sugar skulls

inside our sugar skulls

the thoughts hold the key

we mill them with cider

from apples in the tree

#katyamills

whatever (it takes)

 smoked a whole pack 

of cigarettes drank an entire pot

of coffee

whatever it takes to keep still 

and write the damn

book

#katyamills

Ukraine

seeing the vision in the Ukrainians

the volunteers the photojournalists 

hope is restored. a country fights

for the values by which it came to exist!

that's sacred. still. it's war and

hope is also decimated

 #katyamills

some

fire in the ocean 

color in the sky

independence 4 

some. the rest

forced to the ground

eat dirt. i. what i

have i like to give

so they. they

can taste some

too  #katyamills

back.ward

yes freedom also means you have the right to believe anything no matter how patently false unequivocally backwards and unceremoniously walk away from common sense and wisdom to devote your entire being to the pursuit of social injustice and economic inequality. you live with yourself. 

TRANS.AM

after

years of loneliness

adolescence was a fury 

depression

suicidal self-hate

5150 hold

you

finally got your freedom on 

the road. cool oil base 

floods your system

liquid gold!

existence 

no longer 

denied!

#katyamills

hk

we see our flags in your streets we see

   your movement like ours

could not

     cannot be 

denied

the legend of captive 8

captive 8

did not hesitate

they made it out

somehow

the words

of dying 

breath persist

i am free 

now

captive 8 by kwm

captive 9

may never know

the old great feel

of earth and pine

and snow

of trees and moon

long shadows

glow

captive 8

a foot of snow

held their imprint 

form 

so long

home they went

due north

for what 

a life was

worth

captive 9

had heard 

the shot

disintegrate 

the hope

as well 

that night

behind a downy 

swell

they cried the memory

clean

of captive 8

who shared

the dream

locking doors

and prison whores

'neath the cold 

steel 

toe

all they ever

knew was all

they ever

know

- kwm

free

The air was popping and crackling and exploding all around us, and as the sun set i listened to independence day sing her song, sizzling and whistling and screaming into darkness, and the chaos of my mind went dead finally, in the midst of this busy life, and i became a small yet meaningful voice among millions, no, billions of inflections wishing to be heard. And small yet meaningful was all i ever was and cared to be.

cycling adventure 2017

We are 16 hours from liftoff, the start of the ride at the Barn in West Sacramento, and i am rushing around getting some last minute things in place, doing my laundry, securing cat-sitters, packing my bags, getting the bike ready, doing therapy, and, well, i just had to sit down for a minute, take a deep breath and thank god and the supporters who helped us get here. This is my second NCAC. NorCalAidsCycle 2015/2017. A 300-mile, 4-day bicycling adventure through Woodland to Placer County then up to Lake of the Pines and back to Auburn, down to Roseville and back up again, then down through Granite Bay to Beals Point on Lake Folsom and back home to William Land Park. 

The forecast is just great, sunny weather through the weekend and in the mid seventies. Unlike two years ago I know many people in this years ride, some from the 2015 ride, others from Kaiser (including my doctor who is riding with his sister this year), and I belong this year to 'Team Ladybugs' which is comprised of 4 riders and 3 crew members all of whom i work with at the GHC in Sacramento where I am a volunteer counselor. Feels good to belong and I am excited to get on my trusted ride, the same one I used in 2015 and have owned since 2011, sleek black steel with carbon forks, Motobecane's Cafe Noir. Two wheels and twenty seven gears of delightful freedom.

quentin and k. selfie @ rainbow bridge

All contributions to this cause are going directly to the healthcare providers who locally have a direct impact on the community, offering essential and immediate services at low to no cost and sliding scale, to the people who need them. Anywhere from hiv testing to counseling to advocacy to affordable medical care, respite, crisis intervention and basic needs for indigent peoples who lack them. California is remarkable for offering services that other states in this great country do not provide.

keyko and k. william pond rec

I can't wait for the camping tech-holiday and break from work. I've been working 12+ hour days all this year if you include my job, my new volunteer job, and all the hours i put into writing/blogging, and I am pretty darn beat up and frazzled! Thank god i love what i do, or else i would surely be miserable. I haven't had to train for the ride as hard this year, thanks to the marathon training i did all of last year. 

