last kopeck

One sent him postcards while traveling the world. Another doing meaningful work and being paid handsomely for it. This one celebrated a newborn baby. Where was he in life? Nights at the bar, dropping his last kopeck. Then at his desk writing furious without any promises.    #katyamills

arc of a thousand suns

anyone can hustle. identify what is it you want. go after it unceremoniously. you will be pushed around prodded and disbelieved across the arc of a thousand suns. don’t let anything or anyone stop you. it won’t be pretty or anything like the movies.  #katyamills

drops like that

Backs pale against the carpet. I knew I was getting close when the titles stood out. The Shining, his pained psychotic face at the door. American Dream I got from a yard sale in Largo, edged in blue, Mailer and his shotguns. She pressured the 20th Century Russian Reader with her palm and we came. I held her as we slipped down into cotton fibers. I turn my head to the side and face The Waves. They are breaking and rolling outside. Russian vodka drops me like that, blacks me out. Soon I will be far away. Another city. Another state. 

– by #katyamills

Royal [8.15.1998]

Exertion to almost dawn evolved into something effortless… the whole production seemed almost pointless but that’s what made it carefree… the later the night the heavier things got… the drinking, the smoking, the chasing… powder folded up with mirrors hide the life lines cracked like former factory floors, the pores like potholes clogged with oil and dirt… rising up from the basement of tax brackets into some starched shirt’s arms… lush Cadillac interiors rolling low on tired struts below the immense buildings… the money clean the language dirty. wanting it all. coffee stains the teeth like lacquered tables. a simple twist of a blind loosens tongues behind loveless lips. service workers bending backs for high tips. exhaust bubbles up over a line of pipes along the curb, a stone’s throw from a great lake, outside clubs with cathedral ceilings. sometimes life is a mess, empty pockets and hurt feelings. 

by #katyamills from 8.15.1998

suffer 4 not believing

Millions of phones ring simultaneously every second on earth. A couple side by side at the top of twenty stone steps. The relaxed lips of lovers before the heavy orange door. A car drives past, music blasts. Kids shouting out. Coming so close on a scratcher and losing. The one who caught the bouquet at the wedding again and still unmarried. Sunflower with a dark center. We are possessive, scared of losing, of who we are without it. Apartments and homes hopelessly cluttered beyond recognition. Drawn away from whatever we are doing. Tempted to drop the cigarette on the carpet and walk away. Life is simple and absurd. Breaking the truth to someone way beyond what they believed and having them stare at you tearfully wondering why you are unreal. Life is complicated. Now you are the one to suffer for not believing. Life is strange. with nothing to do you drink vodka and join in song home on the range feeling emotionally withdrawn.   #katyamills. 8.20.1998

Gold Coast. Chicago

I drive my beat up old car fast with graphite and paper up and down these beat up old streets glass strewn everywhere factories looming heads specked with pigeon guano hair unwashed after a night drinking then downtown battling for the loading zone  

by #katyamills

words curated from 8.29.1998 diary

Royal 9.14.1998 (#2)

They made me one fifty one at work. I am more than a number I am many numbers. They dispatch me calling out one five one. I can park in loading zones. I can tell the concierges to fuck off. You cannot tow me. I have met the great smiles of secretaries who seem to want more than a transaction. Walked out of a production company with two boxes destination Loyola University in my arms. She held the door for me, smiling, her tight thin black pants and loose thin white shirt up against the glass. She had a very nice ass. It was late in the day and I was tired and in a rush and I was grateful. There was nothing blatant like Rebecca who held an elevator for me for over two minutes after I passed her going to lunch or something, so I was slow on the uptake. They know I work for Velocity by the company logo on my shirt and it’s a respected outfit in downtown Chicago. When I got outside I realized I had not signed any delivery sheet so I went back to the studio and asked her, do you need my number? No, she said, smiling with that killer smile, But give it to me anyway… One five one. I’m sure I gave her the wrong one. With all these numbers I am, it’s hard to guess which one they want. 

by #katyamills

Royal #9.14.1998

Not trying to be anything other than you was beautiful the same way silence was. When I dropped the fear of precursory judgments it was easier dealing with situations in general: strangers and transactions, getting measured up to standards. I was in my mid-twenties and on my own in the world when i figured this out after so many fails. They saw right through you out there, the ones who were surviving out there by staying alert. They tested me less once I made it. Coming off capable if not fearless, not so awkward and green. You can feel it when you have entered this dragon. You are the city in its many expressions and the streets are within you. My eyes turned asphalt and my body to clay under a soft rush hour rain. 

by #katyamills

Indian Rocks

Her eyes were the blue of the great lakes where she was from. She pulled her shirt down from the neck to show them the tattoo she had drawn and inked herself. She was living on Indian Rocks beach with her mother taking care of her grandfather and already planned to get out of town after he died. It wouldn’t be long. She was waitressing at a local oyster bar and saving up. She wanted nothing to do with her mom who was alcoholic and had started her on the same path early, age twelve, and now she was eighteen and already been burned. She talked to them about her dream of leaving, like her father had before her, and not looking back. 

by #katyamills

Royal sessions [9.13.1998]

The top of the back stairs looks over the string factory and the windows filter out all the sun’s colors excepting the blue and can barely be seen through. On a Saturday night the workers are wishing they found another calling trapped in this ball of yarn. The potatoes are ready to come out of foil after I go down three flights to give the dryer my washed and spun clothes. There’s a heavy Mexican in the apartment below stirring beans on the stove, door open, television singing over the baby’s cries. I can see the tomato cans lined up in the pantry. The canned goods they don’t embrace change, either, you have to shake and hit the tin with your palm, they don’t want to come out, it’s better in there than being dropped into a pot and cooked into another life and consumed. My cactus keeps dying and coming back to life. Same with my guitar. It’s my fault. I keep playing favorites and the typewriter always wins. I have to turn down my stereo to hear my phone ring. Lenny Kravitz is a romantic. I am paying attention and it doesn’t cost much. If your phone never rings you distrust people. If you keep your phone off or off the hook, you cannot trust yourself. A candle that is melting without a burning wick tells of summer in Chicago. A single word in any book is less trivial than any single image on all of television. Which is a demonstration of seeing the world through my values. The secret to happiness is acceptance of suffering. People living in a hard part of town are more decent and less frightened. Reality is scarier than fiction, but not as scary as not being real. This paper is thin legal. This is the best typewriter paper around.

by #katyamills