Poetry

she wants me to stop by and i dont want to

she wants me to stop by the house, and i dont want to. shes dying and i dont know how to say no.

she says she loves me and i say that i love her, too, but somewhere in my body there’s a retching that i cant stop. it’s involuntary and i cant breathe right when i say it.

she says she wants my father and i to stop by in the next few weeks and i can hear the machines hissing in the background and i can imagine that it’s dark in there and theres something that smells like rotting fruit and it’s sweet, smelly and warm. i just know it.

she says shes not ready to die and i tell her that no one really is and i can hear him in the background, his voice is coming through loud and clear and i imagine his face as i last saw it, narrow and sun kissed, a smile about the lips, framing darkened teeth. he’s laughing and she’s coughing, perhaps her last cough, i dont know.

she drops the phone and i hear the squeaky sounds of what i guess to be a rocking chair and her voice raises an octave and i can hear her wheezing just a little bit more as she asks him to retrieve the fallen phone. i hear his voice just a little bit clearer and a little bit closer and its my turn to drop the phone.

i smell rotting fruit. i smell a darkened dusty room and the smell of heat burns my nose.

she says she wants me to stop by and i dont want to, but i dont know how to tell her no.

she called me and i didnt want her to

she called me and i didnt want her to. my heart hit the floor and my breath caught in my throat. my breath was trapped as my throat shrunk to the size of a pea.

she called me and i didnt want her to. the sound of her breath echoed in the phone and became trapped in my ear. her breath, if it wasnt for the phone cord, would be warm on my ear and stale like death. her breath would be on my neck, warm and sticky, like decomposition.

she called me and i didnt want her to.

i could hear them on the other side of the line. chattering, voices sounding like time hadnt passed; like life goes on without a change… without my help. life doesnt stop. i could hear them, their laughs too thin, too sinister.

i could hear the sounds of pressure in the background. beeping and hissing; like life must be forced to carry on otherwise it would have left her long ago. it must have been the stick. it must have been the stick that took her life. stick made of steel. stick made of candy pushed too far too many times.

she called me and i didnt want her to. her voice, sticky and warm on my ear… i didnt want to. her breath on my ear, warm and damp. alcohol just cant clean that part of your ear, no matter how hard you try.

she called me and i didnt want her to. my heart hit the floor and it was left there, that day. my heart hit the floor and i did nothing to pick it back up.

ANTHOLOGY

I have a man

I have the most intelligent man
I have ever met –
but he hurts me
over and over again
because
he loves me.

Because he is like
Krsna with the gopis
who love him endlessly
as he entices them
with his love.

I have a man
posing as a boy –
But he hurts me
over and over again
because he loves me.

Because he touches me
softly
with his words
spoken so clearly
that caress me and
hold me close.

I have a man
who is like
Krsna with his gopi
brides that stand
naked in the bank
pledging their allegiance
to the love that he
gives tirelessly –

giving them every piece
of himself
except for his heart
which he keeps on
a chain around his neck
for all to witness from
a distance.

I have the most
talented man
Ive ever met
beside me –
but he hurts me
again and again
because he loves me.

Because everyone
wants to fall in his love
but its my bed
that he shares
with many.

I have a man
so beautiful that my eyes
hurt –
and he kills me
over and over again
because –
he loves me.
11/9/02

We’re not so different

We’re not so different you and I, regardless of what your eye may see. Our thoughts have mixed and crossed paths on more than one occasion, you just chose different words than I. All those fears you’ve had…well, Ive had them too. At night, while sleeping comfortably in my bed, I too, have awoken in fright that I had made the wrong choices, just as you have. I have sat there with that knife, same as you. All those feeling came washing over me as I stood in front of the mirror and saw every tiny flaw possible and I have cried for the same reasons.

We are not so different you and I. I have hurt same as you, maybe not for the same reasons, but I have felt that same emptiness as you. I have had my head examined just the same as you, not for the same reasons, and maybe I didnt hate myself with the same passion as you have, but we have sat on the same bench you and I. We have shared thoughts with words on paper, and maybe you didnt understand, or maybe you did and chose to say nothing because you are a little afraid or jealous of me because you see something that isnt there..but we are not really so different.

Long ago, before you knew I existed…I knew you. I knew you were there somewhere locked inside yourself, examining yourself and trying to understand the reasons behind the pain, but by that time..I had it figured out, even if only partially. I knew you were there..somewhere crying and hurting and feeling empty, and I was there once too, but you didnt see me the way I saw you. I knew you were there, and my pain was similar, but not for the same reasons.

But, really…we are not so different, you and I.
11/12/02

You’re in heaven when they adore you…

You’re in heaven when they adore you
and
in heaven when they worship you
and
drunk when they lust for you –

listening to confessions of love in the dark
and
surrendering your soul with
each embrace
each kiss
and
each seduction.

Because you love to be loved
and
need to be needed.

You are a mirror
and
their reflection after
playing each role with delicate precision
wanting
yearning
aching
for approval to satiate your narcissitic need
to be placed above any other.

Because you love to be loved
and
need to be needed.

You fill the void with one more touch
and
the possibilty of the promise of love
searching your place in their hearts
but the emptiness suffocates you
when you’re alone in your room
weighing on your shoulders
choking you.

Because you love to be loved
and
need to be needed
and
want to be wanted
and
adore being adored.

So you continue
feeding on the affections of others
with a dollar sign on your soul
because
love is never free
and
we all paid the price.
11/12/02

You did it again

You did it again

You ripped out my self-confidence
and stomped it into the
ground.
You laughed at my efforts
and called me a freak.
You burned a hole in my heart
and made me never love again.

Oh, but, how I love you.
How I hate loving you,
and how I love hating you.

You loved to see me cry.
You tore me apart into a
million pieces and degraded
each one.
I plotted your death each and
every night and prayed that
I would never wake up.

Oh, but, how I love you.
How I hate loving you,
and how I love hating you.

I remember when they took
you away and I was left
standing
alone.
The satisfaction I felt
when they drug you
kicking and screaming.

Oh, but, I love you.
How I hate loving you,
and how I love hating you.

You’ve come back to me
and embraced me in your
arms
and filled my ears with
all your charm.
I want to believe you.
I really want to care.
But, I’ve heard this line
so many times and next time,
I won’t be there.
11/05/02

With your undying fire I will burn

I am a tree with leafing arms outstretched.
Neither east nor west do my branches flow.
Against a black and cloudy sky I am sketched.
Roots in the ground I have nowhere to go.

The rain falls torrently on my leaves.
My arms do not welcome the serpent’s tail.
The weight of the serpent I cannot sieve.
Thunder groans and from the sky falls hail.

The sun is reborn and bursts with blood.
Skeletal outline of the tree is dropped.
Rain has stopped and fills the land with a flood.
From the wind and rain my arms are cropped.

Arms hang loosely, awaiting your return.
With your undying fire I will burn.
6/88

I dreamed I killed a seal last night

I dreamed I killed a seal last night.
I sat in my umiak
my muluks in two inches of water
and my hands high above my head.

Harpoon in my hands
I asked him politely if we may eat him.

I wrapped my parka close against me
and pulled him ashore.

My body split in half
I gave thanks to the Creator
as I sat at the table and
spoke my native tongue
for the first time and
all the Inuits ate for the next
500 years.
11/5/02

For my father

You came into this world
To live a life of pain
Fighting your wars
Wearing your medals
And chasing those demons
That danced on the walls
R – u – n – n – i – n – g
beside you
Haunting you
Taunting you
Calling you

You carried me high
On your shoulders
Into the clouds
Giving me wings
To soar
Never letting me

F
A
L
L

You moved the mountains
And parted the seas –
For me.

Such a proud and POWERFUL man!

I still remember the day
When you were swept
Into the sky
Like a brave Indian Warrior.
You hung above me
In your head dress
Floating in the air –
Like a Vision

I begged you to
To come back to me.
My heart breaking
Into a thousand
P i e c e s
And carried away
In the myriad
Of rivers
That I created.

I waited a lifetime
For you to come back
To me.

Waiting
Waiting
Waiting

Emtpy and lifeless
In a void of –
Non – existence
Suffocating

Only wanting death

You swept down from the sky
Your feathers flapping in the breeze
Creating a rainbow
All around me
And cried in a thunderous voice
For all the nations to hear –

“I AM HERE!!”
11/5/02

My ancestors talk to me in my dreams

Grandma lay in the bed
her eyes staring at the two dancing dolls
above her head.
I pulled the sheets up to her armpits
and wiped the years of labor off her face.

I could never get the salmon smell
off my clothes, she said.

She turned her head to watch the
cowboy and Indian fight to the death
on the wall beside her.

I dream all day.
I dream of a life without borders,
where my arms reach all around the earth.
A place without general relief,
dying seas,
and oil pipelines, she said,
looking for a train that can take her
back 500 years.

Grandma, what tribe are we from?,
I asked, changing the subject.

We’re from the tribe of the seal,
she answered.

My ancestors want me to feed our people.
They think I’m a man with a talking stick.
They want me to change things.
They’re talking to me in my dreams,
I told her.

They always do, she answered and closed
her eyes for the last time that night.
11/5/02

Babykiller

You watch from the ship
as Abbie Hoffman
and his minions
protest your arrival –

“Babykiller!”
“Brainwashed government pawn!”

No parades
just turned heads
your eyes empty
lifeless
void of joy
still staring at the burning embers
of a village far away
Helicopters still ricocheting
in your mind –
still watching death.

I remember when they
came to reposess you.
I stood at the bottom
of the stairs
and watched
as four FBI agents
took the daddy I just met
out the front doors.

You cried for us then
as you have since
wanting us
needing us
missing us
loving us
longing for us

You fought your war
tearing apart your insides
and your sanity
crying and screaming
you wait in your room
– kicking to disappear –
hiding from your thoughts
and the dreams that still haunt you:

You grasp for a piece
of your fragile sanity
in a bottle of pills.
Those demons were
still in your head
calling to you
cursing you
begging you
delivering you

I look at your hands
bloody hands
hands of death
as they embrace me
and tell me you’re still here.

War hero
strongest man in the world
carrying the burdens of
a time of confusion
and revolution

You cry at the wall
tears filling the void
in your heart for those killed
washing away your nightmare
mourning the loss
and thankful for your
short time here on earth.
11/2/02

It was never enough

You killed him again
just like everything you touch.
He lies there
as you hold his heart
in your hands.

Squeezing it
Stopping the blood flow

He thought he was enough
We thought it was enough

You’re there again
just like you’ve always been
You sit there
as he holds your brain
in his hands

Take a piece
Leave a piece

You thought it was enough
We thought it was enough

You killed yourself again
just like you always do
Holding your life
in your hands

Give it back
Take it back

You didnt think it was enough.
10/28/02

She still lives here

She still lives here
even though I asked her to leave.
I said I didnt need her anymore
that my life was fine without her.

She stood in front of the mirror
crying for hours
until I took out her eyes.

She said I never loved her
even though it was true
I lied
still giving her life.

I placed her things at the door
one by one
hoping she’d leave
but she pulled me to her
saying I needed her
that I’d miss her.

She hugged me
not letting me go
until I took off her arms.

She hid from me
living in the dark
coming out for a moment
and sometimes I missed her
but would never tell her.

She wandered through
the dark empty halls
whispering to me
killing my dreams
stealing my thoughts
until I took out her vocal chords.

She stood before me
and I thought I could take her apart
piece by piece
for the rest of my life.

Sometimes she pretended to be me
wearing my dresses
painting her face
then would fall to the floor in a heap
until I took out her damaged heart.

