Odds and Ends

Bits and pieces.

I have not been here in a while.

And while that is not exactly true, I am here quite often, I have not written in a while.

Oh.

A poem every now and then.

I have one niggling at the back of my brain that I should have written on Friday afternoon when it struck me but I couldn’t quite get myself to sit down and do it.

So.

I find myself here, at the keyboard, writing and thinking and sometimes, oh, sometimes, dreaming.

Thinking about you and where you’re at and how is the pandemic treating you, things like that.

Or.

Do you ever walk past my apartment, slow, longingly, thinking about ringing the buzzer.

It happens once in a while.

Someone will buzz my door and I think it’s you, but it’s the wrong time of night or I am in a session with a client and cannot answer.

I do go and look.

But if it was you, well, you are long gone.

Other times I think, you drive by, you must, not that often, but often enough.

Do you see the lights on?

Do you look for the Marilyn Monroe print high up on the wall, the one you can see from the street through the top fo my window where there is not a blind, or maybe the top of the David Bowie book up on the ledge-the one you surprised me with, that you bought at Dog Eared Books in the Castro.

Do you?

I think you do.

But what do I know?

Not a lot it seems.

Even though I keep myself busy with all the things.

School, work, school, work, recovery, repeat.

Week after week.

And thoughts of you.

Urges to be seen by you, drive by and see me out for a walk around Jefferson Square Park, too far off your route even where you in my neighborhood.

Or.

Since the weather has changed, not much, but enough to drive people to the park to catch the sun before the inevitable fogs rolls right back in, see me sitting on a bench in Octavia Green reading a book and sipping a sugar free strawberry soda through a green and white striped straw in a Mason glass jar with a handle; the only drinking jar left in the group I bought aeons ago.

Every time I go to Octavia Green, I think, maybe today he will see me.

Stop.

Park the car.

Get out and walk to me.

Surprise me.

Face full of sun and hope.

Despite myself and all the years.

Four years now that I have had you in my heart, if not always present, no not always present, so not here, just there, over there, on the other side of a hill, watching the moon rise and set from a different part of the city.

Sometimes the moon annoys me.

Stop reminding me of him.

Go away now.

Leave me be.

And yet it goes on doing what moons do.

Wax.

Wane.

Repeat.

Ah.

I digress.

See.

I get lost, in the dreams and hopes, the fantasy and revery.

The longing, sigh, still in my heart a dark romantic thinking up poetry to write about you.

That hit me today.

The fact that the only poem you ever recited and recorded for me, a Pablo Neruda that wrecks me, that I can’t find the damn recording.

I thought I had it in a file with your name on it.

Messages and photos and emails.

But it’s not there.

And I remember the book of poetry I gave you on Christmas Eve last year and how you said, “we should read these to each other.”

Fuck my wayward heart.

Why today?

Why did that little bon mot pop into my head?

You’ve been on my mind.

When aren’t you I suppose.

But more so now than you have in months.

It’s been eight months since I saw you last.

Seven’ish months since your last text.

I was mad at you.

Told you to leave me alone until you figured it out.

Seems you haven’t.

Figured it out.

That’s what I tell myself.

He’s figuring it out.

Gah.

Even to myself that sounds asinine.

Yet.

Hope.

She springs eternal.

Fuck you hope.

I did something yesterday.

It felt feral and impulsive.

And I did not stop myself.

At first.

I did later.

I pulled a card from the metal heart on my desk that I bought for you over a year ago and wrote tu me manques.

“I miss you” in French.

I signed it.

Sealed it.

Wrote your address on it.

Stamped it.

With, oh apropos, the LOVE stamp.

Flipped it over and stuck a crow sticker with a rose in its mouth to the back of the envelope flap.

And then looked at it.

Propped it up on my computer.

What the fuck am I doing?

It was a little like the other night when I held my finger hovering over your private Instagram account.

I almost hit request.

I did not.

But fuck.

It was close.

The card was like that.

I asked God for a sign.

I know God doesn’t work like that.

Not usually.

I threw it in my bag and went to lunch with a friend.

I had coffee and told that friend what was in my bag.

I sat in the park.

I texted another friend and told on myself.

Although to be frank, honest, virtuous, vigorous with my truth, I knew the latter friend would cosign the card.

He thinks we should be together.

“He’s the love of your life, figure it out!”

He didn’t coax me to mail it or not mail it.

