Conversations Among the Ruins

I told her goodbye
yesterday and her response
was loving

after a moment of
silence. I knew
she was just taking

a breath.

Fixated lately on
the line of where
the mountains meet

the sky. Wondering how
many days I've been
meaning to do something

tomorrow.

What that cost is in
energy patterns.

The time I have
wasted makes me
nervous.

Because I am
aware and in
that space where

the structure
and simplicity of
a mountain

meets the free
vast of sky

I am ok.

Not chained
to a mirror with

a razor blade.

Not hating myself
because I feed

off of void
the most.

I swore to myself
in 2008
as I drove in Jami's

passenger seat
down the 215
staring at the
mountains

above the strip
that I would
live here.

That I would be
here and it would
work for me.

And I do and it
does.

I stare at those lines
on my way to work
everyday

as a reminder of
hope. Of what I never

thought possible,
something I wanted
so badly

I would cry.

Something is
starting.

Something is
starting and time
will

count just not
itself.

I don't remember
a whole lot about
being a kid.

But I
remember how
I would get
obsessed.

Obsessed at
age eight that
I wasn't as skinny

as the girls on
90210. Obsessed
with a boy

named John.
Obsessed with
twirling my hair

on my fingers
in a freezer - the
feeling of my cold

hair in my fingers
gave me a rush
and took me

somewhere else.

I grew up, the
nineties happened
and I was obsessed

with the size of
my arms, happy meal
toys from thrift stores,

deflated foil ballons
and covering
the walls

of my bedroom.
I was obsessed with
daydreaming about

how someday I
would speak
to people.

I didn't know about
what I just pictured
myself

thin and
pretty and the
center of

the rooms focus.

I was obsessed
with shopping in
thrift stores and

when I turned
sixteen I met a boy.
His name was Alex

and I was obsessed
with him. I believed
in him.

I believed
the things
he said that I was

which was
not much but
nothing;

nobody
at all.

For a spell
he was the spell.

He is the reason
I didn't pick up
my first drug

until after my
eighteenth birthday.
I didn't

need them; the
insanity of each of
us in a room together

sufficed.

I was obsessed with
lemon pepsi and
big league chew.

I had over three
hundred flavors
of lip smacker.

I couldn't have one
of anything. I needed
to have them all,

and each was to have
a name, a personality
a story.

I was obsessed with
three inch thick glitter
on my eyelids and

white out bleaching
my hair
every Thursday - obsessed

with the hurt.
With the abuse.

With the
words.

I learned to
fucking write
because I was obsessed

with eloquently
making sure
you could fucking

hear me after you'd
fuck me and
beat me up and
dump me for the

seventh day that
week.

I was obsessed with
forgetting. Obsessed
with the raves.

Obsessed with Love.
Or whatever I thought
it was. Obsessed with

feeling like a train hit me
the night before
the current morning because

that was funny and
just so typical.

I was obsessed with being
ok with beating on a man
that loved me and never

hit me back in a trailer
park just as the sun
rose. Because if

I was fucking nuts
I was at least

something.

I was obsessed with
ecstasy - chewing
up double digited

numbers of pills -
of having a blotter
for breakfast and

watching the walls
melt. I was obsessed

with some shit head
primadonna LA based
bitch because the

fantasy of him
as an actual real person
that could save me

or gave a fuck
was another obsessive
fantasy.

I got obsessed with
cocaine and smoking
crystal meth and I

was obsessed with
a blonde med student
named Robb.

Who actually tricked me
into conscious life.

Into a waking life
to be

obsessed with.
I missed a lot
of a few years of my

life because I was
focused on how
obsessed with Robb's
death

so many people
told me I
was.

I was fixated on
blow torches,

melting glass and
wax together and
sticking thousands of

stickers onto
things. I was obsessed
with
melting

hundreds of
toothbrushed
together

after I
boiled them.

I was obsessed
with electronic
dance music and

pronouncing
the names of
the foreigners
that make

that shit.

I was obsessed
with trying
to belong

in a sub culture
of

snobs and
spiky boots.

Anything to just
hate
myself.

To not be
good enough.

I am obsessed with
self growth and
coffee and my

weight and what I
do or do not
eat, at what time

of the day.

I am obsessed
with my job and my
lover and my

dog.

I fix on yogartland
and in & out burger

and eloquently
written
insanity.

So it gets better
but I swear it

never goes away.

I am an addict.

In a few weeks I'll
take a two year
cake and next

week I'm actually
speaking.

I won't have any
flashy lights or
clothes - I will

likely probably not
even shower but

that's something.

I'm flattered and
privileged and

soundly
awake

tonight.

(Thank you Suzette)

There isn't
anything better.

She can walk
like a big girl now,
on her pink leash,

matching her pink
collar. Her brilliant
red coat

shines in the sun.

I live in a small
town and I walk
my dog in the sun

on afternoons
before work.

I swear sometimes
it's all I've ever
wanted.

The lunching ladies
at the small cafes
on the busy street

cluck over her.
An old man in a
trucker cap and

aviator shades

eating a banana
split on the sidewalk

smiles a crooked smile
as we pass.

