90/365 : the opposite of dissociation

convince the tortured crevices
of my maniacal memories
to loosen and start anew

turn me robin's egg ribbon
laced through innocent locks
in the sunlight
of your high class loft

tie me up in honest love
child laughter, pitter patter play
say, whatever you want is 
what i want, baby
as you pounce on me, hungry
and harmless

89/365 : the smell of fear

my pixilated negative
balancing on nothing
but luck and the
anxious hot plastic hum
of survival running on plugs

88/365 : the smell of safety

my father's change jar
and my tiny hands
reaching in
for the quarters
that never ever run out

87/365 : how i burned burned burned in the rain

his phone number
and name--

a scribble of destiny
inside a match book
inside my pocket
as i walked
down to the creek
burned my dreams
wet my hair
stared into a cloudy sky
watched it cry
cleanse
clean me
of what i thought i needed

86/365 : there must be a god

there's a bruise around your ass, he says
just at the bottom of your tailbone

it happened three months ago, she says
just as i decided to leave home

he plays harmonica on the hole of her brokenness
she laughs and kiss-tugs the sheets inside her fists

he improvs piano

she moans and lets go, says,

pound the notes, honey

i'm ready to dance

85/365 : lies

trauma lies
at the base of my
spine
sputtering
bad
bad
bad
girl

84/365 : your compass is yours and yours alone

quiet now
quit your bocking
let your body stack sharp and directional
lips spitting yes like an arrow-head
headed home

no one needs to know why god waits for you in texas

no one needs to know a thing

83/365 : dear god, how do i turn myself on? i think i broke in the void.

there's a box full of paints
slid low 'neath your desk
like sex toys for the soul

it's been so long
you fear your bones
won't know
how to crawl out and shake--
dance drip-drop thanks
for such wet joy
such blaze

but they will--
bones don't die when they're
box-rot dry
they just wait
for your touch
to reach down
and wake them
up

82/365 : more like dust

i don't mind
how behind
i am and i
don't just
mean with
this project
it seems
that to get
ahead is
a high price
and a deep
cost and to
simply slow
is a slick
molasses
guilt included
no one should
partake in
so much
pleasure
no one should
consume so
much pure
sugar
pure rest
pure breaths
if you just
lay around
and wait
for art
to move
through you
you might one
day become
a rock
like your father
always called
you
rock! you're
the rock!
he had no
idea what
he meant or
that he'd
foretell
the future
so well
he wanted
you to stick
around
molassas
your body to
the spoon of
your roots
but you couldn't
do it you
needed to be
more like
dust
feel the fire
spiral skyward
off the edge
of your millenium
into the
wind and wonder

81/365 : nomad

can i build my roots from the sky down?
can roots be built from clouds?

there's a loud storm in the front pocket of my silk blouse
it's spilling out into the garden where you and i ought to
grow something

something older than dirt--
so we can say we were the first
ever
to go home

all the way

80/365 : rebirth

all things die.
that is the nature of things.
the lucky ones feel the promise of death
ten thousand times in one day.
the smart ones find comfort in being lucky.

