liken

 the culture grew on us like lichen. in time we would be fighting and hurting too. it got so hard to remember we could only imagine how we were before. I wrote some simple words... you drew something... reminiscent of loving. 

#katyamills

losers winners la la la

they was raised super competitive

like - kill kill kill!  

the rare times they won a contest they

 didn't really know how to feel

deep down they wondered

why cannot we all be cherished?

#katyamills

XYZ

you don't call. you text. don't ever call first or you may be banned or cancelled. if it's an emergency call 911. you can text emojis to convey your feelings. some emojis may have different meaning depending on your generation (x, y, z) marker. if you call you don't exist. and remember: no one will ever listen to your voicemail. strategy to survive: take nothing personal. 

 #katyamills

YAQUI

i am in sacred company

the Apache and you

feather of ink down the forearm. Yaqui tribe

the sky commanded the ground

be still

#katyamills

achilles

i threw the phone

against the cold soundless punishing 

darkness. the city an ocean and when it got mad...

the faces pale gaunt dissociated

stress seared into the foreheads

no more! i stretched to my deepest limit

saw it break apart and dove in 

after  #katyamills

anti.social

Several years had passed and talking to others became refreshing and I was drawn off my guard. I could hold a dialogue with you, maybe withstand an argument. Then I could look into your eyes without losing my train of thought. Then you wouldn't mistake me for dishonest. My skin became a millimeter thicker and I wasn't so cold at night. Then I was not so sensitive to things you said. My social norm restoration experiment was paying off. Life was less a collection of used parts and problems I wished would only die away. Engagement became rewarding if not organic. I set my clock to the frequency of several functions a day. I demanded no less than I show up. Not every meeting was reciprocated, and not all of those that were, bore fruit. I found only one good conversation a day (face to face) was enough to keep my finger on the pulse of culture.

channel

i found myself purposed to be an instrument of some constituent pie charted and marketed and television saturated and worked, yes, worked, worked to the marrow to grow some boundless fruitless profit margin i would never see nor feel nor benefit from :: i found myself channeled to evolve our nation, grow her right off the fucking map, people, not unlike the old English empire. less colonialism. more physical land. smaller navy.

i found myself
and decided not
to participate
whatsoever

drama by katya

the dominant cultural narrative

likes us dead

killer -v

We are right to remember the lives with such promise that were lost. We are right to focus on the survivors and the families that must move on though no longer whole. We are right to care about our kids and our schools and how to protect them so they can feel safe and trustful and go and keep learning and growing. And if we care this much, we must also care enough to understand a culture that contributes to a violent disposition.

wednesday again

I took off my glasses so I could see you clearly. Out from under our shared history. Outside of cultural narratives and bias. Free from all rumor and gossip and media glaze...i loved what I saw.

freight train

The #metoo movement
a freight train out of Hollywood LA
on a runaway

watch out
she's rolling down rails

touch the iron
feel her coming
for you

slow

Slow falls like snow. Not pelting just touching and melting. Slow is not weak or worthless or lazy or wasteful. Slow is not what they say in our fast culture USA. Slow takes the time to truly understand. Is seen and sees. Patience. The world doesn't know what it wants.

fabric of a spell

Oh! how the world lived under a spell, she thought, sewing her children into the fabric to keep them all safe.

wheels

there's really nothing wrong with two people coming together for a time, living together, being together, and then having differences drawin them apart, a change of heart, and then lookin for another start somewhere else with someone else. there might be a culture invested in keeping you together or a family that hopes for you to heal. and yes, you could recover, the two of you, you could but it would have to take both of you with all your might to make it right. all the bad blood pooled up like that. it would be very hard. the world wants you both to make it, yes, the culture, maybe even the family. but suns rise and wheels roll and pavement cracks and suns set, and what with all the change you find it hasn't happened yet? there's really nothing wrong with moving on.

the opening is tbd. byo latchkey

we were...

