into the dark.

battling depression is exhausting, especially when you can't get any sleep. i'm knocking on the notted wood of unconsciousness and it won't let me in. carefull. carefull. the wind turns the keys and leaves and the circadas don't stop thier whimpering, wavering the still in decibles of shrillness..nestled between the rain ripe leaves they murmur thier screams cutting the night open like a knife, crystaline the stars wave in twinkle corners exhale and they all fall down like a connect four game of tumbling checker pieces..sinking into the invisible line of horizon.

on these wicked nights i turn my body like a cork in the tossing sea of sheets. me. alone with the dark mocking all my thoughts. shake your head yes and no, yes and no, stuck in never ending now of terror..deep breathing leaves my chest and stomach sore with its labored rhythm, hope that any minute i will fall out of the fight to and of sleep, the terror.. the terror of darkness..alone..

no sympathy from the world, with day masks of smiles and ignorance. you can't stop this madness when it becomes a part of you, it gets into your blood like poisen, tainting everything good and pure and real. steals the precious moments of joy and paints them rolling stone black... i'm pissed at all this. i hate feeling this way and I hate that no one understands. nothing makes me feel normal anymore.

moon are you full or are you playing tricks on me again?

cloud hidden the moon peeks out its bright round stomach of light
grey puddles of sharp cut silhouette wearing thin like moth eaten robe
rises high up above the city sky scapes, brighter than any beacon
mysterious as a new lover disrobing for the first time
moon moon
are you full or are you playing tricks on me again?
barely a scrape or scrapple of stone flesh missing from your shoulder
turning like nakedness down a dark hall
you grin and more light streaks out of your beat and beshelveled garments
we're turning corners fast under you, highway momentum building under our tires
like night fires and sparks
lit the dusty joints and cigarettes
we bathe under your clean shower of white in the dark of night
nursing sunflowers that frown when the sun is down
chasing the cats that suffer from your madness
pouncing on imaginary prey
burrowing under blankets of ivy and discarded beer cans
playing melodies on windchimes and the circular blasts of wind that shake the trees
tremble shaking of your light like raindrops
moon moon
how you rattle the tides and blow the gusty blows of low
moon moon
too beautiful too beat-iful to call my own
or to gaze upon for longer than a fleeting glance
i fear your moon sickness will swallow me under your directional tides
of beauty
oh moon, tell me soon
whats inside of your greysilver skin
will you unravel like a ball of yarn, or an exposed golf ball of wirey rubber bands propelled synergry slowly exploding into the stardust sky?
moon,
could I grab your crescent ankle and hold on while the world goes assunder
my toes dipped in the ansid inkle of time?

and the mind breaks wild speed on keyboard clicks

i started this blog because I had alot to get off my chest. i started it because daily writing had become cumbersome and I wasn't really getting any joy out of it all. just working. I also started this blog because I have recently been attacked (boy that is a strong word) by a former friend and sadly mentally ill person who pulled me, my husband, my friends and my livelyhood over the coals for his own personal enjoyment. He did it publicly, he did it obnoxiously and he did it hurtfully. I was somehow expected to allow this behavior and forgive it. As far as I know, I don't think that this forgiveness would do anything to better that person, and would only benefit myself. So I work on it. I mull it over and roll it back and forth. I think about what I may be holding on to if I still refuse to forgive him. The thing is, I don't need friends like that. Can I forgive someone in my heart and not in thier face? My mind crawls to our last face to face encounter. I didn't bat an eye, in fact i fell back on my own childish ways and ignored him. I think it was easier than explaining to him the pain he had caused me. I don't think he cares. I don't think he is capable of understanding what he has done or would even think it was bad. But it was. Why am I rehashing this? Well he attacked my writing. He attacked my technical skills. I keep thinking about this when I type along, ingnoring my spellling and punctuation and capitalization and so on. I never give a shit, and as long as you can read this and understand it, i think that is ok. But I still feel very hurt by it. I let it creep into me, I let it keep me from writing on some days, and some days i feel like it's a chore. How to lose the spontenaity and beauty of something is to beat it down. Rights and wrongs and rules and regulations that build a mountian for the mighty to smite you from. Poor lonely old man building a mountain of punctuations and participles and whateverthefucks to punish the low unexperienced from. How sad. i loved him as a friend. and just like that. betrayal. but enough. There is too much to be gained from letting go. And i have but some days it's harder than others.

