egolessness

had to die a hundred times

all within a single day

for what i thought had happened to me

was nothing 

was okay

#katyamills

cry

 

i won't cry 

unless you cry 

sectioned off under the lights. another stage

black tights and vests with shiny buttons

midnight blue

boots laced up 

awaiting your direction 

heaving chest of breath

inflection

in opposition to certain

death

#katyamills

commission

god is an artist

the commission has no deadline

drawing us in 

and out

brushing over us all

with fresh

oils

#katyamills

cross current

news of the conception 

of your second child fights for celebration 

against the prevailing tide

the very day she died

#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

corner of over and under

born of a lavender haze

inspiration found an untimely death 

at the corner of over and

under

#katyamills

one stone. two birds

a gun is the coldest moulded steel you ever put in your hand, holds a darkened chamber where living death sleeps, full of powder, ready in a puff of smoke and recoil to take two lives in one second. the other one won't die by the bullet.

another loss - vii

it's been over five years since I saw you, my friend, and I heard that you died this july. i don't know if you ever really got clean, but i heard that you tried and that's more than we could of said about us back then, when we were full tilt, chaotic. the new life in me cries for you, my friend, the old embers in my eyes glow in remembrance, i mean, i have forged a path in recovery and life has new wonders to share. i only wish you could have made it through, too. i relocated north of there, not long after the night we shared with music and laughter and our common bond. the signs had accumulated for some time, flashes of gunfire and madness and theft, and the trails and traces of my chemical romance had ended in black smoke signals, severely. my angels were there looking out for me, they saw me into my despairing, then gave me a chance and reason to change, and i implored God and let go and reached out and took up a new and renewable source, and brandished my pen once again. each and every day i can thank my loves for letting me live, and i wonder where were yours, where were yours? your star would have risen and lit up a world, and your daughter would have felt loved once again, and for her and for you and the world i am sad...

another loss -i

You let me stay one night in your room, many years ago,  i was in between places and spaces and a kick in the gut had landed me in Oakland with nowhere to go. Brown-outs were my life back then, and nobody can tell you what your psychosis is gonna look like or how it will feel, because they aren't buried behind your eyes. Electronic Dance Music was one thing we had in common that night, and we had what was left of my battered laptop to trade tracks that touched us...

Journal # 03.24.16

Life was gonna be painful for a morning dove whose call was so random and throaty and pure only hours before my tigers took him out. what was left of life was gonna be painful then surreal then blurry, then over. i imagine euphoria takes over in the end, when defenceless one's life force rushes to heal. life is bloody and open wide and clawed at. attacked from all sides. in the midst of a glorious spring morning. the dew has burned off and the day becomes sharp and direct and furious when you're caught by those who were born to hunt you down. actually they meant you no harm. they just do what they do. it's the same the world over. impersonal. intimate. euphoric. terribly violent and sad. ever changing. renewed. life.    - © KatYa, 2016

people kill beautiful things pretty well

 

beat up by life? K by K

Let life just beat you up the way it does. When a flower stretches up out of the soil, it's growth lends itself to danger. When you were just a seed and just a bud germinating underground, in your mommas belly, you were pretty safe. Once you grow up you're liable to get stepped on, mowed down, picked, torn asunder. People kill beautiful things pretty well. We put them in vases, we crush them behind glass.

This culture this world is suffering an overabundance and equally lacking. I cannot tell you why because it's too much to hold! Are you like me and one cheerio shy of an oh my god what the fukk is going on? The asphalt just imprisoned my garden. Our secrets will never be safe.

Lemme go deeper. Into those places where you feel you make sense. Spend more time with friends,  more time creating, add a little family and kittens to the mix. The strongest connection oughta be the one you have with yourself, your spirit, and whatever releases you from your ego, humbles you, makes you small enough to relax into the systemic. Some call it god and i don't mind either. We all need somewhere to extend our child.

Stay your beautiful self
Don't let them kill you

Then let them...

Die another day. The sensation of coffee down your gullet. Wear yourself out with your kids, your work, your monotonous chores. Go off to social sunsets and live to see another day.

The sunrise will feel better if your aching into it, arthritis summons compassion for self. Asthma summons compassion for yourself. Panic Attacks leave you hugging yourself. Fevers bring your attention to your self. Heart attacks make you focus on caring for your heart. Strokes make you remember how to learn. Cancer makes you grateful. HIV gets you pushing for your dreams to come true. Depression makes you stronger. Anxiety gets you to relax.

