drama 2

the run was over 

the lead wiped the makeup off his face

staring down the dressing room mirror

backstage

wishing they would take this show 

on the road

jealousy lay in wait

outside these theatre walls

the kind of drama you could not 

rehearse for 

#katyamills

after dark

after all the candles shed their wicks and treats give in to tricks, after all the families tuck away the costumes, end of play, after lights out and halloween is set aside... then the true demons show, sanity takes flight... with ghosts over cobblestone they glide

type.writer -xiv

My younger self reminds me not to forget my shadow, not to leave it out of the story, for without a shadow what are we? Nothing of substance, for anything of substance casts a shadow. The world needs a recluse, the world wants a freakshow, some deep failure, fatal flaw. So they can see themselves through it, otherwise they cannot often look. And when they see character lost in its shadow, well, contempt may turn to stone and break, and inside the contempt may we find our humanity in another's vulnerability. And find our compassion again. Toward others and toward ourselves! In a book, on the silver screen, in a play, in the news, at an opera, on the streets. We all are born into lives with our limits. We come abbreviated! Short-changed from the start. Getting alienated and thrown out of the womb, severed, the umbilical cord. What awaits us are further separations: from family, friends, community, self. From shadow. We need guidance to negotiate our way back into relationship! May books be always our guides. To the one who you know who knows you, too, I tell myself, may you steer your pen and the keys, to help and relate, not to please.

savage

i like to bring a 20 oz genuine thermos to work with me, full of coffee or tea. i like to bring an genuine awakened consciousness, too, as this can be helpful in tricky situations. one goes with the other; if i go without coffee, i may not be completely with you there, and you may need to tell me things twice or knock on my skull and ask  hello? katya? anyone home? please gimme a reprieve! i am in my forties now and have lived through a lot of bullshit. i know nobody hardly respects their elders anymore, true, but aren't i cute and nice enough to be an exception? if you decide not to show me leniency, okay, that's what my nieces would call  SAVAGE! and then when my sleeping consciousness gets properly plied by your orange roughy, well, the savage will awaken in me from any depth of slumber and i will stand on my hind legs and make myself bigger than your ego and we can go UFC - MMA fighting where i shall take your ass properly to ground.

future mma star?

a deepening

if you wait in the least comfortable place you may let yourself into an inner door of a greater force and inspiration, well, i just experimented myself and got there and how did it happen? Okay, first ingredient was the new moon. I have apparently been wrong again! in my awaiting the full moon, investing too fully in the symbol of the full moon and nothing else for a return on my energies. This is what happens when one is pulled at by so many angles you lose yourself and collective archetypes begin to pronounce themselves to you... so you go for a really hard exercise (in my case an 8mile run followed by a 1mile walk yesterday) which takes you out of your mind and into your body. then you get some uneven sleep chopped up by the trend of cats in motion and a subtle but heavy rumbling through the walls (the inhabitants of adjacent apartments). then you get up after midnight and heat the coffee and milk on the stove and walk around feeling the dull aches and pains in the body, softened by slippers on the feet. the pain is all further softened by cereal followed by a whole thermos of coffee taken slowly over time in capfuls. the sounds you allow are windchimes and passing trains and autos in the night, and voices and laughter of late nighters, all through cracked windows, and inside its gotta be either silence or kitchen humming and a low volume atmosphere of local public radio - classical. jazz is not to be discounted, but jazz is better for winter, classical for summer to counter the general liveliness. I tried a firm chair in the back room with the laptop on a small glass table. Had a capful and bantered with the cats. Stepped outside on back and front porches between times of writing or reading or thinking. Delta breeze in effect tonight. I was several times convinced I would need to go back to bed to restore energy. But these thoughts make no sense. I am nothing if not well rested! For several months now! Last year this time it was quite the opposite, or two years ago, when I was much more invested in coffee and perhaps a whole pot a day versus today less than half a pot a day and much easier on the nerves. At any rate, this was the semblance of my condition about three hours into my new day at night, a dull suffering through a lull period alone, when scanning a cell phone article about a famed spanish director who just cut a film loosely based on a famed canadian author's short stories, i suddenly felt my energy congratulate me with a shift and i stepped down into the dark of my backyard (seeking lightly the one cat whose always out and about hunting), and saw the new light from the apartment building across Eggplant alley which was always there but now the entire building presents itself to me on one flank, for the tree removal people took down the side of trees for some reason last week and what took so many years to hide, is suddenly bare and exposed forever. And I thought in an passionate way about a dispassionate subject of renting a home, well, how many little spaces with aircon units jutting out in little boxes, how many little nooks and crannies there are in this and any city! That if you set your heart on a little space, man or woman, you may seek and find your very own! For there are so many even right here within a hundred yards radius of my own! And this was a happy thought which followed and follows with more and more inspired and happy thoughts, and I certainly would have laughed in your face two hours ago when I woke up sore and wondering, had you told me then that several inspired happy thoughts would come my way and brighten up these new moon days of crescending energies, and they have. they truly have.

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.

the farm

i bought the
farm and i planted crooked rows
of anything but corn
between the
ears between the
years

i let the children come
after school
and play themselves
to tired

when you're dead
you can do so much
more


- KatYa


Journal # only one way to get the rush

Look I am worn down, too, after what me and you, we been through look at us -- are we not friendly now? All the vanity got rubbed off and the ego decimated and sentenced to hang where the public could watch, and really good riddance to the rubbish anyway, now we can rest and work behind the scenes where the works are, the ropes and pulleys, the measured weights and ladders and a train of laundry bins on tracks carrying reels and tapes and costume clothing... where the bespectacled producer discusses the talent with the director while his bloodhound noses about some dusty storeroom treasures and everything smells of woodsmoke and light is coming from the back where metal doors have rolled up into the ceiling so the caterers and couriers can unload upon the docks the goods, look, under my eyes are long crescent moons turning purple in the seam tonight, and the crows feet show in my laughter, as I listen to another stagehand talking about a date went wrong, smoking down here in a bay in the back, where the light is white and the air is cool and far from the action on the stage which would not exist without us, of course, sweet dream, you and me, to file away the old script that felt strange on the tongue, and the makeup made us look so pale and so young, let us be casual and severe, minding our business back here, lending a hand to the horn section of the band, as they parade off the symphony half-shell. Off broadway is nice slice of life for us now.

Journal # 02.28.15

Saturday. I was made in a form. Crescent cut. You were of another, edgeless kinda moon. The difference between us is what made us. Together we elevated. The buttons popped off of my blouse. You touched me. The sky framed us. A puffy cloud walked through us. Left us dripping on star number seven. You counted to ten, I hid in a black hole. You turned to dark matter. I became breathless. You found me. Now I am yours. 

love awhile

the chamomile had a calming influence on the chakras
her body armour softened
made room for essential oils
to drain into the pores
silently
tagging the aura
like spraypaint coating
the locomotive
on the rails
southwest of Portland
getting rusty
in the face of the sea
tagging
the land with
salt

the dogs began to wag their tails
the alpha cat slunked up to
the beta
whose tail thickened
to half a fox
as they met
in mid-air
in the underbelly
of the salty vapor
essence of
rainbow

she was interested
in HER

not suddenly...
slowly
gradually
watched over time
over classroom desks where
the art
was mastered

chalk lines
dusty fresh
dripping heat
of knowledge
out of a vacuum
into central air

conditioned
cities

fucking like
ladies
proper
synched
commensurate
ecstatic

wow