2.23.25

 my tooth is cracked my ears are ringing the light is hurting my eyes and i have a million things to do and politics on my heart but let us start by writing. #katyamills

the camel

I am the asana

holding my heels 

listening to Boards of Canada backwards arching 

diverting all thoughts 

from the chasm

 #katyamills

tradition

caught in a downpour on the highway

rain and hail

the trucks wheels put up a fountain of water

blinding us. not long after someone road raged on us

like it was a tradition

i deepened my relationships 

to pain and uncertainty

today

#katyamills

opioid 11

 meanwhile 

we all get beat by time

cannot keep the body out of trouble

in the hardest of times we ask 

can i have one pain

killer please?

no!  - they rebuke us

licenses on the line

in the shadow of an opioid 

crisis

#katyamills

statica

 

the divine 

exists in the space between stations

where molecules cease 

to behave

#katyamills

Y

long we lived 

in darkness. wonder 

not y we worship 

the sun

#katyamills

some days harder than others

express yourself

may the pain be 

dispelled

pain receding

you was down and out 

unable to do much of anything you 

saw how difficult the world 

can be. you called your last friend they 

gave you an idea. reluctantly you stepped out into the sunlight 

cursing your friend and 

yourself...then...the pain

receding

#katyamills

daylight with earth

she saw by
her soul
images painful
bold. this world
its children
mix daylight with
earth

she took the lights
down. he pissed on the porcelain
water scattered
with poison

dead leaves pale
faces under a big
sky

candles on the tank
elbows
and shoulders and
knees

he had to have her
pain made him
whole again

 behind his eyes
a redemptive quality
cast in a pervasive light

his struggle
hers



#katyamills
remix 1996

mood.i

i spoke to you by phone long distance
before the call i was collected and after i was
hurt again

i believe
the space i made the contact
with god was what allowed
me to

survive underwater deep
breathing inside the
divide

aka.pain diaries

Gettin' to be great at anything is like throwing yourself into a whiteout a snow sky (not a blackout) and surrendering to how the world feels you touches you allows you to exist... and fights you to see what you're made of (engulfs you if you're not made of anything worth asserting yourself) and celebrates you if you can stay in it's light (and darkness) long enough (aka endure) to change and tolerate pain, and work at staying the same while changing. call it core values if you want. call it spontaneous expression. call it art or authorship if you want. call yourself god. see if I give a fuck.

see.blue

what can i tell you when i feel discouraged and you feel discouraged, too? all i can tell you is look, we all get down and see blue. all i see in you is you are real with that feeling, you are holding, exuding the pain. this is making you more of who you are. someone i can love. you are real to me. i can see your struggle in your eyes and hear it in your words. the depth of your blues mirrors my own, and you touch me where before i was alone.

give the pain a voice

this holiday season may you feel part of. not alone. and if you are in pain, what does the pain say to you? give the pain a voice so it can tell you what it needs to go away... then go ahead and give it what it needs because it's the giving season, honey, it's what we do! 

dream #98

living made sense against a senseless world. each moment a firefly encasing light. we are protected. full of meaning we do not die. slow down a sec. come near. it's you and me. walking through all our pain to better versions of our truth of ourselves.

promise

once there was a boy named bee 

upon my knee

softly telling me how rivers

did not reach the sea in the year 

twenty twenty three

some were black others blue

in twenty twenty two

and none could you wash your

self in

his eyelashes fluttered 

feeling me shudder

i could tell 

he honestly knew 

he unbuttoned my collar 

i cried and hollered and then he promised 

just breathe

then rolled up our sleeves so carefully

we could see those cuts on

our arms

with one finger 

he crossed my lips

tenderly looking into my eyes

and

we existed quietly there

until about quarter past one

bee upon my knee

and me

i wondered if all of the darkness

 he shared

could 

     ever

         be

          undone

yet i knew our

                 pain

             was

         the

same

- KatYa, 2017

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.

when you stay where you are long enough

late friday. i came home after midnight to fall in love all over again, being with you, your stone cold fixed hold upon my gaze, all the week long work fallen off your leaden shoulders, and then we were both of us no longer struggling. replaced by an embrace there on the couch the cats have torn half to hell, believing in the same god who brought us together, rediscovering the colors in our eyes, feeling the common ground of recollected pain, the loss inside our former dreams... against the bright and soft-focused clarity that has replaced them.

midtown. by katya

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.

eyelids fallen like my guard - cut #3

I suffer headaches

Tension too thick to mention

You know. I know. We all know. 

I know we all know what is 

about to happen

sentiments left touching

 thin air

original

 firm

 comforting handshake

 they had

time trails into some 

second hand see ya

 later 

lead into some 

cold

   late

    lonely night pin cushion

 never to 

return


you, too, would have left it that way...

like i had to... 

let it go...

like i
did

you would have had me

 leave it like up and

    walk away would 

not you

before you
found and held
and loved the fuckin
hell out of 

me

mercilessly

to the expense
of my breath
of my lungs
pressing me

pressing in on me
pressing me out all whole again
in the end

goddam i miss you
goddam

we are young -ii-

i hurt by all the friends i lost
by my involvement more than anything

 they ever did

a revolving door of well-meaning kids 

who tried to help this kid 

when this kid was deeply

 unreachable

now and again a horror
such a demon at times

 i been 

have i healed or will i ever
be so terrible you will
not wanna remember me

turn the blinds down
light up the no vacancy
keep me far away

have i done the same

 to you

i believe i suffered 

(before and after you)

i am young

lead me -- oh! -- very young what 

of darkness and derision

 to faith from 

indecision

inside out of me 

-- of us all -- like 

vapors we pass

 through

change us
 i am sorry

as we get older i believe

 in our presence

 

we are young