I don't drive.

I've only owned one car in my entire life,  used and given to me, for less than one year. Never even bothered to reregister it in my name or switch out the WV plates for CA ones.

I recycle.

I don't litter.

I carry my own stainless steel water bottle, instead of buying a million tiny plastic ones and throwing them away.

I cleaned up a local park awhile back with my son and a host of other volunteers.

I grew the seed of a dying redwood, moved it w/me when I changed homes, kept it until it was too big for my apt, then gave it to my yoga instructor, who drove it up to her & her husband's property in Mendocino County and planted it outdoors.

I was a Fix Our Feral lady for a while.

I nurture found random dying plants/plant clippings thus perpetuating their lifeforce.

I don't buy animals. They just find me over the yrs and become part of the family.

My apt. has water heat under the floors thereby bypassing the need for natural gas.

I've never owned a cellphone, altho I do pay for my son's.

Altho I own these items, I have never purchased a tv/vcr/dvd player/answering machine. They have all been either new or used gifts.

I don't patronize fast-food establishments.

I reuse plastic grocery bags and, as of today, will be returning un-reused ones to stores that recycle them. I also have my own hemp/cotton grocery bags, which I use for various shopping errands.

I just started buying biodegradable kittybox liners.

I love my kitty.

Creepy.
My apartment is on the first floor now, with my bedroom windows opening onto the sidewalk without.
It is dark, and I can hear the footfalls and verbal business of evening wanderers passing by on their various missions.
I lie in my bed, listening.

And then I am outside, and heading down the street with an unnamed friend.
And then we are inside, the prey of a madman at street's end.

Darkness, shadows, and dust.
High ceilings, hidden corners.
Murkiness and muffled scream.
Not a sound is made.

I sit stock-still as he sews my mouth shut with thick, coarse black twine.
I do not cry.
I do not bleed.
I do not attempt escape.
I know better.

Stitch after stitch, his rough thumbs and forefingers force the oversized needle through the flesh around my lips.
I feel it's point pop through to the inside of my mouth.
Stitch by stitch, I feel the twine unevenly passing through my tissue, sealing me shut.
It catches in places as it passes, and he tugs a bit harder now and again,
Biting his own lip in concentration as he does so.

I lightly, and ever so quietly, tap the fingers of my right hand on the metal table at my side...
grasping for something a bit less terrifying
than the horror of my here and now.

It is almost involuntary.
It is to keep me quiet.
It is to keep me from choking.
It is to keep me sane.

He hums as he sews.
Humming a tune that echoes off the warehouse walls as he admires his handiwork.

Cross-stitch.

He somehow adds two final inner stitches, inside my mouth, one on either side, that tightens things down and pulls it shut.
Seals the deal.

As he does this, I reach out for my companion's hand.
He/she has already been closed and simply stands, mute.
Awaiting.

I know if I move or resist, he will kill me where I sit.
So I wait for him to finish his work.
He will step out briefly after the sewing stops.
If we cannot find a way out before he returns,
We are both dead.

I woke up dreaming this at 3:46 this morning.
And promptly closed my window.
Then opened the curtains so I could see the sky and her stars,
and assure myself that I am on the fourth floor, with my bedroom looking out onto the roof, that is thankfully free of lunatics with upholstery needles waiting to snatch me out of my bed!

I woke up twice more from ongoing plays of nocturnal disturbia after this: one culminating in enforced restraint and  painful physical assault, the other lost/stolen neccessities.

It's crazy windy outside right now! I think it just might break something. Freaky weird.

If I didn't have so much to do tomorrow, I'd consider just not going to sleep at all tonight...


 

V is home. And cookin.

I hafta simmer down now or else I'll boil over.
Then my pot will be empty and get scorched.
Geez, where did that come from?

I'm overly-mentally-stimulated.
must force myself to CHILLLLLLLL.

No artifice
Just proper placement of potential
has me in a swoon.

Could we really all
join forces
and MAKE IT SO
from so many different
places in time?

The things I'm coming to realize
I am realizing.
Real lies real lives joined
Not the fake ones people tell.

Yesterday I jumped up and down
And giggled
At the realization
of the magnificent miracle
of still existing
after so much space
in between breaths.

I twirled
in my swirly-chair
And hugged my friends
Embarrassing them
But making them grin
Cuz they felt the same way
And understood as well
But were unsure how to say
And not sure how to tell.

So much time lapse
Meant nothing
The aural connection
Bridged the gap instantly
As we still had
The same voices
We've always had.

Time had no power
Over us once
That was made clear
We had learned to hear
again.

Life is for the living
And the dead
We are the thread.


Bound.


In sound.

Oh Lord,
 Who isn't really there
Why am I still here?

As I walk down this forgotten street
with broken glass crunching
under my sandalled feet
I wonder...

Debris blows by on the freeway breeze
As fire continues to burn all our trees
I wonder...

And then I smell the honeysuckle
Struggling past the fenced-in yard,
It cries, "smell me!"
"I will make you smile"
"I will remind you when you forget"

I look up and over,
Toward the forsaken yard,
Of the forsaken house,
With the crumbling staircase
And the mounds of refuse cast about.
From the decay,
rosebushes grow wild,
screaming,
"see me!"
I am still alive
And will soothe your eye when it wants to cry.

On the corner
A woman chained to dope
Sits her little boy up on the long-unused loading dock
Of a now-defunct warehouse to wait,
As she brokers a deal with a passing male
Through the passenger-side window of his sedan.
Her eyes plead, "free me"
But her mouth says something else.

The tiny, emaciated frame of the deaf hustler
in front of the corner liquor store
Finally gave up it's ghost.
"Feed me!" it used to mime.
But no more.
His deaf brother made his hands into wings
Flying into the sky,
The last time I asked about him.

I speak for the lost today
I will be their voice -
The sweet and the ugly
The honeysuckle and the homeless
The whore and the rose
That is why I'm here today - 
To speak for the street
And the secrets it keeps.
Nobody's dog and the hungry kid
And I saw what your mama did

But I also see blossoms in the most unlikely places
And try to understand.
I am poet.
But the story belongs to us all.
Take it, it's free.

Love,

Me.