night

This house wraps around me like a moth-eaten scarf. Turning inside out, it has a pulse of it's own. From where I sit I see the chicken leg, the fence of skulls, the woods just beyond this window.

"My Bright Dawn, my Red Sun, and my Dark Midnight."

I see this

Cleverly disguised as the end of a path, the cessation of loneliness that only truly lonely people can see right through. That ancient promise, the one that has us envisioning a life with no pain until you wake up and realize that it's an illusion. Relief from loneliness can happen only where there is surrender.

Take me, I say, and the water I am being swept into is black as night. My eyes are closed and I pray for fearlessness until I sink down into this mattress, further down past the ground and the basement, into the center of the earth, and then into the void.

This seemingly empty space sparkles for me. One second of illumination and I gasp for breath. It is so beautiful, so beautiful, because in this space is held everything without a name, every child, every creature that has never seen light, and thus, never been fearful. Because it is in light that fear is born, not in the darkness; true darkness is beautiful as the Yaga's mysterious home is beautiful.
As we are all beautiful.

I see it right now, in my mind, and I ask that darkness to come to me like a ghost at my bedside. Blindfold me and leave me alone so that I can find my way in the night.

out for a smoke

A man squats in the dead grass in front of his rooming house, digging in the earth and if everything around him falls away I am somewhere warm, in the country that he left to come here. I take a drag of my cigarette and wonder what he thought would be here for him. I wonder if he found it, if his body has forgotten what it is to be hungry, or if he still experiences hunger.

Five minutes later a few old (and seemingly drunk) people ride by on bicycles, laughing. Their matted grey hair trails far behind like a flag of wild poverty, a wolfish gesture aimed at the air around them. Their beards and bosoms sway and pretty soon I am laughing too, listening to them holler at eachother not to get killed, or drop the beer.

Finally there is a man in a wheelchair, moving down the sidewalk as if in a luxury vehicle. His strong brown arms move effortlessly, and there is so much grace that I have to look away, thinking of my own fumblings. His daughter moves in the background like an afterthought, humming a tiny song.

And my connection with fire is satisfied until I am compelled again to sit outside, astounded and bewildered by what it means to be alive in this world.

Alone

He is laying in bed and she is laying in bed and we are all laying in bed, alone.
Sometimes I want to close my eyes against all this loneliness
Separate beds and separate cries and separate lives
I watch his eyes on the wall and wait for him to blink but he doesn't
because there are no shadows, everything is a shadow
and when everything is in shadow our souls begin to die
I watch his soul die from the living room sofa and mine dies at the same time
and so does hers
and love hides under the bed, and we are alone
Sometimes I want to close my eyes against all this loneliness
but behind my eyelids I see shadow
more shadow and I am alone

I hold my daughter's hand while she walks, watching as she navigates litter and parts of the sidewalk that are still slippery with ice. She is very careful not to step on cracks, and I ask her why. She slows her pace and looks at me with eyes that hold many layers of darkness.

"Because you're not supposed to," she says, and lets go of my hand. Suddenly I am walking alone, watching her run ahead. I pass a black shoe that someone has discarded or lost, and I look around briefly for the other one, because they are nice. There's only one, so I keep walking.

She is far ahead now, but instead of asking her to slow down, I speed up to meet her pace. I light a cigarette and watch her skipping, listening to her sing songs in a tiny voice. The wind carries her voice to me, and her eyes, inherited from someone I hardly know, glow like fireflies in the shade. Because you're not supposed to, I think, and smile a bit. There is so much magic in a child's world.

I want to paint her in this moment, shining with all the intensity of someone who has been chosen by the sun himself. I could never capture light like hers

Lightening Eyes

A man is in front of me, and he is spinning in circles. It seems he has no control over his body, and before I catch up he crashes into a fence.

I give him my hand and his is warm like his smile. We walk a few blocks and get him some beer. He holds it to his chest in the same way that I held my babies, and his eyes are happy.

I walk back home with my nine dollars worth of groceries and there is another neighbor. He tells me stories about how his ex-lover beat him for many years. He too has a hard time walking because his leg is badly broken, and there is alcohol on his breath. I get up to give him a seat on my front stoop so that he can rest his leg, and he shakes my hand many times and makes jokes about my hair. His eyes are tired.

Later on there are others and when I go to sleep I dream that I have a see-through fence around my yard and on the grass there are many sleeping bodies, like children at a slumber party. Their yellow fingers clutch the grimy limbs of teddy bears and blankets, and I look out my window, so as not to disturb anyone.

No one can touch these people through my magical fence - they are safe until they can walk and their bodies are able, and when police cars crawl by all the cops can do is stare. I stare back with lightening in my eyes.

A Gemini nightmare, careening through the clouds toward a door in the West, where I met my ancestors and offered them a rubber bone. It was all I brought with me from where I was, sitting in someone's backyard for seven years. I had stolen a pebble a day from the neighbors, had made something that almost resembled a mountain until I smashed it.

They didn't want my bone, but pointed to the East and shook their heads, walking away. I opened the door and understood but went in, throwing my bone on the ground so I could have both hands free. But there wasn't anything there anyway, just darkness and shale. Over time my eyes became unaccustomed to light, and I lost them. Saint Anthony, I prayed, Come and find me. But he didn't, and I stayed there, pilfering shale from no one until I had another mountain. A Gemini daydream, translucent and becoming, lost in the chaos of reproduction. Some of us were never meant to find our way.

the sun

We face the sun together, all of us who have the mis/fortune of waking, we face the sun together

Me and the guy who picks up the garbage. I watch his muscles ripple under his shirt and I want him to look my way. The people bustling down the street, holding their breath when they pass by the graveyard; I watch their smiles fade under the burst of bright light and I think of Hiroshima.

I am aghast. What the fuck is rising above me? The sun, the one we all turn our heads toward at the very same time.

Multi-coloured children like flowers growing in the grass around me, I wonder which ones have mothers and I mouth prayers with sunburned lips for those that don't. God help us

We face the sun together, even those that have never seen light

The guy at the bus stop yesterday, telling me of his temptation to hurt those he loves. His eyes were confessing a truth that I understand well. He does what he says and they in turn hurt others and so do I and we all face the sun together. God help us

because we hurt

But there is this fucked up kinda hope that comes in the form of a golden sphere, a crystal ball, rising, always, shining on the garbage man and the guy at the bus stop, the children in the grass
and me
and you

God help us
I mean this from the bottom of my heart

and i die and you die

And I die and you die

And a baby lies in a plastic cage with a hole cut out for his mother's hand. She does not hear him crying, but sits beside him in a wooden chair, not sleeping, not listening.  It is his own hell until the third day, when he finds the energy to open his eyes and sees the rows of other babies beside him.  All of them are alone, just like him, and his crying stops and he sleeps

And I die and you die

And the earth spins and some of us have trouble getting up in the morning. And this mother visits less often because it is easier to forget and because his skin is so soft, so soft, that if she felt it she would not be able to stop.

And I die and you die

And the baby beside him, when he was born, looked at me and asked me with his mind if I loved him and I nodded and wrapped him tightly in a blanket.  And all around him swirled the voices of his brothers and sisters and his mama moaned with pain and all I could do was nod as his tiny blue lips searched for his own fingers.  He found them, but not his breath, not then.  Not his voice

And I die and you die