re.set

the roads still glistening with dew they 

carved a 180 @ the 5432 

café. a pour over black no creamer

for the dreamer 

#katyamills

tall green tea

I revisited the day and crushed on strangers. what with my tall iced green tea in a local café.

black as desire

my coffee exposure exceeded its recommended daily allowance, and i showed all the telltale signs of caffeine exhaustion, from impending sense of doom to useless fights with the others, wishing i could snap myself into the center of a forest. my devices and pets were all vying for my attention but she was nowhere to be found. i reluctantly tossed a foamed paper cup with a sleeve into a blue bin at a café, and went sideways into a night, steamwhistle of a pot on a stove, contracting a spirit into a five minute steep of an old reliable, constant comment. what to my dismay, her producers had changed her floral notes, and a memorable song of an early childhood was hummed through the teeth ona variable. i don't care. tomorrow i'm strikin' out for the old bean, scarred from the heat and black as desire.

the cats don't know what to do with me

i saw my bean counter guy at the café today and got the word on the new release, soon to be roasted. i'm not a big fan of ethiopian so i discarded the news while enjoying the curious taste of the organic peru being served. i bought a cup of that. i like this café because here it's presumed you are a human being and worth talking to, which may not go for much in other cultures but trust me, here in corporate america there are plenty of spaces where no one will talk to you and you will draw suspicion if you try and be friendly. i got a croissant, went home and fried an egg with bacon to put inside it. i burnt the bacon but not all of it. my coffee got cold so i took the opportunity to reheat it on the stove with some rice milk and dark chocolate, swiss miss. i'm pretty sure i planned it that way. meanwhile my car was being ticketed across the street without my knowledge. i was enjoying my mocha while sitting on my couch in the morning light, a furry throw pillow supporting my lower back and the coffee table setup perfectly before me to hold my laptop and allow me an ideal position to work on my novel, which i did for a half hour or more before i spilled my coffee on my new faux oriental rug, cursing under my breath and running for a rag and some water. the cats don't know what to do with me. now i owe the city of Sacramento fifty-two bucks for street cleaning obstruction, and the driver's side tire keeps deflating on me so it will have to be replaced. all these setbacks broke the fragile beauty of my writing bubble, so i took a nap. i found myself irritable in a meeting at noon. at least i showed up. i perked up a little after meeting a few new friends to discuss fresh applications of narrative therapy, not a widely embraced modality but we wish it was. i guess it all started in australia, too, which makes me smile. damn, i could use a vacation down under or enveloped in the mountain folds of new zealand. i think i even have friends there. too bad my passport's expired and i can't afford to travel. honestly i'm just trying to keep my microcosm together and live an honorable life and keep my bubbles sparkling whole in the air.

tea told coffee off

Tea told coffee, calm down
Coffee had somethin to say! and much too much to do!
Coffee made everyone irritable
Even tea

Pre-meditating in Coventry Gardens
Tea told coffee off

simply colorful everything. simply all night long.

What will the weekend be like, i wonder,  going into it alone and willing with a working spirit. i guess i feel better working than anything else anymore, which may be different than i once was. you see i once wanted to be reckless and free of responsibility, and searched a way out of the static. i went alone then, too, but always ready to be with anyone rolling the same way, as i am now. like me they might hold your hand for a moment longer than others, or hold your eyes with theirs. tractor beam. attraction. being chosen could be sacred again, not a consumer driven concept in the great malls of material faith now centrifuges and research labs for the subtle senses, the homes of renowned empiricists now filled by squatters, a luxury activity exclusive to the partially brilliant who move to town from city and sift and shift through the yet to be appropriated. today i would roll more with optimists and cynics, anyone who wants to roll up sleeves and kick ass for their country for family for the home made feeling, keeping to something meaningful even if it's not how you pay your mortgage or rent, your car note, insurance, your phone bill and grocery, your internet connection, electric, wardrobe and water. we may even get out and vote in a couple weeks, after we smash the pumpkins and drive the point home to the vampires. bloody hell. six sense perception dwindling down to three or four. age and race, time and place, seen and heard and felt, we come together then go it alone, swimming slow, canvassing the urban element. leaves fall off trees to the sidewalks awhile, people run past screaming from deranged clowns, tight trance joints in the clubs spilling out past security. social security. no, the future and 2023 are not cold, computer, the silent ones are chosen. they patronize the magazine stand and the cafe. tractor beam attraction. open to living different, no real right or wrong, simply colorful everything, simply all night long. Well, they might hold your hand. a moment longer than the others.

americano

i went to visit my good friend in san francisco up in merced heights. the wind was several knots and the Pacific foaming at the beach. my friend had fallen back to sleep. something happened to his knee so he walks funny now.  he needs surgery cause he tore something and its inflammed. i remember when my whole life was swell. we went to lunch in daly city on a sunday when all the country's got politics and black lives matter on its mind. robots detonating bombs to take out snipers. honestly i wouldn't want to be black in this country, when simple traffic stops can turn deadly. racial tensions are growing again like they often do. our country is founded on tensions. you could argue tension is what makes the whole thing tick. i've known my friend for a decade and maybe half that time we were incommunicado. at the cafe by the beach and facing the wind, he told me he thinks we have agreed about 87% of the time. i thought about that number while i sipped on my iced americano. no cream. no sugar. just water and finely ground coffee. he's a banker and he's always calculating. 87%. i'm not gonna argue. he's probably somehow right. 88% of the time, he is.