One day she hid from me for good
and was only revisited in pictures
because

She doesnt live here anymore.
10/28/02

Take me with you

Take me with you
on this journey
dont leave me here
to watch you
separate and alone
in your own world
of memories

surrounded by those
who’ve shared your past
avoiding your crying eyes
that reveal their own pain.

I see it here
more than anywhere else
a trail of burning cigarettes

hand to mouth
hand to mouth

in that all too familiar way
your masculinity hanging
delicately in the balance

your heart
falling apart
for all to see
as you search
for the names
of those youve loved

elbows touching
crayons rubbing
fingers tracing

intimate moments
shared with a name
brief remembrances
as a familiar tune is
carried on the air
bringing to life
the death
that surrounds you
that you can so easily
close your eyes to.

The flag means so much more
while Im here
I see its reflection in your eyes

shoulders hunched
knees buckling
and total
surrender.

You can do this.
We can do this.
10/28/02

Untitled

I am here.
They are there.

On bended knee they wait
breaths caught in throat
releasing a sigh
to speak your name
selling their souls
declaring their love
through acts of kindness

Break a piece
Give a piece
Never save a piece

leaving nothing more
of themselves
until you own them.

They will die for you
sign their names in blood
for a moment of your precious time
a glimpse of heaven
a shot at hell

leaving you there
and me here
10/28/02

I will never worship you

My heart can always love
But
I will never worship you.

These knees bend for no one.
These lips sigh to speak
no one’s name.
10/28/02

So that all may be saved

She sacrifices her body
for the saving of their souls
because
she loves to be loved.

Her body is a temple
for all to worship –
given selflessly
and tirelessly
rites performed
with delicate precision
offerings received

In her they found
their angel
playing devil for a day
so that all may be saved.
10/28/02

In the End

I stand here
one foot on eternity
the other in the past
heaven above me
hell beside me.

Wash them away today
they will be back tomorrow.

Im making my world
smaller and smaller
and leaving you
all behind.

I cant do this much longer.

I need you to see me
in the end
you will see me.
10/28/02

Oh woman with your wicked ways

Oh woman with your wicked ways
Turning your lovers into slaves.
Giving smiles to win their heart
Knowing you’ll break them from the start.

Love offered for a price
Wills broken if they don’t ask nice.
Your body offered for just an hour_ _ _ _
Need them, break them, with your power.

A diamond offered for every kiss
But it’s your body that they will miss.
A rose left at every door
Their bodies aching, wanting more.

A dollar left on every table
And you’ll do it again when you’re able.
10/01

Hands that held my hands

Breasts that once were suckled
are now just flabs of useless fat
laying on grandma’s chest.
Her black hair
peppered with gray
lay flat and lifeless on her back
robbed of vitamins
from years of malnurishment.

I look at grandma’s hands
hands that caught fish
hands that held me
brown hands with leathery skin
smooth and lightly wrinkled
hands that were once
covered in silver and turquois
hands that held my hands
hands that took life
as surely as they gave it
hands that fought and bled.

I watch grandma’s hands
grabbing for something that
would return her to the spirit world
a world she has never known
her hands that were given
to my mother
and then to me
are now swollen
and pulling at her lifeline.

Her mouth became a gaping hole
that sucks in breath
and jabbers in an unknown tongue
a mouth that cried out
for death.
Her mouth –
fevered and blistered
her upper lip sucked in
and blown out with each breath.

I touched her face
looking into her one eye
searching her face
searching but never finding
the life that once burned
inside her
and finally seeing it
expelled in her final breath.
10/01

To see me the way that you do…

You say to breathe you in
to make me pure
If I believe in you half as much
as you believe in me.

But I cant feel you here
I cant smell you
and I cant see you.

Does that mean that you cant see me?
If I cease to believe in you,
do you cease to exist
if Im in my own little universe?

You’ll breathe me in
even if I dont believe in myself
If I can see me half as much
as you do.

You can feel me here
You can smell me
and you can see me
in everything thing
that I can’t.
6/02

For my aunt

You gripped her once more
breathing life into her lungs
and love into her soul.

She stole one more kiss
to keep the inevitable
at bay
loving you more in
every little way.

She’s holding onto a promise
and creating dams
out of toothpicks,
seeing you in everything
she touches.

She breathes you in
and exhales death
trying to make what used to be
reliving each moment
trying to hold on forever
never knowing when to end.

Memories consume
and kill her.
I can’t make her live
and I can’t watch her die
when all she wants
is you to be by her side.

You created her
and set her free with
each kiss
each moment
each seduction
each and every
little thing.

I can’t hold onto
her forever
and I can’t save her
when she goes
she’ll be scattered
to the sea

searching for a lifeline
searching for a cure
caught in a never ending
search for you.
6/02

Pushing and pulling

Pushing and pulling
me
inbetween

Loving you
and
hating you
for sleeping with my mother
long before
our love affair
was ever over.

But you fed me
and
clothed me
when I was nothing
but a savage,
worshipping my mother
because
she was there
long before you were even
a nightmare.

And now I
see my mother burning,
lying on her side,
rivers wrapping around fire,
in the concrete jungle you created
bringing our
worlds together.

And I still wonder why
I cry,
everytime
I see your flag
burning.

Because,
sometimes,
I’m America’s son,
waving my flag,
holding one
hand over my heart.

And,
somtimes,
I’m
the Native son,
raising my Eaglestaff,
and praising the Creator.

I am
divided amongst myself,
struggling to become
whole.
11/01

Oh but you loved her…

Hands so small
grip what the mind
cant understand.
(oh so sweet she looks
lying there.)

Im going to take
this thing you gave me
and kill it!!
Im going to smother it
with hate!!

Words so large
pass lips so small
they nearly choke.
(so small and lovely.)

My body that you
made so important
is now my prison!

Large arms
embrace small shoulders
to draw closer
and make her bleed.
(I love you.)

Im going to chop off
your hands
and
that other part of you
and keep them in my
keepsake box
to remind myself
how much I absolutely
loathe you!!

A hand so large
it swallows her face
silenced her cry.
(shh, I need you.)

Ive spent all this time
ripping off every part of me
that remembers you exist
until theres nothing left of me.

You will see her everywhere
and
she will see you nowhere
because to her –
you no longer exist.
10/24/02

You never taught me how to love

In his absence you reigned
high above me
filling my world with nothingness.

Your indifference made me invisible
and each aversion of the eyes
made me bleed a little more.
To feel pleasure in pain
was all I knew to do.

I scream on this paper
all the things I hate about you
this paper always listens
and is just as blank as you.

I planned your death so many times
counting the ways to destroy you
to remind myself that
I do exist.

When Im lying on the floor
breathing my last breath –

You will see me.
You will see you in me.
You will see me.
6/02

I am the light
by which I can see.

I am the universe
in which I am free.
10/04/02

Because I am the Dalai Lama

A Buddha of love
So full of life
Creating a world
Free of strife

A Buddha within oneself
Within you
Bringing to the world
All that’s known to be true.

A Buddha of hope
In a world so seemingly stark
Shining a light on all
That is dark.

A Buddha of truth
A bringer of whats real
A bringer of all the love
that you feel.

A Buddha of pain
When you can take
No more
Opens the way
Past closed doors.

A Buddha of me
And yes
a Buddha of you
because I am the
Dalai Lama
And you are too.
10/01/02

Leave it there

Take it off
and put it on a shelf
hide it until further use
or fully discard

oh the choices I have
at my disposal
if only I would
learn to live
without regret

all the things
I thought I needed
all the things
they told me
I had to have

all the things
I carry with me
leaving my arms
full with items
when they require
action

arms that can not
participate in the actions
of life
until I can fully understand
their purpose is to act
and not only to carry.
9/18/02

Ive never made love to an Indian man

I’ve never made love to an Indian man.
Ive never felt his brown skin on mine.
Ive never felt his foreign tongue on mine.
His words never became my words.
Ive never felt his seed growing in me,
swelling my belly
giving birth to his son that would marry
an Indian woman
who would give birth to my full bred grandson,
somehow believing this would make me whole.

I’ve never lay in bed with an Indian man
side by side
light and dark
each of us dreaming our own separate dreams.
9/17/02

hating the part of me that isnt you

Ancestors – only seen in dreams
haunt me through out the day
they dance along my bedside
and repeat a chant that once
created me.

I see in dreams what I might have been
and make love to the fantasy
that I once thought I needed.

Because you’ve only seen me
as half visible –
– the half of me
not hidden in shadows.

If I take off my hand and foot
I will only be a part of me
that you love
the me that you choose to see
always wanting to make me
what I can not be.

You’ve taken the part of me
thats not you
– and Im still not whole
only wholly a part of you
and I do not detest
what was not there.

I’ve replaced my hand with a pen
to kill what used to be
because you always hated
the part of me
that was not you.
9/17/02

loving you and hurting me

…and even if loving you and hurting me
is the way it has to be
its okay
because you can always paint another pretty picture
and I can always write another love story
and this one will last forever
because I never wrote the ending
and you never finished the painting.
9/16/02

If only…

I could learn all that I want to learn before I die.
I could teach others to see the love in the world that I see and not the hatred.
I could share just a bit of what I’ve learned with those around me and they would truly understand.
I could live forever in a moment of my choice.
I could see the beginning of the universe and remember it for eternity so I would know that it will all start again…someday.
I could really see that death is not the end so that I would not miss those I’ve ‘lost’.
I could say all that I want to say and you would understand.
I could make you see yourself in me so you could love me the way that I love you.
I could help you see the beauty that lies within each one of us.
I could help you to see we are no different than our neighbours regardless of what your eye may see.
I could take the time in this lifetime to see all that there is to see and bring it to those that cant.
I could sleep through this lifetime to see what comes next.
I could speak every language imaginable so that you may all hear and understand me.
I could give you those things that you believe you really need.
I could help you see that all you need is yourself.
I could help you see that freedom lies within and is quite attainable.
I could show you all that you can be within this lifetime so that you may find the happiness that you somehow lack.
9/16/02

For my uncle

You’ve clung to death
as surely as it clung to you,
pushing yourself to
pain and pleasure,
longing to find freedom in the
oblivion that you’ve
learned to master.

My heart aches to see you
real once again,
bringing to life all that
I know is true.
In your arms I found my sin,
but not my sacrifice.

I’ve longed for a retreat
to where you’ve been,
to kill my deeds that
once haunted me.
In you, I found all that
I could never be.

I once climbed so high to see you,
to taste what you’ve tasted,
to live what you’ve lived,
but I can never fall so low
to see you now.

The beauty that once was in you
is now dead
only to be revisited in my
fading memories.
Your face is now hardened,
born of the life that
consumes you,
as you fall into the arms
of those who love you
and finding your worth
in those that don’t.

I die a little more
each time I see your smile,
each time that I’m embraced,
each time I hear your voice
that takes me back
to where I want to be.
Because each time I smell
your breath
it reminds me of the pain
that once consumed me
and the pleasure in each
drink that killed it,
each hit that smothered it
and each one of the things
that remind me of who
you used to be.

You kill yourself one more time
as surely as you’re killing me,
with one more draw of the shades,
with one more tilt of the head,
with one more movement of the hand,
and with one more goodbye.
9/16/02

Dreaming while awake

I love to hear the sound
of the rattle
long after the ceremony
is over.
It hangs in the air
and is carried
on the breeze where
it will visit the ears
of family
and friends
not present.

I love to hear the
sound of the old lady
humming
long after the song is sung.
It passes her lips
as she eats the last
of the lasagna
still on her plate
and is so quiet
that only I can hear it.

