1.6.25

I went to measure my fingers for ring size. I got a gift certificate I can use for fashion rings. some of my fingers grew out at different slants. we were rough house kids. they broke and healed on their own. that was the way back then. live with it. #katyamills

un.fashion

fashion or unfashionable it came from you. how you walk how you talk how you write how you sketch how you skate how you run how you teach how you fight how you give how you help how you see how you feel how you heal how you deal. the heist is 4 losers. be you. be real.  #katyamills

patron saint of fast fashion

after the dance these fabrics dissolve

and like your threadbare arguments they 

thin into the wind

someones gonna be locked out 

of the heart again degraded 

like oil

#katyamills

may sometime three

I believe it is good to be part of what is to come. Always a change. When you become it, staying exactly with it, they see you embody a movement and you can be credited, thus, you are the movement. This is not without dangers. You may rise and fall. You may lose yourself somewhat. They may disinherit you when the fashions change. I tend to shy from movements which are both conscious and public. I may identify with some, partways...yet I like to create space and step aside into it. I prefer my own rhythms. My own movement. Yet even personality is perilous. Life will go on so become.

the best feeling

can be an everyday feeling not an unusual feeling and not one i wake up to necessarily, no, the best feeling arrives in the process of the right action, when i am doing the good and often unpleasant work. and when the hard work proves the best feeling, time after time, we see we can count on it. that's how the hard work becomes just a little easier for us, and living begins to knock kindly.

who you are

My sweater has holes in it and you will not forgive me.
I tell you I bought it this way and now you really cannot forgive me.
I tell you I lied, I made it, I cut these holes with knives when I was bored.
You stop blinking and stare.

Trying to smoke
me out.

I shrug and pour myself a cup of coffee.
I'll never be who you want me to be.
And I forgive you.
You seem to always have that look on your face. In my kitchen.
It's who you are.

effacing the place

Such a prodigious commentary rolled out of a disconnected narrative. All the ghosts of old mama Bell had to glom together as operators, pulling and pushing their wires into that old electronic wall. All the calls incoming got patched through, and where hello meets goodbye, a patch could efface the English language, in any such redirection, the power of the women at the wall, operators, any which way. And blue came across the neurons and fired them off like static and clung to the statement preceding. Contradictions were contradicted and life would go on this way through the world wars, and endless series of splicing and bringing people together through a wire. Afflicted with afflictions, some operators were, and found peace only after the in betweens of their shifts and smoke long breaks twirled away. Nobody always knew nothing could turn into something when a push met a pull and were patched away from blue to gray. There were often a few kids meanwhile caught like in spiderwebs, tied up in an apron by a hem.

'operators at the hem' by K

multiplatinum

Saturn's paparazzi crashed and burned. Cassini had been in her orbit since 2004, stealing shots and selling them to NASA. Saturn with her moons, Saturn circling the sun. They even caught close ups of the moonlets in the many rings she wore. i fell back asleep, reading, after we had breakfast. my nail beds dreaming to be covered in comforter blue. i won't see my sweet planet for who knows how long, but she's always with me. i sure am happy she cannot be exploited. nobody's safe from teeming life these days. not the earth, not you, not me. yet we keep shining and turning and glancing off the sun in this tiny frame of the multiplatinum universe. may your optimism be eternal, if nothing else is.

casino

Fashion thought so highly of herself, she lost her sense of humor. Twitter took advantage. Meanwhile, over at the Red Hawk Casino, nickel games plied the minds with dazzling wheels of chance and free drinks. The tribe was making bank. I looked into a mirror and gave up on my face, you dropped another twenty in timeless space.

i mean no harm

i am not out to get anyone and i doubt i am so important that anyone would be out to get me either. i get upset and jaded and rebellious and depressed and lethargic and dramatic and hyper and childish as much as anyone. i get outta bed and clean myself up and make me some breakfast and coffee, and head out to work my ass off everyday just like anyone tryin to get by in this crazy world. i have trauma in my past which reaches out to grab me, too. i have good memories of being a carefree kid and am grateful to my family for all they did to raise me right. i went a little sideways, sure. who didn't? i have my moments i feel elated and free and my spirit is strong these days. but i still make mistakes like anyone, i have my pitfalls. believe me, i mean no harm. i'm not out to cause anyone pain, and i don't really subscribe to the idea that other people are the cause of my pain. well, maybe sometimes i feel that way. but at my best, i know my pain is my pain, and no one else can really be to blame. not my mom, not my dad, not my friend, not my enemy, not my brother, not my sister, and not even god.

