u turn

after the poison

left my blood

weakened i was

not yet dead

agonized by

the one who plotted

against me 

in ten days 

i turned

flirtation

away...

my breath 

my thoughts 

left resting 

my heart beats 

brightly 

whose longing 

knows

what you 

turn toward

grows

#katyamills

statica

 

the divine 

exists in the space between stations

where molecules cease 

to behave

#katyamills

enter the ocean

i cannot believe i am
flawless if you told me a million times

the salty breath

crashing into shore 

repeats this notion in my dumb

ears

if you dare not enter the ocean 

headlong you will not drown

neither will you be 

healed 

#katyamills

social work

i saw you and spoke to you and you gave me a lukewarm response. you were with a friend and preoccupied. i was on another mission. i hope you know i care about you. i was trying to say so with my eyes. you have been through some fire. being a social worker is a lucky way to live. they find you or you locate them, in their darkness, and you have a chance to make a meaningful difference. then you detach and they become just another star in the firmament, and all you gotta do is look around to see the ones who made it, and they light up your life.

found a friend

i found a friend who was out there ever since i met him when i moved to Sacramento almost 7 years ago. He has entered a program at the VA and has found recovery. i am thrilled to know he's makin his way out. every time i visited his profile i worried he would be deceased. appears to have hit that spiritual rock bottom place i know so well, where your life is so low there's no further place to descend to. gosh i can relate. one day the pain is so excruciating there is an opening. an honesty. and a willingness to do whatever it takes to recreate ourselves and heal. hopefully to walk again with a purpose and become useful and able to love ourselves and our communities. i told him, i can only wish this for you as i have experienced it myself. and you remind me of myself. remembering the past. thinking of you. wishing you well.

Katya Mills
20 November 2011

Posted 2011 [a FB memory hit my timeline]: "Though the circles of my acquaintances and even friends is full of the bad, the ugly, even wickedness among us... i find a dialectic, a contradiction in it, for these same people are capable of love and sweetness beyond measure and I am at times grateful. For there are glimpses of the compassionate! crazy! empathic! sensitive! and sometimes even mature and responsible. the locus of overlap may be small.... yes! we are immigrants passing through your mainstream ! fyi....our intelligence runs deep. intentions pure."

hunting the unforgiven

I find it wild and a little unsettling to see my country focusing on witch hunts as the ranks of the unforgiven grow, though the feeling is matched by the redemptive quality which forms in our cultural atmosphere each time someone's longheld secret is released and truth stands up finally to power.

This year we have witnessed several figures of great power in Hollywood and the District of Columbia and Manhattan blasted on Twitter and sued and denounced on mainstream media, and a few who have been stripped of power, in those cases where they are clearly (if not by forensic evidence than by the numbers of allegations and survivors) guilty of abusing and betraying the public trust by their actions.

How do I reconcile my mixed reaction to these media moments of horror and truth and compassion? I was once guilty of betraying public trust. Day by day, for several years, I have been working my way back to respectability. Society is giving me a chance to learn from my mistakes. A life cut up by addiction. I left myself behind and lost my mind.

Only god knows if I will make it tomorrow. My past is history. Today I do my best to participate in life and help out, bringing all I have learned with me wherever I go. Sharing. Caring.

What of these public figures whose pasts have caught up with them? Outcasted from society and unforgiven? Why does it disturb me to see them disfigured and disrobed from their fraudulent personas? Isn't this justice and long overdue?

I guess it's sad to watch people die that way, publicly, and sometimes their loved ones have to die alongside them. Meanwhile the victims of their crimes survive. It is unsettling to uncover what they have lived through, the survivors. I know because I am one, too.

I wonder where forgiveness fits in, when it comes to the unforgiven? I wonder if there's a certain hell where healing never starts? A tail end and no beginning. And how it came to be this way?

martial arts mixed with supermodel moon

Good morning world, today it will be partly hysterical with scattered tear gas and a good chance of healing the narcissistic wound, by appearances, anti-Trump and replete with overenforcement of law, and disorder. the wild-eyed tatted up boy from Dublin will enter the Octagon in the square, Madison Garden, while a New Yorker agent of real estate assets makes moves on the Oval, the Office, bearing fruits of the violence of free speech, talking of violence and violence of talking, while the political correct find themselves bundled and floating, sucked slowly into space, drawn to the supermodel moon. the lights of civil rights are mostly white wandering place to place, eye for eye, martial arts mixed and in danger of falling from grace.

