Spirit re-release party

Our history
on earth

not unlike
layers of dust
some
one
kicked up
packed
down

energies of lives
settled
collecting

memories of lives
places and things

settling
collected
archived

restoration software
digital remaster
cloud bank
assignation

cold case
gone warm
buried
treasured
unearthed

spirits release
re-release
party

the hereditary
catch-line
caught
in geologic
undertow

soft the gaze
looking back
upon
ancestral
haze

sketchy
the sketch

drawn up
flopping
from a winslow
homer
sea

Erotica #k

They went
down
On
one
another

The indents
Of his elbows

Full court
pressing

The indents
Of her knees

He made her
A figure
of speech

She was
so relaxed

Afterward

So relaxed
Was he

The small of
Her back
The breadth
Of him

Shoulder
Blade
To Blade

A Clear
& Sweet
Hearts
Memory

He was
So relaxed
Was she

Forward

She sang
The verses
He played
The chords

Toward

He sang
towards her
Words played
Nice

Soon
They would
Be
Beside
Them
selves

Katya Mills, © 2013

it happens

You might think there’s nothing happening now

You might stop thinking and something might happen

Something might happen to you

Something might happen for you

You might fall in love

Someone might love you 

More or less

 

Rejoice

i was driving as though i had to put out a fire.  a dark night and alone. i ate a ham sandwich, cause i broke the speed limit, in half. then chauffeured to clean confines. regimented was the line time marched along. beards and lies grew wild and twisted. drawn faces of joshua tree turnovers. pop went the tarts. we feared for broken hearts. who would put them back together again? puzzle masters?

words were crossed and lovers’ stars. the moon was wax. the tables turned. i found myself stood up in second hand shoes. i realized by the feeling, i was wrong. compassion cooked up light, white and fluffy. in a new york minute. our tears receded to salt trails on thickening skin. someone drowned theirs, in gin. i followed mine back into the eye. which reflected me, redirected me, to a glowing sensation. the same of yours and his and hers. this was our collective freedom. we all arrived there after loneliness and suffering. and rejoiced.

one way to live

try and be honest

expect nothing

work real hard

listen well

train your mind

allow silence

endure the pain

speak carefully

feel your feelings

respect elders

lots of coffee

read and write

grow up

show kindness

walk

sharpen edges

sleep

show courage

be you

 

 

i gave up

i gave up
once friends
who gave up
on me

to keep them
demanded i lose faith
in myself

this was sad
i prayed

i gave up
cigarrettes
they cut short
so many lives

i wanted
so badly
2 breathe

this was hard
i prayed

i gave up
fighting
myself and
the world

behind
some romantic
notion

what i wanted
to be
to see

made a wall
stand between my life
and me

i gave up bread
to the pond
to feed
the ugly
truth duckling

i gave up
retail therapy
no
that’s a lie

i just ran out
of money

im sorry
life gets sad
im sad
lifes so hard

a timeless
tradition
the human
condition
may not
make sense

one day is okay
the next is not

now i pray
every day as
i did
when i was
a kid

back then
early eighties
2 feel good
4 myself

now i pray
how?

2 live how
2 trust how
2 give

away
and not
up

sudden breath (in my twenties)

Sometimes i gotta wonder about all those years. What i went through. So much sitting in denim on hard wood floors wrapping my arms around my legs and grabbing my elbows and holding tight;  forearms pushing up into the backs of my knees. My eyes scanning the typewritten pages all around me. So delicate. Soft paper, hard wood. The lines in my forehead from crying. My eyes trapped behind lids, cause I didn’t want to see my life sprawled out before me. Then the spots. The blind spots, when I opened eyes wide. Sudden breath. The scenario was coming in so fast and down upon me, like a subdegree wind chill through gaps in the window frame. Shaking me up and shook me down.

Then I woke up. Again and again, just like that. Sudden breath. So close to near death. Spotlight of the swinging arm lamp in its antics. Hair on my head frazzled. Feeling frantic. Would life ever cosign my imagined, romantic?

Well. Dig my heels down and pick myself up by the heels of my hands. A sharp push of a young and restless writer. Unknown except by the same isolated subversive wonders disconnected in shades of darkness, tickled by light, trying to write, all up and down the avenues in spattered fashion. Then concentration. Inkwell spilled. How will i get it out? Permanent. Marked for death by impermanence. Superficially fried. Scars covering caverns of emotional deleterium. Broken branches falling off a potted idea or two. Sit in the chair and bang on the Royal.

When lost, I would try not to always fall back to the ground. Sit up, lean forward, and push the qwerty-uiop altogether as one unit, all the metal arms raised up and stuck together like one unified blunder just trying to stain the soft transparence of the virgin watermark. And I would lower my hair and head into the stadium keys all facing and watching me and waiting for a winner. Headbanger. My eyelids crushed row four, seat eight. Headbanger and mashed. Impressed upon me some sort of cold surrender. So then, before the midnight candle wick drowned in wax, I might grab the seat back with both hands behind me, pull myself up by the spine, and hammer out something born of pain and misgivings. Something special, perhaps no one would ever see.

Mental

When you get diagnosed, you get to try on your diagnosis. Although you might have been manic-depressive, now you are bipolar so you go out in the world and feel the two poles, pulling at your mid-section. You can thank your therapist. Your therapist can thank the DSM-4, and other diagnostic materials that helped them reach that conclusion. Or you can get really really mad and tell everybody you’re shrink is trying to label you. Call it libel. Then someone might tell you you have an anger problem, especially if you set their house on fire or went to their school with a gun and started flashing it on people for kicks. You wouldn’t be there talking to them, if you had actually used it. You would be behind bars. Someone else behind bars, or even on the other side of the bars would not be telling you you had an anger problem, then, because it’s a given. They would be telling you stand up, sit down, and running their baton up and down the rails just to piss you off some more. You should feel lucky not to be locked up. I suppose you can thank yourself for not going off the deep end. Or thank your therapist. They are the one who put you on the bipolar meds to control your manic-depression. And they didn’t even know you had an anger problem. Geniuses.

not about me ¿?

The world full of wonders
The world wicked too
and its not about me
and its not about you

The nsa may be spying
its not about me
Nelson Mandela dying
impersonally

if i will go blind
is that about me?

or will i
through your eyes
see things
differently ¿?

fight it

i see backs
of salmon
fight rivers

going home
dying trying

downstream
floats
dead man

i see clouds
above
kicking swimmers
below

upstream
i kick
and thrash
like fish

the clouds
above

i am
going home
alive