I love to see the dance
in the little girls step
long after the dance is over.
It glides gracefully
through her feet
with each step she takes
and in each movement of her hands.

I love the dreams
that come
long after the ceremony is over.
The song still dances
on my lips,
the rattle still
visits my hand,
and the dance
is each movement
of my being.

each dream should be a ceremony
each word should be a chant
each movement should be a dance
and each sound should be a song.
9/16/02

I hated you
for showing me
what I perceived to be
a morally bankrupt world,
and
I love you
for showing me
that our morals
no longer fit.

I hated you
for creating people
who I thought
could not love,
and
I love you
for creating people
who could only love.

To see the world
in your duality
demands that I exist
as two people –
one a deity
the other
a mortal.
9/9/02

Depression Kills

Sometimes I want to stop right here
because I didnt get it
the way I wanted it.

Sometimes it doesnt seem worth it
and
sometimes I just want to give up
because
who really cares anyway?

It matters even though I know
it shouldnt
but Im not god
and neither are they even in their quest
for perfection –
my perfection.

It cant be right
but it doesnt seem wrong.

It doesnt really matter to them
but it mattered to me
and it especially matters now
after all these years.

They couldnt give it to me now
even if they wanted to
they wouldnt even know what it was
and they wouldnt know how to.

Nothings changed for better
or worse
not even in the way that
I see it.

I cant see the end
but I always look back
to the beginning
and I want to go back.
I have to go back
to see how it started
else I wont know how to get there.

She killed it without knowing it
and she made it mean more
than it should have.
He made it hurt more for me
than they did
and if I could kill it now I would
if only I didnt want it to live so much.

It could stifle me in an instant
and sometimes I wish it would
because mirrors kill
and so do thoughts
but a drink here and there
makes it all go away.

Dreams sweet dreams
and the perfection
that comes with them.
8/3/02

The way it will always be

Stretching arms
left to right
encompassing all
that is near –
this is what you do
without knowing
all that you hurt
all that you heal.

It settles somewhere

at the back of the throat
at the bottom of the feet
in the pit of the stomach

never settling
never leaving
never unsettling

this is the way it works
the way it has always worked
the way it will always be

Stretching arms
left to right
encompassing all
that is near
– me included –
this is what you do
all the while knowing
all that you hurt
all that you heal.

this is the way it works
night to day
day to night
from here to there
for all eternity.
8/15/02

The invisible people

I see you there
lying on the street
your insides turned out
waking from a slumber
not yet parted with.

I see you
walking so patiently
with no destination
in mind
the soles of your feet
separated from your body.

I see you
imported from elsewhere
and exported from nowhere
the clothes on your body
not quite dancing
as the wind does not
know your name.

I see you
looking at them
looking at me
invisible to some
and probably to most.

I see you
your hope worn thin
your mind
visiting another place
but not quite mine.

I see you
when no one else does
when no one hears you
when no hope is left
when no cry is answered.

I see you.
8/8/02

Untitled

I find
something comforting
in the taste of a drink
something liberating
in the chalkiness of a pill
something alluring
in the dreamlike state
of semiconsciousness
something sensual
in the loss of inhibition –

Oh these things that
come to haunt me
in my boredom

these things that blind me
in the arrogance of my
intelligence

plague my waking life
and masquerade themselves
in my quest
for sleep.

– the burdens
of a life once lived
and
the temptation
of remembrances.
8/3/02

The Final Act

Uncle painted the trailer
black
in preparation
as we lifted grandma
to the roof so she could
commune with nature
one last time.

We were assembled then
as we are now
in the quiet of the tin box
that held her
in years past.

Navajo flute
Pima sculpture –
We are one.

I left them in their silence
as I was carried to
grandma’s singing.

Though she failed to
acknowledge my presence
she knew I was there.

“In the absence of kindness
where the heart lies still
and the mind understands –
I am there.”

I found comfort in these things
that came to me in understanding
through unspoken words.

“In the pleasure of your own company
and the sterility of knowledge –
I am there.”

Grandma knew then
what I only came to understand
now.

“In the moment between
the ending of one life
and the beginning of another –
I am there.”

The voices in the trailer
called to me –
pulling me to their sorrow.

Grandma’s ashes
on the mantel –
She is here.

As these words
take leave from my mind
on their way
to paper
I am born into the confusion
of my insecurity
for I still fail to understand how love
can be found in death –
as death
is the final act
of leaving.
8/3/02

This Time

I’ve seen you do this
a thousand times before
and it gets better each time –

this time
I almost believed you.

When you’re lying there
empty and lifeless –
do you think of me?

He listened to you
just like he always does
and he wanted to believe you –

this time
he almost did.

When you feel the metal
stinging and cold –
do you feel me?

You told me all your secrets
real and imagined
whispered them in my ear –

this time
I almost listened.

When its caught in your throat
bitter and chalky –
do you choke on me?

You called my name
from across the room
as you fell on the floor –

this time
I heard you.

When they pulled you in the room
kicking and screaming –
did you remember to wave good bye –
or did you forget me?
7/27/02

Losing patience
and giving up
because
you dont see Me.

wanna get away
wanna be alone

Frustration
wearing my nerves thin
Desperation
making me lose sight

Losing patience
and giving up
because
you cant hear Me.

wanna disappear
wanna be Myself

Closing my eyes
making it all disappear

leaving the city
leaving the beach
leaving the world –
leaving it all behind

trying to find My place
trying to find Myself.
8/31/02

Nothing

Nothing is as it seems
this world is not my own
all I thought I knew
all I thought I loved –
gone in an instant
leaving me alone.

It is in this place
that I return
where that which is doubted
has passed
and becomes real once again –

I WANT IT BACK!
I WANT IT BACK!

This lifetime is not
nearly short enough –
must get to the end
must find
what comes next.

So I lay here
hoping
that I can pass
from this lifetime
to the next
or enter one
of blissful ignorance

else an eternity
of nothing
stretches out before me

I cant go back
but Im too afraid
to move forward
to find nothing
to make this all
meaningless.

I want to believe.
I want to believe.
8/31/02

i brought you there

we sat on the floor
our legs bent
telling stories
and speaking
in our native tongue

shaloo shaloo
heya heya
shaloo heya heya
hone, hone…

i took you there with me
and i sang with your voice
and danced with your feet.

we smiled and laughed
and were cleansed.
we breathed deep
and we shook our rattle
until our wrists hurt

and i returned with you
to your bed
and we fell to the pillow
and laughed our last laugh

and you smiled and shook your wrist
a song on your lips
just before sleeping.

for grandma
june 7, 2003

foolish, foolish me

because sometimes i believe i know what im doing. and sometimes i think its better to be alone than to hurt. because you make me cry when all i do is love you. foolish me.

because sometimes i believe that no matter what, love reigns. foolish me. stupid me.

because sometimes i believe its best to be alone. but you never leave me, even when im alone. stupid, stupid me.

oh but i love you! oh, yes i do! i do because you remind me of all the ways that i used to be and how far ive gotten. oh yes. foolish, foolish me who left it all behind when you walked away. funny how that happens.

foolish me.

you never left me, not even when you walk out the door and the phone began to ring and i didnt answer it…even when the bed was empty (my empty bed that still crowded with you) you were there, haunting me and reminding me of who i used to be.

oh! funny how that happens sometimes.

because, sometimes i think its best to be alone because you make me cry when all i do is love you. foolish, foolish me.

im so dumb, oh! but im so much fun! oh yes, on those nights when you feel especially lonely, you are there on my doorstep, in my mind, invading foreign territory and calling me apologizing. oh it wont happen again, no, not again. i wont speak to her. i wont drink anymore. oh no. not me, ive changed.

oh foolish, foolish me. how i love you through my hurt. how i love you when i cry. oh, but i love you most when you invade and haunt my empty bed.

funny how that happens sometimes.

how dumb am i. i smile when i really want to cry. how dumb am i?

i love you sister. you are the strongest. i love you.

6/2003

here we are

ive worked so hard to see you. ive tried so hard to be where you are and each time feels like a failure.

oh how i miss you! how i miss being there in the midst of it. how i miss the smell, the feeling, the touch and the bliss that comes from understanding.

how empty it all feels now. how dark it seems here, where i am now. how lonely. empty and lifeless, a void.

oh! it used to be awake late into the night, the search was on! oh! bliss! thinking thoughts that drive you to madness. lying in bed, in the dark, alone in my thoughts of you. how i long to be there now.

no, i do not need those other things. i do not need strong arms to hold me and a whisper in my ear of understanding. no!

i do not need television, ice cream, cake, and long walks on the beach. all i need is you. all i need is me.

oh, but i can not see you now. i can not think of the ways to find you. i can not find that road that leads me once more to you.

here i stand on this concrete road, emptiness before me, emptiness to the side of me… i walk along the concrete pass. emptiness at my side, emptiness in my thinking, the heavy weight of emptiness.

i do not need those other things. i only need you. and me.

in the dark, in the corner, the inside walls of my mind, i do not find you.

in the kitchen, at the table, in the waiting room at hospital, i do not find you.

no! i do not need those other things that crowd my world. i do not need strong arms to hold me and a whisper of understanding in my ear. i do not need strong arms to hold me.

no, i do not.

in the grass, in the tree, in the sun and moon, i do not find you.

how i miss you. how i feel so strongly as though i need you. i strongly i believe that i need to have you here and here and here. and yet, you seem to be over there or over there and even there.

it seems ive worked so hard to find you, once again. the time you were here was a small passing of time that i can not recapture. it is but an abstract ideal that i believed in, blinding at first, but when i knew with certainty, you left me. you left to be there.. and there…and even over there.

i do not need to live in a crowded world where i bump into those things that detour me. i do not need that or that or that.

no, i do not need that.

in the movies, in the books, in the films that i watch in ignorant bliss, i do not find you.

no, i do not need that.

i do not need strong arms to hold me or a whisper of understanding to bring you back. no, i do not need that.

in my mirror, in my mind, in the sanctity of my thoughts and beliefs, i find you.

i do not live in a crowded world. i do not live in blissful ignorance, because here you are.

here i am.

here we are.

6/2003

make believe it matters

Tell them all what they
want to hear.
Paint a new face
at the start of a new day.
(hypocrit)

Make believe that nothing
really matters
and that you are not those
things that you pretend
to be.
“it is not I that matters”

Stack and restack
all those things that
give you comfort.
Tell them all
what they want to hear.
(liar)

Build your wall so high
that you can not see over.
Wallow in the comfort
of your self interest
while breathing the life
of others to give yourself
life as well.
“i love you”

Turn around and see
all those things that
you ignore
and build your raft
to that place that
you escape to
again and again.
(escapist)

Tell them all what they
want to hear
and believe for a moment
that you really mean it.
Embrace them
and bask in the comfort
of their belief.
“it will never end”

RUN!
Run to that place that
you frequent and LIVE there!
Build yourself a moat
and ESCAPE!
It’s what you’re good at
and believe it all
for one second!
and then find yourself
alone
just as you thought
you always wanted to be.

4/2003

HYPOCRITE!

Live in your belief
that you are all that matters.
Tell them what you are
and reinvent yourself
once more.

Tell yourself that you
are all that is
and that you are THIS!
Convince yourself
and then convince them
because the belief
is what gives it strength.

LIVE IT!

Dance in your glow
and make believe
it’s real.
Because I know
that when you get home
you crumble.

HYPOCRITE!

Tell me all those things
that you believe
and convince me that
its real.
Tell me that you mean it
when you say it
and maybe I’ll believe you.

