odyssey

the valerate was not numerically stable in the blood. the doctors fumbled for a baseline while they prepared themselves for the odyssey. they wondered what the wars would look like six months out and would they still be around? it gave them the kick the urgency they needed  #katyamills

iron.clad

i gave my blood to

the mosquitoes 

iron-clad they traffic in hemoglobin

for they know

what i am made

of

#katyamills

uti

blood in the urine they

thought they may

die 1.4 liters kombucha

to kill a uti. how come death  

did not sound so terrible 

anymore?

#katyamills

hear.t.breake.r.

i was so looking forward to your visit, seeing you for the first time in 15 years. my blood. my cousin. the only one i've got, i mean, the only one i get to talk to anymore. i saw us roaming up to tahoe and down to san francisco, maybe over to the ocean. they had us pinned for black sheep all those years and we survived. i am closer to you for it. how my heart breaks to know you cannot come. what a crusher. okay. so i'm angry, so i'm sad you called it off. these are just feelings. the most important thing is your health. it's god's will.  i am close to you, all these miles and miles away.

author at home

the river. with family

The river came to us and met us at her banks, midday and summer hot, we had only to approach her like disciples with our faith in her and find our place (which seemed designed for us, divined for us) where she came flush with the land, a mossy patch of soil leveling there with the freshwaters. we laid a thin blanket down and had submarines for lunch with cuts of avocado and alfalfa and cream cheese on bread. we used the sub wrappings as plates and we talked. there was my older brother, m&m (my niece), Skipper the dog, and me. they were on their way to Tahoe from the Bay, and thought of me and stopped by for lunch. i decided on the river cause i had not seen my niece in so long, and i wanted us to have a peaceful place to reconnect. besides a few river rats around us (i mean locals who were mostly friendly albeit boisterous), we were all enfolded there into the pastoral scene as if we had been painted in by a master, in oils and acrylics on canvas. nothing here could or would speak to the frenetic city behind us or the insane politics of the world. we had shade from the heat and a chance to show one another the kindnesses of a decade ago. i cannot believe i lost her for so long, the greater part of which I can attribute to life's path, problems and poor choices i made. while they were trying to raise a family in the twenty-first century, i was literally falling and climbing and slipping and reinventing myself and trying to manage in a world which i didn't think really wanted me. i seemed to have marginalized myself, but it wasn't all my fault. it was just my life. and nobody was really blaming anyone, but the river between us could not be forded back then.

now we found ourselves on the same banks, reunited, and i had my lucky break after several years of remedying the mischief of my life and lifestyle, involved in many decent and useful causes these days, full of purpose these days. i got the chance to speak my truth, and m&m got hers, and i had a wonderful listen while my brother her father sat between us and the dog at our feet, panting in the heat. my brother and sister (in-law) have done a fine job parenting as anyone could do. i am grateful to them, not having made that commitment myself. anyway i can be a part of the family, is good enough for me, anyway i can help. today it means not being demanding or complaining or selfish, just staying open to any opportunity may come along, for i love them and that's all i know. i was not so attentive to my family in my twenties or even in my thirties, so overwhelmed was i by my own life. and unhappy or depressed some of the time. vices and habits and poor choices in company. you know the story. i may be at fault for many things, but not for becoming who i am today.

so here we are, the past behind us, making what we can of our moment together. i didn't seem to think we had much in common anymore, me and my family. but i learned in truth, by my experience (such is truth) that when you have blood in common, that alone is the mark which oughta draw you together; blood alone oughta bring out the best in us. to be there for family no matter how incongruent your aims, how varied your pursuits, how rocky the terrain of your individual temperaments. you show yourself (when welcome) and give of yourself as only you can. i may not be any great success of any kind, yet i have survived a sometimes cold and callous world, city life, and the effects of an often misguided sense of my place in it all. so i am blessed to reach out and be received. we had a nice lunch. we had a nice talk. we saw a sea creature surfacing every half minute for air, as it plodded upriver. it was unusual and mysterious. My brother and niece were both worried that it needed salt water to survive. Skipper the dog met a friend. the river rats began splashing about just down from us. the sun reached the top of the sky and looked down. it could not quite find us. we packed up to go. i believe this is as good a new beginning as any. my niece she seemed unsure at first, and i was a bit anxious, but walking back to the car beside her i felt the good feeling with them, knowing we are blood, we have good history, and there's hope - the sun has found us now - and nothing means more to me than this.