So explains the lack in posting. I got hung up on this for a while. It was impacted by many days of too much to do, too much to think and not enough time for it all. We are in total motion at the store. Everything seems to be swinging uncontrollably and I like it. Thus in this quite morning of the beginning of the week I try and sort out all that has happened.

First of all...

i saw the Dalai Lama. I guess there are no words that I can adequately use to describe the feeling of love and peace I have in my heart. And better yet, I have no words for what it felt like to have the honor of having my family with me, and my daughter with me, who had an experience like no other. At the age of 13 having this opportunity is monumental at best. We are so blessed.

Second, Poets on X+ and Storytime were amazing this weekend. By far the most well attended and the greatest fun.


Third, P has less than two weeks till her last day of Jr High, and less than one week till she turns 14. Forth, We have our second booksigning at the store on Thursday, and Saturday is Deep Ellum Market where i will be featured along with 6 other poets. I don't know how I am going to do all of this. Add in yoga, dinners and general house and bookstore running..and I'm exhausted. Sunday we go to Ft Worth for P's bday party. Monday I will colapse!

Yoga update: Getting harder, getting discouraged, but feeling the strength growing in my arms and legs and even abs. I will continue to attend at least 3x a week for the remainder of the summer if I can afford it. The Dr. took me off anti-anxiety pills and now I'm anxious about getting anxious. Back to square one. Getting a shrink is first on the list. Can't go back to sleepless nights and emotional breakdowns. I was doing too well.

FB weirdness.. Meeting cousins and family members. Friend or not friend? We are all adults here. Why am I still afraid of being who I am? Being judged and held accountable for whatever anyone does not deem as acceptable. Would my mother be appauled by my fierce need for weirdness and independence? Ultimately no, she knew i was a weirdo from a long way back. Dress me in polyester and give me chilli bowl haircuts, mom. I love you. It's ok.

Our Bookstore!

Sweet Independent Bookstore in Beat-iful Oak Cliff

it's allright doll

poets. we get deep. we get deep in our wine glasses and deep in our souls. we swirl around like the wine in the bottom of the bowl and we swish the words around our mouth and pucker our lips, and open our throats wide. i'm a mad swirler, yes I am. and last night the air was thick with some kind of wonderfull/mystery/joy/melancoly. I wonder why it sneaks up on us the most. I still feel that deep inside us we are living under this collective consciensness. things get kinda bleak. things get kinda low. ahh. but there is so much joy. there is so much to be in love with and in. I meet kids in tight jeans and ear plugs, and tattoos. I meet beautiful brown women with tight curls in thier hair and lungs full of song. I meet hip hop boys and self professed genuises with self published books to push. I meet friends on deeper political levels, I meet friends on deeper personal levels. I see sadness slumped over in chairs. I meet sex kittens and know there are predators in the shadows that want to devour the words out of poets by the swallow. There are kissing bandits on the loose. There are wild drinkers and deep deep thinkers. Theres the host with the most and his beauty to toast. Theres swinging, flinging and wringing out of words sublime. Drum kits and skiddly bop. Last call and drinking it all, saving the best part for last. And then it's done, and we skatter, chatter and flatter ourselves into cars and closed bars for one last drink to wash it all down. And a thank you, friend, and close call with ends to mend. I and drive my car with all the saints, sinners and bodhisattvas floating in my dreams that come fast as I embrace him close and kiss his nakedness against cool sheets. I have forgotten from where I came but I know where I'm going.. and it's allright doll. it's allright.

