Conversations Among the Ruins

Valentines day is always a strange time to me. Likely, I'm working a monster shift, full of extra tables and featured drinks - red colored. It always made me sad in the past that I wasn't a fancy girl in a tight dress eating steak and lobster. This year was no different, as I trudged to work after kissing my love goodbye with a frown.

I went to Starbucks and got my venti four shot iced coffee, 3 pumps raspberry and two inches of cream. It reminds me of a place that's a million years away and besides, it's pink and festive. "Where did you hear of this?" The barista asks.

"I worked in a coffee shop. They had them, they were called coffee coolers. You can do them with any flavored syrup."

Today I am blessed with the ability to just keep it short. It's all a long story, that Thank God I don't have to tell the barista at Starbucks today.

I got clean the day before Valentines day and proceeded to work the worst waitress shift I've ever had. Where I walked in to eight tables that were mine that weren't regularly there, so nobody knew any of the numbers.

A few days after that my friend Heather was murdered. By her husband. We went to the services and everybody was going out for cocktails. I told them I had to just go home and slinked away.

Two years later and I acccept that I will, for the rest of my life, one day at a time, be in the process of learning what it is to "feel" in human life, instead of "get a cocktail" in order not to.

I woke up with my valentine and our littlest valentine (Penelope) yesterday wedged between us. We slept all day. Well I wrote in my notebook and Harmon slept next to me.

"Before I go to work I have to shine my shoes, shave, do my hair, put on my suit in order to be entirely ready."

Entirely ready.

Those words have stuck with me this week. I didn't see pretty women in tight dresses that I'd never be like last night. I saw people beaming they were so happy to be having a nice dinner together with each other. Dudes have long mac if they're taking their ladies out to my work, and I was happy for those women, because they deserve that. Everybody does.

I got home at about one and in the dark on top of my computer was a big russle stover box of chocolates.

So I cuddled Penelope and my love and smiled quietly, they way you do to yourself in the dark.

Do you remember
that kind of love where
you put on that song

"Ice cream" and just
smile.

Where you kiss slow
in a bed of stuffed
animals on a floor

in the bedroom
of my adolescent
self.

I never knew
how to cry even
though none of them

ever loved me
back as much as I
thought I

loved them.

Love told me it was a
party
and a split

hit.

Love told me it was a
boy crying
against a wall

and telling me
that I could
be

so much
better.

Love told me it was a
walk
on a beach

and a bottle of
vodka under a
blurry

strobe light.

Love told me it was a
slow motorcycle
ride to breakfast

on an orange
fall morning and I

never knew how to
cry but
love told me it would

teach me that and
she did.

Love was a woman
sitting at my kitchen
table with me

for six hours
and taking me to
the airport because

she liked to
talk to me.

Love believed in
me and love

forced me to
walk away in order
to learn

the order.

Love taught me that
she is a little girl

in the middle of two
hundred barbies,

handing me a gem
from her treasure chest.

She is almost nine years old and
Love's eyes are very deep

brown.

Love is a ten hour drive
to as far as nowhere
in the desert

takes us.

Hand in hand with
my head

on that shoulder.

Love is in the
crystals. and if Love

didn't ever teach me
what it was to cry

with every dropped pin
of my being,

I would have never
learned

any contrasting
feeling.

Love is a little red
dog with a light pink
collar.

Love is trying and
all I have is

light
anyway. It's dim
on this planet

because I have to
worry about groceries
and

cell phone reception but
I promise you
that someday the way

that trees bend
into light

will talk to you and
tell you

the reason for all of
this pain.

"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.

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.

I see the fear
radiating out of me
as I stare

not listlessly
enough
at the fridge.

"Harmon."

"Yes Rock?"

"If I die tomorrow
will you wear
the pastel

cheetah
colored scarf

to my funeral?"

I hear the noise
of whatever he is
putting away in
in the kitchen

stop.

"Yes Rock."

I cuddle
deeper into

the giant bed,
on my back, my
neck propped up.

Gaze around
the room.

"Harmon if you die when I
leave, I will make sure
to tell everyone

how you made me think
every cat
in the neighborhood

really liked you,
when really
you were just feeding them
cans of tuna

after I left
to work."

"I'm not going to die Rock."
"People would laugh
a much needed laugh."

"You should stop
doing this
to yourself."

"Do you remember
the first time I showed you
Kalliope? How I said,

when I die, you have
to bury her
with me? I'd want you
to keep her

and give her to Olivia
instead, someday
when she is my age

now, and you
are a very old man."

"Rock, did you see
in Michele's
casket today?"

"I did not. I didn't
walk up there."

"The crystal ball
you gave Michael,
Michelle's

boyfriend. He put it
next to her
in the casket, so it

could be by her
for a little bit
longer."

"He's burying
the stone with her?"

I panic.

"No he just wanted it
by her. He wants
to meet you

when you get
back to talk about
how to take care

of the crystal.

Because you will
get back,

and we will both
be here

living our life
again - in just

a few short days.
With coffee and
cheeseburgers

and the couch.

(he hates
that couch.)

"I left Arizona
late

for a flight.

And I didn't
look

around the house.
I didn't realize

I'd never
go back. Today,
I don't remember

what that house
looked like. I can only
feel it and today

I went to a funeral
and tomorrow

I'm getting on a plane
and I just

worry
that some drastic
life altercation

will occur - because
I'm happy and I

love you and I
love my life here and

my biggest fear
is losing that life

as a result of reasons
utterly beyond

my choice or
control."

He wraps
his arms
around me

as I

cry, void of
tangible reason
and

strength - just

acting out
instead of acting like
I know

better.