conspicuous absence

so, i'm not down to the wire yet. i still have a good forty eight, let's call it, twenty four hours to write these two papers that are hanging over my head. i've read tons, i've got the poems picked out, i went to write, arguably before i was ready, but i sat down and nothing. nada. zip. zilch. ouch.

so, i'm going the other direction, shelving the whole project and either watching a movie or taking a nap. the middle of the night has been fruitful for me. and i just can't even think right now. maybe that's my problem.

dishes need to be done too.

i could do that, it's very zen for me.

but i'm tired. to rest.

severed arms

i have thought to cut it off, to let it go, the one that holds you to me. clings to you. you have warned me. i've bent it around in my mind, studied it from every angle, and i don't fear pain. that's my problem. i've been through so much of it in my life, that i value experience and people to a fault.

i have to reconfigure my thinking though. i can't be completely open any longer if you believe the things you said to me. i guess that's what i need to know. do you actually believe what you said? if you do, that's the answer. i have never entrusted myself to those who doubt me, and i won't start now. i can't.

so i will continue to believe my instinct is right, my gut is true, and it will tell me what course to take. as yet, i'm still undecided.

why does it matter?

pain comes to us all. sorrow knows me by my first name. and i have lived, thrived in the midst of it.

do i want that kind of challenge now?

not really. i'm tired. i want to rest. i want to shelter. but that doesn't mean i do so exclusively, or that those who are my greatest allies will not cause me pain.

perhaps that is where i'm wrong. perhaps you are not among my greatest allies, but that will reveal itself in time.

i can't know from this moment what the future holds. i've never professed foresight. i can only know, i'm not afraid of you. i have not been hurt by you. i don't mind standing up to you, and gathering up your scattered selves. i have done it for many other souls, and they have repaid that kindness. what makes this any different?

am i a fool? yes, but that goes without saying.

do i trust? the answer i keep coming to, for the moment, is yes.

the moment is all i know. the moment is all i understand (if that).

so, i will not sever the arm that holds you, i will not maul myself to keep from some future pain. i will be the fool i am, have always been and trust.

steady girl

i'm still struggling with learning how to take care of myself. i so easily put others first that i forget me. that is changing.

tonight i saw a few members of my ex's congregation, the word is out that i work nearby, and they parade through on occasion. tonight i saw one of my girl's little friend's parents. i said to them,

hi i'm her mom.

yes.

they said in their awkward eurpoean way. they never seemed too fond of me and just served to confirm that those people were never for me.

further confirmation came later when i was leaving work and ran into yet another of the church members, but this one has always been kind to me. the one person i would willingly talk to at gatherings where i mostly sat alone reading.

hey,

she said. a wide beautiful grin on her face.

how are you?

.

great, you?

.

fine. you look amazing.

.

thanks, i would like to take my girl around that church but they were never for me.

.

you're right,

she said,

it's hard not to take sides.

and the way it is, i can't trust her to anyone not soundly on my side. life is hard enough without having willing detractors.

it's curious that these people keep coming to my work and talking to me. sometimes they ask about my girl. sometimes i show them recent photos. but mostly, they are not my people. they are strangers. i am wary. and apparently, rightly so.

so i must continue to trust my instinct. it is good.

so many things on my mind. i just got off work and want to rest now, so i shall.


peace. out.

obsessions

i know something about obsessions. i realized the difference between where i work and the licensed stores is the level of ocdism going on. the real whacked out ocd people are in the actual stores. you have to have some kind of ocd to be able to tolerate the mindnumbing tedium combined with the otherworldly demands this job puts on you.

yesterday i went in with raccoon eyes. i wore dark eyeliner and scowled at my coworkers (not all of them, just the ones i knew were talking shit). because i'm tired of it. i don't just let that shit slide by and it comes to me that the person who pressed me so hard until i lost it, and then cried, was just talking shit. or at least that is the line i'm getting. but who to trust? who do you trust when you think you know a thing?

i have talked to nearly everyone now, definately to those i respect most. and they say,

bullshit.

they look at me astounded at the line i was sold, and say,

that's crazy.

which helps, in some small way, because i didn't believe it to begin with. first of all, i have an oldschool work ethic, which means i work circles around just about everyone. so for anyone to say i'm not doing my job is madness. sheer madness.

the guy says,

look at it from my perspective everyone is complaining to me.

i said,

look at it from my perspective, you're the only one giving me shit. every time we work together.

he didn't say anything after that because it's him. it's all him.

i blew up, which i was trying not to, but after two hours of being slighted and picked on by someone who thinks they are doing you a favor by being "honest" --then i left in tears because i couldn't hold it together anymore. it was just too much for me.

so, to my obsessions.

i have come to understand that i am a poet.

news to all i'm sure. but as such, i need a muse. do i want a muse, not necessarily. but i need one. do i look for a muse, no. but i'm always open to one. do i find them? hell yes.

my current muse is like my other muses in that they find themselves under camera eye. they are the center of my intense scrutiny, hear obsession.

that this is taking place during my semester, that i've watched the entire thing unfold and fought it, grappled with it, written about it, lived it. is something profound for me, because i don't want to just be a quivering mass of reaction. i want to weild my power. to harness it.

at the moment, my power sometimes weilds me.

when this was going down during residency, i came to a moment when i was pacing the floor saying, can i do this? do i want to do this? this is vulnerability. this is weakness.