Another old man
says to me

"Your jeans
are about broken
in"

(They have fifteen
holes)

We pass the hotel
and visit with Sandy,
an extraordinary

woman we see
most mornings

and by the
police station
Penelope lets out

a low
"Woof" at the policemen
that are kneeling
down to pet her.

We visit with the
alley cats that follow us
with aloof curiousity

and I almost drop
my coffee from the
cafe

a number
of times.

Small children
run up to us,

cars stop when we
cross the street and
the people inside of them

smile
the way that I used to
at others

when I thought I
could never be
so simple.

So

happy.

http://losangeles.ebayclassifieds.com/dogs-puppies/malibu/beautiful-miniature-dachshunds/?ad=13877793

I think we found Penelope a playmate. He is blonde and from LA like Harmon.

There will not be a twenty one year age difference between our Doxies.

LV,
HL

Listen my bosses
would probably
scare you.

They're a tough lot.
Because they run
a brand

of the best rated
quality in this
town and there is

simply not room
for error
on my end.

I have a great
respect for the
team of people

I work for. The thought
of ever working
in this industry

and not for them
makes me feel sick.

"It's not
for the faint
of heart." So many

have said. Ben and I,
we have Soda Time
most nights,

where we're parched
and exhausted,
and a bottle of pepsi

from the machine
in the back
is like liquid

gold. The machine
has been out of
soda for days.

We complained
to ourselves, and
finally

on Sunday
asked our boss.

"Guys just tell
me to call those
people and they'll

be out here tomorrow."

On Monday
we had our pepsi
so I asked her

if they could
puhleeeezzzee
put dr. pepper

in the machine.
That I'd start
a petition.

Now maybe this
sounds like nothing
out of something or

something out of
nothing but

I walked into work
today and there
was my boss, half

jogging into the
locker room to
tell me that she

brought me a
dr. pepper.

"I was just
looking at it in
my fridge and I

couldn't not bring it
for you."

I have to tell you,
this woman put
the fear of God

into me for a while
when I started, whether
it be that my

shoes were wrong
or I made the
salad wrong.

I worked
very very
very hard

this year
to be accepted
by the best

of the best. Maybe
that sounds
silly to some people

but I can't even
begin to tell you
how many times

I've quietly smiled
over the thought she
gave me with

just a can of pop.

Sometimes,
no matter how small
something might seem

somewhere else, to
someone else

it might just give them
something to be
quiet and

happy
about.

Never
underestimate
that

truth.

Do you remember
the part where I
didn't break?

Do you remember
the part
where I did?

Do you remember
when I walked away

or when elsewhere,
and otherwise I
held on?

Did I not paint my
nails fancy enough or
was I just too

smart?

Was my name too
simple and were

my hips

too awkward?

Do you know that I
have Two Face's coin
that I flip

like a fucking maniac
between my
knuckles and with

my thumb because
that's just the
sort of girl that I

grew into. Flip
happy. Do you
read this because you

still wonder
what it means
to understand

me?

Did
you
ever?

Who covered
your mouth for
all of those years

and why
did it make you
put your hands

all over
mine?

My lists are
funny these days
they say things like

"breathe"
"stretch"
"smile"

"pay your rent"
"brush your hair."
"remember

to understand
that you are just
as unique as you

are
exactly
the goddamn
same.

Celebrate
balance. Avoid
strobe lights

and people
that spend time
under them.

Cuddle.
Run.
Walk.

Remember
to be

worthy
of every line
of ecstatic

simple
truth.

Keep memory
simple because
all that shit is

really only what
your head makes it
anyway.

Today I'm just
fucking tired. Dude.
It's three in the morning

and I can't sleep
or pick up a paint brush.

So I'm just rambling,
in search of

some inclination
of progress but
today I guess

for now it's just
Hope.

"The sky is peach
and nothing has
a lot of color

because
the only color
is sonic light.

The beings
that exist have

a perpetual
moving

light in a
color pattern.

This makes up
their tangible
shape. There are

trees. I hope
I see you there
someday

too.I hope I see
you there covered

in sonic light and
we will laugh about
having human

bodies. Family
on this planet
is really

just a lottery
like system, based
upon

what you decide
to come here
to learn.

You chose
your parents.

You chose to lose
your light in place
of a body

to be here -
in order

to "experience"
on a physical
emotional

realm and
someday,

when you get
there before me,
make sure that I

see the peach
colored sky

in my dreams
and that I

will
know
where to find you."

Some days
I wake up from

sleep that
brought me there,

with a precise
idea for a
piece of art

that I cannot
quite comprehend

how to make.

I forget how to live
sometimes when I realize
that it's four thirty
eight and I have to

put my nylons and
skirt back on and
go to work.

The thought
sickens me.

Not because I'm
not grateful it's
because I cannot

for the life of me
grasp
balance.

I'm the sort that
needed the level
of chaos of which

I have lived
because I must
equally match that
with an exquisite

caliber of
order. I'm just
not there yet

some days
not at
all.

I don't slip off -
I often court

disaster. Today
being one of those
swift face slaps of

"You are not
paying
attention."