Dang. Yoga is Hard.

Yoga was brutal yesterday. I had to drop to my knees about 4 times in the hour, but something kept me going, as vain as it sounds, i'm beginning to love to look at my reflection in the mirror..it almost doesn't look like me anymore..I can the waist under all of it coming out, my arms slimming down, my legs leaning out and my yoga bootie (!) forming. So I keep going. I also know when I hit that mat for the final position its all worth it. My body can do so much that I never knew was possible. My body MOVES! YES!

Fell like a stone to sleep last night, and couldn't wake up on time this morning. I'm going to have to do some jogging at the house today because tonight is Mad Swirl and I want to get thier early and have a martini before I read! hah! I'm really looking forward to my new pieces tonight. Yes. It's going to be a good day!

Short post. Waiting for Uncle Steve to show up so we can eat some lockhart! Hell yes I love bar b que.

breakthrus and nothing but love.

I haven't been myself for days. And as strange as it may sound, it's actually been good this way. I mean, I think I'm finding a new me under all these layers i've been peeling back for what it seems like to be for years. And something happened to me last night that had been dieing to get out of me.

We were drinking some beers and listening to my ipod. I just recently updated my music to include the top played songs and the top rated songs, 5 and 4 star tracks. It's been interesting to hear it all. Sometime I wonder what day and what mood I was in to say, yes! thats 5 freaking stars! It says something intimately about a person, and ipod. I say when I die, just plug it in and play it and it will tell you everything about me. But anyway, a song by Marchell Ivery came on, who was dear friends with Richard.. and it was melancholy and good and all of the sudden it hit me, that I think about Richard everyday. It isn't conscience, but something reminds me of him everyday. It also is because that without him, I wouldn't have this bookstore. My life has changed so dramatically from his passing. I don't know why I never took the time to aknowlege this in the way it needs to be honored. I say and closed my eyes and saw his face and hear his laugh and I said so sadly to C that I missed Richard, and that he was a very good friend to me. And he was. I can't think of any other friend I have every had that was a good and fair and kind and loving and human as he was. And then it hit me like a freightrain. I cleaned out his apartment the day after he passed. I played Marchell on the broken down CD player while i went thru his things, touched his clothes, went thru stacks of papers and writings and little things. Placemats and salt shakers. Table by the sun, his thin pancake matress on his floor, his books stacked in places ready to be fisnished with his torn paper place markers in them. His favorite chair next to his box of flutes. It hit me hard. I was important to him. I was one of the people that cleaned up his house. This is big. It's a big thing. Why did I not see that what he was to me was so much more that a friend. I used to tell him that I wished he was my Dad. He told me he wished I was his daughter. And the tears came hard.. and I let them wash over me.. feeling this big solid rock float off of my chest.. I think it's been there since he died.. I covered up the hole that was left when my heart broke in two and the other half floated away with him.. we used to swim every week. float in the sun on our backs and talk about important things. He told me about his youth, about his parents and family that he was estranged from. He told me about New York and taxi driving and jounalism and newspaper work, and the unions and the communist party and when he worked for Head Start, and how he taught the kids, and what Central Park was like, and on and on and on.. and we'd float and talk all day until we were hungry and then we'd go eat vegan lunch or chinese food and be refreshed and happy.

RICHARD YOU WERE SO BIG TO ME. RICHARD YOU WERE SO IMPORTANT TO ME. RICHARD I WILL ALWAYS AND FOREVER CARRY THE MEMORIES WE SHARED AND I WILL NEVER FORGET HOW LARGE AND IMPORTANT YOU ARE TO MY LIFE. even now, in the still of the day, years after you pass, i can feel your love, and most of all I can accept it and own it for myself. I wish you were here, my friend. My life is forever changed for knowing you. Now i'm going to cry again. But i'm not sad.. i'm so so very happy that I knew you.