terrorism sux

Paris is incredible. Incroyable. Very possibly the most treasured city in the world, though I hate to use superlatives. Have you been there? You will understand the origin of the café and people will talk back to you, tell you how they really feel, argue with you, almost fight with you before you all get down to the basic human show of kindness, and share some bread crusts and cheese, water and wine, coffee and conversation. And embrace one another, locating a point of arrival  - by point of departure. You gotta roll up sleeves and put forth the knuckles of convictions first, show them where you stand. Only then can you find common ground somewhere between, which often is the character behind the words and philosophies. Willingness to defend your cause and country. Loyalty. Spiritedness. Cohesion. Esprit de corps. This is the French term for the universal experience of morale. Uniting behind a common cause. And in these times of terrorism (under attack today in Nice) we need the glue only France can manufacture. Let our hearts go out to the lives lost and the lives living with the loss. We all can feel the loss and let those who we have lost inspire us to counter by coming together somehow to heal these differences because we all can agree, on ALL sides, terror and Terrorism suck.

a star obsolete

I am so sad and there's nothing I can do, well that's not true, I can do my nails and take a shower, I can get dressed and go to work, I can glue myself together and hope that it will hold, yet, sometimes I feel I am headed for a break, like just the other day when my world had turned grey and I fought back the tears and so misunderstood, it took all that I could not to go back and fight, but to give up on the chance to make things all right... yes, it was right around then as I pulled to the curb, slow-cooked my head and sat there disturbed, as the breeze off the delta came whipping around, that I said to myself in a scared voice asking god, is it gunning for me, my psychotic break? Will I sink to the bottom of this salt water lake? I could feel my heart was not into the commitment of losing my mind to starfish and brine, I could feel that my heart preferred to stay sad maybe shocked after my spirit got clocked and devastated so quickly, after such a good run before sands got so shifty.

The only big difference I saw from the past, the last time a friend dropped me hard on my ass, was my own situation how far I have come, 'cause back then I was full of nonsense and chewing gum, unable to work and basically done, no longer young, cold-spirited idle and sometimes suicidal. And the friend and ex-lover whom I lost at that time, carries all those qualities still so I can see through her how I have changed, how that is no longer me. But I don't need to look back anymore or compare, I don't need to be faced with a mirror and stare, to know how I have stretched for my dreams to this place, it's written in my eyes, it's visible in my face, but more essentially woven into my whole character, and though I may fall back upon self-treacherous times, in a moment subdued by a flashback or heartache, and go into madness and anger and venom, and say things I long since stopped saying, and panic and fear and confusion can enter the room... I am essentially goodness and warmth and white light, by noon I will have come out of the darkest of night, and back to my senses and self and clarity, the departure of all fear, weakness and irregularity, where in the cool silence of my study I see, my journey is there, patiently waiting for me...this may not be so, but I hope so to dream of a chance to shine if only to be a lighthouse standing tall, for all the ships out there heading straight for disaster, may I at very least be a star obsolete to guide you, an aster.

readers help writers

How and why? Did a part of me die? The madness in my art described the sadness in my heart. Then someone walked by. The circling of my toe inscribed a path inside the snow. They told me about the sky, and how to use that space. My teeth were misaligned, you saw them in my face. Then the kittens came, a-crying for some milk. I went to find some sweet cream, I found it in a dream. The readers read my mind. I signed their hearts, with love. A part of me was healed. The message was not mine, the envelope was sealed. It came from up above. I told them about the sky, and how to use that space. Some fled, some stayed. They stayed with me, in grace.

author. city cemetery.

Journal # 04.04.15

I awoke one night not a month ago, with madness in my face and eyes, about to scream. I awoke alone in my bed with a kitten or two beside me, and sat up straight with such a rush of adrenaline uncommon at an early hour. I awoke with a wave of nausea spreading up through me, and a clear vision of my nightmare just had. I awoke knowing the evil in my dream had found a new tactic around my defenses, and come up from inside me. I awoke spitting, trying to spit out her venom. I awoke spitting and hyperventilating now, trying to exhale the toxicity inside me. Was I possessed? Was it a succubus? Who had it out for me, I wondered. And in the days to come, I was worried. Very worried. I was tired. Very tired and feeling the residuals of the terror of that night. I finally reached out for help, just today, to a friend. My intuition told me he was the one. And the way I translated all that he offered, was as follows... We may naturally want to gather good energy and hold it close to our hearts, to heal us. We cannot hold on to energy. This blocks the source.  It is crucial we let it cycle through us and release it back out into the world. "We want to  continuously flow the good energies out of us, on a permanent basis." You cannot capture good energy. It will spoil and become toxic. Everything I have, I must give away. I reached out for help and help was there. Indigo. I got away from the world and I kneeled down to pray. Indigo. My friend had given me that which I lacked. Indigo. I saw myself standing. I saw myself running. I saw myself holding and blocking the source. What I realized was the evil in the dream, the entity, was myself. She was me. I saw myself and then my self disappeared and reappeared inside me, frothy and toxic. Part of my self. What I must do is let go of the goodness I have been receiving, release it back into the world. And it starts at my fingertips, typing away on the keyboard, giving you back what I have been given.