There is always
though

an end in
sight In some

order or
chaos or

another. I crave
order but I
only know

how to lose
the self of which
is mine that I

often cannot stand
to chaos.

Battle battle
shatter

splat.

I crave marlorobos and
gin like any twenty
eight year old girl

would.

When did I
become a person
that doesn't

sit at bars and
light cigarettes? I tried
to put myself into that

picture today, to see
myself as that person
today, but I
can't.

I can only feel it -
like thirst where

comfort is not
available. My dog is
all tangled in my
headphones as I

cradle her in my arms.
When she nods off I
take a bite of Cherry
Garcia, which, I swear

I remember as being
pink in color. She
is this amazing little

creature, who I got
to watch
grow so much bigger
so fast.

I work about a seventeen
hour day in five
hours. I believe Harmon

thinks I'm ill
because of how much
I sleep but

I checked with my
co workers and they
reminded me that

our job
is in season.

Sometimes it's like
I'm trying to teach
the whole world

about what the
whole world
really is.

Other days
I'm just trying
not to pick

up and I
don't know what
the balance is

in all of
that.

He is one of
the people I
adore the most

in my life.

On Monday,
I cried.

Cried my eyes out
and told a group
of people

how shit high
I wanted to get.

"I don't call
any of you
people anyway.

What's the point?
Two years it's all
of this time sober and
I don't even know

how to focus
and fucking act.

I'm like Harvey Dent
with this duality.
If you peeled back

all of these girl
parts you would see
a contrast

that you wouldn't
want to
look at."

And that day, he
gave me a hug, the
way he always does -

with his arms spread
out far in front of him
so we don't touch.

"I have something
for you, will I see you
on Thursday?"

So today came and
he pulled me aside,

he said
"After all of the
crystals and
things you have
given me,

I wanted to
make sure
that I got to give

something to you."

Phillip gave me
Harvey Dent's

original coin,
used in the
Batman Forever

production. I didn't
ask him

how he got it.
He only made me promise
never to

pawn it.

So I did, and after
that I marveled

at what a charmed
charmed

little life
that some days

I have.

The answers
to the questions
point the circle

outward - it's
a crooked
golden brick line.

I sleep too much
but there isn't sight
of this

anyway.
Did you ever make
it so far that you

forgot where you
started and what
you wanted? How

lost have you
gotten? What is
the circumference

of the circle measured
in meters? What kind

of shoes did you
buy for the journey
and what did you

replace the inside
of the box with?

Beatrice plays
the piano just the
same. Glass

box

doll. I remember
that young type
of love -

drunk on an
expressway when I
used that word/

the postal service
singing and I'm paying
an

astronomical toll.
It was winter and

there were zombie
flicks on TV. I

wish I
could remember
what I thought

when I was that age
where I
thought I was safe

but not good
enough for those
rooms with all of those

unusual shoes,
half off sangria pitchers,
shit pizza and

promoters.

Today the responsibility
of which I have chosen
for this life

looms over me.

"Coming into an
awareness" some might
say.

Because walking
with my eyes shut
tight

in the same circle
is starting to make
that path

too deep to get
out of. I found
my identity,

she shattered
like a piece of
glass show

fruit and I live
within that picture

as if nothing
ever

altered.

This is a very
short
period
in time

where an
enviornment
is provided

to experience
dualities of love

with hurt and
loss with "have."

Fear was never a
part of the plan,

fear was primarily
introduced as
caution however

now we are coated
in fear
as a result of
the machine that owns

the media in the name
of sales.

The planet was sold
and the revolution
is sinking. Three

weeks ago our
right to the fourth
amendment

was surrendered,
signed off
in a bill dubbed

"indefinite detention."

Hey! Military officials
can come to your house
and arrest you

and you will not have
a right to due process
or a trial.

The environment on
this planet was provided
as a cosmic playground

for spiritual growth except
cosmic law,

that's the shit that
holds the universe
together,

has been all but
discarded.

Here I am, living
in a time where
the very best

(highest vibration)

of humans functions
along with the

very worst
(lowest vibration)

and make up one
single organism.

Gaia. Which is being
destroyed.

Are you one of
those two hundred
thousand or so

watching the
noises in the night
on youtube?

Harmon sits
behind me in
shock.

"It's coming."
I say.

"You should
really let

people into
who you are."

He says back.

Penelope
snores

in disapproval
of it

all.

During this walk
the sun was just
coming up - that

awkward dim of
the sunlight just
as it rises.

Covered in mud
limping
and confused about

what had just
taken place. I don't
remember what if

any amount of
blood there was.
Just a baseball bat

and a swamp and
my lungs
burning.
It was cold

and I walked right
back up into the house
of the person

that left me there
laid down in bed
next to him - I moved

only to rip off
the once white
shirt.

I had picked it out
to wear for my
senior pictures.

I never made it
to those photos.

I never made it
to the prom.

I never made it to
graduation.

But I made it right
back up there
in his bed - he didn't

even move or say
a word. I was just
the dead walking

anyway. What
was the difference

between silence
and noise?

Segments of
it being halloween and
the next memory

is valentines day
because that's how
long the run

of speed lasted.

I did everything
but kill myself
to forget him.

