sunny side up

from now on i cook my eggs sunny side up

the way i liked them when i was a kid

fought off corona for a fortnight and survived

grateful and making some changes

one order of life. bright with yolks unbroken

on a raft of impossible dream come true

 

   #katyamills

more than halfway out of control

 

when you breathe 

you do so effortlessly

whereas i have to run like i am hunted 

just to sharpen the axe

writing off this shallow sleep

blow by blow

what are we more than 

halfway out of

control

#katyamills

crypto night

they gave what they had 

the hours of attention undivided they gave

what they made 

digitally sealed cryptographic tokens

etched into trees scrawled 

upon paper

to fade

#katyamills

i am

i stretch i breathe i let my feelings arise
i am saturated i have too much to do
i am talking to a friend
i am

exist.ential

I've been writing this piece called Trouble '99 since late spring of last year. I read it in its entirety a couple weeks ago and found it several shades darker than i expected. Which corresponds to one of my three beta readers' critique. Writing is not unlike painting. You add layers until you find an image that best represents what you wish to portray. Yet with fiction you wanna let it be its own honest creation, which is often outside what you intended. Mixing conscious and unconscious elements. Let it be what it is. My characters may have fallen into a hopeless situation as they walk through the pages, but there is always hope. I think my work is often threatened by an existential mood. I have wrestled in my heart with this since I was a child, one day in the backyard when the limit on life first struck me. So words naturally come out of me that reflect that disappointment. Implicit in my sadness, is how much i love life and all its intricacies. How badly I wish to live on!

something to contend with

the crowd measured
in thousands

Boston in October

the
Yankees at Fenway
Park

these games
we play

signifying nothing

look up
see the sky

there's
something to contend
with

therapy styles by k (describing my practice in words)

alliance. you come with your intention. your concerns. i respect you. you want to work and improve upon your life. i want to help you reach your potential. we begin our journey together. you let me into deeper parts of your psyche. you trust me. i am a professional. i have learned to listen for cues, to help bring unconscious (dreams and symbols and drives) out of the dark and into the light. maybe it's based on a thought process (attitudes and beliefs which shape what you value in your life) you learned in childhood, how you got your needs met then in an environment particular to you and you alone. maybe it's how you feel or associate or dissociate and go numb. i want to ask the right questions. open-ended. to help you explore your inner world. so you can see how your thoughts and feelings and attitudes shape your behavior. to help you see your choices. you don't have to act on impulse again and again. you can pause and consider alternative ways of being. you may resist this, because it's hard work. it can bring up painful memories. things could get worse before they get better. i want to help you through your resistance. i appreciate how you have survived. you are dynamic. ever changing. we are working together to get your blood flowing. you may feel disconnected from yourself. this is existential work. i want you to feel so alive in a modern world of madness which tends to dehumanize us. i want you to feel purposeful and find meaning in life. to empower you. you are doing your best. you are open and trusting and honest. you are willing to change. you are also so human and resistant to change. we all are. it's okay. i am your companion for a while. we have a working relationship. we got this. thank you for coming. for letting me in. let's do this. we got this.