He did ask me if it was a love letter.

Sort of.

I walk around with it in my bag longer.

I waited for the sign that never came.

I walked past the German restaurant on the corner and put it in the mailbox.

I woke up this morning and thought to myself.

What that fuck did I do?

It’s Sunday, can I get it back?

And.

You know.

I don’t want it back.

I just want you back.

Same as fucking ever.

Sigh.

My heart.

I miss you.

Je te veux.

Tous les jours.

I probably always will.

I tried to run the numbers in my head.

How many days till the card reaches his PO box?

I mailed it late afternoon yesterday, a Saturday, which means it’s still in the mailbox on the corner, as it’s Sunday.

It will get picked up tomorrow.

Process Tuesday.

Maybe land in your PO box on Wednesday.

Maybe.

But the thing is.

Though I used to mail you things weekly.

I haven’t for eight months.

Maybe longer?

Do you even check the mail there anymore?

I wanted to send you a chip on your anniversary.

I didn’t.

I wanted to send you a birthday card on your birthday.

I didn’t.

I wanted to let you know when I landed in the ER.

But I couldn’t.

No other sound is quite the same as your name

Good grief.

I should stop listening to music, I get smacked with the sads sometimes.

Anyway.

I really tried to not reach out.

I deleted your number in my phone.

I don’t email you.

But I come close.

I thought.

I just have to make it through my dissertation defense.

I just need to heal from my next surgery in October.

And how long.

How long before you figure it out?

Or I do.

“Why can’t you be with him?” My friend asked.

I told him all the things and he just sighed, “I don’t like how this movie ends, you’re supposed to be together.”

You would think that.

I have only had one soul mate.

You.

I have only really loved one man.

You.

But sometimes you don’t get to be with the one you love.

I’ve read a lot of books, that seems to happen an awful, awful, awful lot.

It’s only in movies, spun sugar fairy tales, that we end up together.

And I swear we were our own little movie, the romance of it all was horrendous.

Heartbreaking.

And so delicious.

I remember one of the last things you said to me about Sabrina and Nick.

“That’s us.”

And I freaked out.

“They die at the end and get to be together in the afterlife! Is that how I get to be with you, when we’re dead?!”

I think I hung up the phone on you.

I was devastated.

But once in a while, I think, what if you meant what the characters said to each other.

“We’re end game.”

Is that what you meant?

That somehow we end up together, in the end?

I sure hope so.

I suppose I shouldn’t have wrote the card.

Had some fucking restraint.

But I didn’t.

Maybe I’ll regret it.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe I’ll regret writing another sad lonely hearts club blog about a man who is just there, over the hill, but not here where my heart beats still with longing and thoughts of what if, oh what if?

Sometimes I think that maybe it’s just this down time.

This little whiff of time after turning in my dissertation to my committee, this little jot of time before I have my final push to finish my PhD.

Maybe I’ve had a little more time than usual.

And the grief it sank in and got me again.

I suppose I shouldn’t take actions out of sorrow.

But that wouldn’t be very poetic.

Now would it?

The deed is done and I can’t take it back.

You’ve got mail.

I Suppose I Should Write

I don’t much feel like it.

But that’s because I was just in my car singing along to John Denver’s “Sunshine” and crying.

Ugh.

I was not expecting that either.

I got in my car today to run errands, man did I run some errands today, and of course the first thing that pops on the stereo is the playlist my ex made me and I was like, “NO!”

I immediately queued up my Spotify and went the opposite direction that I could think and started listening to a 2ManyDj’s Radio Soulwax, electronic dance music with a hard rock edge to it.

Love them.

Not something I ever listened to with my ex, not that he wouldn’t have been into them I think, but never came up in any of our many discussions about music.

Fuck there is just so much music I feel like I can’t listen to right now, everything seems tied to him.

So yeah, I blasted the Soulwax and went grocery shopping and everywhere I went today I listened to that playlist.

Until just a little while ago.

I was just coming from a very lovely ladies dinner night out with two girlfriends I know in recovery and we literally closed down the restaurant talking.

We were going to go see some chic flick at the AMC Van Ness Theaters, but ended up having such a conversation over dinner that we decided to just stay put and keep talking.

God damn it was nice.

I didn’t once talk about the relationship ending, rather I just listened to my friends talk about dating and who’ve they’ve seen or not seen, and it was just a relief.