5/2003

It’s not what you think. It wasn’t then and it’s not now. When I told you that I meant it. I meant it with every fiber of my body, but not the way that you thought. When I pushed you away it wasn’t for the reasons that you thought.

Take me. Take me now. I am ready. Take me to that place that we went when we said what we said. Tell me all those wonderful things that made me cry. Tell me that I am the one you need and the one you love. Hold me in your arms under the black, black sky and tell me that I am the only one for you. Because if you don’t, I’m not sure that I can live.

It’s not what you think. When I told you that the last time, I didn’t mean it in the way that you had thought I did.

Tell me that tomorrow will never come. Tell me that the tide will not steal you away from me and that she wasn’t the one for you. Tell me that this time it will not end. Tell me that when you look at me you are not searching for her.

It’s not that. It never was that. It wasn’t that then and it’s not now.

Tell me that we are together for the last and final time. Tell me that this time it will be what it was supposed to be the first time and make me believe it.

make me love you again. make me believe you. make me see myself the way that I used to because the old me is fading with each morning that I wake.

tell me that you meant it then and that you mean it now. tell me that I am that person that I love being. tell me that that person and all the people I saw in myself… tell me that that they are all me, all those beautiful people that I become when I am with you.

tell me and make me believe it.
5/2003

and maybe i wont be

and i cant Be forever
and i cant feel forever
and maybe i dont need to
maybe i dont need to Be
and maybe i wont

might as well separate

all from here
and here to there
and there to here
i will be
one and forever

but split myself into
so many wholes
that i can lose myself

and then forget
and never be lonely
again

5/2003

Give you every little piece
of who I am –
left standing naked
under your gaze –
I flee.

never stay
never leave
5/2003

Tomorrow would be a new day

He stabbed her after he pushed the needle in as far as he could, almost as though he could make the effect stronger by mere force of will.

She stabbed him, allowing it to stay a bit longer than necessary, but not after she was able to taste a bit of what he had.

They left and she didn’t stop them. She didn’t put her foot in front of the door so that they couldn’t leave. No, no, she didn’t.

The familiar feel of steel on her skin brought back memories of so many times before. A familiar crack and a cry that rang from the backroom. The smell of the house, death and dried blood. Screams dripping from the walls like sweat. The smell of young dreams dying…all so familiar. Anything different would have probably scared her.

He punched her and sank to the floor, his eyes lolling in his head. She laughed at him and taunted him with words of disdain leaving a slightly bloody taste on her tongue.

She kicked him and wondered briefly where they were. She walked to the back room as though looking for something, then forgetting what it was she lay on the bed and turned on the television.

He would sleep and she could carry on with her television uninterrupted. Her lids became heavy and sleep beckoned.

Tomorrow would be a new day, possibly one with more promise than this one, but she wouldn’t hold her breath.

5/2003

I want to believe

that life is always worth living
that the sun does shine on your side of the world as well

I want to believe

that all is worth saving even those little bits of paper that had fallen from a tree
that taking chances is what motivates me to make changes

I want to believe

that you love me too
that pancakes are born of the tree of knowledge especially when shared with those you love

I want so badly to believe

that I will understand it in the end
that I will see what this was all for
that I can make it on sheer will and that knowledge was just a luxury

I want to believe

in you
in me
in the fate of all living things

I want so badly to believe

that love is what matters
that nonviolence is the answer
that no one really dies
that the moon carries as much strength as the sun

I want to believe

that the new ways are working and that all was not lost during the changes that took place
that love still exists
that I will be where you are, one day soon

I want so badly to believe

that I matter and that I won’t wander into anonymity
that I can make changes with a smile and a heart felt touch
that I can live up to the levels I have set for myself
that you will not forget me when you believe I am gone.

I want to believe.
I want to believe.

I want to believe.

4/2003

Patience, she said

Patience
if you live through this
you can live through
anything
she said.

Love
if you can live through this
you can learn to love
anyone
she said.

Love
she said.

Love
What is love?
he asked

Love is blind
she answered.
love knows nothing
but that it exists
you choose to love
she said.

Idealist
he said
not meaning to hurt her.

She smiled
and held him close.
Love
she said.

Love
he repeated.
Walking in parks
days at the beach
and long days in the sun?
he asked.

Love
not lust
she said.
live through this
and you
can learn to love.

Love
not lust
he said aloud.

Patience
she said.

Patience…
he began
but she stopped him
with a kiss.

Love
not lust
she repeated.
Hours of thought
living without attachment
long hours of thought
she said.

Attachment
he said
and she stopped him
with a kiss.

Live through this
with me
and I promise you
bliss
she said.

Bliss
he repeated
and she stopped him
with a thought.

Patience
she said.

4/2003

Will you hear me?

Will you hear me? Will you know what I mean? Will you even listen? Or will you sit and smile as you always do, smiling like a parent to a child because you understood long before I did?

My stomach hurts and my nerves are on edge…all day long, long before I even heard from you, because we’re connected that way. But you forgot about that didnt you? You forgot about that dream we both had. And you forgot that I KNOW you. That I know YOU. You forgot, because I made you forget. I made you remember all the other things..I made THOSE important and not the other. And yet, I cant help but miss it. All those other things that I made you and I forget. The connection of two people. But, here we are, they way that we are. And its okay. I know its okay. And the loneliness will go away like it always does and we will be where we are and we will find each other once more. Just like we always do. And I will dream Im there, and you will feel me there as you always do, as I always do. And thats okay.

It will be okay. I love you. I will always love you, because friends like you..they dont come along so very often.

Its my fault. Its my fault because I came to you when you needed me and I became exactly what you needed…no questions asked. I knew it then as did you, but we didnt expect it to be the way that it is. You are exactly the same through out..a constant in my life and I was there..learning and growing..loving and never questioning. You didnt expect me to be this way, but you were pleasantly surprised as was I and you have been there..hurting me..loving me…needing me…and holding me when I needed to sleep. I miss your words when they are not whispered in my ear and I sit and wait..knowing it will happen again and I think to myself… what will I do in the end? Will I be able to stay this way for you? Will you continue to be the student and I the teacher? Will you continue to grow with me in this direction or will you do as all the others do? Will you be there for me in the end? Will I still feel the sting of tears that roll down my face at the face of another long and lonely night…or will you be there..your words and your arms.. your lips on mine..or will I be the one to once again stand back and view things objectively.. the one who constantly needs to see the rhyme and the reason in your madness?

It is your words and your visions that I miss. But it is myself I miss most when I lose sight of the truth that is in me. It is I that I miss when I lose myself in the chaos that my mind creates. It is me that I miss when I lose myself in the vastness of my insecurities that take hold of me when the night sets in my windows and I face yet another night of emptiness.

4/2003

You misunderstand

You misunderstood me then, just as you are misunderstanding me now.

You misunderstand…you misunderstand, you misunderstand….you misunderstood, you misunderstood…

and you keep misunderstanding me.

For fear of your disappointment I didn’t reveal all. I reserved part of it in a special place that you could not reach, because I have to keep part of me to myself. I didn’t fail to reveal it because I do not love you, but because I do. You wouldn’t have understood, just as you haven’t in all times past.

You keep misunderstanding me, even when I choose my words so carefully. Words that I have sought out and specially selected, you read between them and heard something else.

I love you. I don’t want to confuse you, but you worry. You worry incessantly in your cocoon of love for me. Your heart is always on display, beating before me in it’s soft place that you have reserved, but in your love you have misunderstood me. You have heard something entirely different than was my intention.

…and for that reason, I have not revealed all even though I really wanted to.

3/2003

Full moon

Full Moon
————————————————————————
He lay there, sheet pulled up to his brown hairless chest. His salt and peppered hair, unaccustomed to its life outside of a braid, lay lifeless and matted below his shoulders. I remember when it was long and flowing. It was the envy of all the women.

This wasn’t the way I wanted to remember him, helpless and aged, lying in a hospital bed with tubing draping about him.

His face that was set in a frown, lit up as best a drugged man can do, when my cousin and I entered the room. In the tradition of my family, he introduced us as numbers instead of by names.

“This is number one daughter,” he told the nurse, indicating my cousin, then held an arm to me, “And this is number two niece.”

As with most people, the nurse smiled at us, slightly confused at this custom.

It used to be that I was ashamed of everything native. The customs and traditions seemed odd to me in comparison to those of my classmates. But now, I hold them dear. I find comfort in them, familiarity and pride that I can perform something that generations before me had performed.

“How’s my acha?” uncle asked, shifting his body, allowing an exposed foot to appear from its hiding place beneath the blanket.

“Michael’s fine, daddy.” Teresa answered, her full lips curling at the ends. Her almond eyes darted to and fro in their effort to absorb the room.

“Tell number two daughter that I love her when you next speak to her.” Uncle instructed.

“I will,” Teresa responded, still refusing to make eye contact.

When I first began learning the customs and traditions of my family, I wanted to shout from the rooftops all that I knew, all that I had learned. I found it difficult to speak softly behind hands the way the aunties did. My voice, though low, wanted to deny its heritage. It wanted to scream for us all. Unaccustomed to the new low tones set upon it, it would forget its place and rise an octave above the rest and beg to be heard.

I turned to the window beside me and pulled back the drapes to expose the large yellow moon doning the sky, peaking from behind a group of clouds. I smiled and called over my shoulder, “Hey, uncle, look its a full moon!”

“Heh,” I heard him say and then mumble something to Teresa that I couldnt hear.

I stared up at the moon, remembering the numerous times my uncle and I had sat in my backyard, joint in hand, exchanging stories in the moonlight. It had become our very own tradition. I marveled at his ability as family historian. Nothing was ever written on paper, but instead he kept with the oral tradition and told and retold stories to anyone willing to listen. My cousin was never favourable to this, but it was something I marveled at and would never forget when he sat me down and said, “Marie, you will have to keep these stories. Remember them, because when your grandmother and I are no longer here, someone will need to keep them.”

I turned to look at uncle lying on the bed, his face curled in a smile at something from television. So handsome he is, I thought to myself. So many hearts he had broken through out the years, including my cousin’s mother. So many women pounding on my door when he lived with us. Screaming women calling. I laughed to myself and joined my cousin at uncle’s bedside and listened to the story of when grandma had gone back to visit family in Alaska.

“They had a baseball game in her honour and the town came out to see her, still remembering that she was the village chief’s daughter.” Uncle began…

3/2003

Crimson Petal

A song and a dance
and a softly
oozing cut
because
she’s had all the beauty
that she can stand.

“Let me love you”

(smile)

So graceful –
her hands placed
at the side of her
face

“Its you that I want”

(bleed)

A touch
so soft its barely felt
her need to bleed
her only saving grace

“I needed to see your face, one last time”

(smile)

A disappearing
phantom embrace
that once had gripped her
lost to the puddle lain
beneath

“You’re perfect.”

(bleed)

A crimson petal
lay beside her
warming her
soothing her

“Your body is perfect”

(smile)

beauty cultivated
in a smile
she rests her curls
on her bed
one last time
letting the last of the beauty
that was within her
drain onto the sheet beneath

irony swept to her
in the perfect flower
of red
that bloomed there in.

