11/30-14/30

11/30
The weight is thick
St. Louis humid heat
Wet towel
Tethering me to this earth
Let go

How do you let go
Without floating
Away
I am a balloon
Full of helium nightmares
At night
I dream of ways
To pop
Tie rocks
To my shoelaces
Attempting
To escape
The pull

12/30
How many cigarettes does it take
To kill yourself?
I’ve asked myself this question
Too many times
Kill your lungs
Ruin your liver
The body replenishes what it takes
To stay alive
I tell myself
What is living
When dying is the only thing you think about?
Pick your vice
We all have them
It’s coffee
Or sex
Or gossip
Or cigarettes
We are each choosing the ways
To kill ourselves
Slowly
Light the fuse
And it will lead us
Where we are all destined to go
This is the strangest life I have ever known
I’m amazed I’ve escaped with a just a nicotine habit
And a drinking problem
Careless
Of the enjoyment I could be having
With heroin
The paths that still outstretch their hands
The moment we are born
We are dying
It is just a slow process
There is no shame in quickening the steps

13/30
I never asked to be a poet
I realize now
I will never be the poet I would like to
Just the cliche ramble
Of an individual
With too much to say

14/30
What is poetry?
For me, it has always been the moment
Take the sliver of an instant
And breathe
Awaken the nail beds
And make those fingers earn their keep
Never moving as fast as they’re supposed to
Netting the dreams of the wilderness
Trying to catch moonlight

8/30-10/30

8/30

ahimsa:

non violence

speech

mind

body

I’m murdered more people in thought

Than I could ever physically

Savored meat

On the bone

Letting the blood pool in my mouth

Venom saliva dripping

From my words

Leaving jagged scars

Feeling the heat volcano up my esophagus

Until I leave nothing but devastation

Wherever I walk

9/30

I wish I were a snake

So my jaw could unhinge

And devour more of your mouth

Feel you

Expand my bones

the greatest meal

I’ve ever tasted

10/30

He leaves

once a week

apart

we do our lives separate

trying to pull ourselves back

together

It’s not easy

I drink myself into pot holes until he returns to fill in

The bumps I leave behind

Moments misery

Hinging the sides that make us whole again

I long to see him

Every day

Battling

The feeling he will never return

Cut out the place in me

That says I don’t need him here

I need him

We need him

Not because we cant do it alone

But I’ve done it alone too many times

It feels so good

To enjoy the company

It’s not a breath of fresh air

It’s the lungs that keep expanding

And contracting

Exhale

I know you’re there

Inhale

Here you are

6/30-7/30

6/30

open

even when the moon is full

even when it isn’t in your nature

to expand

you’ll find there are reasons to stand

with your chest on display

it’s easier to contract those muscles that keep you hidden

but how will anyone ever see the gem

7/30

anytime they tell you

wait

go

follow

take inventory of the things they promise

stand in the hole they’ve dug to grow

their most perfect partner

and study the soil

feel how if falls between your fingers

examine the compost pile of past relationships

what they chose to throw away

in order to ripen their future.

You will never be what the bees desire

You can only hope for the roots to take

That you will not be cut down

Or plucked bare.

Relationships are not seeds

They are forests

To become lost in.

30/30 part 1

I’m starting things early, folks and here are my first 30/30’s for the month:

1/30

“Green”

Hey

You

Bumbershank and burry

On the nights when we drink we stay up

To kiss velvet

Gasping at neverwills

Embarking on whatif trains

The bubbles remain

Popping

On the back of our throats.

2/30

“400 degrees”

Happiness

Is exhaustion

It is when your push yourself to the brink

Expanding the measuring cups

Overflowing

A combination of care

Of chemistry

Of baking the elements until they taste nourishing

Balancing

And remembering when your need to take a moment to exhale

When the flour spills you make bread

When the sugar fills

You make ice cream

And pour a drop more into your cup

Of coffee

No one said this would be

Easy

It’s the hardest recipe you’ve ever built

But it makes your feel satisfied in ways that make your tummy

Careless of its size.

Your knead out your armor

Until it is smooth

And doughy

You take way too many sips

Of your cauldron

This is a stew that needs to simmer

The flavors

A rainbow to your palette

A spell

You savor

With every

Second

Of the day

3/30

“Antlers”

my mother keeps animals on her

walls

not the framed portraits of her children

just the things

that make her

happy

4/30

“Gravity”

when it’s time to jump

there isn’t always a parachute

sometimes your grow wings in the moment

it’s true

they may be made of moss

or wax

or flame

but they take to the sky

still

sometimes

they are bricks

5/30

“Track Marks”

in my family

there are too many train wrecks to count

to watch

and wait for

none of us have survived without rail spikes within us

we live knowing we cannot run from the tracks

all lines lead

to the station

New Class This Fall

I’m starting a new spoken word poetry class next month! Tell your friends or come out and take it! we’ll write some amazing things 🙂

http://goldcountry.craigslist.org/cls/4711998819.html

Moving, new goals, and other updates

My family and I have moved to my mother’s property. She has 10 acres to spare, so we are planning on building a small house and garden, which is pretty exciting! It’s going to take some time, and my partner has to commute back and forth to the bay area to work for the next 9 months so he’ll only be here 1/2 of the week 😦

in the meantime, Raj and I are having a blast exploring the woods and harassing the chickens on my mother’s property 😉

Beginning next month I will be doing 30/30 again, so keep an eye out for some new poems! I’m trying to get a brand new manuscript together for the spring with all new work, which is going to be both a challenge and a blessing for me as a writer.

In other news, I have (finally) gotten my certificate to team yoga! This is a big thing for me. I have been practicing on and off for about 11 years and have always wanted to teach, even putting a down payment on a teacher training in the past that didn’t pan out, but I’ve finally done it! I am hoping to get to actually teach my own class soon in my new home 🙂

Other Woman (Part 2)

Who knows how it happens
I find myself here
Like a character
Coming home.
The home-wrecker of a home that was never built.
Made a family
From the wreckage of your bones
That feels almost perfect.
We have never met
But you know the man I love better than I ever could
Because he chose you
and only settled for
Me.
Forged our house from your hair
Lined our bathroom tiles
With your teeth.
I polish the windows of your smile
Wishing he remembered me in the streaks.

Call me whatever you want
Call me slut
Call me bitch
I have never thought of you as less than the perfect monument
I should aspire to emulate
All I ever wanted was to hold his heart
But you have it trapped in a shoebox
Don’t think I’m lucky
Although I hold the sunlight
I’ve just gotten used
To the
Burns.