"Change is not something we should fear. Rather, it is something we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they're meant to be." 

-B.K.S. Iyengar.

"

you're afraid of lying down with me and never wanting to get up again.

that scares me too.

comfort

that consumes you.

"

(Thanks to Jahra Rager for sharing.)

"Fear can overwhelm but faith has to prevail."

- The F-Word, Bess Manson

without you / sliver

I was 14, 17, 21 again
in your kitchen, 32 --
centre-storm, middle this afternoon
suggesting we
parachute
out into the wind --

how apt.
For in sealing the round of your mouth
over my
red, fleshy
20-something lungs
in the green we were again:
three nights not slept
four days not showered
a soppy vapid downpour
avocado and tomato
Ohope or Omaha, one of those
'O' beaches...
Oh, caffeine and sunrises
sunsets in our sunsights
consciousness and
consequences, feeling out those older
400-year
spirits

smoking so last life
and life-lasting, this lifetime
having held smoke
first: from life, then lungs (yours) --

and even if the space of atoms
insists on touching us
there's always a spare forty dollars
you just gotta find time

excor.

so far round, I could not even
   straighten my spine
curled into: pseudo-safety
throat aching from my
   second spine
   second head
that self-deprecating entity
who lives underneath me

real fake young & hangry

after Holly's appetongue-ising
regurgitation
of non-festive recommendations
and Pakeha revelations,
wandered I
to the street chant.

doled out a cup of soup, I caught
the last of
something important, I thought...
and having felt, with soup in hand,
the hate slurred at those who hate,
the blue uniforms guarding the blue hearts
in their blue party
inside the Rendezvous
thought I: God,
All Humans are awful.

We are all awful.
Why are we all awful?

This is like capital punishment,
this will
not
fix it.

I felt disappointed. The protest ended.

The ball-gowned
me-but-not-mes, (young and sharing
(but not sharing) three syllables of names)
jeered at my ugly boots
which are a joke, anyway
acted tactfully (thought they) with a salting of spite
and entered their night of spinal ignorance, backs so straight practically
asking for a stabbing

Supposedly important.

Thought I: what's important are
words spoken in Basements
things said, and heard
not mimicked - in crowds - without ears - no ears on either
the crowds nor the recipients
the recipients without ears because of the crowd's head having holes

I'd rather have my ears chewed, than be ugly
as I'd rather be ugly than
at the ball with both slippers

of twos and threes

I'm the messenger, now
carting jars of cookies
between Edward and Emerald
answering texts on phones that don't yet exist
looking for signs of inwardness --
the "unusual" that is usual in their bodies, two, one

I've got foot gawking in mouth
from all the walking
and talking, this no longer
churns out words
they are stuck below my clavicle
that's caved in and
pressed down
onto crutches (more or less)
for eight months, that's lain on
side and stomach
far too often
that's sat and driven
more than it's stood, run...

that can barely save its breath for some intimacy

so, we make a show about it
and then the show eats all my face into it's
administrative screen

out comes the notebook with the cookie jar
out comes the novel
out comes the mouth, open
out comes Deutsch
out comes friend
out comes tea pot
out comes yoga
out comes overnight trip away
out comes lover
out comes the marijuana
out comes the habits, old and yet-to-be-formed
out comes the prescription, the Tramadollusion
out comes the winter blanket
out comes the bus card
out comes the city, weaving myself back in
out comes the Creative Career, or beginnings of
out comes the notebook, the pen, the page, the laptop, the headspace
but all that comes out,
out, are crumbs.

Rose-lit

Out held Rose
her hand, saw I that
weary organiser's stare -
that smiles
and knows
but is tired.
and not from the
not sleeping
but from the
giving and the
doing outside of job description, and the
thought-ing

the Mother of the people
whose mind permeates all others' decisions
without them even knowing it.

Chanel&Frank

Sat steeped

in past's Purple

kitchen floor settee, where

all strange evenings 

begin in 

this flat

where the redurple leaking is 

not just wild rice

but wild hearts

amongst smarts, I

make gestures at her in the bathroom:

I am brushing my teeth but do you 

love him? She thinks 

she thinks and signs back, 

No.

The sad ones are often the best ones, but the best ones are not always the sad ones.