When I was coming home through the fog, man it’s been a foggy August, usually it’s lifted a bit by now and we’re beginning to have some semblance of a summer, but not tonight, fog city, I didn’t feel like jamming out to the Soulwax anymore and wanted something to sing to.

So yeah, I put on a little playlist that is silly and fun and I can sing to the songs.

Like.

Ahem.

Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night.”

Or.

Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton singing “Islands in the Stream,” and fuck.

It happened.

I was singing and then the lyrics started to sink in and I realized, damn it, these are love songs too, upbeat, but love songs.

Not sad though, very sweet, rather endearing, and ugh, they made me wish for my ex so bad.

By the time John Carpenter started singing “Sunshine,” I had lost it and started to out right cry.

Sorry folks.

It’s another I’m crying over my ex-boyfriend blog.

I miss him so much.

It hurts.

I’m not going to die, but now I have some more music I may need to avoid for a little bit.

I mean.

I had a great time with my friends, and I felt really upbeat heading home, so the emotional sucker punch of the music caught me off guard.

I also looked at a picture of him today.

From a trip we went on this summer and his smile was just all sunshine and how he was looking at me from across the cafe table, it just got me so hard.

I have most of the photos off my phone, but there are a few from that trip that I realized where there and I looked.

I’m not going to beat myself up for looking.

But.

When “Sunshine” was playing I thought of him, that day, his eyes, his face, and later that day when we were close, we sat on the leather couch at the pretty AirBnB and I read him poetry from Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets, his head in my lap, and I brushed my fingers through his hair and stroked his face.

He was my sunshine.

And in the night fog driving home I missed his light so horribly.

I pulled it together to drive, but I admit that when I found parking I sat in the dark in my car and let the music spool out around me and I bawled like a baby.

I love you darling.

I miss you.

I hope you are making it through.

You always will be my sunshine.

Even in my darkest night.

I will always have the memory of how you smiled at me.

How you shined at me.

My how you shined.

Your Face In The Moonlight

The birds singing, each to each, in the branches outside the window in the morning.

Your face lit up, eyes wide, your hands reaching for me.

“You are so beautiful,” you said.

Then you kissed me.

Held me.

Melted into me.

I can still feel your embrace.

I can still see your face.

Your face in the moonlight.

I woke up in the night.

No reason.

No rhyme.

Just sudden, as though I had been tapped on the shoulder.

I opened my eyes and there you were outlined bright.

Still.

Perfect in your slumber.

The moon bathing in you in sublime wonder.

I will always see you that way.

Amongst the many ways I see you.

I took your hand and fell back asleep holding it.

I remembered the words from the sonnet I read you in the afternoon.

So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

That sweet, sacred afternoon, spent on the leather couch in the front room.

Reading Pablo Neruda poetry to you.

Your head in my lap, my hand brushing through your hair, stroking your cheek.

Until you fell asleep.

Outlined soft in the warm air of love drifting up from the rise and fall of your chest.

I read to you long after you lay sleeping cradled against me.

The soft words raining down on your face.

I want you to hear my voice in your dreams.

I want you to know that I am always here.

In the shape of the moon as it waxes and wanes.

In the kiss of warm air on your skin.

In between the songs of lovebirds and the skein of time.

I am here.

Love.

To hold and to have.

Always.

Crazy Thinking About You

Crazy the things we do.

The nuances of you.

Shimmer shine.

The way my face has changed because of you.

I can’t get enough of you.

You take me places I never knew existed and promise me more.

I feel full of star shine, moon shine, shine, shine, shine.

The way you shine at me.

Makes me feel full of bubbles, full of laughter.

It spills out of me.

Falling on the floor.

Bouncing and alive with joy.

So, so good.

I cannot ignore you.

I would not choose to.

I would have to ignore what I have become.

And I cannot.

I have changed.

I have become more myself.

I understand it now.

Completed me you did not, complimented me, perhaps.

Subsumed me and made me something new, something different.

Wonderous and alive and more fully myself.

You saw me.

And in the seeing I saw me and I became more.

More alive.

More in love.

Constantly graced in that space that is you.

Your face framed by my hands in the misty light of sunshine drifting through the

Bamboo shade and the tendrils of sea fog, a muffled light that made you more beautiful.

Catching my breath and holding your face between my palms I made myself memorize

Your face, your eyes, the romantic filter so fitting it was almost verbose in love imagery.

