crystallize

an SOS signal

flashed from a spotlight beaming 

across the unsettled surface of the lake

the memory crystallized into a value 

firing up the powerboat 

and heading out to help 

the ones stranded 

in the channel

#katyamills

on a flagging memory day

no longer
could he recognize her
she held his hand
for a while and the felt
sense remembered
on a flagging memory day
this boon. touch
cementing their bond
against the dreadful
fear

#katyamills

Sandra

my dearest cousin. i am calling after you. your form ghostly and lithe against the depths of the forest. i run after you in this dream. creatures breaking through branches on either side of us. fearful i am chasing the memories. fifteen years since we lost you.  #katyamills

working memory does not work

 my working memory does not work very well but i will remember you all my life

#katyamills

October 3

dreams pushed the eyes across the oily undersides 

of their lids. rapid

 inside this skull the imagery 

senseless and 

vapid  

#katyamills

shell blue

upon waking
to remember you
i draw my nails the sea

shell blue

#katyamills

Ofa!

how
with your laughing spirit you
left earth last year. i would travel great distances to meet you but not that far (not yet)
and thank god you are here in my heart
and reflections of you
in your family and even random
spirits i cross

#katyamills

5.30

the wind howling in the winter. the road winding around the lake. the red barn with white trim. the icy stream and snow. we gathered around your pot belly stove for warmth. it's memorial day. though i am too far from New Hampshire to lay flowers on your grave, i am thinking of you. the hot cocoa. your wicked laughter.  #katyamills

17

when i meditate on those i knew who went down hard and whom, after all the shock had been absorbed, by anyone who meant anything to them, ascended to the heights of recollection, i am filled with great sadness, giving a damn, decidedly, when i got no damns to give.  #katyamills

OFA

i wanna make
more memories
can only pick up
the ones we had

dearest Ofa

after breaking down
i get up. you would want me
to 

be strong
and
do the good
work

#katyamills

harvey: god of the sea

we took some shots you 

caught me in transition on 

a silver disc. years later we 

met for dinner. i was lost

a cat back up hurt and poor 

you gave a royal fanfare i 

found out you're gone by 

internet. i will never forget you

my god of the sea and

to the sea you return

#katyamills

memory of a friend who did not make it out

we were living out of motel rooms back then and only a couple of people we could trust. pumping air into bike tires and patching them up, so for some freedom out on the streets. you had to be able to get out of a tight spot fast. someone was always having a breakdown or a meltdown except for the lifers who kept calm and had an eye for any advantageous situation. swoop down like a buzzard and pick apart the meat and leave the bones to sink into the earth. socioeconomics pushed a nasty current downtown and hung a red tide. they marked up for resale whatever they could not themselves consume. the players threw a party to look unselfish. many swam off into eddies and lost touch with reality for days, then, when it hit, let's hope you could hit the ground running to make up for all that lost time. kids were kids and lost time lost money for every adult who had no fixed income or paycheck. outside of the clear specifications of sanctioned work or disability in a capitalist society, lay the gray zone. lots of marginalized people in the mix. try to discover what you had of value then stir up some demand. could be a skill. could be a quality you carried yourself. you had to get creative and put yourself out there. try not to resort to the least common denominator. plenty of good boy and good girl gone bad scenarios. some who could not recover from loss or trauma. god! i'm so fortunate i got out of there. i wish you had, too.

change of heart

i was frightened by an accusation in a nightmare, it nearly broke me. i woke up pained, unwilling to return to bed. i called my father three time zones ahead. we shared our memories of late nights listening to the loons, the wonder of the call. one moment mournful and stops you in your tracks, then ascends nearly in laughing. what a change of heart.