To ignore those
imprints. To not
have to say

how I had been beat,
and left, and how

my family
and everybody else
around me

ignored it.

Not today.

Today I am happy
to watch him

wait tables
listlessly in

between jail
times

in the town
of which's streets

I visit
once a year.

You had
your life

coming,

mother fucker
and today

as I write out
everything you
ever did to me

so I can finally
let it all go

that
fact
sure makes me
smile

"My God this planet
is so over populated."

Under my breath
it's loud in my head
walking through a

packed events center.

I went to see Tool
last night. The reason being
that if I asked

the man that I love
to do something for me,

like basically,
anything imaginable,
no matter how much

he didn't want to,
he would, with a smile.

Working relationship is
a machine of compromise
and for
the past year we've

been together I've
refused on all shows.

Because I'd rather be
picking out what dress
I'll wear in my casket or

getting a needle removed
from my eye.

I used to get fucked up
every night of my life

at shows because I
didn't fit in, and I didn't
want to be there,

so I just started drinking,
and when wasted, it was
fun and it mattered,

until, everything that did
didn't exist because it
was replaced

with that.

"Lighten up." I've heard it
well since I was twenty five
but I
don't wear that. I don't own

that phrase, because I'd
rather be who I am
then a person enlightened

by the pretty LED wall
graphics, surrounded
by dancing bafoons

that throw beer
wearing faded black
denim and eyebrow rings

for fun.
Music.

Art within a constant
crisis of the ego but
isn't it all.

Lately I want to get
high as a kite and
that's the truth.

Listen to like
loud music and be
out of it enough
think it has something

to do
with existing
and wake up

four years later
like I'm twenty one
only I'm

twenty five and
lost because it wasn't
ever real.

I get really weird
about what "fun"
even means.

All I did at that
screaming metal show
was close my eyes

and watch
all of the suns
set.

Lightwaves
from

here.

I drink
coffee at
midnight after work.

I believe
that someday,
somewhere far

different from here,
genuine kindness,
wholeness and
selflessness -

will give entities
of existence the
power and adoration

that on this
current Earth is reserved
for beauty and monetary
wealth.

My Grandmother was a woman
with blonde hair named
Earlene.

She had tons of costume
jewelry and she loved
Owls, peach roses, and

she drank coffee
the way that I do -
constantly.

She died when I
was a little girl. Sometimes
though I swear

it's like she never left.
I have a knack for knowing
the people that died better

then the ones in my life
that are living.

Once, I gave somebody
a gift.

She is their daughter
and she likes costume
jewelry and owls

too.

I believe that the moon
is infected
with the same virus

as this planet.

The same virus that
has us beating women
and texting

our friends how much we
fucking hate
people. The virus that

makes you think
eating a double double
feeds your body. I believe

that the moon
lived once just as
the organism Gaia,

but it didn't make it
and now, like a dandelion
skeleton, it hangs

in the sky. The moon
is masculine energy, not
feminine. The books

are written wrong.
You.

Wrote me wrong.

But anyway.

I believe that for much
of my adult life I kept

a poster that said
I WANT TO BELIEVE

on my walls.
I rolled that poster
up the other day,

smiling to myself,
because only I
could understand it -

how I always
wanted to believe

and how I've finally
come to believe so I

roll that poster up
and tell you a few things
about myself

to sift through the
time and find one
that stuck out

and spoke to
somebody off over
there

elsewhere.

When I was a little girl
I wanted to be
Sandra D.

Specifically, to
have her waist,
with that red belt
in a leather cat suit

outfit thing at the
end of the movie,

where she completely
morphs herself
and her beliefs

to be
with a man.

I also wanted to
step on John Travolta
in a carnival fun house,

wearing red
stilhettos.

As a child I was often
obsessed with what
I would look like

when I grew up.
Fixated on what I
would weigh and if

people would think
I was as pretty
as the women

on television. I
would often daydream
that I'd grow up

beautiful, and everybody
that ever ignored me
would see me

and regret it.
My hair; perfect,
clothing, shocking.

I would be wanted
and a gypsy
that never wanted

anybody or anything
from anybody in return.

Within the conversations
I have with my child self,
very often when I'm
driving I turn to her and say

"You cannot see me but,
I grew up beautiful in a way
that is so much more special

than the girl in the
cat suit walking the fun
house on television.

You will know how to alter
your voice to make the
people around you

feel as if you are present
with them
and that they matter, weather

you're ordering
coffee or sharing your life
experience.

You will be wild, for a
while, and you will even
have a latex cat suit, that you

will wear in a funhouse
in the desert, with a self
awareness

that no makeup or
waist line could buy,
that no television could

ever tell you
exists. You will far

outgrow
your life

a number of times,
and when drunk men
at your job ask what

your name is
your reply will be

"Hell. My name is Hell."
And they will laugh
nervously because the

skirt and hair and
makeup and shoes
make hell
look so tremendously
true.

Beauty is temporary.
The ability to be genuine
is not and now

I am at an age
where I try to realize
that the day will come

that I will not be
the person in the room
that people turn to see.

