four days with god

Thursday
i am
with fists
clenched pounding
on your legs
like towers
they loom high
below
i lay small
by your feet
crying, punching, cursing
those legs
all i can reach.

Friday
i am with absence
on a bed
arms crossed
door closed
distance for spite
silent but you hear
your ear to the door
i left you
crying on the other side.

Saturday

Asleep

with breath

i scream

in sleep
I hate you

but you creep in

and kneel

on those knees

that were always too tall to see

you kneel by the bed

i swore you from

and with one big hand

you gently sweep one small strand

of hair from my eye

and kiss my head.

Sunday

You drink orange juice

while i pace

wondering how many oranges

it takes

to quench you.

you stand

i sit

and once more

your legs

are all i see.

.my god,my god.

.

found

I was five

the first time they found

cancer

in her body

they found it

in a freckle

the one i use to talk to

by her belly button

they found it

and i found her

crying as she brushed her

long blond hair

crying as it fell out

clump

after clump

after clump.

screaming

alone

in her room

with a fist full

of golden locks.

strand after beautiful strand

tangled tightly around the shower drain

lying mockingly by her pillow

wound painfully amid the bristles

of a brush soon deemed enemy.

I remember chemo was the word that

made it real

as if it took baldness and vomit

to remind us all

she was dying inside.

I remember she let me touch her head

afterwards

and it felt like a kiwi

I remember not knowing

how not be to afraid.

I remember when I found him,

my dad

sobbing quietly on the bathroom floor.
I never told him

I saw

his tears then for the first

and last time.

He never found me

watching

through the creak of the door

and they never found me

hiding under their bed

as my mom would

pray and vomit

with violent sorrow

for hope to find.

hope

to find.

They found more cancer in her

yesterday

not for the first, or second or even third time

they found it

after
An 18 year struggle

after an 18 year fight

and still its the word chemo

that scares me

and still it's the thought of my mommy's own baldness

that makes me shake with fear

because its this that

visually and constantly remindes me

that the cancer is real.

and still

you do not find me

hiding.

mourning.

waiting

beneath the bed

it is me

i now find

praying and vomiting
in violent sorrow

desperate

desperate

for hope

to be found.

This time coming home meant leaving it behind.

Kosher Salt. In my eye.

What I liked about the past 3 days:

A Comprehensive Listing:

• i like that Levon sometimes wipes his boogers on flowers. i like that his curls make my heart sigh and his eyes make me feel comfortably and wonder fully lost. i like holding his sticky Popsicle juice hands. watching his wild dance moves. i like when he has lengthy conversations with me about cats. i like when he squats and u can see the waistline of his big boy underwear. i like when he sings songs about peeing to his "wiener" as he pees, to encourage and praise the pee to come out. i like when he smiles and the world feels like it was made just for him. i like that he thinks the John A MacDonald statue in the park is really a statue of Old MacDonald. i like that he still drools on my thigh. that sometimes he seems to know more about life than i do. i like that we get to be friends.
  
• i like that laying in a field of dandelions makes me feel powerful. i like finding little yellow and orange spiders on my arm, remind me of ordinary miracles. i like that sometimes i find myself eating a hot apple on a hilltop and feeling as if life doesn't get any better. i like that there are moments like this past weekend, that make me feel as if I'm complete.


• i like when people named Al gives me surprise and delicious books that change how i see the my world. i like that when i read a good book i have spirit spasms that my whole body feels.


• i like that my life has been blessed with alot of AMAZING succulent women.


• i like that sometimes eating a mango naked is healing


• i like that blenders are magical. i like that i can put in pineapple and kiwis and grapes. and make juice. i like that i can add rum. and make even better juice.


• i like that fiddle heads are CREAMY and gorgeous. and remind me of eating shrimp. sort of.
• i like that beets taste like the earth's womb. i like that they bleed purple. i like when i "accidentaly" rub beets all over my arm so that i too am purple
• i like that i've been sleep walking lately. i like the places i end up.
  
• i like my mini flower and herb garden that hangs off my fire escape
  
• i like that i looked outside my bedroom window and saw a middle aged woman's naked buttocks. i like that she didnt feel the need to wear underwear with that kilt. i like that her partner decided to spank her on the sidewalk at midnight while making out below


• i like that from my window, i am invisible and can watch creepily. i like that im a border line pervert. but not really. but sort of. i like that thats ok.