Suffocating in beauty.

Thralled and smashed with you and all you bring me.

Burned down.

Built back up.

I could sing forests alive and flowers to bloom.

I could dance the moon from the sky for you.

I blossom with the magic that is you and wonder at my own reflection in the mirror.

Who is this woman?

Shimmering with happiness.

Radiant in love.

Incandescent for you.

The sun shone on your face and I basked in its reflection.

For it loved you as I love you, illuminating all that is bright and dark.

Gilding you with gold.

Glister.

Glam.

Glow.

All of you.

So bright.

I see that in my face.

That light that is you, shone on me.

And now I shine with that same light.

I am.

Aglow.

Because of you.

And.

All that light.

Yes.

All of it.

Is.

For.

You.

Not Enough

Just not enough time to look at your face.

To memorize the lines there, the smile lines, the laugh lines, the color of your skin.

It was too long.

This time in between tasting you.

Having your kiss on my mouth.

Holding your hand in my hand.

Laughing with you while the sun streamed through the window and my heart fled out my body.

Absconded by you.

I realized later.

I hadn’t opened my eyes enough.

So love lost in the moment.

So taken with the abandon.

I forgot to look.

I forgot to get my fill.

I didn’t get enough.

I sound like a junkie, don’t I.

A little love junkie.

A little tortured and twisted and sighing in the wind.

When.

Oh.

When, will I see my baby again?

And see I must.

See I demand.

With my eyes, with my hands.

To.

Take the measure of you.

Holding images against the braille of my heart.

Reading all that lies in between the shadow and the soul.

The dark drift of my dreams and the raft of pleasure I find myself

Moored upon.

Open your eyes I tell myself.

Don’t get so damn lost.

So easy to get lost in you, in between the slipstream and the curve of your shoulder blades.

The cusp of your collar bone.

The smell of you.

Not enough time to take it all in.

Damn it.

There were things I saw though.

Oh.

Yes.

The dewy fall of a bead of sweat down the back of your neck, sweet, succulent, juicy, droplet.

I wanted to lick it off of you.

Taste you.

I watched it fall instead.

Sliding down your skin it mesmerized.

Or.

Your smile.

Searing me in half.

I did not see enough of it though.

Too busy instead kissing that mouth to take it in properly.

Astray in the lushness of your bottom lip, the holding space and the sigh of it.

I could fall down that velvet blackness and abandon myself there.

Gone.

Star dust to star dust.

Ashes to ashes.

Obliterated.

Abandoned.

Lost.

In this.

Exquisite dream.

So.

I reprimand myself.

Open your eyes.

Open them wide.

See.

See all of you.

As I am so taken with you.

Kidnapped.

Dazzled.

Captivated.

Enchanted.

Enthralled.

And.

Beguiled.

All the damn things.

All of them.

So.

Let me say it one more time.

So I dare not forget.

Open your eyes baby girl.

There is so much to see and see it all you must.

Imprints of you on the backs of my eyelids.

In the narrative of my blood.

Standing there.

Just waiting.

Waiting for me to see.

Waiting for me to see.

All.

Of you.

 

 

 

 

Feeling A Little Bit

Screwed.

Fuck.

I am wide awake.

My last class of the day was really energizing and fun and my professor was on fire and the lecture was great and my brain was firing on all pistons.

And.

Then.

We had a dance party.

I was only going to stay twenty minutes, half hour tops.

Ugh.

I stayed until the security guard was kicking us out of the building.

Sigh.

I have to do my final presentation on my last paper for Multi-Cultural class tomorrow.

And.

I am the first one up.

I had thought I was going to go today, be the last person to speak and get it out of the way.

Nope.

Le sigh.

Oh well.

It did give me some space though to explore a few ideas and I really like what I found in that exploration as well as somethings to talk about in my last therapy dyad of the year.

Of the year.

It’s almost done.

Not really.

But.

Classes are almost complete.

I have two more classes tomorrow and I’ll be done by 4p.m.

One of my girlfriends and I are going to hang out, grab some sushi, do some doing the deal and have a sleep over.

It’s a slumber party!

She skipped the dance party and I think she will be much more well rested than I.

That being said, I am super glad that I went and got some of the energy out of my system, some of the anxiety of being in school and just a little body release.

My back is still a little tender from yoga and I was bunched up in desk/chair all day long.

Grateful to get in my body, get into the music and play with my fellows and cohort for a little bit.