The child sitting in the
car with me so often
will still be there though

and also with her in
twenty years, the
person that sits here

today. I wonder
then

what I will say
to the twenty eight year
old spirit of myself.

You are so wildly alive
when you pace about
our room at six in the
morning,

calling the dog to
eat breakfast, with
your beard growing out

of your still chiseled
face and your hair,
blonde, rivaling

Medusa's snakes in
a flurry of non
direction.

It isn't so much how
you un warp my
straw or hold my

hand at breakfast
with just your

fingertips,
or how you build me
canvas or the way you

fall asleep when I
read you RMK. It's not
how you water the

plants when I
forget or the way
that you make

tuna salad
meticulously
for hours.

It was your voice
that I first knew
I loved, and how

afraid I was
to let you love me.
Everything else

just got in line
and followed.

The fear and
conflict and all of
those voices

that told me
what would happen
were wrong.

An orbit around the
sun later and I
wake up to you gone

taking Penelope
to breakfast, and I
miss you, but smile

at the small half
conversations
we have when I walk

in from work
well into the
dark morning.

I love you and our
baby Penelope and
our house and the

rocks and plants.

You are a man
that gave me
an art studio and

taught me
how to hard boil
eggs and I love

you in this gold
sun morning and I'm
grateful

for the voices
that are my own
that I listened to

instead. Because
there is not
fear here just a

hug and a cup
of coffee doesn't
change color

when you put in
the cream.

Strong.

It was that
midwest rip in the
freezing weather
finally, around March.

It was warm and I had
new red dye in my hair,

ripped capri pants,
and a sparkly scarf.

I basically spent that
spring in therapy and
shopping for myself,

or getting my hair done,
or buying rocks.

This guy and I had broken up
and I had decided,

if I ended up with a
shit head like that
because of what drinking

my meals and
hours away

did to my decisions,
I should really
do myself a favor

and begin to re evaluate
what the fuck I really
thought was acceptable

for my life.

It's like a trip to the moon,
where something so fucking
stupid happens that you're just

finally done. It's funny,
for me, the bottom
wasn't torching

glass pipes with
one of the sixteen
house blow torches.

It wasn't waking up
on the Blue Line
covered in blood
and spit.

It wasn't
being pulled
into a dumpster at
sunlight.

It wasn't standing
over my boyfriend's
casket or his

little brothers
casket
a year later.

It wasn't catching
my fall
with my face

in front of twenty
club rats and putting
my hands to their

throats. A real life
Sissy Spacek as
Carrie.

No. My bottom
was when I went to
re invent myself

and survive only -
my problems were
the only part of myself

that stayed. No matter who
and what I shape shifted as,
it was all

the exact same. It was in
the spring of 2009, and
this total loser

said I was a fucking lunatic
and dumped me because
filming a behing the music

for ZZ Top
was more important
than assuring me that

I mattered.

Today I respect
his path, because from
his I was given

mine. I remember a
day when I had first
stopped drinking.

I paced up and down
the line of the restaurant
I worked in sixty seven
times.

I became obsessed
with somebody
that enjoyed ignoring me

completely, but I went
to the beach
by myself

often and I lived
out that phase of
being sick and sad and

desperate but
knowing better.

Above all I
knew better. It took

years to act better.

Sometimes though these
Petty songs make me
smell that spring

midwest air. I have
come so far I swear
to God but it's still

just me and this
chair with this
screen and

all ten dozen
eleventy milion
of me and who

and what and
where I've been
and gone and re
visited to just to

leave
again.

Last night she
showed me hilarious
pictures from her life

as a club kid in
Hollywood during
the early

nineteen nineties.
Today she has
chin length

blonde hair, big
blue eyes and a
loud laugh that

inhibits.
In the picture her
hair is black,
she wears white

contact lenses and
pink blush around
her eyes.

Fishnet tights and
black and white ten
inch moon boots,

this is the girl
that didn't cover
the spider tattoos

on her shoulder blades
like she does
today.

We cackle
like coyotes

at the photos.

"Badger it's
too bad you don't
drink anymore."

She says. I know
that her and I would
have a great

friendship, going out
to everywhere and
gabbing over martinis.

I think she is interesting
and hilarious and good
company.

But I've had hundreds
of girlfriends
just like her.

Chicks to sit
at the bar with
which makes for a hell
of a facebook friend count.

But I don't know
any of them today

except for their
names and the city
they live in and which

4:00 bar they go to
after last call from the
one they're at.

Sometimes
I'm in a place where

I realize that I don't
know a goddamn thing
about how to have

relationships.

I am generally
at my best, alone
in front of a screen

with Penelope,
my dachshund puppy
curled in my lap

like a dreaming
bunt cake.

"It gets lonely"

I was always taught.

I would never accept
myself as a person
sitting at a bar or

going to a club
in my spare time

because I enjoy it.
I refuse to live in
circles but it's painful

to see so clearly
through myself through
everybody

else.

"Somebody
is here
to see you."

One of my bosses
says.

This is never
good. Because I
don't ever

want or appreciate
anybody
coming into my work

to watch me
be a waitress.

I am a different
person amongst those
walls.

Calm and pretty,
poised and fast.

