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."

bygone euphoria

You may be on the road for years and years before you get off the road and keep to one region, one state, one county, one neighborhood, one single home, one room inside one single home, one single chair inside one room, rocking away the rest of your days. Hopefully, all those years on the road you gathered enough memories to fill up your basket. So you can rock the days away with wild visions of bygone euphoria.

katya

dally into dream. wild who we are

We began by recalling the sea. which was not hard to do, for the sea faithfully came back from far places with green bottles and messages inside, wrapped in the trendiest of weeds. the sea happily let us believe, then to lull us asleep to the tune of the tides. i dallied into a dream i had when i was younger, back then a stronger version of itself. i recalled it sadly now for now it could not capture me like those days back after a war, before a war. sadly like a strong figure, man or woman, who meant something to me looking up, looking up to as a child. or some strong oak tree now dying, now slowly. now drawn up in my drifting mind, as i intend to open my eyes unblinking upon it, as though i may recall it so well it's not called recalling. where my memory ends it begins. the path made purely of small sea shells, both of my hands they were held. sweet talk of summer evenings and what ever to do. sounds and warm light spilling out of small houses. side by side. rolling granny applecores away beyond which wild flowers nobody need bother. leaving orange peels for a trail... wild is how i remember us then, and here, the foot of snail and sand, where our memories began.

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 -i

An old letter i wrote to someone i was in love with ...


PART I

i guess i have been thinking about this honest expression you wrote to me last night
and really worried that i might not be up to addressing it, responding in to it, even reading
it all the way through - which i finally did just now. not so many hours ago you wrote it, and
not so many hours later i read the beginning and purposefully sped through it so the feelings
would not arise. the tough ones. the ones that are the simplest proof (to me) of my love 4 you.

you really opened your eyes and stared at it, didnt you? i mean the relationship, as is, as has
evolved, what has become. i can tell. my question is rhetoric. and its very fucking discouraging,
traumatic and sad, if i look at it one way. the way i see it all when you show me no mercy and
i, in return, show you none back. why? like the argument by the bathroom that must have had
to happen (even though it sucked royally) so that we could be forced to talk about the things
that you very tellingly reminded me we have been brushing over or forgiving or letting slip out of
mind in a patterned way... to be continued

Journal # 06.08.16

The kids were at play across the way and I wondered how to set myself loose like that, again, is my only forum in my head anymore? Summer strikes up a breeze from the delta and I know the blues and oughta sing. You keep that inside and you risk intimidating your blood. I have quarantined myself off the frolicking ocean of internet, maybe as much for you as for me. I wonder do you still have nothing to do but play with your phone all day. Is there anyone holds you anymore? I hope you have someone who loves you, sometimes I still wish it could be me. Today like most days I am trying real hard to simply love the life I have been given. There was a time I didn't have to try, I sure was a lucky kid. I have my moments but it's a lot harder to reach the beach. Please don't ever forget that I love you, maybe not as clearly or definitively like when we were in each other's arms, okay, but the memory of us warms my heart and I won't forget the terror of it all. Cause being honest keeps it real.

august walks with the memory of july

If I could only follow back along the crooked line of life, crickets keeping time, to see all the faces of the ones and when I loved them most, then stop upon a snapshot at the point where it was mutual. If I could I would deposit each Polaroid in my aching head and let the neurotrasmitters have at them, relocating the silver base beneath the image and then spreading like chain link jewels across the synaptic mind, so sparkling are the tears that fall in almond globes upon my clothes or to the ground without a sound, then break apart with me from my reality, back to better times between us. Those times are gone. Tonight with coffee cupped in my hands like a prayer, I can go back there and see us coupled out across the diverse cities of my life. Chicago. St Pete. Boston. Oakland. Evanston. San Francisco. I was younger then but in many ways I feel the same. A button. A shred of clothing. A letter. A wisp of hair. I wonder do you mostly feel the same also? It only takes one residual thought, a flash of silver and the faith, to move the holotropic mind along new pathways recreated of the fabric we once wore out together. Then we may have a chance tomorrow to walk with one another in our hearts and live again.