Journal # 03.14.15

When I go to the ocean in an emotional state, she levels me. Hyperventilating after the nightmares. The water and salt in the breeze. Inhale. The day begins in an unusual way. Deeper. Look into the fog. The many gradations of white light, rising. Soon to see the horizon. The crow's feet soften and dissipate around the eyes. Calm. My thoughts fall into the sound of the waves curling into the shore. I can walk away. Sustained. I can meet someone. Excited. I can see you again. The way you were to me once. You notice the change over coffee, and are surprised. You get up and motion for me to arise. I hold you in my heart. Anything else was all lies.You hold me in your arms and in your eyes.

Journal # 03.05.15

If I found you now, so many years later, would we get along? What would time have done to us? So many years and you expect time will heal. Well, what if time insisted something terrible into consciousness. Dragged its corpse out from under a house for us to see? Then could we meet and have a grand old fight been waiting for years. Or have walked through the fire by ourselves, to a pointed forgiveness. We might even sit somewhere nice and quiet and talk it over. And what if one of us has sharks swimming in their eyes, and the other has backlight of a thousand halos? Then we shall roll up our sleeves and sharpen our nails and show our teeth. Maybe, if we are lucky, we will meet again, you and me. And after all is said or done, we can hold hands.

Journal # 02.24.15

A chance. Lives are lost in confusion. A helpless feeling anticipates a real chance for a lot of happiness. Wouldn't you want to make someone smile if you could? Textbook.Very simple. Be kind and helpful and selfless.

 Life is never textbook. Quite the contrary. I once enjoyed the sensation of a man's eyes on me. I was younger. I wanted eyes on me. Life happened and I crossed over somewhere. But to see someone's eyes light up like that! In a dreary working existence, in a seaside working-class town? To know I had a part in it. The smile that followed suit. The expressions. The flowers and friendship, listening and sharing, the efforts to understand you. And a boundary line drawn clear. I drew it between you and me. You saw it. I made myself clear. I know I did. You made sure I knew how much you respected me for it. I thought we had a spectacular friendship. Textbook.

Life is never textbook. I gave freely something you said you needed. You surprised me. Some fantastic extraordinary attentiveness! You found the place where my story was bookmarked. Where I could not go on until an obstacle was removed from my path. You removed it! Often without telling me. Suddenly there's a bike light, so I can ride safely to an important destination. A key, so I can open a particular door. An opportunity. Out there in the wilderness you found a name, or address, or a phone number. A pen, so I could write it all down.

All was really well for a while. Sunshine giving the cool morning dew a chance to sublimate and fly.

But what when the morning was frost, and the sun hidden? What then? A hanging fog. The dew drops fall into the earth, and are swallowed by darkness. The sea at night becomes swollen and dark, and all the eyes in the world are shut tight, except yours. And yours, once so full of light, got avarice and grew a monster. A monster behind the eyes. Devoid of feeling. The eyes became a body and the body became intoxicated, and turned a friend into an enemy and took me...

Maybe that was the moment I crossed over. Maybe. Only I say maybe because nothing feels certain anymore. When you took me without asking. Much later, after great and poisonous bouts of ferocity and trembling, I discovered maybe I could still love. I don't know how, but thank God. Thank God I can still love maybe.

Life come out tattered

Life comes out tattered
worn and worn on

Suffering like healing
will process through many reframes

Verses must be sacred
Heat must be acrid like earth

Future yet known....clearly foretold
Divine must come through
not just across

Source flows unfiltered, flows through me.
Flows to me like fluid the senses turn to stone.
like water poured through magazine folded up in glossy paper wave snow cone.

Molecules ceased to behave.
Etiquette got a tourniquet
but still bled out.

And life?
Life went on like usual
Juicy
like centrally banked
to the core
honeydew
apples