Whitty, charming,
and I'm not allowed
to not

smile, let alone
want to cut

anybody's throat
or eye socket

out.

Breaking the masks
into each other

is simply not
my idea of a nice
visit.

My eyes fall to her
and I cannot help but
let out a gasp.

"Are you ok?"
The suit asks.

"Yes. Just
fine."

But there she sits.
I do a lap before
greeting her,

with a smile,
and a hello

because that
is what I do at work.

It is my job
to be friendly.

"Why don't you
tell all of those girls
up there

to learn your name?"

Her raspy voice
says to me in a bark.

"How are you?" I ask
with a big
wide smile, because
people are watching and

that is my job.

I give her a hug.
She tells me she is
unwell and the cat
has died.

"Unfortunate."

I can't muster up
comfort.

"How are you?" She
asks and I
just stop and feel
my face

get real for a
minute.

"Good. Everything
is good. Just
fine. I can't

actually be standing
at this bar right now.
I'm very sorry. I will

call you tomorrow."

I walk away
the only way I walk
there

quickly.

The suit told me
later, how she came
into the place,

asking for a girl
with a green bug car
from Chicago and that

she can't remember
what my name was.

And that's
fucking typical.

Some days, it's all
pretty fucking

typical.

I spin my venti
paper starbucks cup
around with my left

hand - checking
the internet on
my phone, which
in all of it's

vastness, can really
say

nothing

a lot.

A group of
fifteen bikers
with their young
kids and wives

take up much
of the front
of the store.

I'm not nervous I'm
just

excited. Within a
few minutes she
comes into the door.

Tall, glasses, with
blonde hair and a
smile she is

my home so much
of the time.

My eyes fill
with tears that I
try to cover up as

she gets in line to
get a coffee after
we hug.

A man asks if he can sit
at our table because there
isn't anywhere else

to go. "Of course."
I say.

When she comes back
she is taken aback
at the man sitting

at the table. She says
nothing though as we
start a conversation.

The man kept to himself.
I wanted to turn to him
and say

"Hi. I am the birth mother
to this woman's daughter.

She was the only person
that sat with me
while I was in labor

ten years ago. That's
pretty fucking amazing,
isn't it?"

So often we miss
the miracles

all around us just
for me that wasn't

this morning. You know as
an addict I have the same
outrageous story

of losing myself as
millions of others.

Oh, the grandiosity and
glamour of fucking up
as a mortal on Earth, how

captivating - I'd have a
trend stream on twitter in
place of a blood stream - cutting

plastic holes into
my face that look sexy
behind a blurry lens.

I will never
be anything
if the story is told

about the parts of my
shadow I hand select.

"I cannot write
the book and tell
the story because

the story is about
the light. It is of
the light and I

am not all the way
there yet. I am in
the infancy

of my wellness and this
speaks in volumes for
what is to

follow. "I believe
Carrie and you
are the only

person that has seen it
clearly. In this whole world

just you... my
other mother."

I drove home up
the 215 in the sun,

smiling at how
someday I

will have the most
astronomically
best selling novel

of all time - and the
best part, the first

page, in italics just
the words

for carrie

I wonder sometimes
who reads this. The opinions
formed by the people

that I don't know as
a result, or that
only know me in passing -

modern style like from
my facebook pictures
because you know somebody

that knew me once. Or you
knew me once.

I pretend often that I'm
writing to everybody and
that everybody is really

just a figment of my
imagination and possibly
just an idea in my head -

The audience
no longer exists and
I'm not sure

if that's the order

of if that's

the

chaos.

It's slightly awe
inspiring. When I get to
sit at home and

have a cry over a
video about
Burning Man.

I cried because
"Burning Man"

is not "Home" to me.
It is merely a tiny
inclination

of what life
in other places
in the universe

is really like.
I cried because
I am from somewhere

far greater
than any number
of Burns

combines.

Here people get
a personality and
emotions to go

with the Earth body
and
we are brought up

in this physical
Earth Body realm
of experience

in order to advance
a soul of light far
beyond my comprehension.

This is basic
knowledge. Writing it

to those that don't
understand it
just sounds crazy, like I'm

Maria in the
Counting Crows video
Round Here.

The more you
learn - Be careful who and
what you say to what and

who is what
I have been taught.

You will be so alone
is what I have been

taught. And I understand
this.

I am amongst a species
so advanced with it's scuds
and nukes and tracking devices
that we have no fucking

idea where we come from
or where we're going and
evolution is an ape followed

by a question mark - it's
laughable. But I love
the scientists and artists,

the soul dancers and the
bored girls selling candy
behind a local counter.

I love the tortured and
the young, the ones dying in
beige Toyota Camerys in

the same traffic
pattern every day because

they think life has passed.
I love the lost sprites that
wear hippy headbands and

knee high boots. I love
the bosses and the slaves,
the engineers and the ones

that think
they are the most
alone.

I love the killers and
the murdered, the runners

and the stuck of all
ages. For my spirit,

being on Earth
is parallell

with living
in Las Vegas.

It's a small dirty town
in the midst of a downward
landslide. Where people

make money off of
every aspect of
shadow but

the sun
is the most bright
and gold in the morning

too. Because I had to
learn to teach myself
to see it that way.