79/365 : I TRIED TO WRITE A PROFESSIONAL BIO AND ALL I COULD COME UP WITH IS THIS

spiritual
mystical
magical
embodied
sexy
sexual
unafraid of the edges
earth-worshiper
owl-like intuition
on long hiatus from internet-based employment
now works at a bakery
and nanny's kids
exceptionally over-qualified for her "work"
doesn't care
no one's over-qualified at being human
learning so much about creativity and freedom and quiet and solitude in all the space of doing less
gestating with top secret life vision
patient
believes in sisterhood
revolutionary
anti-capitalist
pro-cooperation
back to the earther forreal forreal
stilt walker
reads adbusters
dreams of smashing laptop
doesn't know what to do about the fact that she's typing that on her laptop
likes picking flowers
knows that she's wise for chillin' and not actually lost even though she
riots every other month over the state of her ego and bank account
then remembers it's REALLY OKAY cause we're all gonna die
and not harming the planet or herself or spending tons of money out of fear is better than
whipping shit up or spiraling with announcements just to feel important
had $.19 in her bank account for a full two weeks until yesterday
didn't actually feel poor (except for that one day when all the bills were due and she had to call verizon and her mom kind of shamed her for having no money)
has tribe so deep it's incredible
still feels achingnly isolated at least 3 times a week
uses animal medicine cards as a daily life-line
actually acts according to them
has magical relationship with black cats all over america
and 5 year olds world wide
writes poems on scrolls that reach 10 feet in length and take hours to make
gives them away to strangers at open mics
and lovers who throw them in fires
born-again virgin--IT'S BEEN TOO LONG
STD free
lookin' for love
wherever she can find it
finding it everywhere
especially while dancing
loses it ALL THE TIME
in the cracks of insecure self-internet-stalking
and water bottles left in the car for far too many days
keeps it real as farts whenever possible--yeah yeah they smell but they're FUNNY and they FEEL GOOD TO GET OUT
spends 80% of non-working time alone: reclusive extrovert
dancer since '90 (3 yrs old)
singer since '92 (5 yrs old)
poet since '95 (3rd grade)
witch since '97 (5th grade)
couples therapist since '98 (6th grade)
channel since infinity WHAT
comic very recent
bridging the gap between self-knowing and self-loving one radical expression at a time
expert at over-exposing herself
hating the feeling of even imagining not being recognized and praised in her fullest expression
wishing that words could go onto the internet and then onto your screen and then disappear after you've taken them in, like in real life
because all of this time to see herself over and over again
makes the bridge to loving herself feel forever long
remembering to breathe
remembering to sit up straight
remembering to push the air out
watch something new come in
without her even trying
magic is the effortless inhale after the honest clearing out
it can happen now
for all us living things

78/365 : i think, according to nature, we might actually be doing it right

are there sound examples
of natural things
that self-implode
as they evolve?
or are we, the humans, the model?

77/365 : packages

i remember sliding my five-year-old fingers
down my dad's oily nose to his
prickly beard, and then
cracked lips.

i can still hear the sporadic song of
diet soda
digesting in his belly,
my head rising and falling atop it,

thinking nothing was wrong
with the package
of his love.

76/365 : no

i've kept this two letter secret for so long--
in the submission of my cooperative lungs
the sweet scrunched ponytail of my youthful throat
the back of my ever-swallowing tonsils
and tips of my agreeable taste buds--
that i can't help but wonder
what tumors grow in the
silence of truth

75/365 : for the comical wallflower at the wedding who wants more witchcraft than he can handle

warning:
if we duel poems
like kids playing chicken on a balance beam
you deserve to know
that feathers grow in my hidden places
and my feet are magnets of stamina

there are no doctors
for the kinds of injuries
caused here

74/365 : the definition of sass, according to a grown man

sour at first
but with a sweet interior

you must like laughing
like a 7-year-old
i think

picturing you
with a mouth full of
warheads

and no sense
of limitation

73/365 : when left unfed

this is the kind of hunger
that, when left unfed,
turns bellies into stinkhorns,
fungi, sticky spores of
tentaciles turned in on themselves
ready to eat
the emptiness away

72/365 : like eating air

my particular variety of disillusionment
tastes like eating air
stuffing it down my throat
until my entire stomach
is a balloon of nothing--
deflation or popping, my only
liberation--
and either way
the rubber
still has to
shit out

71/365 : i belong beyond

beyond the threshold of over extension
forgotten rivers blue as skies
unheard of eyes, awake as day

beyond the phrases we now wear
like badges of honor
as we wheel around half-broken
power through, power through

beyond stroking a story
that will make me grandiose and worthy
of rest and tenderness one day
(on a day that will
never come)--

i belong
in the arms of a mother
many mothers, actually
and fathers, too
each with guttural knowing
of just what to do at the
tipping point of
almost-too-late-to-save

70/365 : underground railroad

pulse moves the mountain of me
ever so slightly
like an unseen ocean
an underground railroad
eternal enough to free
the undue pressure
shackling me

trust is watching the sky--
abiding
quietly

69/365 : dear mom, i love you. thank you. i'm off on a grand quest for survival. pray for me. i'll pray for you, too. love, your little girl.

it is sad
to be so sensitive
in a world
with so little
windfall
for the lovers
mystics, healers

but it is brave
to muster the muscle
to pick your own
apples from the
tree of
impossible calm

68/365 : pdx is for grown-up kids

portland is the rainy tree house

of the united states of america

and we're all grown-up children

in our vintage outdoor clothes
and fearless fanny packs

scribbling poems in composition notebooks:

cloudy pencil-marks

mighty dreams

67/365 : sensations sensations, dare we strengthen?

i want to vomit.
i can sense the glands under my tongue
swell and heat
attempting to expel my discomfort.
but instead, i breathe,
stay with the swelling,
ask silently for it to know
that i feel it--
i don't need it to go,
in fact, i will love-hate-love-hate-love-hate-love it
until it passes
like everything
eventually does.

