aces

when the magic dried up the

onlookers moved 

on 

the suits 

jacks and queens in diamonds

the spades and lonely hearts

the kings

leaving them

only true 

aces

#katyamills

three. three. four. gin

I thought about you after I met you and we played cards and I thought, wow, you are a really good person, you are someone special, and I remember putting my cards down, three three four and declaring GIN on you. And you were happy for me, you didn't need to win at all, and that was lovely for both of us. Then when I saw you again you could bend your knee a little bit more, and you said someone bought you breakfast because they saw you had no money, and then someone else gave you money for smokes but not enough for a pack, and you were able to talk the corner store clerk down for one, and you've had it for three days and haven't even finished it yet. And I was happy to see good things happening to a good person, and that you've been able to cut back on smoking, too, cuz it's bad for your health. I told you how I thought about you and how you're special, and I wish that your life gets better and everything turns out well for you and you can walk again, and that you are able to open that orphanage someday somewhere like you wanted.

Journal # 12.16.15

I still wished the clock would stop and give us a chance to breathe but time preferred to kick ass, drag our hearts around, and mine kept getting snagged in the pricklies or thumped down some steps or stepped on by a bunch of children runnin' blind for milk and cookies, kick the can around the parking lot for fun, ran up some stairs and dropped from heights to see if it would bounce or explode, or what, and either way sure was hell of a good time, I swear, when you have my undivided attention, guys just stand there and step on it, suddenly great theatrics, entertainment, and maybe even a bloody mess.

When you care the most, when they have you, you can get heartless. Winter never wanted to be so icy cold. It just had to. Yes I will warm it up with some Charlie Brown Xmas cards and long live snail mail. The post office is my second favorite living museum behind the bookstore. Some millenial stopped me yesterday sayin' wait, you mean people still do that? I was thinking, wait, did you just say that? Never liked sending cards when it was the thing to do, and now when it's going out of style I'm intent upon it.

These songs, without words, arise in my head. I gotta put words to them. I was chosen. I was chosen for the in-law unit out back. Where is she? She's in the shadows, we don't see her much. She's in the periphery. She's part of the goddam scenery, dontcha know? She produces something fierce! You shouldn't bother her, really, she likes to be left alone and do what she does. It's something magical, I suppose. But you won't make much sense of her, she's not exactly on the planet anymore, everything is dissociated, tangential at best. Maybe her heart got caught in the blender one too many times, ya, it's a bit of a tragedy. They told her but you have so much to offer just one too many times. Her potential rose up and bricked her in the head. She's not quite there, but we love her just the same. If she would only let us.

Journal #05.27

I love you like ice melting pure off the icicle into my mouth underneath, you touch my tongue to speak and all through the week, what with the rolling hills of my expression unfenced and undivided, sprawling all out under your warm regard, you play the card, two of diamonds, which i draw into a hand of deuces and a pair of clubs... i fan myself with royalty on the way to a flush and with you is a rush, the slow developed connect as the sun moves over a screen porch to touch us on the other side and please sun, i don't want to be touched, i say, without my permission today, and i move around to your beside, you and your cadillac margarita and the salt on your tongue, mischief in your eyes... i see your hand, do you not realize... now i know if only i go to the kitchen bare-footed for the freezer trays of blue i crack for you, the cubes of ice so formed  i drop them into a highball, giving the cat and dog my love-flecked call, and etch my bones with your glassy possessive, and click on back in thin thin summer sandals to the underlying praise of the trees and lake, means and ways, where i drop a few cubes in your glass and one down the back of you shirt, yes, and next thing you know i got my flush to lay down by your bright and silver incredulous eyes, you with your hand of deuces... oh what a couple of fools, aces in love we made.

to the drowned

100 years of solitude
lapping up the shore
have you met your neighbors?
next door

239 missing
from Malaysia
facing east
on sunday

rising toward
the light
at the very
least

302 Korean kids
a billion hearts
turn blue

if only your captain
could have seen you
through


to the drowned....image by K, 2014

420 crowds light upto escape the human race
against the cards we're dealt
one-eyed Jack
a Queen
an ace

five hundred times
or more
I tell myself each day
time is of the essence

live!
write!
play!

l00 years of solitude
lapping up the shore
so sorry for the lives
the lost

i feel it in
my coeur