I will hold your spirit over here. Carefully.
Will you hold mine? You don't have to. I can just hold yours.

Expect nothing outta anyone
except yourself

Expect greatness out of everyone
and yourself. You star
you!

Accept yourself. Love yourself. Grow up and
Show people your colors. They will grab you.
They will not believe you. They will argue and you will suffer them, too.
They will suffer you.

Open up to whatever you're out there doing.
And let them take you
out.

the farm

i bought the
farm and i planted crooked rows
of anything but corn
between the
ears between the
years

i let the children come
after school
and play themselves
to tired

when you're dead
you can do so much
more


- KatYa


Journal # 12.17.15

I wanna hold on to that little bit of joy that comes over me like a mist on a foggy morning, I am wet with it, a taste of clarity of wholeness as if all my past is right here with me and I could take you through my eyes to any given moment, yes, come after a really good night's sleep so rare, or maybe if I run a few miles really hard and fast as I can, I can get that special feeling like all is well, the future has no stake in it, when in the empire the interest rates begin climbing, from the base of Denali after stasis, after a decade of descent... what does it matter for my heart also ascends up Mount St. Elias and into my head for a second, tethered to a wild pack of neurotransmitters in the Cortex ravine by well placed stakes and caribeners, awaiting the next big storm will send me in a rush flying to another death, my adrenaline  drizzled over the top of Mount Foraker only to get hit by the sun a couple days later and reborn, over Endocrine valley where the estrogen in me highlights the tips in the alpine meadow, under a cobalt blue, and my spirit summits Mount Blackburn for to see all the way to Canada and to you, our memories collide for past lives, within a life, covering all 16,237 feet of Mount Sanford, yes, and I want to cry then but my joy prevents me, and you gotta believe I wanna hold on to this feeling, I wanna stay here cause I like to believe it was a lot of work to get here to where the vision rewards me, atop Mount Fairweather I can see you and me so clearly and maybe not picturesque but we know where we stand. Sure maybe I don't know you anymore and can honestly ask you who the hell are you anymore? even if it hurts I just have to ask. Because beyond all the wonder I felt in meeting you in this world in this life, well, we are past that now, aren't we? I sure as hell wish you were here with me again, to feel it too... the life of love survives beyond the love affair and into a stirring night alone into a dawn on the side of any mountain carry me away.

some of the stuff i like about this life nonstop

The experience i have of living is so precious to me, from the moment I wake up and even while i sleep, and even when i feel controlled or having to wait in line somewhere, someone i might talk to can suddenly make me feel special, seen, even free! the moments i spit angrily upon the gray urban concrete overcast city even they may turn over in a flash when am i awash in spirit filled with color by a song from a window of a high rise, an automobile passing by, the blue notes warping orange and green and fuschia as we comes and go and the distance between us closes or grows... a street artist, a jump rope kid, a skater flipping the board under his feet upon a rail and sliding down in the balance... the bass on a hot summer day spills out a trunk in a traffic jam to meet the heat rising in oil and exhaust, or the decided will of nature pushing up out of a frost until the sprout cracks through somewhere, a sidewalk a tunnel, a floorboard, even through the eye socket of a skull or a broken shell, the inhabitant long since gone on... hell, it warms my heart! an otherwise cold unfeeling is replaced. Life is nonstop. How could I question my freedom after a sight like that?

we search ourselves at risk

In this life there are people who may be unable to understand you or what it is your trying to accomplish, and how you go about getting there. There are people who may be disrespectful toward you, or worse. If your paths have crossed by some intended accident, and you have had a good run at it as friends, well, your run may have run out. When the end comes we can feel lost and confused, hurt and resentful, misunderstood. Some things were not built to last. When I am by myself in the quiet and calm of my home, I try and think of the best times I had with anybody like that. Then, if I am still hurting by another air raid from bombs dropped on my head, I try and remember who I am and why other people seem to love me through it all, this life, while some cannot and never will and that is how it goes. If I find the need to untangle the elusive truth of any matter -- to settle it once and for all so my mind can rest -- I can walk myself through what happened and focus not on what was said between us but what was done. And there may I find anything approaching the truth, for normal self-seeking prejudice and pride can neither stand up to the evidence before me then. Feelings cannot discolor facts. And I can only hope that I took right action, for we search ourselves at risk! You cannot escape your behavior. It is a humbling experience to lose friends, for sure, and everyone will go through it and most of us will go through it many times over. If you find yourself malicious with words, it is a good idea to go silent.