Anyways, the beauty of life is in the journey, day by day. I wish you could all be riding beside me but for sure you will be in my heart. And may we all be grateful for our health and longevity, and keep the memory of those friends and family we lost to HIV/AIDS alive today.  We will be having a candlelight vigil on saturday night up at the Gold County Fairgrounds in Auburn where we are camping. I will at that time light a candle for them, too. 

love and gratitude,

KatYa   'just another ladybug'

Journal # february five

A school of puffed up little clouds swam across the sky, chased by a storm, some were not quick enough, i saw them overtaken by the darker water vapors and manipulated into the greater whole. i myself was running, too, through a morass of thick mud and robust grasses, softened focus without my eyeglasses. i split into two and then into four (could have made eight if it weren't such a chore). i once loved our leader, but not anymore.

we will know who we are

indie author K

Dress yourself up a little different this holiday season. Streak your hair with pink or blues. Be completely proud of yourself; you are a flawed wonder of the universe. And by the way, you don't have to be married to your mobile phone anymore. Massage the attention span with inaction, try and go tech-free for a day, go full force family breakfast! Try not to give in to the vibration. Stop your finger from swiping the screen. Your children need you. They have no milk in their cereal. Nobody taught them how to soften up a situation. Knead the hard candy of routine, until it softens into taffy. Stretch to the sky without a gps signal. Your brother and sister will soon follow. It's okay to concede you got lost, we all did! I swear we will know who we are.

Journal # 07.02.16

There's no fuckin around anymore with my life, I mean, anytime I go sideways and let myself go even just a bit off, I suffer several hours later, usually in the hangtime before I have to get up for work, but also it can destroy my weekends, too. I don't know what I did or if it's just natural aging but it's right in my face and I'll tell you somethin else, well; I kinda like things better this way. Cause I used to fuck off all the time and I could fuck off for days and get away with it. Lots of polysubstance abuse, you know, back then before I got clean, even after I knew I was an addict and drugs were no good for me, devolving, I tended when disheartened to return to the familiar and break away from common decency and back to the tops of far off peaks of despair, looking over my life and sneaking and peaking and using and falling and crying and trying to get over myself again. That's no way to live, you know, but we do it anyway. But my margin of error has disappeared and I'm really thankful, really grateful in a way to feel the pain, now, the age or heaviness or whatever, and I don't do drugs going on 4 years, and I just get beat up by too much caffeine or sugar or too little water or too many carbs or too much sun and overexertion, wow, so I get back to work takin care of myself, right away cause I much desire a better more forthright life for myself, an adherent to a sound personal code and reasonable daily allowance of dreaming my way forward into a kindhearted reality. Whatever the hell that means... and I mean it. I cannot outlast anyone. All I can do is get ina sweet groove and try and stay there and work it awhile so we can be better off by me. I mean contribute my part, live good for someone else to see for themselves how to go about it, too. There's no fuckin around anymore and why would I want to? Seek the joy of being alive and that's it. Give and give some more. Show and don't show off. Accept who you are and love what you have so you can carry that and not need to escape nothin and then they will see the truth in you and it's not pretty or grandstandin or anything, it just is what it is and that's more than enough.

cold. the purple rain

Cold, cold, the rain when you got a million fans and you're gettin older and life is painful, seems it always hurts as god is your witness. Cold, cold the rain as you set your jet on target for the sun. I saw you there, once, dressed in black and white. Caught in the electrical storm, can-not-rise-a-bove-the-pur-ple-rain. The pills make it a little easier and won't take you down, no, nothing can. Nobody can tell you what to do, your music heralded all around the world and god has blessed you, we held you here on high. Cold, cold the rain and you gave away the umbrella. You always liked it raw. Any stage any auditorium any stadium, the people they lined up for you. Cold, cold the rain falls in Minnesota. You gave us hope and power and free-dom-to-cre-ate-our-loving-selves. You gave me power and hope. Cold, cold the rain, the purple rain, tonight it falls for you.     - 2 Prince. love KatYa

Maze 2:12:5 Storytelling

Book Two
Daughter of Darkness Series
Chapter 12:5

In the last episode 2:12:4 Kell's history is caught up, as she frees a Cadillac Escalade from the showroom floor in Texas with a head full of Oxycontin and some voices setting her on a course for Oakland and her people.