I’m sure I will rue the decision tomorrow as I get up to my 6:30 a.m. alarm.

Oh well.

I am glad I went to the party, I was glad to show up, I was glad to dance, I was glad to free myself, for a moment in time, from the constraints of note taking, processing, reading, writing, interacting, engaging, showing up for, and the whole she-bang.

So even though I am wound up and energized I’m ok with it.

I’m sure I’ll crash at some point tomorrow, I’ll fade, I’ll need a coffee injection or five, but I will be ok.

I’m a little concerned about the next week and getting all the things together that need to come together–10-12 page paper on the concepts of transference and counter transference, a take home exam, a paper on The Trauma of Language and Lancanian theory, a posting to Applied Spirituality and a final small paper for that class as well 2-4 pages.

I’ll get it all done.

I know I will.

My friend from cohort and I who had made plans to go to the Steampunk Masquerade Ball at NIMBY consorted and decided we both had too much work due by next weekend to feel comfortable going out to the event.

I will be getting the things done that I need to do so that I can fly out the next weekend to the Big Apple.

New York.

I’m coming for you.

Which reminds me I need to get a hold of my friend in Brooklyn and ask about his place and how I get in and all that since he’s out of the country when I’m there.

I still can’t quite believe that I have a place to stay in Brooklyn.

I should see if my friend wants anything from San Francisco.

I want to bring a guest gift.

Seems appropriate when he could have Air BnB’d his place and made bank while he was on his trip and he’s not charging me to stay there.

I love my friends.

I am such a lucky girl.

I couldn’t have gotten through the grad school program without some of the women that I met in the cohort.

Extremely grateful.

Extremely privileged to get to know these woman.

And men.

There’s been a great TA who I have really connected with and he’s been such a source of support and connection, as well as one of the guys in my cohort who I actually interviewed with, way, way, way back last year in March.

Hard to believe that I have come so far.

Seems like just yesterday that I was filling out the application and sending in my letters of recommendation and getting my transcripts.

So much has happened.

So much still has to happen.

But I can see that this chapter is coming to a close and I am grateful to share that experience of saying good bye to the cohort, the school, the year that I have been a first year grad student.

“Oh, it’s official,” he said to me as we were chatting.

He being a second year student in the program.

“You’re second year now,” he added definitively.

Well.

Almost.

I have to get through tomorrow and knock out those papers, but yes, I am almost a second year graduate school student.

It feels pretty good.

It feels a little surreal.

But over all I am super proud of all the work I have done and shown up for.

I read all the things, I have turned in all the papers on time, so far, shown up for every class, every lecture, every dyad.

Yup.

I did not miss a single day of school.

That is in itself a mighty thing.

And I remind myself of that again and again.

Just show up.

And right now.

I just need to show up for bed.

I have to wind this down.

I need a few hours of sleep to finish out the weekend.

So close I can taste it.

So.

So.

So close.

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 

Your account has been deleted

And goodnight.

No.

Obviously I am not deleting my blog.

I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I did that.

Although I am beginning to think that I may supplement my blog.

I know.

In what fucking time?

But.

It’s been suggested a few times, by quite disparate people, that perhaps I want to start a podcast.

I apparently have the voice for it.

That could be fun and I do like to listen to myself talk…

Anyway.

I digress.

The account I deleted was my OkCupid account.

I realized after last nights blog and a little pity party after the fact, which quickly turned to anger, then a gentle, soft reminder, hey, kid, be nice to you, you’re doing the best you can.

The fact is that I know what I want and I can’t have it.

Yet.

And.

Further.

That being on this online dating site was not fulfilling me, it does me no justice, it does me no truth, it does me no love, it’s a flat representation of me.

I decided somewhere mid day to stop trying to date.

That was the realization.

That was it.

I know what I want.

I know where my heart lies.

So stop betraying my heart and stop trying to date on line.

It never worked.

Has never worked and yet I have had that damn account for years, I have disabled it twice and deleted once.

Now, officially deleted again.

I had a moment of realization that trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results was just as debilitating as beating myself up for wanting to have some different kind of romantic experience.

The fact is.

I know love.

And I don’t have to be searching for it.

I have love.

I can look inside.

I can feel it flush on my face, the sound of drums rolling through my blood.

The fire of carnations, the salt rose and topaz.

I almost didn’t delete it though.