this moon is not pink and they-them-theirs never will be

Though you call them the 'pink moon' and dress them in floral prints of the season, the full moon tonight will show their true color to you tonight and let you be let down (or up), and they will light your faces up so they can see how happy or sad you are to see them so. And they will shine upon the phlox they were misnamed after, whose flamed flowers will rise in unison to the top of their stems to peer upon them, and feel their power of persuasion, and the feeling will feel full and beneficial and the phlox flower water will become bubbly and pour pink champagne into the trumpet of the lily. All will at very least acknowledge the full and vibrant moon for their mighty refusal to be classified, categorized, denigrated, or diagnosed. Darwin may well be confused, yet his curiosity a contagion the whole world could catch. The moon was a kind moon, a gentle moon, a moon of many colors, and kept their feelings somewhat to themselves, so not to disturb the galaxy.

little children made a song they like to sing
every april comes around...

then one day 
the pink moon got away
turned blue 
for me and for you
happily and for 
ever

too

yes

The quality of life changed, i could sleep at night and stay up all day. i found an exceptional colombian coffee which filled my thermos with a couple spoonfuls of brown sugar and cream, and lasted all day long. i was happily employed in the art of conversation, beneath the surface of dysfunctional meet and greets. spring was coming on strong and every other person with allergies. the cats found entertainment in the yards, after a long winter indoors. i replanted my plant and set it on the windowsill where it prospered. my boyfriend took me for pancakes early mornings, and then we hit the depot for large sacks of mulch, five for ten, and i helped him toss them into the bed of the truck. he took them to the Delta for the orchards.  -KatYa, 2017

good night means good wishes

I no longer have the pride of my youth, but I stand tall as ever. I no long carry the false promise of an imaginary future in my head, where all problems have been solved and challenges overcome. I face the rising sun and realize despite its powerful light and growing heat, it has no edges and cannot cut me. We can therefore have a dialogue over our three course meal. Hardship will never be just a memory and the sun has no gender.

good morning  (appetizer)
afternoon  (repast)
good evening  (dessert)

- K (meditations on a rainy day)

ten. indivisible

i breakdown, too. useless, not unlike a chevy silverado, nothin in the tank. if there's no coffee in me by 6am, make a lawn ornament outta me. so i start early, crackin those beans through the grind, by hand sometimes, yawnin bedhead and all, spring winter summer and fall, gotta keep myself runnin and runnin along, so i can be luscious good and vitamin k for you, my love, roarin my middle age burnin fuel with that special manner makes all the millenials turn their heads, double take, slap their faces to wonder where the hell i came from? yes, i am my own sensation, out in the wild west of this great nation, one being, guarded, sentient, indivisible, under god, and irreverent to the core. last week against all odds ran my first ever ultra, just ran and ran eight hours long like a lunatic, up and down quarry road through the american river canyon, drawing poison oak for the second time in three months, so sore for three days i could hardly walk and find me thrilled through the pain... just now i saw the county job i applied for has hit processing stage, so juicy like a quarter orange shall i climb out of my navel and squeeze on to the commodity, precious life, dear god, and hopefully get around my self center and finalize my time, this life, on the carrying about in service to those less fortunate, county state country corner, with a beating heart and a backpack and a rushing spirit glancing off the darkness like light does. that's all i want, anyway.

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!

imprinted. 4 life

These are not simply memories which are recalled to haunt and thrill me from time 2 time, no, these experiences I have had, the powerful ones, are accessible always, and you will find them in the way I speak, the way I think, the way I walk, the way I feel... you see, my friends, we have been imprinted and this is 4 life.

The life (lived) sinks to the deepest part of you, floating in a pendulum arc to rest upon your bedrock, where all is cool and slow-motion, your hard drive, safe and preserved, and takes form of an emanation, begins to glow! The loves, the friends, the places, the losses, our greatest moments and cavernous falls. The rush of it all, and yet resides in us, and when we meet again following some passage in time, you see the change in me, and I the difference in you. This light is not unlike sitting down with the beaten back pages of your favorite book, water-stained and dog-eared, tarnished and soft in your hands in your belly in your heart on a rainy day, deeper than any tattoo.

A song comes along in the cloud, have I told you how it hits me? Any one of the numbers between 1973 and 2017 and now I am all curled up focused in the center of the novel, all the many faces all the actors situating themselves inside the pressure of my blood. The world is one of endless colors then. I am who I was all over again, and it makes me.

It made me so. Made me who I am and for that I am thankful. I will never regret a drop of it, a day, an hour, a starstruck moment in my own endless night.  I may have changed, my dear, but only for the better and only for the best!  I am and we are all of the world which has touched us, though we maybe long ago hiked ourselves right off that decrepit map... we found bypass.

