honeydunce

I keep spelling mustache wrong. Moustache. Mouse Stache? MUH-stash.

Lately I smile at strangers.

Halfway through spin class tonight, the instructor turned off most of the lights. Sprinting in the dark, the swarmlike hum of our collective fly wheels.

I printed out my entire book so that I can hang poems around the writing room and pace/fret/pace/fret over their numerical order.

IOP treatment is almost complete. Nervous but ready.

My car insurance company sent me a tiny calendar with Happy Holidays curled across the top in gold.

I’m not sure why I sleep with so many pillows.

saying goodbye

artemis moves in on ryburn ave.

He painted the room with a gun jammed in the belt, a ticktickjangle of keys when he bent or stretched or ssshhed the roller vigorous against the wall. Pushing harder and cylinder spins, spraying the finest dots of blue into bristle on forearm. The television blared political, beer cans defended open windows at attention on the sills. Steel toe steps and patches, a chorus line up the leg.

(Be a sweet and observe your devil from the doorway. Be incredibly too romantic about it. Mingle your books, buy only wine and bread for the fridge. Sleep on the floor because you don’t have a bed. Acquire dishes from rich aunts, a couch with fragile pony legs. The typewriter ribbons will go quick, the pennies will pay rent. Piles sound like glass ruckus when kicked, the Mad Dog stash.)

Little lists between detectives—only what truly loves you means harm. Locks can be picked(or doors can be kicked in). The myths of desperate, first editions.

It goes back. Way back. Past the butcher paper tracings of our bodies in elementary class. Before the infamous “ain’t ain’t a word” argument of ‘88. Before the blood on Halloween at ten and a half. Before the first kiss, first swig, first burst through curfew, too early for my interests. Always after that experience resting just beyond the line drawn or horizon realized. Insisting it existed just out of reach for a reason. It goes back. Before I retreated into the recesses of a once-safe place now on fire, now in the ruins. Before I started caring. Before the heart’s first funny plunge into nothingness. Before romancing the bar, before the poems scribbled between empty bottles and Bic pens on wheat carpet. Before I knew your name, before I knew my own. Before we were connected, as the cortex still formed when my skin looked like a sunset with red roads and water. Before my lungs bloomed into butterfly wings and the lines in my palms were drawn, back before I had arms.

flannel & feline

I aspire to chill as hard as my cat.

tree in frick park

Being sick for the past 2 weeks does, in fact, have its advantages. Very very tiny, strange advantages but there they are nonetheless. One is a change of perspective. Exhaustion and congestion ruled my days so I had no choice but to take it down about two or three or five notches. No exercising daily, no running here-there-everywhere–shoot, even my walking pace slowed down. Unfortunately, depression prefers the gluggy pace of illness over health, and thus sat square on my shoulders. In short, the past few weeks have been rough–physically and emotionally.

It was an easy enough connection for me to make: I am at my most vulnerable when I am not feeling well. If I have a migraine or the flu, wise mind tends to fly out the window and I’m left with all emotion. Not only fidgety and whiny(which can be typical when one is sick) but downright hopeless and anxious. Being sick pulls me into an isolation that makes me panic. That’s when the break down begins.

Thanks to time, rest and antibiotics, I’m on the mend. The mind is starting to clear, and the pace is starting to pick up again. Through sickness, through health…the past few months have proved to be quite the learning experience. I am starting to see myself in the mirror. Not as burden or mistake or regret or an emotion(aka sadness), but as a person. A human being that deserves a shot. It is but a spark of a feeling, a tiny flicker of a possible light. But it is still a spark. It is still something brighter than the darkness.

It’s funny…how far something like sadness and/or depression can drag you away from the you that you are, from the things that you love and that make you happy. You start engaging in things that maintain the breaking of the heart. The senses tilt. It hurts to see how far I’ve drifted at times. I want to believe that the things I love are always near and in the forefront, always first. But you know…we drift. We get caught in the fog, we change, we revolt, we give up, we get up, we go again. Or we don’t.

My goal for the next couple months? To gravitate back to all that I love. To have an outside that matches the inside. To be true to myself, to accept my past, to write my releases, to focus on what matters to me. To not be afraid of mind or heart. To fill my world with inspiring, meaningful things. To focus on substance. More time loving, less time loathing.

abacus the best friend cat

this song & video

views!

waking up in the woods

artistic statements of yore

bloopers

Dear Maddie,

The trees were on fire along the drive to see you. Even in the middle of a season I am sometimes shocked to see proof–yes, here we are at the end of October. I’m glad the seasons surprising me never gets old, that I never grow accustomed and forget how magical the shift and change can be.

I came around the corner into the living room and you were completely surprised to see me. Your smile is genuine, the jumping is genuine. Immediately you begin telling me things. Immediately you scoop up all of your My Little Pony toys and bring them to me, walking slowly so none will fall. We fix and refix their manes for the Galloping Gala–one lucky pony gets trapped or taken away by a miscellaneous villan. The rest work together to rescue her.

We also build castles and mansions out of blocks. You have no idea how much I love building things with blocks. I get lost in making bridges and pathways. We have to build again and again because your brother is downstairs with us and turning into Godzilla. He toddles forward and rips a stack of blocks off the top. One or two of them get thrown. He cracks up and you look at me with such exasperation. But you’re such a smart little lady–as soon as I say, “It’s okay. We’ll rebuild it,” you relax and let him go. You’re getting used to the issues of having a little brother–one that can now walk and follow and get into things. You’re still not so sure about this sharing thing. Don’t worry. Keep practicing the act. You’ll get it.

I went with you to your first gymnastics class. You could walk the higher balance beam without help or holding on for balance. When you jumped off the springboard, you jumped the highest. I was very proud of you.

You’ve only been on this planet for 4 years and some change and yet already you’ve changed my life so completely. It’s fun to talk to you and hear your opinions on things. You’re smart as a whip and can still remember everything. I feel so lucky to read you bedtime stories. You’re personality is kicking its way out more and more. I’m starting to wonder how tall you will be in a few years. I love being a part of your growing up.

My trip was too short(as they always are), but this is a great season for visits. Holidays! Meaning I will see you soon.
love,
Aunt Nikki