desert

plotting

we pressed the paper map into the table 

compelled to the north through the mountains 

i gave in easy because i love you

south. through the desert

my imagination can fill in 

any vast expanse of

nothing

#katyamills

untimely

blood
upon the lips 

when i came to

untold hours
unconscious i
stayed up all night without
any draw toward sleep

i mistook the sun
for death and the
moon for the sun

my face
pale as unpainted walls

i wanted something 

i know not what i know nor

how to behave

i know not

why

#katyamills

4

i am walking home before midnight

the city crackles with explosives the

heaviest ones shake the ground and 

resound against the pop pop pop the

whistling with definite small caliber 

gunfire shot off by the rebels 

among us. the powder and sulfur

permeates the heat my old traumas 

are resurfacing the anxiety is only adrenaline

lit like a fuse. you cannot cancel the fourth

of july.  the wonderment in kids faces beneath the bloom 

a full moon. ascending receding

block after block. the river the

only stillness tonight. its reflection

captures my imagination

#katyamills

prefab on a freeway

I was driving up the grapevine out of los angeles when traffic came to a dead stop, near the top. we were all clocking about 80 miles an hour before it turned into a parking lot. ahead of me was a prefab house tipped off a truck bed on the freeway.  i wanted to stop and give the poor trucker the down on his lucker, a hug. he likely lost his job today. maybe they will let him move his family into the new lot he created. rent should be nothing if he sets it up for some tolls, his kids can take turns in the booth making change. governor jerry brown can stop in for dinner once a month and his cut. sure they will have to soundproof the walls and string up some blinking lights. no back yard and no neighbors and the air quality will suffer from the constant emissions. none of it will be legal but they’ll be roping so much cash they can buy the courts off. the only great obstacle will be the haunting. the ghost of the family who once lived where the freeway now runs had something to do with this, for sure, a spiritual reclamation of material space. a frontier family gone west and staked a claim long ago. only to be ousted by the D.O.T. commission lobbied hard by big business. no more day hikes to pyramid lake. no more immaculate alta vistas. just a small payoff and a bus to LA, and a new life sucking fumes in carson city. the patriarch promised vengeance. he was the one, long long forgotten, who jumped the trucker’s nerves and caused him to jack knife that day. the matriarch got ahold of his wife. you can see the translucence deep into the night when you drive up there and wait for your toll. the kids are all demons possessed.

reds

The cold war got heated
With a handshake betrayed
Arms gathered at the borders
All the plans waylaid

You were at Starbux
Unaware of it all
Digital handshake
Frappucino on-call

I wondered was it all
Just a fragment of the mind
Until a drone fragged us
Damn what a sign

you are celebrity

Take your almost famous ass out on a date with the new release of your life. Believe in you. Then go back into your corner, gather your confidence up, unite your factions, pray, meditate, and focus, clear your tabula to rasa, and go for it. Lose your mind in the expanse of imagination. There are no limits. Provoke and mine your talents. Use them or you will surely lose them. Soon you will be mobbed. Because you are celebrity.