Maze 2:12:3 Storytelling

Book Two

Daughter of Darkness Series

Chapter 12:3

In the last episode 2:12:2 Blood on the streets of Oakland! Panic on the streets of Oakland! Murder on the streets of Oakland! 

And here is the latest -- 5 star review -- for Maze. 

untitled color. not green

© KatYa Mills

i encounter someone
or something
and we change (je crois)

i will not go out today
i like who i am
why would i change?
not today

oh the devils
in my head!
blood spat
on hunter green

let me bleach them
with sunshine of my
life. menana

(no images just words convey my)
vivid you
of yesterday

no cream in my coffee
my coffee will be
corrupted by white
sugars and why
would i
do that?

black coffee
you see
helps me remember (ne oublier pas)
who i am

stitching hearts

you threaded the
eye of the
needle

i watched you fail
and fail
again
again

i watched you lick the
thread the
tattered
end

you wanted me
i wanted
you

to thread
my head
with erotic elevating

the time it
bombed
the blood was strong

the pulse so
escalating

i stitched your heart
we had
a start

over and under
under and
over

something like
again
again

something like
creating


© Katya Mills, 2014

she whose temples -- iii)

She was not homicidal, but violence was in her nature and yours. Her parents became decidedly pacifist in the wake of all the bloodsport they boasted, as documented in the ledgers. Nobody read the ledgers, so pacifist was an unconditionally accepted facade. Neighbors only knew something funny about the spicy chili they spooned out at the annual neighborhood watch block parties, so spiced up with habanero and wasabi to silence the smell of powdered ear lobes, sending a rush of icy air through your sinuses and mine, getting accolades blockwide and block long. Nobody heard the powdered cries of the powdered owners of the powdered ear lobes they could not discern. Suffice it to say, the neighborhood watch was not watching.

She wanted to live, and made that choice early on. Probably around four or five years. Suicide was dystonic to her and distasteful. She knew this clear as her favorite drink in her hand; one part lemon, one part tonic. She held it up quickly at times when her arm and wrist began to falter. To prevent its being corrupted, she drank it quickly. An old and tired lemon and tonic was sad like the first rainfall in the city and all the imminent inevitable car crashes slding on the oils arisen from the asphalt. She approached the Bible the same way. She was confirmed in a Protestant Church, and the version was Good News. She scanned it that year, and basically never picked it up again. Except to box it with the other books every time she had to relocate. Why she held on to a text she found so sad and possibly corrupted, no one can say and certainly not herself. Maybe it was her name engraved on the leather cover? She was hard to figure.     - to be continued

concrete black and blue

concrete black
concrete blue
i scraped my knee
lost my shoe

while skate
boarding streets
to find you

now i'm scanning
the sidewalk
for glass

concrete blue
concrete black
my sister
she got
my back

young man
on a stoop
smoking rolly
in the loop
saw my blood
drawn down
to the ankle

he looked at me
laughed
and inhaled

concrete black
concrete blue
i am lost
what to do?
out here in our red
white and
blue

blasted
between high rises
by fragrant deli
monoxide winds and
the sins of
a glowering
sun

her colors
so real
the city
her sounds
wraps me
warm in
her tresses and
locks

i'm braided and tied
at the end

concrete black
concrete blue
by god
my angels
and you

may i find
my way
concrete black
through the streets
and back

the pained eyes
behind a shake
and fries
keep me honest
sincere
concrete blue
made true

and you
and by you
my life is full
life is filled
replete with my fate
accompli

lost i was
found
gave my blood
to the ground
looked up
came around to
alive

in this urban
chiaroscuro
delight

exhaling her sounds
inhaling the heat
shorn of my shoes

concrete black
concrete blue
descended
into
the mouth
of the subway
on the balls of
my feet

back to you