2/2003

Use and Reuse her

Use and reuse her
because
there isn’t enough of her
to go around
(do it)

It was like this
From the beginning
And until the end

And that end
And that end
And that end

He held her in his arms
a suffering tight lipped grip
the last of her innocence
draining from between her legs
“I love you”

A train to nowhere
and a break from normalcy
he does it
just so he doesn’t have
to feel
(use it)

He holds them in his arms
hundreds of them
promising, loving them
as the last of his life
drained between their legs –
wearing them
not as a trophy
but a curse
“Love me”

Her future worn
on the edge of his shirt
she turns –
She does it
just so she can feel
(make it)

“Promise me love,
promise me what
I cant give myself.
Love me
Love me
Love me”

Abuse and misuse me
because
there’s so much
to go around
(dont do it)

it wasnt like this
in the beginning
but here it ends

here it ends
here it ends
here it ends

I held her in my arms
Her lips gripped, tight hipped
fake real innocence
power between our legs
“I tolerate you”

take me anywhere
somewhere normal
I love these arms
lets free them
“I want to”

embracing you all
I promise, I love you
my life ends
somewhere here
you’re my achievement
for better or worse
(love)

My ending near
my cloth frayed
breathe in deep
(take it)

“I promise dear
I cross my heart
I love you
I need you
I’ll save you”

Collaborative Effrot with Russell Moore
2/2003

At what point do you think your search will be over, friend? Perhaps you are much like myself, who feels that when the search is over the meaning of your existence will also be over?

This lifetime, that lifetime and hundreds of lifetimes over, we may never satiate our need for knowledge. Even if we were to have kept all knowledge that was gained throughout our many lifetimes, even then we will not grasp that Truth because our petty, little, human brains could never comprehend it.

We search for answers and we don’t always like the answers that come to us; they can make us feel alienated and misunderstood or even serve to further confuse us. But such is the way of the seeker. But we have ages and ages to find out the answers or continue our search. This short lifetime of ours will not suffice; this human brain of ours will not suffice. We will inevitably exhaust ourselves with questions, but you know what? That’s our role. The universe needs beings such as us. We are fulfilling an important role in the existence of our universe, or us. We didn’t choose our role but it’s ours to live out nevertheless.

In the end, in conclusion to our search, we will need to apply the knowledge we have gained and walking that line is by far the hardest part. Theory put to application is really the only way to know if we’ve been on the right road (if there is such a thing) in the first place. In the end, we will find that we were what we have been searching for since the beginning.

We are the seekers and the sought; we tend to forget that. We are that for which we have no answers, because we have separated our awareness.

It’s a beautiful search, friend. It’s a beautiful search.

5/2003

Government issued cheese, dented canned goods and blankets with holes in them…

I remember when I was growing up and my mother would come home with boxes of food from where ever it was that she picked up the free food. My father wasn’t too happy about it, I remember, but I took great delight in tearing through the box of goods.

I lined up the dented, mislabeled, often not labeled canned goods onto the table next to the block of nondiscernable coloured cheese. Sometimes there were boxes of food labeled, “Elbow macaroni and Cheese” the lettering in black and the box a bright yellow. Sometimes if we were really lucky mom came home with some clothes.

The clothes were the best part. I had, for years, worn clothes that had once belonged to my sister or cousin who were each at least two inches taller than I and outweighed me by 15 pounds. When mom brought home the clothes, most times, it was in my size. Clothes, sometimes shoes were handed to me and I would immediately change into the new ones. I would clack around the house in my new shoes that didn’t need the ball of toilet paper in the front and stick out from the hem of my pants by almost an inch.

It was during this time that my dad would almost quit university full time and go back to working in a warehouse or some other place. Mom would tell dad that there was nothing to be ashamed of. These things were given to her because she was a native Alaskan, not because she was on welfare. Just stick it out a little longer, she would beg. You’re almost done and then NO MORE CHEESE! She would cry out, a big smile on her face.

Dad would smile back and put away the loaf labeled in blue and white “bread” and take the block of cheese with him into the livingroom along with his cup of coffee.

Grandma would collect her box of goods and stick the block cheese she was alotted onto the table and walk away. I would chase her with the block, crying, “Grandma!! You forgot your cheese!!!” Grandma would wrinkle her nose and say, “I don’t want that damned cheese! They take our oil and land and they give us CHEESE?!”. I would stand with the cheese in my hand and watch, confused, as grandma climbed into uncle’s car and drive away, tossing out the day old bread as she did so.

I didn’t understand then what grandma meant, I just knew we had a new blanket, cheese and possibly new shoes. The idea that this was payment for something did not enter my mind.

3/2003

I hated you so much for making me into something that I can’t possibly live up to and I love you so much for showing me what really matters. My life here has never been so full of angst until I realized just how ignorant I have been.

You stand there on your mountain, unattainable, unmoveable, and unwavering in your so-called contradictions. Oh, how I long to give meaning to my life that seems so scientific and preachy, and YET you show me that THIS is what it is all about. The Search! The everlasting search for unity with All.
How hard this is for me. How this seems to be what is giving my life meaning, but really…is there nothing outside of this?

You have placed me in the heavens and not of the earth, and yet…I do not feel complete but once every few months when realization and understanding set in once again. On a pedastal I stand in your presence, your everlasting presence of love that is here with me, every step that I take and
still, I long for more because outside of your assessment of Me, I, as a mortal, do not exist. Once I step outside of the standards you have set, I am a void. I am a deity before your eyes and a mortal in my own.

By your standards I come to this world as a woman who is neither woman nor man, god nor mortal, but I am All. I am in all things. I can not live to these standards alone but must include all things. I long for the ignorance that I once had, but I can never go back. So, please… take my eyes from me
and take this anger and frustration from my heart and replace them with what used to live there, for I can not serve your purpose and I have never had one of my own.

My agenda was clean. My pathway was never clear. Oh~! Blissful ignorance please come for me, because I don’t think I can do this on my own. I long to be Me and I long to see the pathway with much more clarity than what I have set before me.

Most of all, I need Me, and I just don’t see myself the way that you do. You are here. I am there, and yet, I feel so alone in this thinking of mine, because here in my place, my side of the world, it is a lonely place, as all the others do not see, Me in them. They do not see themselves in Me and
here I sit, waiting for the way to be shown to me and the way in which to walk it.

4/2003

Government issued cheese, dented canned goods and blankets with holes in them…

Dad would smile back and put away the loaf labeled in blue and white “bread” and take the block of cheese with him into the livingroom along with his cup of coffee.

I didn’t understand then what grandma meant, I just knew we had a new blanket, cheese and possibly new shoes. The idea that this was payment for something did not enter my mind.

3/2003

I didnt go to grandma’s that easter, in fact I had missed easter dinner at grandma’s for the past few years merely out of selfishness. I wasn’t in the mood to climb over passed out inuits with hair lying in pools of spilt beer, no, not that year or the year prior. I had grown up and now it was time to move along and find other easter activities to partake in, or so my selfish nature told me.

I had developed a group of friends to spend my easters with. No more of grandma’s ham with cherries on the side, oh no, now I had ham with pineapple rings. No more of grandma’s home made brown gravy and lumpy mashed potatoes, oh no, now I had homemade mashed potatoes with small bits of chives and onion with canned chicken gravy. No more climbing over mountains of passed out uncles and sleeping aunties, oh no, now I had exciting games of Uno and Trivial Pursuit.

I was grown now, no more family events needed, regardless of endless messages from grandma inquiring of my whereabouts.

How could I tell her I wasn’t interested in landing in piles of spilt beer and could no longer tolerate the smell of the marijuana? How could I tell her it broke my heart to see what little she had?

In easters past I lay in grandma’s ‘special’ garden while my parents hid eggs. I wore grandma’s small shoes and pulled off leaves from the tall smelly plants and tried to slow my breathing to a lesser degree so as to not arise suspicion from the elders. These plants grew money from their seeds and leaves, but I wasnt sure why, I only knew that I liked the taste of the plant, it calmed me. So many easters and other afternoons were spent in this garden of grandma’s. I would laze about on my back watching the clouds move slowly across the sky and count the number of leaves that sprouted from the stems.

Oh, easter and plants and forgotten eggs left hiding in the yard only to be found the following year by sheer smell alone.

Grandma called me this past year to remind me of easter. I had told her that I had plans and so I did, to be with other family and friends. Yes, I had plans. Yes, I know she is making ham and mashed taters and gravy. Yes, I love you, too grandma, please do not yell. I have plans.

Grandma fell from the porch that year and broke her hip, did I know? No, I didn’t. I hadnt known and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, or so I tell myself.

Grandma is in the hospital now, did I know that? Yes, I did and so off to see grandma I went. Grandma minus beer was like christmas minus a tree. Easter minus beer is like mashed potatoes minus the gravy.

Grandma sat in her wheel chair further down the hall her wheels locked and radio in hand. A small smile visited her face as a figure rode by in another wheelchair. The thirteen cups of coffee to calm my nerves suddenly gathered in my bladder all at once, calling me for release. PLEASE RELEASE ME, they cried in a pitch only heard to dogs and the owners of full bladders.

My eyes scanned the hall for a door marked bathroom, but my lack of glasses prevented my knowing its exact location. I fought a sea of eldery in wheelchairs and found myself opening the door to a linen closet. Well, damn, that wasn’t it, so on I went when suddenly my pant leg was caught on the wheel of a chair carrying a woman doning a pink shawl. I hobbled my way down the hall with her and was accosted by the smell of urine and too much Liz Taylor’s Diamonds, most probably a gift from a son who couldn’t make it that easter.

“Um, I’m sorry, but you seem to have caught my pant leg!” I called out still hobbling around. Oh, my bladder, oh, my bladder.

I called out again, but it seemed as if she could not hear me so I checked for a hearing aid, none. Okay, she should hear me. I called once more and was finally saved by a passing nurse. Oh thank god! A bathroom!

When through I found my family gathered in the dining area. Uncles on chairs, aunties by grandma’s side, one holding a phone to grandma’s ear. Grandma was crying, something about Uncle Hurbie on the phone and Uncle Cayce here, finally. When grandma was through I took out my wooden flute and handed it to her. She smiled and waved it at me, “This is a REAL flute, Rhea. Not like those metal ones. These are the ones I remember.”

I smiled and took the flute from her and played a tune I had written and watched as her face lit with a smile. I played a few more tunes until my older sister put her finger in the opening and laughed. I couldnt help but laugh with her and sat on a chair by her side.

“Grandma looks well today, doesnt she?” I asked.

“Yeah, she does. I just hope she’s able to stay here a bit longer until she fully heals.” My sister said and watched as tears fell from grandma’s eyes while laughing at something an uncle said.

“Happy easter, ma.” an auntie said.

“Yeah, happy easter, grandma.” I told her and wrapped an arm across her tiny shoulders.
4/2003

I am sometimes so struck by things that my brain freezes on the concept!

There is a line in the Upanishads (sorry for the Hindu religious text reference) that describes the Self as ‘Not this, Not that’ in a conversation between Yagnavalkya and his wife, Maitreyi (God bless the Eastern mystics for their process of Ontology!) and this left me thinking… how true it is that when one is on a search for Noumenon, that one must take away those things that do not define it.

So, I lay in bed one night, thinking as I always do when my brain is not deflated, and began taking away those things that do not, in fact, define me. I have stated before, numerous times, almost to the point of redundency and back, that this human form does not define me. I am not confined to this body, that I am beyond that. So… then what am I exactly?

So, I lay, very still… only my heart beat echoing in my ears, my thoughts almost still, save for the constant question running through my mind, “What am I?… Not this, not that.”

When one lies still in one’s bed with this question running amock, one can surely drives oneself nuts. With every muscle lying still, the body nearly disappearing from your senses, you are left with little else but your thoughts. And yet, you still exist. So, are you then your thoughts? “I think, therefore I am?”

I’m not sure. I may never be sure, but the rational reductionist in me will always be saying, “Not this, not that.”, and that’s surely a start. 🙂

Was talking to my uncle last night about Truth (I have so many uncles, let’s call this one Joe, cause that’s his name 🙂 ) and once again was struck by how awesome this place of ours is.