As if hanging onto it would prove something, change something, make it different, make how I feel different.

I disabled it.

Then I re-read the last e-mail I got from a perspective suitor, which was probably one of the cutest requests for a date that I have actually gotten from the site, and I balked.

Come on, Martines.

This is fantasy.

Because it really is, it’s just another way to check out, to not be present, to not focus on what is going on with me, to deflect from the feelings I am having and get lost in the clicking through profiles.

Just another rat in the maze.

I will pass.

I went back and deleted the account.

A few minutes before a friend texted me to see if I was around.

Ha.

Yes.

And free to be present since I’m not trolling for some imaginary internet ego fulfillment.

Rather.

A good talk.

A connection.

Human relationships.

Right here.

Right now.

In the moment.

Just for today.

“Oh, you take it easy, you let the day unfold, I think you are going to be really happy today, you’re going to have something happens that is going to really surprise you, I guarantee it.”

Man.

She was right.

And it was good.

My heart feels in a place of resting that I don’t believe has been available for me for awhile.

I am not unhappy that it took what it has taken to get here, it’s been work unlike any I have ever known.

And the results?

Holy shit.

A deepening of understanding.

A threshold of love I don’t know that I have ever experienced.

A transparency of my self.

So good.

I feel blown open.

Like sugar crystals in a cave of dark velvet splashed with light and lit up.

Incandescent.

Alive.

I also gave myself the thumbs up to be a poet.

I mean.

Ha.

I have been a poet all my life, I was a poet before I had the words to express, but I can recall the images from my child hood, the smells, the press of my senses and that outlet that was always there for me, more true than history, poetry.

Which in its best, done well, is always about this moment.

This one.

Right here.

I have a class in school that I have to come up with a proposal that will help me expand my spiritual experience.

It’s called “Applied Spirituality” and I have had a bit of a resentment about it.

Damn it.

I am a spiritual person.

I don’t want to expand my experience.

I sound like a petulant child.

When it was pointed out I still stomped my feet a little, but I thought, ok, how can I be flexible, what could I change, can I actually add something more to my already rather busy and packed schedule?

My first response was fuck you and fuck no.

But when I react that strongly to something I know that is where the work is.

Then again, there it was, that idea presented to me, again last night, Sunday night and Sunday during the day at school, that I should be doing some vocal work.

“You should have a podcast!”

As I mentioned, I have no idea what that means.

I mean.

I really don’t.

Some exploration there would be needed to figure it out.

But how hard could it be?

The thought that came to me, the first thought, it morphed as I was talking to my friend, it bloomed, it expanded, and got bigger, but the first thoughts was.

Well.

Hmmm.

Maybe start a podcast and do spiritual readings.

Then I had another thought, a quiet thought, a soft voice that was shy at first, but then excited and lit up and exuberant.

Wait!

It should be my own work.

And.

Yes!

I will read poems on my podcast.

And.

Yes!

Here it is.

I will write a sonnet a day.

That will be my spiritual practice.

And if you don’t believe that writing is a spiritual practice, you bring yourself over to my house and I will show you my stacks and stacks and boxes and bins of notebooks that I have written through in my writing practice.

Poetry will be my practice.

Despite feeling overwhelmed at times by the amount of work I was doing in my first semester, I made the time to write the sonnet sequence for my friend I met a Burning Man.

And I can feel it.

I can feel that this is the right thing.

Write a sonnet in the morning, or free verse, or maybe find another lyrical form that resonates, like, hey on Saturdays I’ll write a sestina instead, then in the evening, edit and post it to my cohort and record it as a podcast.

I believe that poetry also needs to be read out loud.

The voice and the inflection, the words of the poet.

That is my proposal.

I am super excited.

And so grateful for this experience.

For this love, love.

This life, this joy, these threads of words and lines of poesie that sing inside my heart, this voice that is not mine.

You know, it is not.

It is God’s.

That I believe more fervently than I can express.

When the words come, even these, they are not mine.

I am a conduit.

I am a channel.

And that.

That.

Oh, that.

Is a mighty.

Mighty.

Fine thing.

Walk Away

Let him go.

Those were the words in my head when I saw my friend sitting outside the burrito joint on Judah and 44^th smoking a cigarette.

He doesn’t see me.

Which doesn’t mean that he didn’t see me.

He did.

I saw him.