belly button

you and me the way we

think may change the
color of our sheets unlike
the coral green they
were

when you and me we
acquired them

then

the sky a different hue than

the one she wore in 1822

before the war
how blue

the sound of the sea unlike what our mother knew through her shells

fathers buried
in sand the beach stretches
a band

me and you
imperceptible our teeth and
bellies move like gelatin

foam at the mouth
relentless the wind
the age will define us

at last

the sun dies every day
how sad

yesterdays
todays
tomorrow

the belly buttons
hollow

how smitten we are with
our world in the end

promise

once there was a boy named bee 

upon my knee

softly telling me how rivers

did not reach the sea in the year 

twenty twenty three

some were black others blue

in twenty twenty two

and none could you wash your

self in

his eyelashes fluttered 

feeling me shudder

i could tell 

he honestly knew 

he unbuttoned my collar 

i cried and hollered and then he promised 

just breathe

then rolled up our sleeves so carefully

we could see those cuts on

our arms

with one finger 

he crossed my lips

tenderly looking into my eyes

and

we existed quietly there

until about quarter past one

bee upon my knee

and me

i wondered if all of the darkness

 he shared

could 

     ever

         be

          undone

yet i knew our

                 pain

             was

         the

same

- KatYa, 2017

chalk it off as existential slowburn -iii

... i was foolish. i tried to convince you i loved you. maybe it was all i was capable of - a desperate time - we hardly spoke anymore, one of us bound to be triggered or hypersensitive or so very much in disagreement we would rather be silent and avoid the pain, stuff flared up anyway when we couldn't keep it in any longer - yet love doesn't need convincing - i've never felt like such a colossal failure, it's really fucked, the enduring pain of being alive and becoming more aware of whats really going on with everybody, so few people really making it and us, sad and repeating, start out so well like we do, overcoming adversities and falling in love, making a family where there was none, then stricken by some or other corruption, watch sanity slip away in the residuals, wicks away, sad reminders of love affairs we dusted, wondering how they could be so indifferent to us now, realizing in hindsight how i could be so insensitive sometimes, life gets stressful and the bond between two people begins to fray if it cannot hold. love shouldn't need convincing but we go there anyway. chalk it off to existential slow burn.

chalk it off as existential slowburn -ii

... i dont know how to write this. i want to think before i write, but i cannot. i want to treat this
with the attention it requires. the gravity it inspires. the sensitivity it needs. i am even now
holding back from trying to rush to disagree with you on some of your points you made,
because i do feel differently, yes, and thats okay, yes. however, i cannot disagree with your
overall vision. because this is also what i see. atleast i think our visions of us are pretty
much alike. it doesnt matter if they are or they aren't, though. i truly believe that.

god i feel like im in church all of a sudden. because my spirit is aching. i feel my spirit through
my body in that powerful way like i did on the best sundays in the earliest 1980s, when my family
was a young family, the 4 of us were tight, we had a big old queene anne victorian to tear around
in, a big old lawn wrapping around her, and a little peke-a-poo dog named buttons. its fur was like
the worst case of jerry curls when she was just a pup. my moms radiant joyfulness at having
all of us together singing hymns on sunday, well, it just filled us up, also. but my dad wasnt
really into it. so the kids werent either. so looking back its an aching kind of spirit i felt ...

touch

These days
these nights

these scars
which map
the skin

these highways
these hairstyles
these thoughts
all lead to dead
ends

the tax dollars
we spend to connect and
reconnect us

overpasses
underpasses
mobile phones

your family
your clothes
your hair your age has
changed

these trees
rooted in the yard

the paint
once fresh
chips off
into the grass

the asphalt cracks
like laughter

the anger
like lightning
the tears

there is no wind
there is no rain
no thunder nor
darkness

can dilute
this lonely
feeling

but when
 i hold
your hand...

Journal .000696 rpms

Everything is lined up perfectly for our success. Yours. Mine. 
The horse is in the barn. The squirrels are in the trees. The mendicants on their knees. 

The world is rotating at .000696 rpms. 
The perfect exposure to the sun, for consciousness to bloom.
Warning to self. Do not let this day slip away! 
As the world turns, let the fat burn. 
Sizzle! 

Give it all away again. 

When the mind's exhaust casts its mist over you, obscuring the perception in pings of many deadly thoughts, be sure to stop where you are and challenge those thoughts. 

Who are you to be envious of another? 
Who are you to be full of anger?
Who are you to wish harm?
Who are you?

Those instincts which once kept us alive, will always haunt us. 
They were burned into our grooves. 

Journal # 03.10.15

Wanna try something? Try leaving your cell phone at home. Try making a difference by listening to someone without interruption. Try not letting the world cut in on you. Try not reading anything but their eyes. Try writing down nothing but the memory on your mind. Try not researching but searching your immediate environment for what you need. Try asking a different question. Try on a different salutation. Try smiling and being friendly, even when you are not feeling so hot. Try forgetting you are in a rush to get somewhere. Try not mentioning the weather or your athritis. Try to forget politics and sports for a day. Try taking a different, slower, less direct route. Try walking around lost, without any answers. Welcome back to (human) being. Can we love you now?