Year / Month

 

For many months, so few pictures

In the ones that do exist, we're never looking at each other

Loon

 

You've been walking in circles, your foot soaked with pothole water, sock gritty with asphalt. It only becomes a labyrinth when you become mindful. Then it's time to find your way out. By the lake, in autumn. It takes longer than you'd think. The blossoms have fallen from the stems of the hydrangeas. The wind picks up. Sand compresses beneath your sneakers, then rises behind you. The water is beautiful. The mergansers seek food inside the water; their diving is beautiful. The mountains containing the water: dappled gold, and beautiful. The trees, so many of them, drink the water. They are beautiful. At each dead end you turn into a new beginning. 

loss of memory due usually to brain injury, shock, fatigue, repression, or illness

 

Where they may, where they may, where they, they are falling. I remember I am remembering I am remembering myself remembered. I am remembering how much has been lost. I am remembering she who strode knee-high in the silk dress. I am remembering her convictions. I am remembering her belting out on the streets of Georgetown. I am remembering what the Torture Machine has sucked from the soul. Come what may may come, what is certain is that you need a break. You need to find your stride again. If you read it back it's all there. I'm not a fucking bunny. 

moon time

 

Is it always this way at first? Has it been this way before? In the beginning, was it like this, also? Will it similarly change? Am I capable of saying, with certainty, that this time is different? What if the memory of the other times simply has faded? What I mean is, is it possible to practice discernment under these conditions? I mean, is it even possible? Don't our brains and bodies operate autonomously, at least at times, from the witness? Can even the witness be fooled? In the woods, beside the creek, on the crescent rim of a deep, silver pool: Are you supposed to observe, if such a thing is possible, from the water's edge, perhaps dipping one toe into the buoyancy, and then, if it proves reasonable enough to do so, another? Or are you supposed to tumble into it? 

morning/after

 

Waking early, I didn't mind it. Brushed my teeth, splashed cold water on my face, I didn't mind it. Foraged for a matched sock in the mound of unfolded laundry, I didn't mind it. Pulled a dirty pair of work pants over my thermal tights and didn't mind. Messed up the ratio of dairy-free creamer to coffee and didn't mind. Drove to work, joined my friend in the woodland, thick thorns entangling me, I didn't mind. One by one, I pulled them from my fleece until I'd stepped free of the snare. What's the news? Yesterday I napped for the first time in seven years. On the drive home I was singing. 

he says what many people don't understand is that mistakes are a gift, because you can learn from them

 

In defiance I asked for the clippers. In a perfectionistic haze he overused them. In the mirror I mourn the loss. Now I know. 

walking at night

 

You have said what needed to be said, and honorably. The moon is seven-eighths full. 

A thick, flat cloud hangs like a painting over the rooftops. 

The stars have come out. 

Hold to the truth and speak it. You'll find liberation there. 

The apology comes so late. 

Even the fading stars are still shining.

Surely it's not a coincidence that as you prioritize yourself, other people care too. 

Orion cinches his belt. He aims. 

sure

 

I have never been have I no she has never been no she says you have never been and condemned for it. When I tell the story out loud when I hear my voice telling the story when I say the words that form the story when I say the words and I watch her face when I say the words and I hear myself say them I am shocked by how straightforward it sounds. The banality of harm. Its continuity. Perhaps more so perhaps also perhaps most of all perhaps most hard to say I'm embarrassed by it. How I let it go on for so long. How familiar it feels to feel ashamed. As if the alcohol never left the system as if the alcohol is still flowing through the body-which-is-a-system as if the alcohol is corroding our veins as if our blood is turning to liquor as if our pulse is slackening as we remain acting as if veins do not lead to the heart. Why have I been unable or unwilling to act as if this matters. In her eyes so much compassion that I almost forgive myself. 

Bryce

 

In the red-red canyon the red rock rises above the red earth sinking beneath the heft of red stones. The sky is blue, blue is the sky, in the night, dark blue, and pricked full of stars. White whiffs of cloud. The desert endless and the trees evergreen. The sand-whipped deadwood: a mountain lion crouched over prey. 

comforter

 

I am sitting on the bed the comforter is dirty I am sitting on the comforter the bed is dirty I am sitting in my red sweatpants swaying I am swaying sitting in my red sweatpants. The dog is looking from the floor she is waiting she is waiting for my okay she is waiting for my okay so she can jump on the bed. The dog jumping on the bed is why the comforter is dirty. I bring this on myself. 

perspicacious

 

In front of the yarn store, beside the sheep pasture, tucked into the long green hillside, the orange cat preens 

I drove there by myself 

Also the old fire road, eighteen inches of fresh snow and the Honda sliding around switchbacks 

One-handed down Good Drive, on my way to other places 

Give him some space

Give him some time 

Let him find his way back to you 

I miss the alpine evergreens 

Here in my heart, what do they teach me 

Try this novel thing: 

I'm just not going to stop being myself

Let the chips fall 

Ask them if they're by the colorful tree

 

Now you've gone and blown all over my harmonica

Now I am having a human experience that I've never had before 

Now I am spitting the blood back

Blaming my feelings when it was me who overrode them 

Haven't I proven myself enough? 

Now's the time to make the pavlova  

Reality

 

I've done what I've done.

 

I feel what I feel. 

 

 

We Survive in 2025

 

Jesus fuck!

The brussel sprouts are burnt 

Smoke crowds into the recessed lighting 

The sweet potatoes are still rock hard 

They might need another hour 

The chicken is as yet undercooked 

Fuck! The new meat thermometer has stopped working 

The old meat thermometer was likely made in 1964 

Shit, shit, shit. I'm almost out of spinach. We need something green 

The glass shatters when the fridge closes

The oven sits wide open