And we did the weird, uncomfortable, yet oddly enough, familiar dance of people who need to be in the same place at the same time who don’t have anything to say to each other.

Which says volumes.

It did not hurt as much as I thought it would.

I knew he’s been around and I know, know without a doubt, that he won’t have anything to do with me even if I did approach him.

Which I have been directed not to.

And if you know anything about me, have read even one of my blogs or seen me around the block, you know, that the one thing I do well is take a suggestion.

Leave him alone.

Walk away.

Let him go.

Surrender.

Again and again it comes down to surrender.

Gratitude as well.

I am grateful for the time I got to have my friend in my life, for the words and books, the conversations, the music, the poetry of our time together, the love, the in bed the out of bed, the growth and the loss.

And the grief and joy and weirdness that is life.

One day, I hope, I’ll run into him and the past will have passed and we will be able to smile at each other, have a hug, share a moment, maybe get a cup of coffee.

Or not.

It is not for me to decide.

I choose, respectfully, to move on and keep moving forward.

These dreams.

True dreams of Wichita.

….Where you stand with keys and your cool hat of silence, while you grip her love like a drivers liscence…

These dreams lead me forward.

I know, in my heart, of hearts, of hearts, that I am not alone and that my circles of friends and lovers and relationships and employers and family may change and melt and merge and coalesce in different ways.

I have loved so many people.

And so many of them are no longer in my life, my daily life, not because they have died, although a few have, but because life has happened and they moved on or I moved on.

Yet.

I get to still hold space for these people within me.

That is the fallacy of my thinking prior to having gone into recovery, that I would always have to hold so tight to anyone in my life, regardless of whether or not they were good for me to be holding tightly too.

I get to let go, softly, gently, even though I have not always done so gracefully or graciously, I get to let go even too, of that thought, that I have to move on in a certain way or manner.

I don’t have to do anything perfect.

The only thing I can do perfect is love all those in my heart and hold them, whether they know or not that they are held there.

In some ways I believe, a person is truly alone, there is no one who is ever going to know the exact depth and weight of my life or my soul or my heart, there are some that will get more inside my sphere and I will get to share with them to a greater degree than others, but on some levels, there is always this alone.

There is not, however, this loneliness.

I am not lonely.

Which is a lovely revelation to have.

I am never truly alone.

And it is not important that anyone other than myself know the inner workings of my heart.

It’s my heart.

I do hope that I can share some of it with you.

There is that.

That I can love you and that you will know it, even if we are not together.

Even when we used to be so close.

Where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

“Sit next to me Carmen,” he said in his sleepy cat voice, fresh-baked from his nap, small sweaty head imprint on his pillow. He rolled over in his ‘big boy’ bed and made room for me next to him and then tucked his Meow Meow under his arm.

“Sing me a song, Carmen,” he said, opening his raccoon fringed eyes, brown and soft and sweet, at me, before shuttering them down again, the weight of his eyelashes pulling his lids shut.

I sang him a song.

My sweet boy.

I have so many songs to sing, but they all sort of come out sounding the same and that, too, I believe, is as it should be.

I don’t know how to change you, so I change me.

Sometimes the lyrics to the song will be different from what I think and I will forget the refrain or chorus, or make a jumble of the words, but the feelings remain the same.

Instead of sorrow I feel joy.

And perhaps it is tinged by a touch of sorrow, but the sadness makes the joy that much more bright and palpable.

When I think of all the people I have met in my life and all the people I have shared a moment with, or a year, or more. When I think of all the people who’s hands I have held or the hugs given and received, whether they are to be given or received again matters not, I have been given the gift and to ask for more is greedy.

Though, I suspect, I will be given more, I think my purpose is still evolving and I know that I have more in me to let out.

More heart to wear on my sleeve.

More love to give.

More love to receive.

 

Time after time you’ll hear me say that I’m so lucky to be loving you.

It Was A Walk of Shame

But not that kind of walk of shame.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

But it definitely reminded me of one.

Underpants in my messenger bag, condoms falling out of my pen bag and knocking about in my messenger bag, what were you doing last night lady?

Thank God the family had left when all this underpants and condom hilarity ensued.