I am not from here.
I will not stay here.

But it will matter.
It will matter and I

will learn.

Gold morning sun on
sea foam green sheets
to match the dust covered

feather fire wig.

Hush darling with that
sun kissed face - like a
tangerine dream or a

kalidascope of filthy
diamonds - wicked candy
teeth for those putty

red lips and an extended
pointer finger - chugging
chardonnay without a
vintage in a

sparkly gray scarf - the
bathroom
is filthy it carries
the decision lost in

puffed out face powder
staining a crimson couch.

Silky red hair it was in
curlers all morning until

the meth that kept her
waist the right size picked up
her hand and shaved her head.

Glamour figurines and
barbies with ratted hair
get just as listless
as each other, with

different prices
they were all

used in
play.

Sometimes I walk in
catacombs of
nightclub hallways

trying to get through
people to a velvet rope
that becomes a noose

in the end of the dream.
Looking down from a
balcony at everything I

allowed myself to lose
and I

wake up to the real
light

to the gold
morning sun

wearing three feet
of exquisite real hair

that grew out as I
grew up.

None of us
are not

scared and I
am married to

my fear today. It
impressed me with a

seven carat ring.
I scrape it
along my cheek

every five seconds.
It makes me fancy and
impressive but always

wondering when
I get to leave it
in a bathroom

I wait in line for
at a fast food
restaurant.

In a ripped leather
coat in a tiny boarder
town,

where I shave my
head again

just before
crossing

over.

Like a good mommy I
took her to the vet today.

Thought a lot about
being a kid and taking
my childhood dog, also

a dachshund, to the vet
when she was a tiny puppy.

Today I have on faded
ripped denim and a
Chicago Bears hoodie,

generic ugg boots and my
hair is too long and in
my dog's mouth.

Sometimes I transcend time -
I swear it. Was I the intimidated,
bored child

holding the nervous, screeching
dachshund in 1991 or is it
twenty twelve and I'm an

adult holding a snoozing,
calm dog of the same breed

in my lap? I have to go back
every day sometimes in order
to talk to myself

as a child
as an adolescent
as a young adult

in order to move on and
appreciate the authenticity
of each moment - created by

the choices that are the right
ones - the choice to bring
myself closer in order to learn

who and what
that is.

I love it in this step,
my grand ringmaster,
you are and all that you

did to me, to make me
believe that I

wasn't a person, or a
place or even a
thing.

After you, I spent all
of my time trying to fill
all that I wasn't

with people and
places and

things.

Ill fitted choking out
sour pills in a sparkly
dress -

fried hair and
lights.

My life is Tom Petty
today on a freeway
with my dog.

Amazed I made it.
Wondering if I

ever will. I catch
seventy two minute
intervals of

balance, like a
maniac in a fantasy

where I can only
walk out

of the doors I've
stepped into

decades of lifetimes
farther off.

Phobic
of watches and

all the mirrors are
cracked for years now.

Sometimes I think I've
died and I kept living
in a parallel universe

where I didn't, but
somewhere
back there

I'm already gone.
People are mourning
me and I don't even

know it. But sometimes,
like deja vu, for an instant
it all balances

and I see
what I feel. In a
vet clinic

with paper work
and ripped jeans and

love.

Maybe I should write on
fear because I'm on one
or two or sixty hundred

eleven with fear such as
how I am afraid to get
a massage - I couldn't

tell you why but I
can think of a million
reasons to avoid

even doing that at all.
I fear success

because I don't know
why or how to
control it.

I fear that the road
less traveled is
endless subjective

to myself. I fear I
wil not go back to
where I am from

when I die, and that
I will be stuck here.

I fear being fat.
I fear my hair thinning.
I fear going out to paint

a canvas because all
it will do is tell me
how much I want a
cigarette.

I fear my boyfriend
dropping dead - at an
In & Out burger, in Bullhead City,
Arizona,

because I walk out of the
bathroom, and he is gone
but his truck is not so that

clearly
is the explaination
my head
first falls
to.

I fear loss, cavities,
paper cuts. I fear getting
a disease that is terminal.

That I live through anyway
and pay for with a
hospital finance plan
for the rest

of my life. I fear
driving
in weather that isn't
clear sun.

I fear runs in my nylons
at work when I don't have
a spare

pair.

I fear having to stab
a person to death
if they follow me

long enough through
the parking garage
to make me believe
that I should defend
myself.

I worry
I will be
forgotten.

I fear staying.
I fear leaving.
I fear that drinking

starbucks every day
for the past decade
has ruined

my teeth.

I fear I will never see
the pyramids or my
spirit.

I fear sticking
my best stickers
to something

that I will lose or
that will lose
me.

I fear losing my
garage card, debit card,
passport. I fear

credit card payments
at my job.

I fear my mother never
knowing that I didn't
leave

because of
her.

I fear how fucking
fantastic
a sapphire gibson up
sounds and I fear

the tape I have
that plays out
what happens to my life

when I solve my feelings
with gin.

I fear all politicians based
upon how cartoon like
their features are. The more

comic they look, the more
dangerous.