Journal # 04.05.15

The curious case of a furious pace we establish over the mean dream of time. The still life was painted all around me. I was a blur. A gif instead of an image anymore. Do you see me clearly? What I mean is what you mean to me. Yes I find myself blasting the walls with forgetfulness. Whitewashing the pain. The photos of my family getting old and unimaginable. The dust settling. In a time exposure it collects like snow. That mean dream of time. I want you all to stay still for a moment, can you, while I inhale you? Drive through and discard the materials. Take the Home and leave the Depot. Inhale me. Leave me with your days of heartfelt laughter, nights of lonely pain. Do not worry. Together we will walk the tracks. Then momma rings the bell and calls us home. I will see you clearly through windexed windows but we cannot touch through the glass. There will be white gloves today, and soft hands. Church-like.

katya by katya '15

Underneath the facades the fingers with fingerprints hold the history of all our lives. The indelible mark the world has made on you and me. Watch me close as I play a song out of my tummy on my breath, and call the fingerprint up like a cobra, unraveling and floating into the air. Then we will wrap it like ink into a sleeve around our arms and be amazed. You are much more than you ever intended. Blow up your french pressed purposes and back to the source. The single origin flat whites in the whistling sand of the Sahara. The white cottons will protect and camouflage us from the drones delivering x and y boxes to the consumers. This is not our business. We are on pilgrimage by the path of our black and blueprints. Many days together, all alone, in the open space of many flavored silences. The nuances will delight us. The flood is coming. It comes from within. Do not distract away from your own birth rights. The pain is only immediate, flashing. The redemption is outside the club. In the cool night air. Passing the smokers remanded to their habit, hugging the walls, friends for life. I talked to them. I was a blur. I chased my fingerprint without demur. The dream become reality. A furious pace. A curious case.

Journal. Midvernal

I waited for her and had been waiting for her all along
screaming PLEASE
when the afternoon she ascended the stairs
and knocked on my door
with a peachy red flower
and a peachy keen smile
for little me and time stopped
in my bedraggled bedhead woken midvernal night dream

I will always wait for her though nothing is needed anymore between us
All is sunshine and bonus from here
You can only do someone wrong for so long, and they you

 If you still yearn for one another silently...
        if you still contrast with one another violently...
                   if you still discern one another sensationally...

maybe there's a chance
   maybe if we believe
 maybe if we leave tomorrow -4- tomorrow

for the moon rolls over the sun
and the sun rolls over the earth
and the earth rolls over the sky

maybe there's a chance for us
to light up the night
let the memories die

Journal # 03.21.15

 What is left for us is a chance. A chance to wake up again. A chance to rest from the maddening pace of the modern world. I am gonna crack the window now and let some atmosphere in. Maybe some particularly meaningful memory will drift along, so I may forget how strange and hard it can be to be alone. There. There now. You are with me. We are holding one another and it feels amazing. They might call us names but we won't care. Lesbians. Bitches. Whatever you want us to be. Because you may as well be on another planet, pressing your old aching fingers up against the glass, trying to get in. I will feel for you later. Not now. All the arrowheads soften in the glacial tug. I remember how you made me feel. Sure, I had loves before you. And you before me. But nothing was two thousand ten like you and me. Pushing over laptops to get to you. We both lived on the floor. We both lived with guys who worshipped us. We both were running out of money. We both had vices become habits.

looking at you. K by K 4 K. 2015

The pain seemed so endless, typing away at keyboards. Losing weight. Listening to Sneaker Pimps. Deeper into darkness past anything I ever knew. We both had a marginal place in our families. We both lived on the outskirts of the world of a city. We both loved wasabi peas and scratchers and arizonas. Somehow I pushed past all that and got back to you and you held me. Together we weighed under three hundred pounds. Pushovers. You with your martial arts. Sticking acupuncture needles right where they belonged. You got under my skin. I got under yours. The fleeting moments we pushed past the cats and the cardboard boxes, and fell softly into walmart pillows... and cried out the damage like bleeding? This is what lights my way to resurgence. I only wish it worked out differently. Like we could find us in the bodies of our paragraphs, again. Lord only knows... the margins of our lives.

K READS... four lives to tell. everlasting

A Spoken Word Original
by Katya Mills

4 LIVES TO TELL. EVERLASTING
from kissilent.wordpress.com


the first life. somewhere in the former soviet union. 

i was daughter to a cossack warrior. my mother died at birth. 

i moved to St Petersburg and learned the city.

the second. Germany. i was a boy. an aryan specimen. 

my father was a treecutter. he worked the black forest. 

mother was an herbalist.  everyone was apolitical and thus

 good-natured.

the third. unknown. ended in miscarriage. time in womb was rough, 

as mom was falling victim to the machinations of a cruel and heartless world. 

stress levels caused an chemical imbalance, which turned deadly.

fourth life. Paris. daughter to a Huguenot. 

the dove hangs from the symbol. 

this is how i remember. a good life. 

parents artisans. life steeped in loving wonder.

around this time, my creative energies, once dormant

and passed over for to meet the great thirst of survival, were planted. 

