any american

like any american

she was in debt

in the wealthiest country in the world

pressing the last bit out toothpaste out of the roll

easy with cash 

when she was drunk

#katyamills

alternate sky

being American

was wonderful

terrible

over a water blue tree

and under an alternate sky

we sucked on red 

hot sweet 

candy

#katyamills

american farm

headlong

into your production

up at scratch every morning

intermittent flapping of eyelash

your ineffable ways 

like the moon but not a phase

ina daze you amaze 

every harvest  

#katyamills

play 2 win

goth girl 

off work 

threw her apron in the bin 

hit the bodega

voted blue

a dream play to win

#katyamills

#wip

morning coffee and oatmeal, and the cool autumn air seeping through the screen to wake you up. today i will be out of the house from 8am-9pm. i have been sleeping well with the cool nights though my cats wake me up frequently but i'm used to it. my novella is in pretty good shape and hoping to send it out soon to some betas for a test read before i complete the next and possibly final draft. now that i have published 5 works under my name, i learned to stop forecasting the finishing, it almost always takes longer than i expected. the new novella has ZERO fantasy elements in it, as its grounded in turn of the century (millenium) action, circa 1999. this seems to be the time and place i gravitate towards. if i am ever to be known as an American author by a great many people, i can only hope they will appreciate my reflections of this era.

Reading (ATE96)

Reading (ATE93)

high school fight

cigarettes and cars 

we glisten in the mud

smoking
laughing
chasing

whatever are we waiting for 

nothing

we blast our heavy metals
from our beater cars

much better than
home this nowhere here

good as anywhere

we
eternal youth

hopin' on some thrills

if the fight don't happen

donuts in the mud

can't hurt

whatever we are doing
making out
all right

picking each
other up
we have fun
doing it

world of black of white

The beauty in being American was and still is the freedom to set your sights on a lifestyle you dream for yourself and go after it with all your spirit and cleverness and nerve. The hurt you feel when you fail is yours and yours, alone. Maybe it will lead to a dead end street and bar or romance. An ashtray full of butts. 24 hours of loneliness can be hell. And then your back in the game, if you're young, the world is black and white.

sunday nights in america

I get an eerie sensation on a sunday night  standing on the precipice of the death of a weekend. I get the kind of rattled only a vanilla shake in an American diner can quell, listening to Elvis on the jukebox with friends, in a booth upholstered in automotive leather, flirting and killing off time.

made american

I was made American. One shoreline will never do, I need two. Life gets better with wind and rain and all the idol rock stars sucked into the muddy banks of sound.

1984 kids

1984 kids

July came along and nobody knew our names
the fireworks were popping
no one could see them
they peppered our ears

we checked the sky
the powder had ignited
the oxygen burned
the paper falling to ground

after dark
we saw the snakes flying
umbrellas of light
the stars draped by the tails

slowly we recognized
who we were
motionless
cars and voices
and our names being called
in the night

cars and voices and our names
being called

motionless
in the night

our names
being called


- KatYa, 2017


This is my recently completed full 'video book' reading...

GWB FINAL 2.16.4 READING

This is the final reading from my novel Girl Without Borders. If you enjoyed this reading and wish to hear more, you can go to my YouTube channel and watch or listen to me read the entire book, start to finish, in the playlist titled the same. Each reading is 2-5 minute increments and the playlist allows you to set your controls to play the book all the way through if you select the button to play the next video automatically. I would encourage anyone who enjoyed the video/audio to pick up the novel at amazon.com, barnes and noble, itunes, or other online retailers. The book is available in paperback and ebook form. Thank you for supporting independent authors.

Journal # May 29th

The particular oak tree had an attitude. It could see parts of the city skyline the others were not tall enough to catch, and it's attitude was thoughtful, some say jaded. Many families were memorial day licking ice cream cones below, in its shade, and the lines trailed out the door. There was a guy against the sky juggling base ball sized scoops of ice and cream, who lit up at night in neon, and more than one little kid wondered why the neon could not be turned on during the day seeing how the store was open. There was no mistaking the store was open, for there were lines reaching out to the street corner where the tree above was branching. It was memorial day and American jet engines could be heard overhead. The jets could not always be seen against the sky, above the guy and the tree, and you could hear the sound of the crosswalk beneath the jet engines, when people pushed the button to cross. Sometimes when no one was crossing, kids liked to press the button just for fun. The oak tree saw it all. The sugar in the ice cream and freezes was also responsible but could not be blamed. You could follow someone home simply by the dotted line of dripping.

GWB BOOK 2 11 2

navel (gone larger) label #2

A great compression hits the air and electricity unloads upon the city and picks up pavement like legs over jumpropes. Spent out on long nights and hazy days between command central (some adulator's basement or agitator's sister's garage) and the Civic Center. Planned protests (amidst unplanned parenthood). Your body and your mind are notched for shorter play, but the spirit moves the joystick. The sound of it makes most young activists want to switch to substitute teaching.

