Monday 31 August 2015

The end of days



All of the followers had gone, sucked up into the girl’s funnel cloud and carried off to god knows where.  What remained lay on the ground, broken.  The restaurant would not be serving again.
I was wondering with a pang of regret where Marietta had gone when a dishevelled figure with a lopsided purple hairdo and an old face limped over to me.  The cruelty in her expression had now become mingled with resentment.  We just stood and looked at each other for a while, until she said, “You think you have won.  But the spell is broken for you, too.”
“I know,” I answered.  “But at least I can live with myself.”
“We’ll see about that,” she replied.  She then disappeared, rather against her will, I thought, into a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

Sunday 30 August 2015

Waking up

They say riddles are clues
but clues in a fortress
If only the dragon would let me pass
Ah little girl, he says
you must solve the first riddle
to prove you are ready
I ask him what the first riddle is
and he laughs
He says that is why I am not ready
I cannot even hear the riddle
He says I know the words
He says no one stops my ears
but me
He says the riddle is my first clue
That I will hear it when I am ready
I say this is another trick
another stall
But he says no
he is the master of ceremonies only
I am in charge
I will know the riddle when I say it out loud

Saturday 29 August 2015

The Burden (excerpt), 1989

Every time I saw him, I questioned my judgment of him.  Could this tall, smiling, good-looking man be worthy of such negative feelings on my part?  He always seemed to be happy, and undoubtedly had some corny joke to tell.  Any friend of mine who met him never had anything but good things to say about him.  Of course, no one was ever around to witness this pleasant man become a resentful, whining, almost vengeful creature.  What had I done to be turned on in such a hateful manner?  I didn't think I had done anything to hurt him.  But he obviously decided that I was only 12 years old and I did not have the courage yet to tell him to leave me alone, he could take out on me the answer that racked him.  

Friday 28 August 2015

The day after

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
--Desmond Tutu
(photo by C. Hornby)

The loss of invisibility

But the peace which comes my love
there is no lock on the door
And now you can shut out nothing
let alone the memory of
the war
Some kind of peace now
one hell of a peace now
All bruised and tattered and sore
as long as it hurts less than the no-peace
you were forever crashing through
before

Thursday 27 August 2015

Dream Journal, June 12, 2005

Last week I had a dream that I witnessed my family murder someone—my dad and my oldest brother grabbed some guy in a shopping mall and stabbed him in the stomach.  Because I was with them I had the idea that I was an accomplice so we took off for the mountains, where I was desperately trying to figure out how to get us out of trouble.  I was almost certain that I would go to prison (if only because I’d helped them escape), which scared me, but then I thought I deserved it.  I actually became sort of upset when later in the dream I got the idea that I wouldn't go to prison after all.

Anyway, in the mountains it no longer seemed like me but a movie I was watching.  The family looked and acted like a bunch of gross hillbillies.  At one point the girl propositioned her oldest brother, who eagerly took her up on the offer.  Then the younger brother, who was a big dumb brute, got violent with the older brother, who to save himself from being choked stabbed the younger brother in the neck.  Very yucky.  The only good part of it was that it somehow felt like the family wouldn't get away with what they’d done.

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Behind the wall

I have a secret words
will never find,
images I tucked
away.

I once heard a voice.
It beckoned me,
singing,
tell me your secrets,
your hopes and fears
and jealousies.
I whispered back in the
safest voice I could
reveal,
my dreams mean nothing
to you.


Monday 24 August 2015

Essay, When I Was Twelve, 1989 (excerpt)

After a couple of weeks, my mom started getting weekend passes  To me it was the greatest thing since God knows what, to actually get to see my mother at home.  She would come on Saturdays, go grocery shopping, and take me out for lunch. Then she'd make homemade soup for the week, and have dinner with me and Steve.  Joan and Dad were always conveniently gone when Mom was home.  I was glad - I didn't want them around to ruin it.  But then she'd always go back, and I'd be stuck with my dad again.


Saturday 22 August 2015

Diary entry, April 15, 1981


It’s been bad for me because my mom and dad are getting divorced.  We did a school play yesterday.  We were the Spanish dancers.

