a deepening

if you wait in the least comfortable place you may let yourself into an inner door of a greater force and inspiration, well, i just experimented myself and got there and how did it happen? Okay, first ingredient was the new moon. I have apparently been wrong again! in my awaiting the full moon, investing too fully in the symbol of the full moon and nothing else for a return on my energies. This is what happens when one is pulled at by so many angles you lose yourself and collective archetypes begin to pronounce themselves to you... so you go for a really hard exercise (in my case an 8mile run followed by a 1mile walk yesterday) which takes you out of your mind and into your body. then you get some uneven sleep chopped up by the trend of cats in motion and a subtle but heavy rumbling through the walls (the inhabitants of adjacent apartments). then you get up after midnight and heat the coffee and milk on the stove and walk around feeling the dull aches and pains in the body, softened by slippers on the feet. the pain is all further softened by cereal followed by a whole thermos of coffee taken slowly over time in capfuls. the sounds you allow are windchimes and passing trains and autos in the night, and voices and laughter of late nighters, all through cracked windows, and inside its gotta be either silence or kitchen humming and a low volume atmosphere of local public radio - classical. jazz is not to be discounted, but jazz is better for winter, classical for summer to counter the general liveliness. I tried a firm chair in the back room with the laptop on a small glass table. Had a capful and bantered with the cats. Stepped outside on back and front porches between times of writing or reading or thinking. Delta breeze in effect tonight. I was several times convinced I would need to go back to bed to restore energy. But these thoughts make no sense. I am nothing if not well rested! For several months now! Last year this time it was quite the opposite, or two years ago, when I was much more invested in coffee and perhaps a whole pot a day versus today less than half a pot a day and much easier on the nerves. At any rate, this was the semblance of my condition about three hours into my new day at night, a dull suffering through a lull period alone, when scanning a cell phone article about a famed spanish director who just cut a film loosely based on a famed canadian author's short stories, i suddenly felt my energy congratulate me with a shift and i stepped down into the dark of my backyard (seeking lightly the one cat whose always out and about hunting), and saw the new light from the apartment building across Eggplant alley which was always there but now the entire building presents itself to me on one flank, for the tree removal people took down the side of trees for some reason last week and what took so many years to hide, is suddenly bare and exposed forever. And I thought in an passionate way about a dispassionate subject of renting a home, well, how many little spaces with aircon units jutting out in little boxes, how many little nooks and crannies there are in this and any city! That if you set your heart on a little space, man or woman, you may seek and find your very own! For there are so many even right here within a hundred yards radius of my own! And this was a happy thought which followed and follows with more and more inspired and happy thoughts, and I certainly would have laughed in your face two hours ago when I woke up sore and wondering, had you told me then that several inspired happy thoughts would come my way and brighten up these new moon days of crescending energies, and they have. they truly have.

thought life possession montage

Think of what we could have!
he thought with his eraser
our blood all pooled together
finally!

erasing his sketch lead
with a frenzy
all touching!
leaving little bits
of processed rubber
in flecks on paper
reunification!
rubbed to death
finally!

there she goes
washing her hands again
the radio plays Coltrane quintet
someone on the pedal
brace upon the fret
air billowing cheeks
jazz circus
freaks

spring sun showers them like rain
summer fun they
disdain

sitting inside
needing to hide
lacking
needing to name
all alone together
having to judge
god forgotten
all processed out
like seven eleven sandwiches
mystery meat on rye

thinking all the while
are we dead
did we die?
then back to the sketch
back to the eraser the hand washing
routine on the edge of a
razor

thought progression
composed of thoughts
kitchen sink
porcelain
water marks

back to getting lead out
on paper
and thought life
possession

Trane on tenor sax
thought life
progression

back to being dead
under skin
composed of thoughts
only wax

the girl downstairs

The girl downstairs came up and knocked on my door. I asked who is it. ITS THE GIRL DOWNSTAIRS she said. I decided to open the door, for the girl downstairs. But i did not let her into my apartment. I didn't even know her name.

The girl downstairs is a blonde with a very well low-lit auburn section. She gets her hair done in LA, apparently. I can tell. Nobody up here in Sacramento can cut and color hair like hers. And if they can, I haven't seen it. Maybe i need to look a little harder. Maybe not. I would rather just feast my eyes on this LA situated hairdo, i told myself, and i did.

The girl downstairs was now dragging the girl upstairs, downstairs. Wow. And i didn't even know her fucking name! She was leading me like a horse, to water. And you cannot do that! Everybody knows! Lucky for her, I am not a horse. So she led me on downstairs and now we were like, two girls downstairs. If she had had a daughter, we could have called ourselves, two and a half girls. But she didn't have a daughter. Well, at least not downstairs she didn't.

The girl downstairs took me all the way back through an apparently identical apartment, to the bathroom. Which was WHERE THE PROBLEM IS. I guess she wanted to make her problem, my problem. But lucky for me. Today i don't take on other people's problems. Especially when i don't even know their fucking name. Hello!

The girl downstairs had an apartment almost identical to mine. Except for one key feature. The girl upstairs has VAULTED CEILINGS. Bitch! That would be me. I suspect. What with all the names she called our landlady in the span of five minutes while she showed me the bulge in her bathroom ceiling where apparently the water was collecting or WHO KNOWS WHAT.

The girl downstairs asked the girl upstairs, downstairs, without even asking really, to cosign on her conviction that the landlady was an alcoholic nightmare, post menopause. Well, i added the last part for effect.

You know, i really just had to introduce myself to this girl downstairs, before making my slow exit and tracing my path back upstairs and out of hell. Back to my vaulted ceilings and my bathroom which she had decided was imminent to COLLAPSE. It can be really hard not to cosign people who are strangers with convictions and right up in your face. And leading you around like that. I have to say I was rather uncomfortable by the whole kitten kaboodle.

But lucky for her, I wasn't gonna lead her into the street and allow a truck to run her down. I probably could have, because she was so lost in a zone of fury. But I am glad I smiled politely and excused myself. I said we could talk later, you know, WHEN THE FLOOR COLLAPSED AND DROPPED ME INTO HER BATHROOM. Maybe sometime this evening. I can't wait.

-by Katya, 09/15
(pssst... up until midnight PST, today only, my novel is free on amazon).