I was thinking about Truth and was amazed by how it is that when we view the universe as a whole, everything, absolutely everything changes!!! The first step I made toward the idea of ‘oneness’ was with the concept of good and bad being relative. But as I stepped back and understood the closed system of the universe I was AMAZED at how everything… absolutely everything is connected! It’s more than just good and bad being relative, it’s far more than just the idea of interconnectedness of things, but its EVERYTHING!

I was talking to another uncle on the phone, his name is Hurb :). We were discussing the war and I had made a comment about my seeing the universe as being inside a large plastic ball. Nothing from the outside can affect the inside; nothing from the inside can affect the outside… so nothing leaves! Nothing ends! Everything returns! Everything is reborn! There are no individual ‘wholes’ as I had first thought. It’s not a matter of time being illusory, though it is…it’s not a matter of a day not existing because time is not a matter of the sun rising and setting, no, it’s more than that. It’s not a matter of life never ending due to energy never ‘dying’. Its not a matter of extinction not really existing because genes are shared…no, it’s more than that…it is ALL of that and then some!

Whoa!

A friend had commented how “…it’s funny how different people approach a single ‘truth’ from so many angles.” Upon which I replied, “When given thought to this reality, I often give pause to the idea that all together, the collection of individual consciousness(es), we hold the ENTIRE truth! Imagine that! The collection of all these ideas is the sum of the Truth! We don’t each lord over the summation of the Truth, but instead together we reflect it.” (yes, I really speak that way. :|)

Well, my friend didn’t really agree with me, instead he believes all living things as witnessing deviations of truth, rather than the embodiment of it. I see where he is going with this idea and I agree, our vision of this world and all things in it ARE in a way, deviations of the truth for reasons that both you and I have agreed on in times past. BUT! When giving thought to the reasons for this, I can’t help but fall back on my previous argument that it is consciousness that connects us all, all things and that consciousness may be ALL THERE IS!

What causes one to witness? What helps one to witness? Is it the brain-mind? Is it consciousness itself? I believe that to be a key in our understanding of these things. Understanding what causes one to believe we are ‘witnesses’ to anything. Terming us as witnesses not only separates us from the ‘whole’ but it also begs the questions, ‘what are we witness to?’ and ‘what function causes one to witness?’.

Understanding the functions of the body can aid us in better understanding our roles here. One mystery still left to us is consciousness. What is consciousness, what are the functions of consciousness, what organ produces consciousness and so forth? This is an amazing thing! Consciousness!

In emails past I had made mention of consciousness possibly being the ‘first cause’. I had also pointed out that monistic idealism states that all consciousness is unitive, and also that quantum physics states that it is our consciousness that collapses the wave function. I had also made mention of the mind-body problem. Something had struck me a while back about the mind-body duality ‘problem’…the mind cannot be an emergent property of the brain or any other physical system, since emergent properties and emergent phenomena are psychological in origin, and require the pre-existence of an observer’s mind in order to become manifest!

These discoveries have led me to question the existence and properties of consciousness. Such a strong role consciousness seems to lead!

From what I have been reading it appears as though consciousness is all there is! It seems as though conscioussness is instrumental in our understanding and functioning of all things! Consciousness seems to be the tie between ourselves and our universe!

Now, if this is true, then what of my questions to my friend: “Can we really have deviations from the Truth? Is it not a ‘perception’ that we each hold? Should his theory of fuzzy boundaries be ‘true’ then is not All, One?”

In the first question I am alluding to the ‘one’ concept as seen by the closed system. If nothing from the outside can affect the inside and nothing from the inside can affect the outside then how can something possibly be a deviation from the Truth? Can it be, instead, a reflection of it? Is it not really a view of the Truth as seen by ‘another’? If it is the latter, that seems to separate one from another, but, really, how can one be separate from another?!

If the fuzzy boundary theory is a solid one, then this changes absolutely everything! It not only changes concepts such as good and bad, but dualities all around! But, not just dualities, but everything. Consciousness is then affected. Our understanding of consciousness, death, ….everything.

Although I believe the idea of consciousness being the ‘first cause’ it seems as though I have replaced one duality with another and I am having trouble resolving it. Consciousness appears to require an observer. With this realization the world we live in is secondary to our consciousness! Behold the duality!

A while back my friend and I had discussed the super-ego versus ego. We had both agreed that in order to determine, at least partially, what Self is, one would be required to separate those things that are ego driven beyond the point of survival.

I had told him that my mother and I had a long telephone discussion over this idea of Truth and she made some great points in regards to mathematics and the existence of Truth. She basically summed it up with this statement: Truth simply IS. When one is able to discern what is IS one will be a step closer to realizing Truth.

She had made another great observations, ‘A barn is red whether the owner is there to observe it or not. If the theory of unitive consciousness is correct then one need not be there in human form to observe it, it just is without the need of our presence.’

When I pointed out the seeming duality that I had observed in my previous statement of our being secondary to the existence of consciousness my mother said to me, “You can go back further and further detracting the reactions and secondary conditions to the beginning of time. When you are able to do so you are at Truth. But aren’t all things that have followed as a result of this initial condition a reflection of that Truth? Can these results be deviations of the Truth if they have followed suit?”

I have found some satisfaction in knowing that I am Me, in many many forms, and that this human one is temporary. The universe is an awesome awesome place and I share it with so many different versions of myself that I sometimes forget that they are all me. I seem to separate myself from them, and sometimes that’s enjoyable because my poor little human brain can not possibly store all those different versions of the truth so I HAD to separate. It’s as if it’s all new when these other versions share their opinions with me. I enjoy their company as well.

So, basically, I am the universe with multiple personality disorder and it’s all good. 🙂

2/2003

I’m not sure I’m deserving

He said, “You can have it. It’s all for you.” But, I’m not sure I’m deserving.

I said, “You will have to wait.” But, I’m not sure he was able to be patient enough.

He said, “I love you.” But, I’m not sure I love myself.

He said, “This has always been yours. You can have it, you only have to ask.” But, I’m not sure I want to believe him.

I said, “It’s lonely here.” He said, “I am always with you.” But, I don’t feel him here anymore.

He said, “It’s yours. It’s all for you if you want it.” But, I’m not sure I deserve it.

I said, “It was all mine and I somehow misplaced it.” He just smiled.

He said, “You never lost it because you never took it.” But, I somehow think he misunderstood.

He said, “I can’t be with you anymore, but I’m still there, can you see me?” I said, “No.” And then he opened my eyes.

He said, “It’s all for you, you only have to ask.”

2/2003

They killed him as he sat in his father’s car, doing his homework while sitting in the alley. He was to graduate this June. He was a youth on the verge of bigger things, but they took his life!@!!! They took it for no reason that I can possibly understand. I just can’t

I can’t put myself in their shoes and understand it. I can’t see them in me. I can’t see the justification for their actions. I just can’t. I can’t rationalize this time. I can’t rationalize it in my mind and say it will be okay.

I can’t seem to remain positive and say, it will be alright in the end. I want to scream and cry and I want to drive around the city to find them and ask them why they did this.

I can’t rationalize this, god dammit! I can’t. I hurt and I hurt for the family that lost him. I want to say to myself, “They said they loved each other every day he was alive. He was a good person and it will be alright”, but I CAN’T!!! I can’t seem to do that, not with this.

I can’t put myself where the killers were. I can’t say to myself that they will work it out in the end, in this lifetime or the next. I can’t say to myself that the boy is alright, because I keep seeing him in his cap and gown standing on the stage with his family and friends smiling. I can’t convince myself that the family will move on and be okay, because I keep seeing them at his gravesite.

I can’t rationalize it this time.

A youth with his life ahead of him, his smile growing bigger as he wraps his arms around his wife and first child in the next ten years. A youth graduating university giving knowledge and love to others as he grows older. A youth full of love to share with others because that’s how he was.

I can’t do it. I can’t rationalize this. I can’t see the justification and I want to UNDERSTAND IT!! I want to see why they did it. I want to see that in the future IT WORKS OUT!!! I want to see two thousand years from now that everything will be alright, that it helped keep the balance of the universe. I want to know why it happened and how it helped somewhere along the way, because I just fail to see it.

I fail to see it and I want to so bad so that when I see the boy in the casket I can say, “It was best for it’s time” so I can comfort the family without hurting them or hurting me in that selfish way of mine. I want to take their pain and replace it with some sort of rationalization. I want to take it from them so I can replace it with a smile and some sort of understanding. But, I can’t.

I fail to see it.

Tell me it’s going to be okay. Tell me that he is in a better place, a place where 17 year olds who are murdered are happy and smiling and full of love and do not remember how they died.

Tell me that the family will make it and that this anger and hurt that I feel will be replaced with understanding because at this point, I DONT SEE IT!!! I dont see that it will be okay. I dont see how it will be alright!!! I dont see how taking the life of a 17 year old balances out the universe. I dont see how in the end it will work itself out. God or no God I dont see it. I can’t rationalize it in my head, all I feel is pain for the family and for the love that I had for this boy who was doing so well and had a new girlfriend that he had fallen in love with.

I do not see the big picture on this one and I fear it may be my selfishness that disallows my view of the end product. Love had clouded my thinking and I can’t see how in the end he will return to his place of love that once spawned him. I can’t see him as a being that has surpassed this place and moved on. I can’t see that. I still see him as a youth sitting in a car doing his homework at 9:00 pm while sitting in an alley waiting for his dad.

I can’t see how he’s moved onto a better place. I can’t see it and I want to.

I’ve made him into a being that is somehow separate than me and I know in my heart of hearts that what I miss about him is his presence, his words and his physical nature of being. I KNOW that he is still here, in a different form. Science tells me this, but I’m aching for something spiritual. Some sort of spritual understanding of how this works.

Scientifically I know that he can never leave, I know this and yet in this circumstance I fail to see it. I have allowed my emotions to run all over this place on this one and I long to be ignorant of this fact. I long to see it as I once did, in that way that I used to see everything in terms of blacks and whites and not grey tones.

I know that it will be okay, but I fear that I may lose myself in emotion before I can understand it. Science gives me a firm foundation, but part of me still wants the bliss of spirituality to explain it in such a way that allows for human emotion and does not explain it away in terms of neurons and pherons and whatever -on would explain this in a clinical way.

I want to see it. I want to understand it. I want to feel it.

3/2003

I never left you

I never left you, not even when you walked away. I never left you, even when you stopped seeing me there, I never left you.

I love you. I have always loved you. I never stopped loving you, not when you stopped feeling my presence, I never stopped.

I never stopped caring for you, not when you stopped hearing my voice whispering to you. I never stopped caring about you.

I’ve loved you, even before you knew I existed, I loved you. I’ve loved you since before I knew who you were, I loved you.

Even when you stopped calling me because I stopped answering and you didn’t feel my love surrounding you, I never left you.

I never stopped seeing you in my mind, even when you walked out of the door, I was there with you. I was with you when you felt so alone in your room wondering where I was, I was there.

I was there when you smiled for no known reason, I was there.

I was there when you felt all alone in your house and saw darkness in all corners of the room, I was there.

I’ve loved you. I’ve always loved you, I just can’t always be there, but I never left you.

I love you

I choose to love. I choose to believe. I choose to exist.

5/2003

Life seems so long

when you aren’t around. I walk by your place every night, in just my pajamas, my socks wet from the grass I ran through to get there. My head spins at the smell of the trees in your yard and I feel naseus.