you could believe in drugs

You could believe in drugs you could. You would want to have them always around and rely on them to get you out of a jam, rely on them to help you produce, rely on them for energy, rely on them for creativity, rely on them for calm. You could believe in drugs and demand they make you feel better when you are in pain or feel differently when you are sad, differently when you are upset. You could put faith into drugs. Or you could try and believe in yourself.

society has come to polish off the self

I need complete silence for as many hours of every day and as many minutes of every hour and as many seconds of every minute as I can get. There are big ideas circulating which will otherwise be lost to dark matter, casualties of the smart phone alert system. And if comprehension of these ideas are lost, I will be lost with them. Society has decided communal is the only way, at the expense of any self. Myself, yourself. Society has declared the individual no longer to be trusted, no longer significant. Society has come to the internet to polish off the self. There is a war being waged for control over the web, a war of individuals demanding free expression against the ever matriculating constituents of the giant dark formless blob. Hold on to your hats!

you have the universal human right to move on

I am sad to have to say goodbye to old friends, but there is nothing to be done anymore to salvage a friendship sometimes, and though my friends may not wanna accept my walking away, walk away I will 'cause there is nothing there anymore, just pain. I am very sad to have to say goodbye and mean it. And then they reach out again to see if they can word something just right to cause me enough trouble grasping what they are suggesting, this old friend takes the pin and buries it subcutaneous and deeper towards my heart, hoping to touch me again in that dreadful yet stale way, to force me back into the dead patterns of negative thought and feeling and relating. And I resist as best I can. For what will it matter how I respond or how vehemently I disagree with what they are suggesting has happened, or some way they think I am responsible for the troubles in their lives? For sure I am equally flawed and in my life have brought storms and darkness upon my own world. I am no better than anybody, though I have my talents and gifts. I am trying not to waste them anymore. I am busy writing books, can you not see? I am busy hoping and dreaming and living in new light. I believe I must move on. I have the right to do so. There is no marriage, there are no vows to hold me here in this heart of mutual misery. I ask that anyone who once called themselves a friend, or still considers themselves a friend of someone who has expressed an interest in freedom to move on and be left alone, ought to consider this: THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS    and regain your composure and consciousness and self-respect by ceasing all activities contrary to the basic principles, stop phoning, stop texting, stop emailing, stop cramming your commentary and opinions under the door! Cease and desist in all communications and not limited to the five basic senses by which we perceive one another in this world! Unfortunately you have lost your right to my ever expansive circle of light, and so much as I know, I have lost my right to yours. I can light a candle for you, for sure, and wish you the very best (and get well soon). I have tried and tried for so long to restore a pathway between our hearts, like the one we first knew, but the conditions are no longer safe and the bridge has been devastated and fallen and sunk to the bottom of our sea of tears. I am sorry to see you go, sorry for the loss of a once great friendship. Now I must move on without you.

confessions after a blue moon

Cali state fair by Katya

I ran the fields and I was considered dangerous for a time, twenty-nine years ago, and what a great feeling to be a wild one, the one who ran right past you and left you standing cold. I confess I am not very feminine in the traditional sense. How difficult a word to employ anymore. Let me unemploy it then, for every girl and boy.


I am still in heart a wild one, the one who loves the heart of the storm and cherishes the sound of sirens, yes, the one who  hastens to my death sometimes, Thanatos, keep my blood refreshed! Now I am in love with the life, again, like I was back then, when only the good died young and I wanted so bad to be good. Now I am having the adverse reaction to TV. Now I am restless in the sleep. Now I am pursuing the dream. Now I am indifferent. Now I am free.

Journal #07.06.15

The sun has risen again, and everyone has gone to work. I work at night, so I am at home watching the light edge across the patterns on my couch and carpet, and the quilt my mother gave me. There is firework paper and debris all throughout the city. The night of independence saw me at home, drinking coffee and walking from front to back porch and back to front, listening and looking. From my location, rather central to this city, I could imagine skirmishes all along the perimeter as though we were defending our home from invasion. A strange sensation of patriotism crept into my heart as my imagination took hold. For my city has never been on the verge of attack. My person, yes. My character, yes. My philosophy, yes. But never this place on the map.