  - KatYa, 2017

once dream cars now we need help

We need help, too, our once dream cars now smoking on the freeway and off the next exit not far from home, thankfully, pulling over to the side of the first street off the ramp not being swept today and no meter, thankfully, and not the worst neighborhood in the good old usa, thankfully, and release the hood and look under it at the old beast, V8 like the juice, and the radiator's miserably old and fucked, she's gonna need to be cool before we wanna twist that top, we need help and we drop the hood and head in any direction, searchin ourselves for the local friend to lend a hand, cell phone's dead, legs dead from a heavy day of work in the city, week long and no one's home to put an iron to those worn out clothes, the way we dress reflectin our feelin inside, we need help, edging over a desk into an office space, delivered back with an easy full swipe of any screen, lit like a lamp with a high wattage eco-unfriendliness in the atmosphere

after hours cuz there's nothing else to do, overtime cuz extra cash is a screw, locking into union squares with high echelon affairs, all these bios laid out sick and sweetly with photos on websites pushing free streams well into the vingt-et-un of our recorded history, centuries upon centuries of layer cake separated by cream cheese, thought we had a whole generation of twenty/something concentration high kids worldwide leaning and dancing into our wondrous worlds of fluff, they definitely related well with our sundried front street placard mentality, they did our snuff, waxed with plastic veneer smiles over reality. we thought we were badasses big thumbing and wet through sacred pages now soiled -- and oh how we fell -- cried when we came across our beloved mimeo-copied verse, generous endowment long, sticky fat thumbprints on the cornices, pages I through XLX... who needs sex? not us, thankfully. we need help.

in a fashion of caring

These days I see people in a sacred space who are tragically depressed, like they can hardly get themselves out of the house and make it to session. I see people who are in abusive relationships and sometimes with themselves. I see myself seeing people and I don't know how to help. All the stuff they taught me not always on the ready. What ends up happening is I help create the sacred space in which I see them, and we meet there, and I invite them there again, and I'm not always making any money cuz I volunteer, too, so I may be tired and permanently jetlagged by my nightshift, and I'm sure they see me tired and tryin to pay close attention cuz I care, and hopefully, just hopefully, they will realize they are worth caring for and start to care for themselves a little more, too, but even if they don't, well that's okay, too.

the plot. ecstatic

A while back i was wearin a floral print shirt i bought with a gift card leftover from the holidays, and found myself perspiring through another busy day, what with the excitement of life in this little city, and my sweat comingled with the pattern, the print from the inside out, and the material began to stick to my skin. i tried to tug it away from time to time, whilst talking to people about their problems, then had to take my coffee break early, smiling as i excused myself, when to my dismay i found the print had firmly rooted itself into me, and my upper body was one big floral tattoo, a colorful garden up and down my arms and fingers, across my shoulders and breasts, around to encompass my back replete! i quickly made my way, unacosted, out a side door to exit the building, and running home from there i had many uninvited acknowledgments and gang signs flashed my way by passerbys, all in the breathless spirit of the life of ink, and finally i got over myself by a chain link fence a few blocks from where i lived. as i caught my breath in a lean i saw the clouds open up to the sun, and closed my eyes to feel the sudden warmth spread over me and fill me with a feeling i have never before known, a sorta ecstatic love! last thing i remember i was leanin more deeply into the chain link, which was giving into the weight of me, the side of my face and body getting waffled, one eye fixed within a quadrant of link. i opened it to see within, a community garden with plots for anyone who cares. i always wanted a plot of my own, beside pumpkins, green pepper and garlic. now i kinda sorta do! i seem to reside there, and they tend to me, watering and cutting me back every so often. i don't mind my rectangular confines, so long as sun can reach me and provide the ecstatic love, here where the plot thickens, in the heart of midtown, i have lost interest in anything else.

circa 09.01.2011

09.01.11

Posted on September 2, 2011 by KatYa

The truth is confusing, the confusion is disturbing, and reality does not give a damn. My heart holds vacancy for the life of them. and you. Still to attend to the sky in its entirety.                          Sea. The depths grow green to Royal blue. Where all lies over exposeD in a happy residue. Off center in allostasis. From the residual, extract the amplification. Subtract from that all that you already know or believe.  The tattooed kneecap. the hair weave. The eyes tell of suffering behind capri ankles. The wrist-roll up to three quarters a sleeve.                The honesty cannot be found from infusion thereafter. She was left to floats on water boiling. Like a poached egg. Then arises Thick, like crisis in love. Then arises as vapor- Clear