my talisman

sad about a world gone bad 

on a heavy dose of sedative

you were quick to judge yourself

my talisman. when will you see

the light?

   #katyamills

no rules

for the last time they told her 

these are the rules. if you don't like them you can leave

her first move was to get the tattoo

with her best friend

then they mapped out a plausible

month long wave for her

surfing couches

#katyamills

billionaire recycling

we found the one open on Sundays. you laughed when I told you the name. it helps you stay humble doing things you could easily outsource. glass plastic and tin to the Billionaire Recycling. Don't know if they got rich I'm still a paycheck from broke  #katyamills

the twenty twenties

our songs of lipstick lead

immunity boosters and covid dread

our voices unpacked with dry ice

banded together in supersites out from 

under masks like mittens made of tires

forklifted from some autoyard in

vermont   #katyamills

m x memory -viii

By the year twenty twenty-three, 99% of microscopes were melted down and recycled, whereas bifocals and bottle glasses had come back in fashion. And it was decreed that all laboratories be replaced with ashrams, following in the footsteps of a decentralization trend. Anyone caught with space foam running shoes and acoustic instruments got a one way ticket to the primeval forest being cultivated on Mars. These items became highly sought after. The principal objective was not to have one.

There were some (in the future) who could not hope to walk unseen down city streets. A loosely affiliated group of citizens who did not so much ask for the kind of attention they were given, collectively or individually.Which was a suitable regimentality for twenty twenty-four. Legend has them born of loose-fisted, assymetrical, left-handed, lipton teaheads just shy of true north. The truth was something else.

They tend to make a lot of noise without speaking, and move like waves.  Everyone else wanted to tell them what to do, and they wouldn't do anything other than what they were told if they were to do what was expected, so atypically they defied expectations. Otherwise they wouldn't really exist, would they. Ice water was in their throats, not their veins.

You cannot know them in traditional forms of knowing. They have something more intentional or focused, it seems, or something less violent-by-association. Anyone is guessing. They congregate in the shiny bars of the fringe-mainstream. On bicycle hill perhaps. Or in bookstores off the beaten path in the Mission. They have an aversion to snapping turtles and judgments and extemporaneous litigation.

Along with us, they envision a society where the only records are vinyl and photographic memories are stripped and laid out in the sun. But only visions are envisioned. Nothing has been empirically correlated and nothing ever will. The principal objective was not to have one.

get in line

The morning arrived with birds and doors closing in front of people with their dogs and the sound of keys falling into cotton pockets. Out on the streets the recyclers were busy recycling. News choppers churned through the air. Ambulances on their way to the people who could not wake up. I was doing dishes, and watched through my window as another girl made her way out on to the opposing apartment landing, and down the flight of stairs which led to his bedroom. A brunette this time.

These young girls, most of them had a night with him I am sure. Particularly the ones who lit cigarrettes immediately on touching open air. Good for them. This is what it means in the USA these days, to be an empowered woman. You get to get in line!