I want to cry everytime I notice that the lights are off and your window is shut tight. I want to sit on your porch and wait for you to wake, but I know that that would scare you. You would only run away from me. So I walk back to my house at the end of the block and wait for the sun to rise again so that I can walk, slower this time, to your side of the street so that we can drink coffee together.

I sit on my side of the table sipping at the hot brown liquid that you poured lovingly into a cup before me and I hide my face behind my newspaper as to seem nonchalant, but the paper shakes just ever so slightly. You offer me dry toast and I shake my head without speaking because I know that if I tried to eat I would be sick and if I tried to speak I would scream a thousand protestations into the air. So there I sit, waiting for a sign from you, knowing it may never reach me.

…and so, I sit, waiting for the night to come so that I can run across the grass to your house, hoping for the anonymity and safety of darkness to say it.. hoping for an open window so that I can hear you breathe and finally, waiting for the sun to rise again… and this is how I pass my day, morning to night, night to morning, from year to year, from eternity to eternity.

4/2003

live for them

you’ve lived your life so full of pain, those that loved you hurt you the most.

live!

live for them and hide in your cocoon of pain thats masked with a smile and tell them all that they wish to hear, because you know there is no way out.

scars. bitter scars worn on your wrists that look like smiles but show what they are in the dark privacy of your room at night.

oh how i love you and wish you well for all the days of your life that i have shared with you and all the days that i can not be there to hold you.

you were there. you were there and they weren’t. they can not understand the pain that you endured as well as all the pain that you have gone through before and since. how they wanted to hurt you even when you hurted most. how they wanted to see you lose no matter how hard you fought to win.

i love you. i love you every moment of every single day and i long to give you all those things that you do not believe that you deserve.

you sit alone in the crowded room your eyes still seeing those things that you can not erase from your mind. the burning tree. the smashed car. the scars on your wrists. the bullet wounds. the burning ground and the smiling face of your father who knew no love. we can not see you. we can not feel what is not there for us and yet i hurt for you.

how i wish to take that from your heart and replace it with something more worthy of your love. how i wish to erase those things from your mind that still haunt you in the day light hours and keep you awake long into the night. how i wish to take away those screams that i once heard as i lay in bed trying to sleep. how i wish i can take from you the hurt that she put you through, what he put you through. how i wish to erase those battered scars on your wrists and the cracked mind that you had to endure for those long years that i grew in your absence.

how i love you. how i will always love you and how i long to understand what goes through your mind when you smile at me. how i long to show you the love that you deserve.

how i love you.

5/2003

Mama mia, mama mia…

It appears as though I have some making up to do with a friend of mine and therefore I have packed my weekend with events with her. Somehow or another she got the impression that because I have not called her or visited her that I no longer love her. 😮

So my weekend plans are thusly made:

1) Prepare self for long drive to friend’s house by attempting to fold self into many a yoga posture, this is especially difficult seeing how I have not done yoga in nearly a month 🙁 x a hundred
2) pack all items for trip, making sure to include deodorant, last trip to friend’s proved an embarrassing event, will NOT expand on that theme… moving along
3) Drive the 50 or so miles to friend Teresa’s house, braving hail, snow, sleet and tornado like weather, because YES I love her so
4) Unfold myself from my car and walk the twenty or so paces to her doorstep, avoiding the many a lizard that emerges from her garden
5) Take photos of lizards as keepsake to torment new niece with
6) OOOH!!! must call sister to congratulate AGAIN on 10 pound baby girl named Amanda Lauren (for some reason my sister was not favourable to my name choise, Billie Mae :()
7) Walk to back bay with Teresa, remembering to wear not so shiny and new trainer immitation shoes that had bought a month ago in hopes of looking not TOO sporty but semi-active
8) OH! Must write list of included items for trip such as telescope, microscope, books, cd’s and trainer shoes that look worn in
9) When arrive at back bay will lie on grass on back and deep breathe cause am horribly out of shape from lack of yogic exercise and scare friend with meditation
10) Remember to bring back her book on Crossing the Tiber and tell her read the first 45 pages though didnt, but DID discuss with sibling.. 😮
11) Meditation for a few minutes while Teresa vegs out on hill and swats away flying mosquitoes and other ‘pests’
12) Walk back to house, up the many hills, and watch as squirrel and wild life scamper about, may chase some, not sure havent decided yet
13) Will inevitably laugh at Teresa who will run scared from deer and skunk and may fall into cactus patch, though that wasnt very funny last time that happened. 🙁 …um, yeah it kinda was 😀
14) Will prepare live to die for food, either she will or I will attempt to. Hopefully she will make some Italian food 😀 something with eggplant… yum
15) Will have long discussion over her Crossing the Tiber book and I will assume the correct facial expressions and once again tell her that yes I read the pages and scurry around my brain to recall things sibling had said
16) HAVE to call parents and clear the dates for my visit
17) when come back home will have to clean up the sideyard of neighbours debris and collect some jasmine 😎
18) While bathing will work up plan to rid the internet of adverts!!!!
19) will put advert dissolution plan into action and sit back and watch as they disappear from view on my monitor
20) will read….ALOT

2/2003

My brain has a mind of its own

It seems as though my brain is committing acts of treason. As of late my brain is refusing to behave properly and maintain a certain amount of focus so that I may continue learning at a quick pace. I begin to read and then I grow rather bored thereby creating a feeling as though my existence is a mite tedious. I am feeling rather pedantic at the moment and wish to be accumulating mass knowledge with little to no effort on my part. I am looking for a way to input all knowledge while sitting still and quiet while still thinking about odds and ends.

Maybe my goals are too high. I wish to read on philosophy and science. I wish to write on philosophy and science. But it seems as though my brain is feeling lazy, or at least hyper. It wants constant stimulation, which I obviously can not give it. At least not outside of the meager sensory perception that comes from glossing over a room full of papers and what not. My brain wishes to soak up information without an actual thought process taking place.

Perhaps part of the problem is due to no spectacles having been worn in the early part of the day, I’m not sure. Perhaps, my mind wishes not to store information. Perhaps it has become elitist and sees no real reason to discover new philosophy and scientific data.

I fear that my brain will revolt against itself and retreat back into the larvae stage.

3/2003

Native American? First Nations?

American Indian? Native Indian?

It seems as though there are many terms for the Tribes here in America and yet I can’t seem to decide which would term me properly without giving the wrong impression. Am I a First Nations person? That sounds odd to say. Am I American Indian?

Hm.

It appears as though each of these terms refers to something that I am not. American Indian? Well, let’s look at this term. Columbus sailed the seven seas in search of India to bring back spices and gold and instead landed here? Well, that’s suspect, but had he actually landed here and viewed the peoples that populated this area and wrongly termed us as ‘Indians’…then should I really embrace this term? The same can be said for Native Indian.

Native American? What does that mean? Couldn’t just about anyone having been born in the States be a Native American? Native simply means you were born here.

I am still wrestling with the term First Nations. I am not quite sure what that means or who developed it, but I’m not sure if it adequately sums it up.

Perhaps I should just walk about with the name of my nation or tribe? My family is from the Tribe of the Seal. Perhaps that is how I shall term myself. ‘Hello, my name is Marie and I am from the Tribe of the Seal.’ Seems a bit long, enit?

Perhaps, just the name of my nation? ‘Hello, my name is Marie and I am Inuit and Aleut. ‘ Well, that might lead to many more questions, such as: “What is Inuit? Aleut? Why the two names?” Yes, I’ve been asked that before. Besides this explanation tends to lead to more and more questions.

Perhaps I should just leave it up to their imaginations.

3/2003

no good
no bad
no death
no life
no division
no hierarchy
no end
no beginning
no you
no me
no soul
no afterlife
no enlightenment
no here
no there
no location
no center
no perimeters
no rich
no poor
no rock
no tree
no desert
no water
no day
no night

Only Self

4/2003

Please tell me that it’s going to be okay. Remind me that it will be alright in the end, because I have somehow forgotten. I have seen it and it hurts the same everytime.

I can not see them in me! I can’t, because I can’t understand the need for hurt. I can’t understand the need for harm. I can’t. I can’t see it no matter how hard I try.

I sometimes want to harm them out of love. I want to show them what they are doing to everyone else. I want to show them how they sometimes poison the well. I want to take them and hold their eyes to the world and let them see what they have caused, because it harms. It harms us. It harms you and it harms them.

These new set of eyes that I have been given allow me to see so much love, but it’s through my love that I see the pain and it hurts me everytime. It is my love for others that causes me so much anger directed at those that harm and I can’t go back! I can’t go back to where I used to be. I have to live the rest of this life in this place where people are harmed and it KILLS ME! It kills me because my heart beats every second of the day without faltering for those that even do harm.

I see them hurt even if they can not recognize it in themselves I SEE IT! I see that they are unhappy in their lives of terror that reigns on others and it hurts me to see their hearts so hardened.

I see their victims, each and everyone of them, and sometimes they smile with that smile of understanding because they can see the end result that I somehow forget to see.

But, please renew my hope. Please remind me that in the end its all the same because sometimes I grow so impassioned with my love for others that I sometimes forget to see the love in those that harm. I sometimes forget that they too are not without love. I forget, because I see the harm that they do and it hurts.

Please, remind me that it’s all the same in the end.

4/2003

Prisoner in my skin.

How can you be surrounded by people and yet feel so damned lonely?

I’ve sat here wondering about many things, things that make me wonder about myself, and I just began to feel so lonely. So many friends that I feel so distant from these days. So many members of my family that seem to not call, or I don’t seem to call them as often as I used to. So many times I’ve sat in my livingroom wondering if I should go out for a walk or go visit a friend.. and so I do. But as I find myself walking down my street or driving in my car I look around me at my fellow humans, all pieces of myself, and I KNOW that we are all only separated by levels of awareness, I know this, but I still feel so alone.

I sit across my friend or cousin or uncle, and I feel as though I am living inside my brain, watching as my body takes part in the world around me and I wonder at the things that I see and the things that I read and I wonder, am I the only one who feels this way? Am I alone in my unsatiable need for knowledge? Am I really just a freak? Am I some untouchable freak that wanders about in a cloud of thought?

I don’t know.

My brain is always questioning things around me and I can move on from time to time and just have fun, I can do that, but I know that I will always come back to being this way.

Sometimes I think maybe this lifetime of mine is far too long. Sometimes as I wander around in my body that feels as though it’s failing, I begin to feel as though I am just a visitor and that I am a prisoner in my skin.

5/2003

That this world may be an illusion, myself included, I am ready. To learn that all this is real and that I am all this, I am not.

To learn that the rock has been all things and will continue to be all things, means that I was once a rock, and that all things I have been, and all things have been me – I am not ready.

If all things are connected then there can be no good, no bad, no death, no life, no division, no hierarchy, no end, no beginning, no you, no me – just IT. No soul, no afterlife, no enlightenment, simply existence as it is – for there is no division, no here, no there, no location, no center, no perimeters – just Self. No rich, no poor, no rock, no tree, no desert, no water – just IT. All there is is now. There is no day, no night. Just because you’ve stopped being aware does not mean that it stopped existing.

I have been all things; all things have I been. In the here and now – I am all these things. Why is this? Where is my proof but in the material world? What must I rely on to gain my proof, but here? Where is the spirituality in that? Where lies consciousness in that?

If I am all and I’ve proven this with the material world, then all is I. I have been all things and all things have been me. I worship these things; these things worship me. I worship you; I am worshipping all other things and myself. I love this person, I am loving you.

I must use tools from this reality to prove that all is connected. I must say that since the beginning of creation that all material in existence comes from the same source, whatever that may be, and that all else that followed is that. Where then does the soul come from? What need for a soul when there is no death? This gives a sense of division.