Today I came into the dawn with one less hand to hold. Troubling words were exchanged over the course of recent weeks which left me lost and confused. I saw the turmoil of my emotions and how I gave voice to many troubling feelings and it was not always pretty. Last night I spent with close friends I have known for over twenty years, who were in town from Chicago with their young son and daughter. They camped in my backyard. I introduced the three year old to Lucky Charms, and now he cannot get enough. I was fortunate to hold a child on my knee. Then we said goodbye and I was back on my own. I had already gone silent on the dead sea of dead ends, because all I had to say anymore was selfish and useless. Instead I prayed for relief from that pain in my heart. And I took the risk. Then I took a long afternoon nap, and it was restful. And I woke up and sat up from bed and was scared coming back into the world without that old hand to hold. But a calm came over my spirit like no other! For I have been true. I have been true!

Journal # 05.26.15

I wore a purple shirt and blue jeans. I used black mascara and brown eyeliner. My foundation was liquid and closer to pale than ever before. My mood was fly, like a butterfly could not be captured. Everything about the day was quite fresh other than my faithful if predictable following of schedule. I could watch the sun go up and down a thousand times and still know there was more rebirth going on than dying. Dying was merely a trick of the eye, and god a great magician. One might even take death out of the equation altogether, were it not for the seduction of blood and taste for theatre.

the turnaround

i crash and burn
my world falls
down
i get right up
then turn
around

a letter from a jailhouse
jay-cat
tries to work behind
the tired eyes

take me down
from Dubai heights

strip my inhibition
stark naked
hollering
mad

far
from sunlight

to depths below
the dolomites

recessed
in death's sincere sound
of silence

pervasive and persuasive
fears of senseless
resounding
violence

i'm lost already
in tomorrow's retribution

the fantasy labyrinthine
of my furious
mind

let me warm your heart some

© Katya Mills

i died on a bus in a ditch on a mountain
my blood compelled to the ground
in a fountain

i came back
determined

i died when an eagle
plucked me up
in Alaska
and fed me to
children

i came back
defeated

i lived in a cave with a guardian
dragon. passing time
in liquid mineral

i died when a child fell asleep
in your arms. my fairy tale
ending

shut into darkness
placed back between bookends

i came back full of
vengeance

and bled out the nostrils
and eyes. a virus

how else could i live?
you tell me survival
i do what i
must

i know
i'm a nameless
burning atrocity
i know
how i die
on your lips
every day

i come back haunted
undaunted

i died with the death
of the quarantined
child

i died on the breath
of some irrigated
lung

i won't live again!
i swore on your life
we died in a car crash
you and your wife


now crystalline amber poison condensate
i drip from the radiator steam
in the fluttering light
of a dream

awaiting the bloodlines of unknown
future origin. particulate
matter

16th near J. photo by K

i splatter
my art on these walls
like its nothing

as darkest intention
disingenious
crawls
down the
spine like a vine

i died in the heart of a freshly made
widow. fomenting
my next evolution

i come back a cancer
the kind we all live with

i come back a sonic dionysian
boom
watch as i soak up the carpet
your room

then carefully will my way back
into your pores
cut down to half
the half daughters of
whores

taking your fancy
picking your pocket
Sid Vicious and Nancy

i came back the tormented life
i was given. the rain and
the cattle

driven and
driven

i died on a hill. overlooking a pasture
monet with his paintbrush
impressions to capture

i died on a gurgling mute
strangulation
my death living on
sycophant
indignation

i died with no purpose
no heart
and no soul

so that you could live
on just so you
know

digi-soaked

when it all ends
what will i have to show?

coffee ground residue
in my blood
marrow

when it all ends
what will i do?

rise a vapor spirit
then inhabit
you

when it all ends
will i get to look back?

at my life
as a GIF
on a repeat
track

when it all ends
will i have any friends?

to kneel on my grave
and split all my
ends

when it all ends
will i still remain?

or just my blogs
and my ebooks
digi-wet
in the
rain

Taking Leave

Jumped
Upon

Gathered up
Stomped on

Born of sun
Water
And air

Blown off
Blown off your property
Blown away

Born of air
And water
And sun

Crushed
Torn apart
Driven over
Glued

To art

Born of
Water pulled
Up from
Ground

Gathered
Stared upon
In Wonder

Pilgrimage
To see

self-portrait, K

Changing
Colors
Choking

Dehydrated
Dying

Photographed
Falling

Swept
Away


by Katya