning, its insatiable appetite for substance. Tonight I will sing so loudly all my sorrows to you. I will shut all the blinds, turn off all the lights. It will be so unrefined and beautiful. I almost wish they were here to see it. But beloved, you are. And they could never be. It is my dream that someone would, and love me for it. But this time is too raw.

Far off I hear the sounds of fireworks. Later I will wander these worldly streets. Watch the slow and stunning smolder of all earthly life, in great sadness and anticipation.
But for now, let me sing to you.