fidget in time

watching me watching you by the elderberry tree

freeing her from blackberry brambles, brushing my hair

bleeding me out. menses didn't quite get it all

i can't get it out

i don't want it out. femininity

masculinity

sensuality

vulgarity

fragrant flesh in the southern hemisphere sun.

where am i on highway five, heading south

here!

the fruit trees kissed me goodbye

and i am watching myself be kissed

and i am waiting for the tears that always come

because i never learned a proper ending.

the truth is,

i fuss against this.......

eventuality

fidget in time

rhythm of denial

dance of willful ignorance

where am i in okere falls cafe, sitting but not still, no

not still

reincarnation

What a wave of defeat that washes over me as I come to realize that, while love is probably the answer, I am incapable of being that love.

What a mess on the floor I am to know that the load I have to carry is much heavier than I first estimated.

What does it take to be the kind of love that I do not know? What action does that love take now? I can't tell if it is silent, or if it wails. Does it reach out or does it keep to itself? How does it react to the pain?

The desire to connect remains. But, it may be a selfish desire. And, though I have sung the praises of selfishness for the length of my last incarnation, I am shedding that skin for a new embodiment. And perhaps the worship of selfishness must be shed too.

The deep brown eyes drown me. They hold me under the water and I am struggling against their power. But I have struggled so many times for air. Maybe this time I should surrender and die.

Yes. If I let go, I may wash up on a beach somewhere.

It is a slow, heavy realization that I cannot rescue anyone. Perhaps the truth is, the best I can be is conduit for a love I do not comprehend and to not be attached to how that love is or isn't received.

I offer it to you, this love. It is so imperfect in me. By that, I mean it is a crooked flow, it pools some places because there are dams, and it rushes over rocky bits. But it is for you. You can have it in kisses, you can have it in hugs, you can have it in friendship, you can have it in any way.

siren

Sing sweetly.

Peek-a-boo bits of flesh.

Be salty and wet. Be generous and warm. Purr.

The queen of the hive takes to the sky and lures lover after lover

to his death. when she is full

Up

with a bulging pregnant middle, she comes home

To be slave to fertility.

We cry for the men who are lost to this drama

Who weeps for Jezebel?

Who fathoms the suffering of Salome?

All rub against ecstasy during the dance

All face pain in the wake

crucify

33......Thirty three. T H I R T Y T H R E E
This one is like 17. I cried when I turned seventeen. I can't quite remember why it was so sad, something about how great 16 was and that it was gone. It's totally weird. Then I think it all passed by without worry until 28. That's when I was supposed to have a baby. Hurry up get married, hurry up make money, hurry up buy a house, hurry up have a baby.
But that life, the one I thought I was supposed to have, has come crashing up against a mixture of the life I actually want and the one I currently have. Like a freight train heading for another freight train, the collision was inevitable. So, here I am at THIRTY THREE and it feels like the possibilities are shattered. So melodramatic.
Here lies someone's leg, over there is a scrambled bunch of metal. There are papers flying away in the wind, there is smoke and fire, a wheel still spinning by itself in the grass. The whole thing is a mess. An eyesore.
And what now? Shall I live for love and beauty? Shall I raise queens and beat drums? Shall I be a mother anyway? Shall I sit still and pretend to meditate while daydreaming?
Let's leave that freight train crash. Let's get to meditation. And, deeper than that, fanaticism.
I'm sitting in a yoga studio with three crazy people. Or maybe not crazy, maybe just zealous.
I can do zealous. I grew up on it. I am getting ready to meditate again. Didn't I just sit for like almost two hours meditating with some other people? Yes, but let's go again.
It's the way, the truth and the life. Just like Jesus and fasting and psychedelics and veganism and feminist spirituality. I've been told that I should do what I don't like, that if I want to avoid something that means I should actually go towards it.
I've spent hours reading the Bible and praying and fasting and going to church and not eating all sorts of things and not having sex and going to bed early and a bunch of other shite on that advice. Now, maybe I didn't do enough, maybe I wasn't fanatic enough. Maybe it just made the sex and chocolate and raunchy poetry and sleeping in that much sweeter. I know that after a good long run everything tastes better, but then again, I like the running. I never met a party I didn't like or a sweaty dance I didn't enjoy or a passionate kiss I couldn't wait to repeat.
But, I'm getting off my point. So, I'm in the studio with three people listening to some real deep reading about the nature of reality and god and the mind and all that fantastic eat-it-up eastern religion us westerners just really get off on. So exotic. I'm sitting there like 7 year old me at communion or 19 year old me at Bible College or 20 something me waving my arms in the air in a circle of women trying to exert power in situations where we have none. I'm laughing inside, asking myself “why do you keep getting into these situations?” 7 year old me didn't know how to laugh inside so she got spanked after communion. Good lesson.
What is it about the fanatic that draws me in? It might be like the woman with the abusive father who marries an abusive man. I fed on the intense fervor as a child and I keep craving it like I crave malt-o-meal. Comfort food. It's not quite comfort food though.