11 going on 12

1985. the year of the almost divorce. my brother drove a Saab. you could hear each gear through the hills outside Boston like a soft and warm siren. i was having my first breakdown. witnessing the family fall apart. feeling it hot. crying all the time. my brother looked out for me.

all and none

the tireless work begun
the shadow cast by the wrecking
ball was tall and long

long and tall

the glass shattered
the bricks did fall

only memory withstood
the assault

we were still under

the sun

all had changed 

and none

high school fight

cigarettes and cars 

we glisten in the mud

smoking
laughing
chasing

whatever are we waiting for 

nothing

we blast our heavy metals
from our beater cars

much better than
home this nowhere here

good as anywhere

we
eternal youth

hopin' on some thrills

if the fight don't happen

donuts in the mud

can't hurt

whatever we are doing
making out
all right

picking each
other up
we have fun
doing it

Archival footage K.2012

The right is preaching morality again. Not that the left isn’t. This is not news. The right is taking sides again, damn it.  They are halving these lemons with merciless stainless steel knives they sharpen behind smirks and glassy eyes, listening to Limbaugh and talking about handicaps. They are crying now, the right, crying while their daughters work their confidantes into friends into acquaintances and phone lists to drum up a ride to the clinic and some cash for the procedure. Its outpatient. Its dire. It has been weighing on the young girls’ minds for longer than necessary. And the tears fall at around the same time. Early afternoon when the lemons are being spruced up and gutted of seeds for the marinated mountain trouts. His eyes are stinging and he’s crying and laughing as the compatriots rib him over it. Like they always do. Grown man crying. She’s sedated but still more aware than she would like. The nurses told her best to take a mild sedative not a deer in the headlights dose. Why?

Now she knew why. They were right. Because hey, she was still in her body afterwards, and though the seconds were hours, they were gone like seconds and she found herself looking back into the outpatient room almost as though it were too soon to go, unnatural so. She was saying goodbye to the nurses, now. They were trying hard to smile. They were doing it for her. Focused on minimizing the trauma. No one wants this. No one asks for it or deserves it. The right was wrong. The far right. The crazy deadstare lifers with their deadweight x-rate images no one should ever be forced to see. The deadend lifers dead to the daughters of the invisible American family experience. The parents whose lives have turned a difficult turn again, and no it’s not the best time to share. Not the best time to care.

Will it ever be? Maybe. Maybe looking back ten years gone, looking back and apologizing for being absentee to the emotional discord, the spiritual movement flexing inside a young bright star, young girl got screwed and screwed up, misjudged the guy, misjudged the timing, got drunk with her friends and got stupid. Lost alertness… lost a whole lot more. Even with the benevolence of the nurses, the nonjudgment, the suspension of judgment, the carrying out of reduction of harm. The understanding the psychology of trauma and loss and grief. The grounding the girl’s process in smiles and facts and exactness of protocol so as to provide a tight container of love or compassion for someone so young and asking for help, and still learning to love self through the madness of all the bad shit we do and see and have done to us over the years. Some to survive. Others to survive longer. And all of us to endure that steady certain suffering in whatever dose we can take, and then working to stem the tide with our pharmacies by our sides. Crutches are good for a while.

What kind of world could be more intriguing than this mystery mansion with its deadends and distortions? We witness ourselves and one another, going through contortions.

Published on WordPress in May, 2012 by Katya

https://wp.me/p1qcWq-8l

projection of poor memory

You taught me how to survive. I taught you how to thrive. The tables before were turned, and I experienced a deep despair like the world no longer could care...even someone who feels forgotten will be remembered by someone they may have overlooked. I wonder if the feeling of forgotten is a projection of poor memory? 

type.writer -xi

they stared at you
they stared at me
get lost! i thought
you said it

i wrote it
i typed it up

one day
i got up off a bar stool
liquid courage
and read it

in 1998
i believed
in you and you
in me

i moved
thousands of miles away
in 2003

i'm not broke
i realized
i'm broken

oxygen starved
the urban air

i don't smoke
i thought
i'm choking...

doesn't mean
i didn't
care

type.writer (archive #K) -iii

the bluefish dissolved when
the devil rays flew in
and the sea disseminated
into sky

a line no
longer

what a solution
now nothing would never
make sense