Friday 21 August 2015

Special, 2015




Did you tell me I would be broken
when you called me special
Did you call me hopeless
when I begged for forgiveness
Because now I am crawling
waiting for tomorrow
With a today so very desperate
that yesterday is hiding
There is no more point here
I shout into the echo
But I can feel nothing
other than I am special
Special for your weakness
Special for my survival
Special is what kills me
I cannot defy it

But I am sane and you are not
and here we are and there I was
when I cannot breathe out loud
lest you hear me moving

Far out of your orbit
spinning in slow motion
Trying to shout louder
than a kitten’s mewling
Will the planets find me
all my silent crying
Now I can feel nothing
only my plates shifting
Into old arrangements
nothing ever changes
If you could have loved me
let me be ordinary
The world would have opened
the stars would have held me
But now I am so special
the goddess of your nothing
What you poured inside of me
it was not for growing
It was all for killing
what was only dying
to be loved at all...

Diary entry, May 24, 2013

Today was the last day of the move.  I cried a little.  If only I could blame someone other than myself.

There is nothing else to say.  I’m pretty sure now it’s all crap, that I’m just sort of winging it and confusing myself.  I wish someone could unscrew my head, have a look inside, and say, “Yep, I see the problem.  Just need to replace a few parts and it will all work fine again.”

Thursday 20 August 2015

Elegy



This is a study in shattering
the shattering of the dust clouds
raging above the earth

the shattering of the net underneath
our breaking connection line
of only the endless clicking as we
swallow the sky

because this is a study in reality
what little of it is there is left to
hold against our one line of
defense

when wishing will not make it so
when the brutality of existing
requires me to let you
go

and I am thundering through
this what must be
shattering the glass with the howling
wind of disappointment wrapped
around me

because this is a study in endings
of our ending duly recorded but
eroded by time

yes I am alone
that is my tree on the hill
my gray sky to raise my muted
expectations to…

Wednesday 19 August 2015

The missing fifth


There once was a girl.  The saddest girl in the world, because she kept believing.  She thought she was so clever and strong.  She thought she was different.  She thought all of the red lines would lead to one circle that would form a barrier around her forever.  But the red lines didn't.  They just lead to more red lines.  She can no longer remember the red line she started from.  When she tries to walk backwards nothing looks familiar—all she can see is what is in front of her.  The boy laying down the red straws does not help her.  He pays no attention to anything other than the red straws, and to placing them on the large, white sheet spread across the middle of the open market.  No one cares about him being there and he doesn't care about them.  He does not see the girl standing in the middle of all of the red straws, trying to remember where she came from.  Soon there are so many straws leading in so many different directions that she loses hope.  She does not understand the pattern.  Only the boy does.  He is the one who keeps us all wandering down different lines, so that we never meet.  We must never meet.  We must never speak to each other.  The boy’s job is to keep us all walking, but never at the same place together.   We must always remain lost and alone.  

There is a solution but the boy genius will never open his mouth.  He talks with the red straws.  They tell his story for him.  And it is a beautiful story, in its own way.  A beautiful story of loneliness and loss and of being lost until all wandering ends.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Diary entry, January 1, 1983

Dear Diary,

Yesterday my mom went to the hospital for 2 weeks.  My dad came to stay with us.  He’s a little too organized and clean.  I love him a lot though.  I miss Mom already.  Today me, Steve, and Dad went to get Dad’s stuff.  Grandpa was a little grouchy.  I haven’t seen Joan since last night.  She’s always with Brian.  I like Brian, though.  I called Mom today.  She made 2 friends and is doing better.

Monday 17 August 2015

The prison within

Whisper it to me while no one is listening
tell me I am a fool
tell me I am not
tell me something that makes sense
and then prove it


Sunday 16 August 2015

Saturday Night, 1970s

He wakes her up in the middle of the night.  It is late, and she is tired.  When she asks him where they are going he shushes her.  Her sisters pretend to be sleeping but she knows they aren't.  They are all awake.

Saturday 15 August 2015

The witch, redux



“She will watch you and report whatever you say or do,” the witch warned me.  “She never sleeps, and she never blinks.  You might think you’ve fooled her, but you won’t have.  She exists for only one purpose.   You cannot kill her.  You cannot win.”

Friday 14 August 2015


Ode to the fallen goddess, 1993

I've been thinking about you today - 
I've been wondering about you today.
You were like a sewing needle in the jugular
but I missed you today.

Could I be seeing you in what I was 
Death is to see you in what I
become.

Even though I loved you more than snow 
on my birthdays in
December.

Thursday 13 August 2015

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Journal entry, February 5, 2008


Sometimes I wish I could go back to the box.

One foot in this world and one foot in the other.  Why would anyone want to stay there?  To close my eyes and dream forever.

A girl’s voice I thought I wanted to forget.

Today joy was in the terrier’s face as she bounced along the road.  Profoundly satisfied by the day’s events and unexpected adventures.

Today sadness was the tired face of someone who has been chronically ill for longer than she is used to.  Predictability can be a lovely thing.