lying in the alphabet. unable to speak

I poured some more coffee and filled your cup and you stared at the surface, clasping your fingers around the cup, the heels of your hands touching at the back. You were thinking pretty hard like I wasn't in the room. I kept quiet. I was putting the cream back when the cat miaowed from above. He was on the top of the fridge, lying in the alphabet. Unable to speak.   - KatYa

Here's a reading from my book Maze
Chapter 16:2

HI

by KatYa

waitin for my fix
outside

chick passes me
like im a telephone pole

unlocks the glass door
i say HEY

all i need is a filter
and some water under
boil SEE

i got this fukkin maxwell
house

OFF the street
while waitin

THANKS

she snarls but
comes back with the
smokin teapot and
papers

my shaking hands
take the paper
lean my head back
on my nekk

empty tin into
paper put paper
over mouth

lift teapot over
head and POUR

now im really
flyin

HI

do not be confused

Today is your day to kick ass. Even if someone's got you imprisoned, even yourself in your own mind, but even then you can ask for a book cause that is your right. If whoever has you locked down won't let you read,  try and exploit the weakness in their rigidity, all the way to your freedom. Today is Friday and your chance to shed the skin of the past and come out all bright and shiny and new. People will notice you if you simply show up. I like to walk somewhere, under the sun, walk a mile or two and find a cafe and sit and watch and think and write. Maybe let a friend know I will be there, so they can come see me if they want. Today is your day to kick ass. Don't let social media hold you back. Get back to your sacred expression. In whatever form. Respect yourself and they will respect you, too.

If you get tired, by all means meander, online or off, but come back to yourself and your connection with what only you know and let it speak. Make that fashionable statement only you can make, whether its how you dress how you walk how you talk how you write how you sketch how you  skate how you run how you gesture how you preach how you teach how you fight how you give how you help how you see how you feel how you deal. Be you. Be free. Be real.
  - K

pervasive sustainable organic sweetness

I was at a local cafe watching how friendly the barista was with everyone and me. She makes you feel like you have a personal connection, you feel loved. For women and kids (and a few men), she comes around the counter to give you a hug. I almost felt cheated to see that I was not the only one. How dare you love them like you love me. She put extra caramel in my macchiato, though, so I decided not to slap her face. She was tall and black and thin, and possibly transgender. Sweetness pervaded everything she touched. I trolled the bottoms of my cup with a straw to suck it up. I tried to listen to my friend who was monopolizing the conversation today. But I liked to listen to her, she was smart and funny, and I was tired of listening to the voices in my head. They weren't very nice. Not today. They wanted me to know what a loser I am. They haunted me with the trainwreck of my past. More people came in and got more love. If it wasn't for the caffeine and extra caramel, I would have made a scene. I could see they all thought they were special, too. Oh boy was I gonna put Sweetness on front street! My friend was talking about her husband and how he left his car unlocked and someone rifled through it and stole from him. She couldn't understand how he could complain about it, when he was the one who left it unlocked. Apparently if you don't secure yourself and your property in this world, you deserve to get jacked. I was not myself. I was more like a little bit of everyone around me. A little bit jaded. A little bit agitated. Even a little sweet. I needed to go out in the rain and get wet. Maybe I could imagine it was purifying me. I drove home enjoying the perfection of my new windshield wipers. Imagine life without windshield wipers. How exciting! You would have to roll down your window and poke your head out the side so you could see through your leather and glass goggles. When I got home, I stayed in and read the latest Stephen King book. Head candy. For breakfast I fried the eggs too long. All I could taste was the bacon and hot sauce. Someone blew someone up somewhere today. I heard a screeching scream and went out to see what was the matter. A gargantuan black cat was tormenting my kitten. Of course he took off when he saw me. Bully. I picked up my kitten and brought him inside. It's okay, honey, you're safe. That big mean old cat! If I could get my hands on him. I put my arms around him and kissed him on his spine and face. I smoothed out his fur and talked to him. Sweetness. If only we could all stay there for awhile. In our own pervasive sustainable organic sweetness.

clearing # 05.22

author post cycling

Today was like cool table edges in a cafe and many words sprouted out my head and fell to the faux marble table top and some got trapped in the keyboard of my laptop. i had my iced latte which the girl at the counter who wore the old school cap ordered up for me. i think she likes me. not just because she remembered my name. anyway, i pressed the keys with the letters i needed to describe what i was feeling about my protagonist's boyfriend experience, yes, i put on my best Tender Is The Night routine and pressed the backlit keys into their soft bellies, the words, the ones had sprouted and fallen into the keyboard and were now lying beneath all the vowels, in the bowels, and tickled they began to make curious sounds which the people around me thought were coming from my mouth but my mouth was closed and my vision deep in the scenario in my book and you see, there was a whole world going on the people around me knew nothing of. and i knew nothing of the world going on in them, either. we endured one another's words, in and out and under the keyboards and tables and chairs, splashing about the foam in our drinks, in flight or floating around our heads. i left the space almost one thousand words later. i had pied pipered them all into my google document. the girl at the counter shouted goodbye Kat! the sun was coming out of the clouds and we were clearing.