eye rolls

down the icy hill we crunched. fingers and toes aching. waiting for the bus. the boy next to me began to talk to me about things he liked to do in private. i started to feel sick.

 time to disconnect.

snowballs flying. roads barely passable. the machine roared into view. windows fogged. an inadvertent throw. the hazards came on. the Greek with his restless head of black hair lumbered down and out of the shuttered doors. demanding gruffly who was it? 

we froze differently. from the inside out.

i was the only girl. he looked to me. all i did was roll my eyes the same direction i had been rolling them all along. toward the one with the dirty secrets.  

#katyamills

bloom

 

the first drop of rain

seeded from an ominous cloud

the journey to earth

gravity

the murderous bastard

tried to break her apart 

she landed on the bloom 

of a blushing cheek where

a salty teardrop 

took her in   

#katyamills

killer -iv

Light comes out of darkness sometimes like flowers growing in the cracks of paved over places, like stars who rise up from impoverished neighborhoods, like strength and protest taking power back from the mighty and abusive, when fear can no longer stomach itself, when vulnerability transforms into courage and action. My very own niece all of 14 years old, in 8th grade, decided to start a petition against gun violence, because she and her friends are feeling powerless and scared to go to school anymore. People ask what difference can it make to get signatures for some local politician to see? I have to admit I feel powerless too, in a culture obsessed with guns and the right to bear arms. The more fearful folks become, the more inclined they are to arm themselves to the teeth to defend their families. It's instinctive. And the NRA  loves to count the sales. But I say; if we can find a creative solution to our fear, methods to empower ourselves however personal they may be, non-violently, and put our own stamp of right action on our experiences of cultural traumas, then we may be conscious and free from the old and stale reactionary turns. And listen, not speak. Tonight I was lucky to listen to a kid tell me how she goes to school scared, and against hers my experience compared, and to know all I ever worried about in my younger years were rocks and fists, and even the meanest bullies gave in when kissed.

kids

we were kids we carried book bags we threw rocks at each other for fun we drank milk and ate cookies and laughed crumbs and stamped them out with our kicks with our boots with our sneaks with our heels with our might, we cried and we raged and we kissed -- harmlessly -- and if the winters storms had blustered and the snow had fallen and melted and then frozen overnight well it would break loose when we thundered down on it and you could hear the earth cracking under us and we laughed fearless, convinced we would never ever never ever never ever ever ever, die

Journal # 05.28.15

I grew up in New England. If I found a lucky niche for myself within a group of people, I would try and hold on to that belonging with all my might. These were times I fought change. The study halls were quiet except the rustling of papers and scratching of pencils on paper. And the heat pushing from the furnace into the pipes. Some kids wet the paper and pulled the pens apart to shoot spit balls. I showed antisocial tendencies at an early age. I would really be inconsolable over something which happened, and no one could reach me. So I would mutiny for awhile and just be upset and burning, unable to stop burning. There were certain trees I liked to sit under. Certain classrooms would be empty at certain times of the day, where I might go to be alone and do my work. When I was well-liked, I wanted this to last. I did not want myself to change, or the circumstances had coincided to make me whole again. I hoped for a snapshot of the context and to keep it in my pocket with the phone number of some new friend all folded up and handmade. I was troubled by and by.

She got more high than school (a chemical romance -1)

She was a dandelion chewin, flatbed lyin, urban cowboy screwin, truant from way way back. Like high school. She got more high than school. He was a youngbood creepin' west-side posturin' punk from Detroit, and he must of run game on her cause she thought he was the shit. She called him the m.o.a.b. thats the mother of all bombs. He called her the m.o.a.b. too. Mother of all bitches.

Her friends sought out to neutralize his fake ass masquerade, and win her back like a scratcher recompense for a month long losing streak. Her friends lacked mercy. Here it gets worse, see. Their connection grew more intimate, exclusive and chronic. He had stepped out upon her moonscape. She revolved around his planet.

Little did she know the gravity of his influence: demonic, sideways, maybe halfway satanic. Her tides came in rushes, in spurts, twice a day now. She was emotionally rewired to his synthetic new standard. He watched her do dishes, he watched her ass move. He lay listless in bed, like nothing to prove. The only extension he gave to support her? A bourgeouise yawn, with laisssez faire torture...

to be continued