• i like that i wake up in the morning next to a very large tomato plant, that my friend Julian gave me from his garden. i like that julian exists. i like his arm full of beautiful and vibrant tattoos. i like that they reflect his equally beautiful and vibrant personality and soul. I like that he notices things i dont. I like that he hates the my gaudy decorative wooden spoon. i like that he loves the earth enough to treat it right. i like that he built an natural eco-shower in his backyard. i like he has a bazillion pets. i like that when we talk, i feel heard.
  
• i like that i can go from being in the heart of kingston, the busy bustle of downtown life, to the middle of farm land, in a matter of minutes. i like that the ferry to wolfe island is a skip away. i like that andrew and i rode our bikes around the island as the sun was setting and explored secret hidden graveyards. i like being around tombstones. alot. i love the power that oozes from the earth. i like the life. i like the promise. i like the comfort. i like that there are stories there i dont know. i like pretending if im quiet enough I'll hear them.


• i like that Andrew and I made homemade pretzels last night and that they were delicious. I like that i fretted all afternoon cause the recipe required a "dutch oven" and i thought it meant i had to actually buy a brand new oven/stove. i like that andrew made me feel better. i like that he had a secret dutch oven under his bed that i didnt know about. i like that he's a better cook than me.


• i like the dinner i made last night: cous cous, with garlic, lemon and cumin. on a bed of fresh spinach. with lightly grilled eggplant, fiddle heads, and red peeper, in olive oil.

i like getting unexpected cards from friends I havnt seen for far too long

• i like that i now have a beer diary. i like that im going to eventually try every bizarre and unusual beer at LCBO and that andrew is going to keep a detailed record of my experience, as well as a detailed rating system.
  
• i like when i smell something good in the air, and then realize it's my own armpits.


• i like that humans can actually drink cat nip, and that its a natural anti-depressant.
  
• i like reading about vitamins while your babies sleep.
  
• i like the feeling i get right before I'm about to go home to the Soo-- i like that over the years, miguel has become part of the family i come home to be with.
• i like my grandma and I's friendship. I like that talking to her feels like chatting playfully with a bestfriend. I like that we have weekly phone dates. i like that she knows all about my life, i know all about hers. I like our conversations. i like when she gigles. i like when she tells me cute stories about her dog moochie. i like that we've ended every phone call with "i love you", since i was a tiny little girl who just learned how to talk.
  
• i even like that i have kosher salt in my eye.

real

There is in my life two distinct worlds-
the "real" word, as they call it
logical, practical, tangible, painful
real, as real gets.
And the "dream world", as I imagine it,
creative, emotional, mystical, strange
surreal as surreal gets.


The second i find home,
the first, i am alien
thrust into
against myself
a foreign space to travel cautiously
with eyes closed, and fists clenched.


I float in, i drift out
between these worlds i find myself
but often
my dreams, are my powerful than my legs
and they carry me further into the imagined
further away from the world you know as real away from the judgment and the jadedness
away into a place where bravery isn't necessary

and doubt isn't possible.

It's hard to stay there,

cause the man keeps bringing me down

down down down

to the space

where they take me down

and steal my mind

corrupt my thoughts

with mindless hate and apathy

with money, with greed, with war

with indifference disguised as comfort

with complacency and the bullshit of "Independence"

These are the shackles

bound to my wrists

my ankles

tying me down down down

to earth

to ground

they can tie me ,

and try to domesticate

train

and strip me

but they can't pillage my dream

they can bind my ankles together

but they can't stop me from dancing

No, they can't tie my spirit down

down down down

cause my spirit -- it wanders

it tip toes fearlessly into the thin spaces

into the thin places

where the real

becomes the surreal

it tip toes into the hard realization

that perhaps one world is enough

perhaps these worlds - the real and the dream

collide.

Yes, they collide.

Maybe what the "real world" needs is a little more imagination

a little more dreamin
a little more heart

A hole,

in the earth

for the surreal to seep through

into the pores

and the veins of a very real world.

maybe dreams weren't ever meant to be something to escape into,

but rather something we use to confront what we're trying to escape from, in the first place.

maybe it's our dream worlds,

that can unshackle our wrists, so we can write boldly against bondage

maybe it's our dream worlds

that untie the rope around our ankles,

so we can walk courageously

into reality, towards freedom

on legs that know and resist

with each step

the tragedy of imprisonment.

Maybe it's dreaming,

that makes the real world

real

after all....

...I often wish beets were big enough to hug

deflated