I was reminded of a story, in the briefest barest flash of embarrassment, my mom loves to tell this story, it’s in the top three (top two standing in front of the three-way mirror at Macy’s in my lace anklets at age three admiring myself–snuck out of the changing room when mom went to find a dress that fit better, imagine her surprise, empty changing room, no baby, but suddenly hearing a gaggle of old ladies around the corner cooing over how cute I was cued her off.  Top one–standing on top of my desk and yelling at my class to sit down and be quiet because teacher was having a bad day, teacher promptly burst into tears, said thank you Carmen and everybody sat down and was quiet.  Turns out she had just been served with divorce papers at recess) of the mom pantheon of stories to tell on me.

I was six, maybe seven, first grade (older kid, missed the cut off for kindergarten by a month, so always one of the oldest in my class) and I stood up to use the bathroom and my underpants fell out the bottom of my pants.

I was not only mortified, but I was mystified too.

How the hell did they come off?

Turns out my underwear were on, but I had an extra in the leg, probably from the laundry or they hadn’t pulled out of my jeans when I pulled them off the night before.

Which is what happened to me today.

At the age of 41, I was not paying enough attention to notice that my jeans had a little extra padding in the back side this morning when I went to work.

I mean I am utterly mystified how that happened, I was awake, I swear, when I got dressed, but apparently I was not fully present.

ALL MORNING.

I sat where I am sitting now, had breakfast, wrote four pages long hand, I had extra time this morning, I rode the MUNI to work–sat there too–how I did not feel an extra pair of panties back there I don’t know.

I discovered them when I was getting the boys ready to go outside to the park.

I pulled up my jeans and was like, what is that, and reached back and fished out the underwear.

This is what happens when you are so ready and packed to go that you are recycling your pants to get through the week so you don’t have to worry about laundry before leaving for playa.

I re-wore my jeans from yesterday.

The condoms were from my consolidating of stuffs when I went through the underwear drawer and I stuffed them in my pen and pencil bag in my messenger bag.

I don’t know that I need them, I don’t foresee getting lucky before I hit playa–Mister I’ll Bring You Some Frozen Peas never got back at me the last time I sent him a query.

Oh well.

His loss.

Moving on.

Hopefully with only one pair of panties on my person at a time.

It made me laugh and really it was a day full of life and gratitude for what I have.

My friends, my work, the little boys in my life, my recovery, knowing I have a solution to my disease and taking my medicine.

My heart broke when my good friend text me that Robin Williams had committed suicide today in Tiburon.

I met the great man once, he was amazing, heartbreaking, sad, funny, depressed, overwhelmed, sweet, honest, loving, kind.

I got to sit and be five feet away from him for an hour and it was a pretty incredible experience.  And a hug after that hour and an immense gratitude for what I have.

Money doesn’t make you happy.

Fame doesn’t make you happy.

Sometimes there’s just a deep, deep well of pain and it cannot be addressed or dealt with and thank fully I found a way out of it, but the echo in my soul, that unbearable knowledge of what he must have been going through, I can taste it like mercury blood in my mouth, a bitter sucked orange sadness.

I know he’s not in pain any longer and I am glad for that, though for completely selfish reasons I wish he were still here.

I don’t cry at celebrity deaths.

Two to date.

When I heard the news that Jeff Buckley had died.

And today when I got the text from my friend.

I immediately teared up and my heart just hurt, it felt like I had gotten stabbed, perhaps because I share that disease and know that pain, partially because I am so grateful it is not a solution I have chosen.

Although there were times, two years into my sobriety, when it got really, really bad.

REAL BAD.

I was always crying.

And I can cry a lot.

But I was always crying.

I did not know what would set it off and I did not know when it would stop and I wanted to die so bad.

It was when I was in the shower contemplating being alone for the rest of my life and never having a family of my own (I don’t know why that thought, I don’t know what had brought it about, but I had a sudden realization that I was never going to have children and I was brought low in devestation), I sank down on the floor of the tub, the shower beating on my head and thought, all I have to do is fill the tub up with water and let go.

There were razors there.

It would be warm.

It would be ok.

It would not hurt for long.

Let go.

I gripped the sides of the bathtub, forced my way to standing, turned off the shower, grabbed the towel from the back hook of the door and screamed into it, broke down crying, wrapped myself up in the towel, went and made a phone call and somehow walked through it until I got professional help.

I don’t know Robin’s pain.

I can’t.

But I know thinking about that very permanent solution to a temporary problem allure.

I hope he is in a better place and at peace.

I hope to not journey there yet for many a day.

I hope you know how much I love you.

I love you.

I do.

 

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

― Pablo Neruda