And many probably do
But not you know who

Others join the green party ranks
Or the army, marching behind tanks

I would  move (with you) to Amsterdam or Vancouver
where we could talk on talk radio with the world about
anything but that

what's behind the label
across the sheltering orange rind
of the navel

To be chicken-wired into a city 4 block radius
by choice. Fast food ideology. To give away your voice
by choice  -- Berlin, circa 1942

Caution. it might hurt
Planned parenthood (amidst pop-up protests), hazy days and spent nights for dizzy girls spun dry from wet, will never be women to boys will never be men, lucky if a fifth make it to the clinic where everyone's betting against them, only a tenth make it out half-alive. Fast food ideology.  -- Chicago, 2016

There, there...
All washes away, tears and problems and headaches and trash
Flags come out on Patriots Day and how dare you? I love
(my country) too

There, there...
The pulp is safe and juicy inside
full of nutrients (and whatever's in the water)

A great decompression hits the air and electricity unloads and picks up pavement like legs over jumpropes. Feelings around the block so diverse and tangential, burning like coals in the eyes and faces of those who live deep in the heart of the American city. Every AMERICAN city unified, from Quebec to Tijuana, Houston to Montreal, Toronto to Rio de Janeiro. Feelings catch on and so alive!

We will need no lighter fluid. You and I
 The solar flares (sent by sun) have arrived

Book Review - 'The Virgin Suicides' by Eugenides

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book is told from the perspective of a young boy (and his friends) in suburban Detroit whose lives are basically put on hold as they are captivated by a mystery of 5 girls in adolescence. They watch the girls from behind trees and fences and blinds and a treehouse where they have - over time - collected minutia (photos, hairbrushes, shoes, etc) related to the girls whom they almost publicly obsess over. Suicide is obviously (from the first page) a topic of great concern.

Eugenides writing style is accessible and engaging throughout. He finds delicious language to describe the most common (and boring) affairs of suburban white America in the 70s, irony, like the city's aspirations to save the Elm trees by removing them one at a time until they are all gone. Their is an underlying sadness in the story, related to us through various characters from the OCD mom to the alcoholic neighbor to the unemployed teacher; an impotence against the fate not only of these young beauties but also of the home, the street, the neighborhood, the culture itself. You wonder if anything is sacred anymore.

I had a lot of fun reading about these boys and there efforts to establish contact if not connection with the girls, how they go about it. They report back on their mischief and it's all very entertaining. There's a desperation which drives the narrative of the spies. How can they get around the carefully constructed bubble the parents (and the culture) have created, to touch the objects of their adoration?

Something strange happens. Eugenides power of characterization could have really brought the girls to life (and I did begin to have feelings and bias towards each and every one of them), however the premise and setup prevent us (like the boys) from getting to know these 'virgin suicides'. I found myself thirsting at times for more direct quotes and closer proximity to Lux and her sisters. So the established POV is very powerful this way. I'm not sure I liked this aspect of the book. I mean, I think I wanted to get a more intimate view of everything. It's not always fun to be made into a voyeur by the author. But it's his book! And so the mysteries are not always gonna unravel.

In the end you are left to make your own judgments about everything. The narrator has his opinion and gives it to us, but not in a preachy way. Mostly we are given an intimate window to a place (post white flight suburbs of Detroit, the automotive center of the universe) and time (1970s) which will never exist again. Which makes me happy, because Eugenides kinda immortalizes it all in this book, so maybe something is sacred, after all.


View all my reviews

Maze 2:7:3 storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 7

Part 3

In the last episode 2:7:2 Ame talks about the general happenstance of waiting for her boyfriend while he steals ice cream,  dealing with the johnny b. dangerous checking her out,  her efforts to recycle, his efforts to romance her in a vacant lot maybe. 

let me warm your heart some

© Katya Mills

i died on a bus in a ditch on a mountain
my blood compelled to the ground
in a fountain

i came back
determined

i died when an eagle
plucked me up
in Alaska
and fed me to
children

i came back
defeated

i lived in a cave with a guardian
dragon. passing time
in liquid mineral

i died when a child fell asleep
in your arms. my fairy tale
ending

shut into darkness
placed back between bookends

i came back full of
vengeance

and bled out the nostrils
and eyes. a virus

how else could i live?
you tell me survival
i do what i
must

i know
i'm a nameless
burning atrocity
i know
how i die
on your lips
every day

i come back haunted
undaunted

i died with the death
of the quarantined
child

i died on the breath
of some irrigated
lung

i won't live again!
i swore on your life
we died in a car crash
you and your wife


now crystalline amber poison condensate
i drip from the radiator steam
in the fluttering light
of a dream

awaiting the bloodlines of unknown
future origin. particulate
matter

16th near J. photo by K

i splatter
my art on these walls
like its nothing

as darkest intention
disingenious
crawls
down the
spine like a vine

i died in the heart of a freshly made
widow. fomenting
my next evolution

i come back a cancer
the kind we all live with

i come back a sonic dionysian
boom
watch as i soak up the carpet
your room

then carefully will my way back
into your pores
cut down to half
the half daughters of
whores

taking your fancy
picking your pocket
Sid Vicious and Nancy

i came back the tormented life
i was given. the rain and
the cattle

driven and
driven

i died on a hill. overlooking a pasture
monet with his paintbrush
impressions to capture

i died on a gurgling mute
strangulation
my death living on
sycophant
indignation

i died with no purpose
no heart
and no soul

so that you could live
on just so you
know

American Attitude Art

'Freeze!' K by K Attitude Art