Sitting in pretend meditation I am.

Things to do while in pretend meditation......recall lyrics of songs I haven't heard in years. Sing the song all the way through twice.

Fantasize about sex.

Breathe in time with the clock.

Make up tambourine rhythms in my head and repeat in time with the clock. Breathe in time with the rhythm and the clock.

Think about sad things and cry.

Count to 10 over and over.

Think about all the things I could be doing that would be worse than pretend meditation.

Wiggle very very slowly and fidget very very quietly.

Hate people.

Notice parts of my body that have gone numb then try to forget them.

Top thing to NOT do during pretend meditation?.......Wonder how much longer this is going to last. That leads to a very bad place.
So, all this buddhist karma dharma shwarma may make the next bit unbearably sweet. Or, I may reach enlightenment. :D
Or, I may get over my need for fanaticism. Or, I may just go back to the United States where television is entertaining and food and electronics are cheap, wifi is free and they'll let me stay indefinitely because that's where my parents had a fertile fuck.
I hope you are swimming in whatever it is that makes you happy.

Peace and love and American Spaghetti

yoga of suffering

When my world was much smaller, I wanted. Wanted certain small things, or things not so small, but in a small way was how I wanted them. And bigger was always there, at my left shoulder, like death always is. That ever present friend, or foe, or driver.

With lighter steps I now cross deeper rivers. With less effort I now carry heavier loads.

The load of my home, that dirty, rusty place of worn out ideas and faded dreams is still on my back.

And for my realization it has not become easier. But is has shifted. And that is all the difference I need at the moment.

I am driving narrow winding roads in heavy traffic. I am narrowly missing parked cars and oncoming motorcycles. And I am amazed at how my hands on the wheel and my foot on the pedal and my eyes on the surroundings and my mind remembering the directions all work together to flex my way moment by moment to arrive me at my destination.

Arising within me is a stillness that maybe was there all the time or maybe it has only come back from time away. The reason seems irrelevant. Just glad for the stillness.

I have been in the fire, have been wrestling demons, have been drowning in suffering, have been self-pitying and hating the self-pitying. But no running. I've been tempted. I have felt overwhelming needs to stop the work, to come out of the pose, to get on a plane back home, to get high, drunk. And there I am, fantasizing, and I grab hold of the thoughts, and drag them with me to the fight.

There is the body, bending into a helpless back bend. There are the shoulders screaming, there are the knees trying to escape. Here is the body stretching into a forward bend and the hamstrings yelp and the hips grip to their tightness. Up into hand stand and the arms cry out, the legs beg mercy in parsvakonasana. And here am I, all the time thinking "quiet" and "surrender".

Quiet.

Surrender.

There was once a girl with straight brown hair and sweet lips. Soft skin, gentle curves. And she lured me to a pink carpeted room in front of a yogi.

And my body began a prayer.

This body prays so much better than this mind.

I pray to you, my love. I bend myself quietly and surrender to you.

Surrender.

To.

You.