overshare

wild sockeye salmon
broiled with sprouts potatoes and stuffing and
she liked it. we talked about our lives. i got caught up
in the story of my past and overshared. i could
not retreat

you got a real friend when you
decide to stick around despite the urge to run
shake the salt and pepper and
it only brings you
closer

seven

you recently got off the streets. you aren't getting any younger, and you feel your age. chronic pain has kept you from doing the work you love. i was just listening to you tell me your story, all the 'lost time' after you lost your kids and your purpose. but you don't feel sorry for yourself. you found a way to connect with your grandkids and even took them fishing. you still want to live even if you cannot always understand what for. i elevate you to survivor status. we laughed when you told me the story about the time you got shot in the back. you were under the hood in the garage, working on a carburetor, when a stray bullet flew from San Pablo Avenue and knocked you to the ground. once you realized what had happened, you dragged yourself to the office for help. they got you to the hospital and most of the fragments were removed and you walked out of there in under 48 hours. when you got back to work, you walked to the office to thank them. your boss had a parrot he kept in there, and the moment you walked in, the parrot saw you and started screaming: 'I'm shot! I'm shot! I'm shot!"

give free or die

I wish i could stop myself, arrest my forward motion, always in a rush the way i am, to be there for someone who is calling on me, in a hallway, on the street, out in the front yard or on the sidewalk heading to or from work or errands. Often they call and they always have. Years ago i stopped stopping for them, to give them my time and attention, no, i taught myself not to give my presence and maybe only a smile or not, giving nothing else but a smattering of words, before making my way to the next destination in a rush. i was usually in a rush. i still am. but it was more than that, i was also fearful and guarded of people from a young age, you see, i was the exact same age as the first kid whose face was plastered on the side of every whole milk carton back in the 1980's. those kinda happenings were iconic then and remembered dearly today, too, for they changed the operation of many a nuclear family, and likely the percentage of latchkey kids fell down for a moment, as mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles began to watch a touch more closely their kids. all i remember is i was called home many early evenings when i preferred to be out wandering the streets with my young friends. i thought surely when i reached double digits i could be trusted to come home in my own time, but nope it rarely happened. sure there was a lot of freedom, after all, this was america and this was new hampshire and this was live free or die country. so i did my fair share of wandering, skateboarding around playing cards, chewing bubble gum, and making out with other kids. still, guardedness got drilled into my dna and today it takes a concerted effort to open my heart to anyone at any time, for i always feel like many particles of magnet being sucked north. there must be a mantra in my head to help me along back into my original open and giving ways. give free or die! that's the one! i found it! now to put it in motion and change my life, i cannot wait! to start stopping for them again! fresh! to stop when i think i am in a rush and ask myself, why, katya, are you in such a rush? where really do you think you oughta be at this moment? can it not be here? with this one who is calling upon you in a simple greeting and willing to stop and give themselves freely to you? are you not honored? and can you not stop also and honor them with your presence? give of yourself freely today? what is the cost of all these moments in the halls, on the sidewalks of the world, in the streets, in the parks? the cost, my friend, is the life itself. for what is living if not sharing and loving and caring? these small exchanges, when widened and opened and made space for, they are the life! are they not? please, give free or die, i pray that i may answer the call of my people in the world, and today may i be with you. for you are all i really have, and i am yours.

two clicks and a book

I do not write mysteries. Writing is the mystery and a book, a puzzle piece, a small part of being solved. I am wondering if I have what I need to do what I wish to now do? The magic number, I make it fourteen. Two weeks, to get back to you. To immerse myself in the colorful cove of creative process, and finish what I started a little over a year ago. There is a battle on our screens, online, for our eyes, our attention, our desires. When we are tired, they win. I go to do something creative and if I make one mistake, chasing down an email or a tweet - any packet of information - I may be sucked to the bottom of a sloping hill of mud, two clicks away, marching my way up and back to reclaim my sacred land... but always two clicks away. I wonder if I have what it takes to stand my ground? I have all my rations, all my munitions, and all my comrades around me. I have my health and my family, and my faith. I can easily recall when the world came over me, a long shadow before a setting sun. I plodded my way through the deepest night. Lost, I surrendered; and they had mercy on me. I don't know how or why. I was a pitiful starved creature, lunatic raving and howling, chained to an iron post on a cracked island of asphalt. I was the one who broke dumb from the pack. Now they saw I was no threat and marched me through a wasted land of drought. I focused on the stars of windless night until I was one, too, the smallest and farthest away. And brighter grew. I stretched for the sun out of a cold, dark place only I inhabited. Not at first, but soon I was touched. I found something there I cannot describe. In the poverty of speech one may call it 'god' - if only to relate. The thing which keeps me bright. This thing which can keep me up all night. That which helps me shine through darkness. Immerses me in sacred process, helps me hold my ground. In fourteen days or not, two clicks away and shot, from the bottoms ever climbing... I wonder will I find my way, and back to you? Otherwise, this book may live a lonely life in my heart.