seeded for future manifestation.

many lives later the blossoming of creativity encompassed my being, 

strengthened and fortified an otherwise tenuous grip on life and sanity. 

a portal opened up to a great and spacious flowering,

 imbued with fine tuned intuitions and novel purpose.

in this world now, the magic has culminated. 

rooted in compassion. 

ancestral stories to be told. shared 

to help turn the darkness to light.

everlasting.

collar bone

the sunflowers were giant. magnificent to see!
the small ones were
webcams

the feed was real-time
the days were long
the days were the same
length. we consumed them
together

you were a deity 

you were mine

i was a deity

with you

in my heart

shining

as the sun made 

sunflowers grow and grow

your expanse in my heart 

amplified me so

the people did not understand 

our experience. Newport Jazz festival.

a pond
full of fish. giant goldfish.
flickering silver fish. they were webcams
big eyes that did not
see

we see with our whiskers

we are cats and catfish and mice.

not everything happens in this world is

nice.

black at the bottom
green on the sides
color of your heart
where my heart resides.

a tricky business

coupling hearts. the layers 

must all be in synch for a system or else

gets rejected and the donation

dies. 

blood transfusions

your fingers slide under my straps
swim up to rest on the roundish
rocks atop my shoulders...

collar bone 

you stared
i smiled. the breath came out of me
involuntary

my legs wrap you up. 

 my arms around your neck. fingers clasped.

my nails are painted the color of your

eyes. 

pond water green 

with black pupils floating 

you volunteered to remove
me to a quiet dark
dry place of soft linens and
sculpted cherry wood. sleigh bed.

i chose to go
anyway

i was transparent for a day.
just like you. deities.

at play

you grabbed me and kissed me

your fingerprint upon me

now you could hurt me. inside. 

and you did. to avoid the pain later

i would go tangential. switching channels

to how you tasted like fresh

organic legumes. maybe peas.

this is how you love someone

i learned. an easy lesson
if not a nice
one

the harder lesson
was realizing love never
changes in the flux of an ever
changing world

devotion subsides

anhedonia sets in

the webcams capture all

and nothing. feeding the feeds

growing like weeds

my life
in the garden. hiding from you
pouting for the sunflowers. the giant ones

remembering the days 

we were deities

tangential glancing 

off the hurt

off the hurt

a safe place

i can perch on the roundish rocks

above my shoulders

below the sunflowers. giants.

heavy heads looking down

seeing me

in this sunless garden

beside a vapid weary pond. big eyes

cannot see

my eyes closed

glancing off the hurt

feeling your touch

collar bone

no one knew about
the webcams, then.
not even i

that's why
it was real

memory of a using life. oakland 2012

the dull ache
behind my eyes
in this deadened
room

ima rag doll
i am

a benign tremour
moves
my hand against
me

a blue light
and white
tells
the papered
walls
how to feel

and somewhere
back there
someone's got
so bad

someone's got a blade
and cuttin
up
their arms

i know him
i left him
he pushed me and his
hands into a
mirror

shattered
what was love
or was it?

just a using me
using you

you left me
in this loveless
board and
care

steely-eyed
people talkin
to themselves
and no one
hears

will that be
me? how long
in the
becoming?

bored and careless
days are running
through the
years

down my arms
of sun-scarred wood some
porous lettin
through

the crime and
all the fears

the people turn
away

in this
dark corner
of gods earth

someone raises hell
and hand
and people
turn away

and screams of dreams
the horrors
passin
through

rag doll city
heart of dark
stake and claim
and clawed away

possessive
minded
revolving door

leave me be
some more

find me gone
inside my mind
benign
tremors hold my head

how can i
turn away?

peel back time
peel back the skin
define your days
of dyin

using ways
come back upon us
karma's all i
know

and then my heart
its in my chest
beats out an
ultimatum

your gonna go
you gotta go
please slash and burn
and leave

i see my heart
i feel my heart
i wear it on my
sleeve


© Katya Mills

so you know (note to an secret admirer)

listen
pay attention
close

my recent batch of friends
were killers pimps
and thieves

they took me through
the streets east
oakland

i fell generously
2 my knees

today i'm left
with memories
slow death

a poisoned self
defense

my eyes always
open
sensitivity post
acute

i'm twice as hot
inspired
as anyone
i know

simmerin'
slow
just under
boil

my eyes mix green
thread hazel
out of the
blue

the blue
is royal

if your
intentions
are like others

hid behind
some dusty
charm

listen
watch me fearlessly
you

fearlessly you
disarm