If time is not real there there can be nothing but eternity. How funny it seems to say that you are here for a short time then suffer a place such as a heaven or hell for eternity.

If this world is an illusion, then why the importance for love? Why the importance for enlightenment? What is this thing called enlightenment? It assumes some levels of hierarchy, which, if we are all one, can not exist.

What is a soul? If a soul exists, it can not exist within this material world. Having a soul assumes that TWO exist. How can this be?

Twos! TWOS! LET THEM BE IN TWOS!

This world, that world, dividing lines that dissolve. Divisions between good and bad, happiness and sadness – dissolve until you can see no difference.

We are all things, all states – already. To say, one day I will achieve Nirvana, Valhalla, or enlightenment – assumes that there are hierarchal states of existence. How is that? It’s a matter of awareness.

Dividing lines between emotions – dissolve. All things – are – simultaneously. How can it be that there is something not yet achieved? To love – honour and adore those things that you see in another- those things – you already are. The potentiality is there. When one has achieved or has become aware of these things, he has redesigned the nature of man and has made possible for all others to become aware of this potentiality. He has said, “You ARE this because I am this.” When the potentiality is shown it has been made apparent that these things are in YOU as well. You have not accepted it.

Nothing is evolving to a state of perfection. It already is, in its current state, perfection. It’s a matter of awareness.

Everything is all; all is everything at every moment. What a relief that is. What peace.

5/2003

She keeps calling me because I remind her of him. “Did you speak to him? What has he been up to? Does he still love me?” I dont ever know what to say. She says she needs to be loved.

She says she needs someone who is strong and intelligent, like he is. I cant help but feel as though I am a platonic replacement.

I dont know what to say. I dont know how to tell her that in order to find her happiness she has to be happy with herself. Shes filling the void with a kiss from him, one from him, and unconditional love from me. She says she needs to be loved.

I love her. I want her to be happy. I hurt for her emptiness and loneliness that she has within herself, but I cant be a replacement. I cant fill the void the way she wants me to. I cant poison her with her wishes, no matter how much she would like me to.

She says she still loves him, but I cant help but believe she loves the way he made her feel. How can I tell her she needs to be steady with herself, that she needs to find her own strength that she so desperately seeks in others.

How do I tell her that she is beautiful without her needing to hear me say it? How do I tell her that I love her without her needing to always hear me say it? How do I tell her that she will find her happiness without her needing to hear me say it?

She says she does not love herself. She says shes lonely. She says she needs to be held late at night. She says shes unhappy. She says she cant be happy on her own, that she needs to fill the void.

She says she needs to be loved.

4/2003

Tell them all what they
want to hear.
Paint a new face
at the start of a new day.
(hypocrite)

Make believe that nothing
really matters
and that you are not those
things that you pretend
to be.
“it is not I that matters”

Stack and restack
all those things that
give you comfort.
Tell them all
what they want to hear.
(liar)

Build your wall so high
that you can not see over.
Wallow in the comfort
of your self interest
while breathing the life
of others to give yourself
life as well.
“i love you”

Turn around and see
all those things that
you ignore
and build your raft
to that place that
you escape to
again and again.
(escapist)

Tell them all what they
want to hear
and believe for a moment
that you really mean it.
Embrace them
and bask in the comfort
of their belief.
“it will never end”

HYPOCRITE!

Live in your belief
that you are all that matters.
Tell them what you are
and reinvent yourself
once more.

Tell yourself that you
are all that is
and that you are THIS!
Convince yourself
and then convince them
because the belief
is what gives it strength.

LIVE IT!

Dance in your glow
and make believe
it’s real.
Because I know
that when you get home
you crumble.

HYPOCRITE!

Tell me all those things
that you believe
and convince me that
its real.
Tell me that you mean it
when you say it
and maybe I’ll believe you.

4/2003

Tomorrow would be a new day

He stabbed her after he pushed the needle in as far as he could, almost as though he could make the effect stronger by mere force of will.

She stabbed him, allowing it to stay a bit longer than necessary, but not after she was able to taste a bit of what he had.

They left and she didn’t stop them. She didn’t put her foot in front of the door so that they couldn’t leave. No, no, she didn’t.

He punched her and sank to the floor, his eyes lolling in his head. She laughed at him and taunted him with words of disdain leaving a slightly bloody taste on her tongue.

She kicked him and wondered briefly where they were. She walked to the back room as though looking for something, then forgetting what it was she lay on the bed and turned on the television.

He would sleep and she could carry on with her television uninterrupted. Her lids became heavy and sleep beckoned.

Tomorrow would be a new day, possibly one with more promise than this one, but she wouldn’t hold her breath.

4/2003

When one is growing up they don’t necessarily sit and ponder their existence or why things are the way they are, they simply exist and accept it as fate or some such thing. By the same token, when one is growing up they don’t necessarily see themselves as living a life that is somehow different than others, until possibly when it is shown to them by the masses that they are different than others by some set of arbitrary standards.

I, like many people, simply lived my life seeing myself as no different than others. I wandered about in my little cloud of constant wonderment, stopping many, many, many times to smell the roses, so often in fact that from time to time I was late… late in blooming… late in kissing for the first time… late in developing wisdom teeth (am still waiting for those) and on and on. But, that was just how I did things. I thought alot about oddities. Things that appeared to be different but were somehow beautiful. Perhaps I was conditioned this way.

My mother was a Beatnik. I don’t really like giving her a title, but she was, for all intents and purposes, a Beatnik and I loved her for it. My mother lived life. She was always on the go, experiencing things, good or bad, that was my mother. She was so into experiencing things that she often forgot to wear a bra, or her shirt was on inside out…but she was moving!

It was many a weekend that my mother packed us up and stuffed us into the car, driving at top speed with the music blaring, the windows down, our long hair flapping in the breeze and I with my head hanging from the window, bugs stinging my face (yes, they really do sting when they belt your face at 90 miles an hour). It was to the museum or coastal city we went. Corona del Mar, Pasadena, Los Angeles, or Idylwild…on and on. My mother was a liver (no, not the organ). I learned to see the world through my mother’s eyes. She was never afraid to live or share. Yes, my mother was a sharer.

My mother loved to share, even if the recepient was not in need of her helpings of whatever it was she was sharing, whether it was her poetry on a street corner, her words of anger at a store clerk, her singing at the top of her lungs in a market…my mother SHARED! My mother shared her opinion wherever an opinion was available to be shared.

My father on the other hand, lived a life of constant apology. Not necessarily an apology for his own existence, but instead for the well wishing of opinions my mother shared with the world. My father was always one step behind my mother, his head bowed and a look of constant apology on his face. Now, I don’t mean at all that my father was the passive sort. Oh no, not my father. He was not only in constant apology for my mother’s off the wall actions such as stealing of bras from Victoria’s Secret; no, he was living his life under complete anger management.

Something about dodging bullets in Viet Nam and picket lines in the States stirred something in my father that was no less than rage. It seems like only yesterday that I watched as my father fought four Hell’s Angel’s motorcyclists after my mother offered one of her never ending opinions to one of the girlfriends. Oh yes. That was a fun day. 🙂

Oh, but enough of the fun times and onto the educational era of Marie’s life. It was an evening event that was shared by many in the Marie household. An evening that sparked lively conversation and large cups of iced tea. A book on father’s lap, an opinion on the lips of mother and attentive ears of the audience that sat, everpresent, on the livingroom floor. It wasn’t meant to be argumentative, oh no. Father had merely decided to share the learning of his Philosophy of Religions class with the family.

How strange it was to hear my father say that the table may not be real! :eek Oh, my. How the thoughts began to roll in my little head as my mother began to argue that of course the table is real. But, my father could not argue scientifically with her on this point, my mother, who was well versed in classical physics, argued demonstratively that the table was THERE! The argument lasted well into the night.

Nights of debate, nights of wonderment of existing tables and rock hard biscuits tossed joyfully at the body of a sibling made for interesting memories. Seal blubber and homemade icecream. Victoria Secret’s bras and bottles of Ibuprofen stuffed well into the pocket of the maternal figure. Siblings who dashed high into the air to greet the ribs of a younger sibling…oh how the memories flow. Oh yes. Horseback riding and fire pits. Donkey and billy goats. Water and desert, these are the things that Marie is made of.

3/2003

will you love me

will you love me when my hair falls out and i draw a
globe on the baldness that is my head?

will you love me when my teeth fall out and i replace
them with gold studded fake ones?

will you love me when my musical tastes take a turn
for the worse and i begin singing showtunes in the
shower?

will you love me when i forget to wear clothing while
shopping in the supermarket and i am arrested for
indecent exposure?

will you love me when i forget my name and where i
live and i am brought to the house in an evening gown
that found its way off the rack and onto my body?

will you love me when i begin to speak hindi in my sleep and you need a translator to understand me?

will you love me when i can no longer remember if i exist or not?

will you love me when i say that i love others?

will you love me when i choose to only eat frybread for every meal?

will you love me when i spend twelve of my awake hours writing in the privacy of my room?

will you love me when i spend most of my awake hours in deep thought and do not wish to be disturbed?

will you love me when i begin to pester you with my inane thoughts of the greater questions in life?

will you love me when i can no longer speak?

will you love me even when you perceive me to be dead?

will you love me when i tell you that i love you unconditionally?

will you love me always?

6/2003

I wonder…

do they know how often I question myself? how often I grow frustrated and angry with myself for feeling indignant about things when I am desiring to be consistently neutral?

I wonder…

do they know how much I review my life and my thoughts and my beliefs? do they know how I had once lay in my bed terrified that I had somehow been seduced into changing my thinking?

I wonder…

do they know how I feel lonely in a crowd? lonely in an empty place and how I long to be held closely and told that it will all work out?

I wonder…

do they know how often I wish to drive my car on a full tank of gas until the gas runs out, leaving me anywhere but where I am? do they know how I need to be told, “i love you, too”? do they know how often I inspect myself hating what I see and wishing that I could somehow crawl into a pit of pity but I climb my way back out within a moment?

I wonder…

do they know that I am stronger than I seem but wish to be stronger? do they do they know that I am happier than I appear, but I write about what frustrates me?

I wonder…

do they know that I inspect myself in hopes of better understanding them?

do they know…

I wonder.

5/2003

Nothing is sacred
I’ve been noticing as of late that it seems as though many things that once were private and kept a mite hush hush or on the down low seems to be making its way to the forefront. I’ve especially noticed this on the internet. It seems as though the internet has created new venues for perversion. I don’t really mean this as a judgement; not at all, merely an observation.

I am not a complete and utter prude, but there are some things that I just don’t discuss with people because it makes me uncomfortable. Lewd discussions offer little to no entertainment value for me. I find no joy in listening to the sexual exploits of others. I am not saying that it’s a wrong thing for others to share with one another, but that it’s simply not my idea of a interesting topic of discussion.

Little to no value seems to be placed on respect for others on the internet. Not their bodies, not their views on subjects, etc. Body parts have somehow become globs of fat dangling from thier upper torso to be exposed and passed about like trading cards. There seems to be no sanctity or mystery to female and male body parts normally hidden under a layer of clothing. Views on religion, politics, these things seem to land their way in debates with cries of, “Idiot!” or “liar!” or some other worthy comeback that is more of an opinion and judgement call than a sharing of views.

View points, sexual behaviour, and such seems to be blending in and mixing together, further shaping the minds of internet users. Perhaps these things have always taken place and I just wasnt aware of it as I wandered about life in a bubble of blissful ignorance.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just becoming jaded.

5/2003