Journal # 10.18.2016

I had a great idea but got dehydrated and lost it. It wasn't really mine, I just held it for the world for a moment and gave it away without even knowing. You could call that irresponsible or even tragic. Or just super special. The only painful part was my headache, but I cannot blame that on the idea... Now someone, maybe even you, has it and you could hold on to it and commit it to paper or the internet or the ethernet and let people discover it that way (like I had mapped out, myself, when I had it). Or let it come to them the way it came to me, suddenly, superbly, like it was really mine and not something I found online.

from desperation circle to unique and united on a sunday morning

We are robin eggs. Pretty and fragile. Colorful. Me and my older brother. You and me. Our mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins in this permanence come to meet us, this sun come shining upon us, the same light we all share from the birth of every day, the peak heat midway and stumbling through the certain changes, scratches on our vinyl, scars etched upon us, all shook up we are the same.

Being born is our decided fortune
Dying, our collective fate
Sleeping into dreams
Dreaming to awake

Waking into a nightmare only the mind can indulge, only the spirit can turn around, and no one said it would be easy. Whenever I let myself coast, when I indulge easy comforts, my world becomes a run down motel with vacancy. You wouldn't wanna stay there. There's no ice in the ice bin, the vending machine steals your change, and the only inhabitants live on desperation circle. There's cable tv with no HBO and the remote is sticky with no batteries. You have to take the bedspread and cram it out of sight, it's so goddam ugly. Like an unrenovated Ramada Inn in Delaware circa 1982. Don't pry into the corners you might find some broken glass with chore still inside it. The economic disparity, here I cannot hide it.

Can we get along
I need to get along with you
But I'm gonna have to work for it
I'm really uncomfortable

Yes we can and no we cannot, text messaging cause we are too blocked to call. We firewalled one another off for survival. The lines formed on our faces from all the trying to see eye to eye, all of the emotions like waves over all our lives and our faces, no we cannot and yes we can, ground ourselves into it, be there for me and be there for you,  and yes and no and I don't fuckin know what emoji to send anymore... is there a smiling Buddha? And there the colors go, running again like they do, and the white clothes turn blue. And the off whites do too.

The waves break over us
The foam like ginger ale
Hissing. A snake
Trying to stomach it
Digest it whole

The am radio days away in a last quarter rocking chair of tranquility, and no and yes and it doesn't matter how anymore but we tolerate one another, good to you and good to me, fruits and vegetables, oatmeal in the morning, bacon and eggs, spinach, shrimp, salmon, and yes and yes and yes I will share mine with you. We are in the same world, we share the same world, the blue and green one from space, the system in place. Television light slaps us in the face, cool blue like my offs and my whites, too.


And not only tv is to blame
We are all at fault
So let's get over it. Don't you wanna be your very best today? Your most kind and most fascinating and most helpful? I do. I know you do, too, cause we share the same sun. Our spirits can arise and make do if we wanna. The very best of each of us, united, unique and united.

i (you) turn into your (my) arms

Chance set up the constellations
 through which we
astral traveled
legs tangled
deep kissing
hair tangled up
i (you) turn into your (my) arms

i wish you knew how much you always meant and still mean to me
im feeling real bad like part of me died or is lost

 im just gonna be sad and depressed about it all
 and without any closure
 you were i was the only one
 for me for you

 i wish that i could be given a pass
 and i (you) could see you (me) and we could embrace
 and watch the drama go by and smile
 together. again

 its really over
its never ever
 never again

will we never
 work through this?
 why?

 i can understand
 but only if you (i) tell me (you)
 but if you cannot tell me
i can understand that
 too

 i want to thank you. you
enriched my life almost
 every day and
 im sorry we had to go and fuck
 it up with our terrible fighting
tears are coming out my eyes
 right now as i write
 i miss you so bad
 but what do we have?

