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.

the big news

when one has more to do than one can handle, what is the smartest thing she can do? sign up for more to do? absolutely.

while i'm just starting my semester, lots of good things happened at my residency. among them, i've been offered and am accepting a position coordinating a literacy program for a few months. this is huge. it feels like a doorway into my field. i must do this. the issue is, they are going to have to squeeze into my very tight schedule. and i can't apologize for that. it simply is.

i must make the most of my time and get the reading out of the way asap. writing comes after that, and the poems, well, they are on their own schedule. though, this semester i am revising works, so i can just regurgitate works from my book, which may be the path i go. i simply cannot do all, and since the focus is revision, let's revise.

i gave a reading during the week of my residency, only three minutes, like everyone else. but they were three rockin' minutes. i realized as and after i read that i could revise what i was performing. and so i shall. i have enough distance now, that i can do this.

again, so much to do. must be about it.

peace. out.

good things

i know, it's so martha. but it's nice to finally say it. even with all the bullshit of life, it's nice to have moments when i can say, it's all good. sure, i try to say this often, but it doesn't come easily. i have a dark streak.

so many wonderful things happened during my residency, it's hard to wrap my mind around them all. i'm home. have been home for a couple hours. my baby just got on her flight and i am doing laundry. excitement city over here. but rest is good. i've rested some, but if you've had any experience with dorms you get it.

have my semester dates, i'm ready to roll. now to get down to business, but first, i have luggage everywhere.

begin again

i didn't make a new year's resolution, i forgot. this was not my typical year, and i have been busy doing other things. maybe somewhere down the road it will come up, but it feels the moment has passed and i didn't have one, so i didn't make one. don't like tradition anyway, gets too predictable.

begin again was the mantra for last year. don't remember if i had a resolution then either, it was a difficult time for me. now, it's not so much difficult as different. engaging in pleasurable ways.

what's to come?

not sure. i will begin with a mentor who was not my first choice, but that is fine. i'm cool with it. i had resigned myself to fate and wanted to see the mystery unfold. and so it will. it always does.

i've been writing a lot, and again i have to decide whom i can trust with the most delicate stories of my life.

i feel that way about every poem i write, it's not just these, but these are new poems, so it is a new question. residency has been very prolific for me in that sense. sure i wrote a few poems last time, but these, well. these are something else entirely.

one poet encouraged me to leave off punctuation entirely. to forego it in my works and use line breaks as my primary means of slowing the reader.

it's difficult,

i said,

i've tried it before. but i'm not there yet. but thank you for believing i could be.

i will leave off here. it's a time for me to be in my life, not about it.

peace.

apprentice i.

there is something to be said for intrigue. there is something to be said for mystery.

i am better able this residency to pace myself, socially, emotionally, artistically, physically for the rigors, the strength trials if you will that are presented. i understand more about the process now and have come to set my grievances aside. not forego them, they are my struggle, my personal battle, but to get the education i am paying for. to ask for the help i need. to be vulnerable and allow myself to be the student.

i am no master here. i am apprentice.

while i do what i do with my own solid flourish, i am not the published author with a list of credits as long as my arm. i keep turning over the question, do i want that? is it what i desire? publication.

i keep answering no.

the rub is, credentialed poets, as part and parcel of their chosen fields must publish.

i told a poet dearest to my heart of my plan to found a small self-sustaining arts cafe where i will host workshops and give readings. is this the highest use of my gift. is my lack of personal drive toward publication blinding?

are there not those stories of writers whom publication finds? the sought out.

as my best friend contemplates a master's program i made this confession in response to her barrage of questions.

i did not find my master's program, my master's program found me.

by following the course directions of those i trust, i am given just the next piece of the puzzle. i set it in place and the image begins to form. do i know what the image is, no, but i can follow the contour of the back, the windswept mane, and know i can see more clearly now than i could. that is progress.

so it is with my life, so it is with my works. i was told by my current workshop leader that my poems have a strong i. this strong i is the center of a book, the connective tissue i would call it.

yes, i said. acknowledging what i knew to be true.

workshop progresses much the same as before, i know my work is solid. the reasons i do what i do may not be understood by all, but they are, in the end, understood by those who matter. this workshop leader gets my works, and that is something. i did not know coming in if she would.

i am playing it humble this time around. the poet i love best said,

there is no drama this time, it's almost boring.

and i laughed.

we are all at ease with one another. no one is out for blood, there is no reason to be. the critique is much improved. and i am grateful.

as we filed out of the welcome session, by graduating semesters, i realized, i am the only poet in my class and the last of the new poets. what will happen when this latest batch goes, three gone after next residency. then three more. i got sad. one is leaving this time.

i will be alone.

but a fellow poet whom i adore said,

i will be skipping a semester and graduating with you.

this pleased me. i will not be alone then, and, i will have a companion for the journey as those i love best are leaving next residency, i will have two remaining residencies without them.

but i try not to let that taint now. they are here with me. and i, them.

we are artists together. and have one week to savor it.

six armed again

just finished perhaps one of the most powerful conversations of my life. not only because it is what i want, but because i could feel the power of it. the presence. that matters to me. no, i may not get my way, but what must be will be. that which is mine will come to me, i believe this.

i limped onto campus and drug myself around trying to smile, but there isn't much, wasn't much to smile about. not that i'm upset or angry, just off somehow.

a friend said to me,

i'm helping reattach your arm.

which made me smile. the six armed again.

and today, in this conversation, that conversation arose.

how does she evolve?

how do i evolve?

sometimes, i think when i talk about myself as poetry, this seems somehow contrived. or at least it would appear to be the case. but it was nice to be heard and understood by someone who appreciates my work. who understands what i'm doing. who is wanting to help me evolve.

there is so much to say. but i am, in a sense, humbled and overwhelmed by the experience.

how does trust diminish?

it doesn't.

i said,

because i don't trust but a few people and once they have it, they have it.

that's the thing. i am very, highly selective about who and where i entrust myself. but when it's done, it's done. is it always right, usually. very few times have i been proven wrong.

this perplexes my best friend,

you seem to know who to trust.

i just wait for the right people to come along.

and they do. they always do. because i don't think we're bouncing along inconsequentially in this life. while i no longer attach the meanings i once attributed to it all, i do believe there are reasons for what happens.

trust is essential.

do you trust?

no. what do you trust?

i just trust. it's not focused on any person place or thing, it is just an attribute of my being. i trust.

how does this trust land on the right spot, the right person, the right moment?

i don't know.

it's a mystery. i'm still trying to figure it all out.

i don't need to see where the road ends,

i told her,

i just need the next step. i have the next step. and to get to that step, i have to finish the work of this one. and i will finish it, i said, because i'm a hard headed determined woman.

i can't explain it, but it was nice to be asked, to be considered for all that i am. to have someone sit with me and say,

tell me about your process

and not judge it, to ask clarifying questions and lead me down a path that demonstrates the how and why of what i do. i have been trying for a great while to articulate the how of what i do, but i'm just so familiar with it that i hardly have the words.

i will do whatever you tell me to do,

i told her before we left.

it's not up to me, ultimately.

i know, but know, that exhaustion is conspiring to make me a very willing student. i need someone hard on the rudder.

i have been forewarned by another student to be careful what i ask for, but, this is the task before me. i understand there are a set of tools for me to lay hold of, that this program is about equipping writers, broadening their base, as it were.

i want to evolve.

i'm ready for whatever comes. however hard it is. i will do it.