(and by weakness i do not mean frailty. i mean, i am intentionally leaving myself open to an emotional subset--my god i sound like an academic.)

this is also strength, and who am i to forego now for what may come. consequences be damned, is what i ended up deciding. which is what i mostly go with. i like to live.

so i did.

so i do.

and now, consequences.

i am inside of me with a muse who may or may not want to be there or that. which leaves a profound dilemma. pursue the work, or defer to the person.

i try, i really do try to defer to the person, but sometimes, the work comes. i don't stop it. i don't try.

and i realized this too, what i've always known, but i must write people out of my system. that once they are in, there is no other outlet than my words. here. in poems. on the page. until i pour them out, they simmer in my mind, in my heart. can i stir the pot and make it worse? certainly. that's a given.

but what i'm trying to learn now is how to let go.

the delicate art of letting go.

i often think i've got it down, as inclined to leaving, as inclined to walking away as i am. but how do you let go of something, someone you want to keep? how do you grapple with your process and separate the person out?

i don't know.

hence the grappling.

i am obsessive by nature, but my obsessions are more the emotional entanglements, the mental diversions i so enjoy. i said to my muse,

i am going to relive things, it is how i write about them. so it's going to get rocky.

i do not say this lightly. i do not say this easily. it is not something i do willingly, but some part of me wants to forego the writing because i don't need to trap the muse.

i have never walked away from a muse like this before. never said,

here you are. rattling around in my heart and mind, get the hell out.

never, that is, until the works have come, the process has largely had its run.

but now, now i'm trying to separate out the living from creating. they are two distinctly different realities and while the source material was fun, i'm not sure it is healthy for me to spend much time in it. thinking about it.

i'm trying to learn to take care of myself.
that is the conclusion of these dilemmas for me.

how can i be most gentle with myself and preserve my heart and mind.

there will be other muses, to be sure. i understand that now.

but what do i do with this?

compelled

i don't know if you'd call it brave, so much as i'm compelled to do this. to go here. to enter these places. i've been awake most of the night, my mind awash with poetry. my heart pounding. this doesn't happen every day. sometimes it feels like i'm a fish swimming in poetry, emotion, they are the same to me.

i try to explain it, but it's hard to describe. and my subjects divide men.

this is not my issue to sort out. my job is to write.

do i do what i do for poetry. no. but i write poetry from my life. from the feelings. from the experience.

when someone finds themselves in my works, in my life, i say,

this is how it happens for me.

and they look around and say,

i see.

because it is something to be completely caught up in poetry.

it's probably a bad thing.

but i cannot, would not change it now. for anything.

i said last night,

i am completely me. this is who i am.

i understand.

she said.

but it doesn't make it any easier to be around, as my best friend told me. fortunately, i find those people who don't arc out on emotion like i do. unfortunatly i find those people who don't arc out on emotion like i do.

what's the answer? how do i fix this?

i don't know that it's broke. i don't know that i'm not exactly where i'm supposed to be at the moment.

i don't know where i'll be tomorrow. but today, i'm here.

and the world is awash with poetry.

and i am going where i was once afraid to go.

i never ask anyone to come along, i leave the doors open all along the way. i know others can't abide my journey, that is so okay.

but i must go.

do you hear me.

i must. go.

wild nights

so, i've been through the ringer today. and it was not without vengeance that i left my store. some people push me until i explode. and so, i did.

no other way to frame it.

then i called my friend and flew to her.

how these women hold me together. make me feel sane. remind me that i am sane.

now i need to hole up, hide away for a while. recover. rest.

not so easy in the line of fire at work, but i'll be all business. won't show my hand. though i don't intend to be pushed around.

the thing about it is, the one who pushes me is the one i most enjoy. why is that the case?

i don't want this now. i don't need this.

time for bed. it's been an exhausting day. in so many ways.

brave facades

i have tried, every way i know how, to exude strength. to own my power. to be a reactor--nuclear, mostly. at least it's how i feel. but there is some part of me that is still tied to things long gone. to dreams dead and all but buried. and those things must end. i know they must. it is time.

i just wrote a huge poem for my journey. the goodbye.

now the balloon sails out of grasp and i must let it go, not wishing it return, but looking away, ultimately, before it fades from view. i must let go. i must.

i've been stuck for so long in what was, what could have been, that i have foregone living. i have not wanted life.

but i want it now.

so, while the memory is still fresh, i say it again. goodbye. thank you.

for everything you have been to me. for everything that never was but was so beautiful and lifegiving. for everything i am now, largely because you asked me what i wanted.

there is a debt here i cannot repay. i don't even try.

i know living is what you wanted most for me, and so i shall.

tearfully, joyfully, willingly, i shall.