latchkey kids. made deaf beneath 

the wall of sound

of the industry

of the landscape
in the head

we played arcade games

to recover and chewed bubble 

gum and drew on ourselves

with ballpoint pens 

dumb kids. not stupid just 

contextually thin

lacking or without sense or

the means to make

sense

hungry for relevance
starved of context 

ignorant of our rights 

we no longer studied our 

country's constitution

in high school

we microwaved tv dinners

and rode our bikes into the 

night with duran duran baking

our heads by transistor

radio

stressed kids. the trance-like induction 

of environmental stressors fill

the internal auditorium

teeming life of feelings acid-washed
a sensitive study of self
unreleased

abbreviated from an lp to an ep

the world stops when the record store is closed
the opening is tbd

you are all invited
statistics will be gathered

and fall upon us
with friends

new cokes slim jims leg warmers

byo latchkey

KatYa, 2017

to all aspiring artists

You can be an artist if you are creating as you go. you live your life and you record it with whatever materials you choose, in whatever way you wish to record it, not necessarily how it appears to you, but how it feels to you, not necessarily each and every thing which transpires, but those instances which stand out for you, for whatever reason, good or badness aside, morality unnecessary, judgment removed, recounting perhaps some infinitesimal change may have established in your thoughts, feelings, sentiments, or even your style, behavior, fashion, or manner of dreaming or daydreaming, it's all up for grabs, whether it pushed you forward, pulled you in or dropped you out, whether it silenced you, gave you pause, made you more vocal or expressively settled you into new rhythms or arrhythms. you can be an artist in any medium but if you wanna be an artist try to be an artist every day. the chore may feel quite burdensome at times, and especially at the start but not only in the beginning, either, very often midstream, do not let this deter you, this aversion to effort, do not mistake it for a lack of inspiration, okay, we all get tired by work on mammoth projects in need of our unceasing attention, just battle on through and love yourself more for your ceaseless, tireless devotion to what you do. and remember, when you come across a crisis of confidence in yourself, perhaps in the face of the contender, or in light of a culture which has not yet opened its eyes to you, to your content, remember the unquestionable and valid fact of your life, that only you have lived this life, this life can neither be price-tagged nor questioned, this life is yours and your alone and you are and always will be its great historian. and without you telling it, showing it, representing it? it will not otherwise be known! let this thought alone drive you forward in your quest!

m x memory -vi

What was (not by law) acceptable? You would have to be crystal (clear) to know that awareness had not changed. Not even by 2023. Awareness is like it was: half-whole. The industrio-technological revolution had consciousness in a blender and someone hit liquefy. The laws could not tourniquet the blood loss. In effect, all diverse perceptions broadcast by sentients and picked up on radios in tunnels, were to be accepted. Resistance, denial of telltale truths, revolt against the pioneers of particularly unpopular ideas, was punished by slow reflexology torture. The pedestrian access to all CNS points of sensitivity. Modern culture placed high value on sensitivity, for it was the easiest way under the skin and didn't cost a damn thing. But desensitivity treatments were about the most malevolent practice around. A desensitized sentient was today scorned and unforgiven... turns out all evolution has the fallout of consequential negative feedback, which angles off the light of the fresh vision and becomes the new bastion of ignorant factions which can be discredited yet never completely silenced by radiating waves of heart-centered caring intention...

murder by memory -iv

the murder by memory series. parts i-iii go way back.
i hesitate to proceed with it, as it moves into something more like philosophy than simple creative writing. more like activism.   -k

torture was clearly a primitive defense of any society, forcing noncompliants into submission to meet specific aims of a culture. less clear was how a supposedly highly evolved culture involved in numerous humanitarian causes could keep it insular and protect the rudimentary institution of torture. if culture was to evolve, torture would cease to make sense. if culture was to be evolved, it would shutter the chambers and send all devices and mechanisms to their proper places behind glass cases in the future museums devoted to the betterment of the lives of the victims of torture. yet culture, like its individual constituents, tends to return to the primitive defense mechanisms when under duress: repression, regression, projection, reaction formation, and sublimation. and then covers it up in denial... torture. what would it matter the criminal or the crime? the use of an instrument reflects back on the one using it. if i pick up a sword and run it through someone, i am now a murderer. even if i kill a murderer with their own very sword, i am -nevertheless- a murderer, too.

belly (second reflection)

my belly is never good enough
sometimes

feel its soft largesse
full of carbs

see its depressed

button

memory of my 

birth my connection to

mom

severed

and

against all the cultural
phlegm caught in the
throat

i realize it will never be

what me or anyone

else want it to

be

and

begin to 

treasure it

my belly

and button

too

what are we in love

culture. dedicated to breakdown and cracked in the teeth. the splinters are our lives and they glint in the sun. stillness is a wonderful thing and makes sense except when you're dead someone said. you decided on an orgasm and made one while i read. i was on the couch with milk green tea and a book and a little light stirred in at the top. i like to strand the light so i can sit at my desk and write. undefeated by music and outta control. how could you lose religion like that? so easily. i gave it to you and you took it to church. communion was godly. white as a sheet (is unreal) and you turned it. black was outright boring until the inky darkness and the not knowing where the hell we are anymore. worship black and white and renounce all the colors between. culture. dedicated to breakdown and cracked in the teeth. gone for a day without nourishment. the corrupted water still pure at the edge where we kissed. all the particulate matters and lip service gave us substance. stars in the ocean in the sky. tattoos made us endure made us pure. i don't give a fuck what you say when you don't know what you're talking about is only in your head. comprised of particulate thought. just like me you're unreal. compromised. but i won't stand behind you like gospel. no. it's just my slant and i try not to crowd anyone. with stars were the children with stars. the splinters in our lives they glint in the sun. i saw myself in a mirror in the darkness and hadn't a clue.  made me me made you you. stillness was a wonderful thing after the noise came, impressed in the froth of a green tea milk sea. i decided on a book and i made one too. i decided on you and you decided on us two. what are we in love.