I fear zombies, zombie shows,
zombie movies, and my
zombie self. Which is the version
of who I am

without a spirit.

I fear that my dog
will grow up to hate me,
get hit by a car,

eat something
and drop dead
also.

I fear change and
eating breakfast
every day.

I fear that nobody
will ever know me
and that

my story
won't matter.

I fear the size of my
hips and how gross
the blisters on my feet
are.

I fear that I will
never again be as
beautiful as I never

realized until now
that I was
in the past. I fear
I am fading, and that

she was right. I am so
good at fearing that I

will never accomplish
anything, that it makes
it easier

to control what I will not
ever accomplish, and whine
about it then to step

again, as always,
into the clear bright
void of "I have no
the fuck

idea."

All that fear - like a
ten tier wedding cake
that I almost knocked

over with a box of
lettuce at work
the other night.

Splat.

What is alarming,
is that I do not fear
the day

that the sky will rain
fire.

In the deep middle
of nowhere yesterday,
with my eyes narrowed

I pointed to a dropping
chem trail in the bright
sky.

"Do you see that?"

Witch like, I point.

"I am not afraid
of the day

that the sky
will be full of fire
like that. And I

am not afraid
of the day that every
plant starts to

die right before
the shifts. It's a
crooked grin

that says
"It will not be like
those oil spills, where it
is printed, reported, and
forgotten. It will be

like your zombie shows,
where everything
is dead around us.

It is the required
order that I know
I chose at birth

to live through."

He knows
how I talk

when we're hundreds
of miles into the
mountains.

Where reality is
abrasive and waring
thin and it is all

as clear as each
crystal that keeps

me.

Sometimes it's like
I'm not saying
a goddamn thing.

I'm not that ex porn star
that is going to med school.

I'm not that addict that
kicked in a dumpster
and is now

a lawyer with a
best seller.
I didn't save anybody's
life and I don't write

savvy, inspirational shit
for fortune five hundred
companies about how great

we have it here at life.

I'm not hip in New York City
with an apartment I never
go to because I'm on

a book tour, and I'm not
art chic enough to be
anybody you would watch

on a street. I don't live
on the beach and I
dye my own hair, and

sometimes, when I see
these women writers
that write it all - that

write careers out of their work
I want to just cry

like the gumball machine
ate my quarter, and I am
five.

I really
should quit

the internet.

And actually the dots
are fuzzy where they
get loud like thunder
snow in a

bleak gray winter
of sitting on a couch
placed on a curb

five feet down
from the bus nobody
placed a call for

to cancel. It was a
high rise of sorts,
over a used appliance

warehouse. I was either
drunk or lighting candles
or digging out my car or

getting kicked out of
the corner store down the
street because

the owners Russian
wife thought I was
trying to fuck him.

Come to think of it,
there aren't winters I
even like to think about
at all.

Except maybe this one,
where I walk around in shorts,
bringing my boyfriend and
my dog out to pizza and to the

giant park. I love Penelope
because she doesn't
have to ever know

how good she really
has it. I'll never leave her

in a cage for a week and
I don't hang out with people
that would shoot her or

hit her. I am simply
the enemy

because I will not
share my pizza.

I hope my life seems
quite, as that is what
I have learned

to work for.

Everything I look back at
seems the exact same in
so many mirrored regards -

so may pixels and lights
just where

the thunder has all
faded and the snow

that falls on kids
in love just doesn't

show up
in either skies

any way
any how, or any

more. No matter what
the temperature or

time zone. Places

are always the same
and so are most

people.

I am the divided. The
one that learned the
trick of dying while still

staying alive
in order to be

re born.

I wrote that
on a piece of paper

for my friend
today. Winked and
walked away

as I heard him
unfold the note.

I am not the sort
for a glittery dress and
curls in my hair

on a packed floor
somewhere - at an
expensive dinner table

somewhere, with a
drink in my hand
somewhere

for when it turns
midnight again.

I've never been impressed
by cheering or
fireworks, and I actually

don't like noise - especially
when made
by paper products

assembled in a country
I never learned about.

I don't like parties or
crowds as they make me
uncomfortable.

For the new year I
worked
myself

stupid. A five hundred
dollar night, not the best

but not bad.

I saw all sorts of people -
bored people, happy people,
people that couldn't
believe where they were and

who they were with. People that
bitched about tuna and
people that were beautiful and

well dressed and fancy,
with real smiles.

My job is a window
into my very own world.

I cannot stand
New Years Eve. I got

beaten up
pretty badly one year
and so I make sure I work

so that I can forget
about the hope I had
for that night, and about

what really happened.

Like I was just a teenager
in a glittery dress
with curls

in my hair.

This morning my feet
are covered in blisters

just the same
as they would be

if I were that girl
instead. The past is void.

It actually doesn't matter.
None of it matters.

What matters is my inept
ability to feel

the things that got dressed up,
trashed, and high over feeling

for my entire adult life.

(Adult. Had to think about
that for a second.)

My feelings matter,
the past does not, and

sometimes, on a roof top
staring silently at fireworks,

I choose to just be grateful
for my own still silence
in a yelling crowd

that I can feel
at all.