 eternal
 gratitude for our smiles and the
 kinda monotonous days we
 spent together walking around
 arguing and laughing and holding
 hands. playing the scratchers.
coffee. pastries. chinatown.
 sharing music and rearranging
 all the fucking furniture at 2am
 almost every day. my god.
 the rose garden. the echo glen.
 the walk between Annes house
 and Moss. all the amazing gifts
 we found on the sidewalks! the
 clothes the toasters the microwaves
and printers and tvs and copiers and
 nightstands

 the times we had our place so
setup and clean and we just fell into
 eachother on some secondhand
 mattress somewheres.
 and all the tea. i will
 always remember how you had tea
 for me all the fucking time. wow
 thank you

i love you so much for
 that. and for all the times you felt my
 six pulses or whatever and diagnosed
 me in the eastern style. took your time
 to explain it to me. the wind. the
 dampness. the cupping. the kidney and liver
imbalances you would help me to
 address. acupuncture

the way you (i) cared 
for me (you)

 reading and writing together
 watching tv. whatever
 im sorry
fuck
 what can i say?
 have a nice rest of
 our lives... i mean

your life
my life

- KatYa  based off a letter i wrote in 2012

Journal # 04.12.15

Sometimes I won't listen to music lately. Because I wanna remember how to feel on my own. Yes. There, there, now I remember a little. The way you come into me. Can I welcome you inside? Do I have room there for anger and grief, laughter and joy? Or must I stop you with a silver spike gripped by brass knuckles, facing out from me and my shadow tonight?

No, no, come, come. Come into my arms. There now. Let me hold you like you were my child. Let us pass into a new understanding, the kind you find where there are no more secrets.

The thing that upsets me most is the amnesia. Or let's say, the limits of human memory. I feel I cannot endure your forgetfulness. Or mine. Who am I to forget everything or anything you ever told me. The things you told me with great difficulty, especially. Let's pretend I really was listening the first time, not cycling through my own internal. And so now there is only the matter of recall. There is the train whistle, subdued like a foghorn. No longer shrill anymore. Oh, this I remember. There is the haunting call of the fox and the wolf, the loon and the whippoorwill. These I could never forget. But you, you have told me the story of your life.

You have told me the story of your life, and now it continues. Now it continues on from where you left off. And you have my rapt attention, today, just like once I had yours. And there could be tears in your eyes, my dear, or are they just allergies, and I am present with you fully and I absorb your pain like a freight train I have willfully put myself before. Standing really in your place, though. To  only feel the feelings you felt. To only know you that intimately. More than I sometimes know myself.

Sometimes I won't listen to music anymore. Because I need to remember how to feel on my own. I am sorry I forgot what you told me. I see the hurt in your eyes. Now this I know succinctly. I can honestly say I am sorry I could not stand in front of the freight train of your full speed feelings you conveyed. These, my dear, are only for you to feel, alone.

blue. isolated

the blue
  of the blue
    bird

was
 taken!

no

 gave
 the blue bird gave
 its blue

gave it away
to the sky

so can you

give your blue
to the
sky

so can
i

memory. untitled

i do remember
loving you
your every strand
unique

how i comb
the deep striations
of our whorling time
we shared

lucky me
and lucky you
enveloped in an unjust world

in our all-stars
walking streets
toenails breaking
stride

in our galaxy groove
we move
some masterpiece
outside the Louvre

tossing snowballs
dear Chicago
winters coldest hell
on earth

laughing through the
blizzard of our monetary
fails
some trickle down to
naught

down Division Street
complete
happy getting
what we
got

tale of me
tailing you
comet scattered bits of light

in my blue jeans
modern match girl
picking up your bits of light
making our
mosaic

clear as glass that's not been
stained
brilliant as
one single night

candlelight
i'm after you
the two of us
i know
you knew

shadows
and the cat

the blizzards wake
a code of silence
staring in our
eyes

oh holy nights of Mazzy
Star and magnum bottles
taste your
tongue

its over now
those days are done
your hands in my back pockets
while i sung

caressing
waves of whispers
flooding fields of broken pavement
paradise

street art. 'comet' -photo by k

i dream of autumn colors
open skies
midwestern
eyes

before the pages
written
read

sharing all our bits of light
the comet tail
our nights in bed

getting what we
get

i proselytize the burning moon
replete in dark sky formals

eclipse us now
and cancel out
our every last
regret

© Katya Mills, 2014