One foot in this reality and yet to never seem quite real at all.  Was I just reading as a child or educating myself for the reality to come?  Everything and nothing makes sense anymore.

Nothing was meant to be remembered let alone examined and understood.

Diary entry, May 16, 2013


I am tired.  I hate moving.  But it’s my own fault, isn’t it?  Everything is my own fault.

I am an idiot.  An idiot who never learns.  I am a tired idiot who never learns.

I hate myself.  I wish I didn’t.

Monday 10 August 2015

The coming crisis

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” 
― Elbert Hubbard

Sunday 9 August 2015

Journal, May 29, 2000

A car length away from entering my zone
until I fell through the open door

**********************************************

We are wasted in daydream
born again in reality
it hurts but better than 
feeling nothing 
at all.

Saturday 8 August 2015

Diary entry, April 28, 2004


I had another disturbing dream last night.  I was falsely accused of killing a boy, but I had somehow managed to get away so I was on the run, trying to find out who did kill him with the help of a couple of people.

At some point I went to a friend’s house, thinking I’d be safe there, but her kids called the police because they were angry that their parents were getting a divorce.  When I saw the police coming I begged my friend to hide me in the attic, and to not let the police search the house—but I felt terribly guilty about it.

At this point the daughter felt badly about calling the police, so she and her friends were trying to come up with a disguise to help me escape.  The whole time I’m thinking, “They’re going to catch me and put me in the electric chair—and I didn’t do it!”  However, I was trying very hard to be nice and understanding to the kids who turned me in, even as they kept mucking up my chances for escape.

Then my brother Steve showed up and I had to kiss him and act like I was glad to see him...yuck.  Anyway, I finally woke up, and I was really freaked out.  To fall back asleep again, I “finished” the dream by imagining the police telling me they’d found the right person, and they were just there to tell me I was no longer a suspect.

Let’s just say I am so ready for my appointment tomorrow.  I’ve still got to decide what to do about going to Minnesota over Memorial Day weekend.

Thursday 6 August 2015

Goodbye to All This, 2001

And when I choose to come here again                                                                     
will it snow how it did in my dreams

                        will I be

a story worth telling

                                    because the sadness—

it crackles in the night
           
for you           
the mistake worth regretting

                                                the faraway voice        filled with belonging

do you see where eternity ends

did you know that you were my friend
this planet a box that holds me

when she could not worship the sun               for so long she yearned to sleep         

but the storm came rolling in
                      the storm came rolling in

a million miles of prairie grass

and your golden-haired girl                            exposed once again

unsure how the course of right became the final turn wrong
how her rabbit-hole time for falling   

                                    just      gone


gone



gone


a triumph but for you 
my one truth worth deceiving
a child’s dream for tomorrow so good           it deserved to be buried
behind the wall a red she had never seen                  

           
if I had                        discovered

yet not been found


would your golden-haired girl           
be six feet underground

I guess this was why you had to go
maybe I should have known


but the sadness—
no one told me it would come with the leaving


especially not you


     my last hope worth believing


Wednesday 5 August 2015

Dream Journal, February 14, 2005

I had another dream last night that I don’t remember quite as well.  What I do remember is that I was with a group of children of all ages.  We were on some sort of a mission, with a group of people  coming after us.  Our resources had been stretched to the max and the bad guys were hot on our heels, but I was doing my best to feed everyone and to make sure everyone had warm clothes to wear, even if what we had to eat and wear wasn't ideal.  Some of the kids were scared but while we were grim we were pretty determined.  We knew we had to succeed or it would be disastrous.  We weren't panicked—just on high alert, and trying to strategize our next move.  I felt serious but calm and sort of self-assured, like I would take care of these kids.  We weren't going to surrender.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Keep walking


Journal entry, February 26, 2006

I think of the stories I wanted to tell, and yet keep coming back to the story I most wanted to forget.

Old grocery lists reflect a past I must remember.

I think of a time and a place full of forever.

Monday 3 August 2015

A narrow hope


Biography of a Girl, 2000

No, it is my mother who, I think, had the most profound impact on me.  At once an amazingly brilliant goddess of sorts, only to morph in an instant into the most destructive force I have ever encountered.  She is someone you love because you know she is special; and she is someone you hate because she let the ugliness suffocate almost everything good inside of her.

Saturday 1 August 2015

Poetry Journal, 1999

Because
this is your sickness
infecting all of my awareness
triumph is for dreamers
I cannot sleep another second

Tell me how it feels to
kill what is precious
Tell me your stories, they
make me senseless