this mixture
of trust and well-grooved knowing
is the potion i forget to drink
when it comes to things more complicated
than yoga--
like oppression
or transcending
our personal and collective
histories that are
destroying our capacities
for everyday love
to grow like rosemary
off the side of our spiritual houses.

i'm not yet the
guru-warrior
revolutionary-lover
infinite-mothership
of healing and
creating anew
that i'd do almost anything to become.

because there's an almost in there
and it has to do with fear.
perhaps the fear of feeling
that no matter what i do
the world will still get bruised
so why bother? why bother?

but i know the answer
and so do you:
it has to do with that feeling of
wanting to vomit
but staying in the room.
expecting the dizzy-spin discomfort
of trying,
and not calling it the devil,
not calling yourself unable to cope,
but calling in your resilience
that's bigger than even hope.

we will break--
everything we adore and despise
and ache for and create will break--
but we will get stronger at making love
in the dazzling chards of reality
one infinite breath at a time,
and that is more than enough.

66/365 : words for free

words for free!
words for free!

i'm like a kid
trolling NYC
in the 20's
selling papers
except only asking for
winks and
deep grateful gazes
as compensation.

i know you see me.
i see you seeing me
seeing you.

there's no doubt
in my chest
or worry in
belly that
you need
these words
to unravel
in your hands.

that you're a
better man
with mysterious
love scrolled up
in your pocket.

but someone's
gotta pay
the esoteric
courier.

she has a belly
to feed, and
dignity--
desires
beyond winks
and stares.

there's gotta be
a line somewhere,
between for free
and for freedom,
and she's the one
who's gotta draw it,
even if
she's just a kid.

65/365 : be somebody

i'm sure i smoke too many cigarettes
to be the woman i imagine masters her
destiny and makes money making art and
isn't too far off her rocker to render revolution
with words and shimmery hued fabrics wrapping
children in bigger dreams than even they sketched out
that day we all sat by the river and watched the ducks migrate
south in their brilliant natural way of going where they can stay
most alive. sometimes, i simply envy the ducks.

64/365 : you are what you are

i want my brain back
my body, my bodaciousness
without all this blubber
i want cutting strength
that slashes the excess away
and leaves me crystallized
like eyes that love so pure
and deep that you can see
the answer to everything
inside them like a cave
of rubies and pillow-throws
lounging in decadent knowing
lounging and digging
and composting the ache
of mortality with the simple
shovel of reality
saying only this,
surrender your resistance
this is it
blubber and all

63/365 : self-love is non-censorship, not fearing the truth of the moment and how i find myself in it

my brain
is steaming
off last
night's mega
drugs my best
friend and
i invented
the term
mega drugs
the only thing
on my to
do list today
is mega drugs
just kidding
i'm applying
for the low
income ticket
to burning
man let's see
if i can
knock this
one out
ps i don't
actually mess
with mega
drugs i'm
just hung
over and
groggy and
in the mood
for silly
sentences
that exceed
your standards
of comfort
or permissive
ness

62/365 : immortality

there's no amount of likability
no amount of love
or dogma
or poetry or orgasms
or money or freedom
or even children
that can make me live forever

but I will still collect them all--
hoard them like pennies
for an antique shop in the future

someone will find my collection one day
sandwiched between a dirt-scuffed derby rocking horse
and a tin box of indigenous postcards
and say
i'm rare and
worth something

i'll be dead and sold
to someone old
who thinks they've found
the answer

61/365 : 2014 state of the mind

i don't recognize my mind
inside the pinball machine of everything shouting
SEE ME SEE ME SEE ME SEE ME


c o l l a p s i n g
e  n  e  r  g  y

h       e        l        p


there is a crow flying across a grey-blue sky
and i am missing it nearly all the time
nearly all the time
nearly all the time
nearly all the time
nearly all the time

nearly all the time

60/365 : To East Forest: Thank you for being a moment to remember that I would have missed had you not struggled (for love) to be here in this way

it is underrated--
the sound of a low voice
whisper-ordering
another drink,
collecting his tab,
quietly giving the last of his
pocket change
to the counter.

the murmur--
it is soft and hits
the open moment of
the music's whole-beat rest
as the tumblers chirp,
and the manhattans shake, just barely.

this is for you, if you wonder
if there is still a love somewhere
gentle enough to listen
to piano-hope hums
strung like stars
in the in-betweens of
darkness and cello.