runaways

we drank hot chocolate from silver-rimmed china
around a polished wooden table

i found your big toe beneath it
punching through the canvas
while eating macaroons

why are you running away?
she asked us

i stood up tall
on my toes

you would too
if your home
was like ours

do not be confused

Today is your day to kick ass. Even if someone's got you imprisoned, even yourself in your own mind, but even then you can ask for a book cause that is your right. If whoever has you locked down won't let you read,  try and exploit the weakness in their rigidity, all the way to your freedom. Today is Friday and your chance to shed the skin of the past and come out all bright and shiny and new. People will notice you if you simply show up. I like to walk somewhere, under the sun, walk a mile or two and find a cafe and sit and watch and think and write. Maybe let a friend know I will be there, so they can come see me if they want. Today is your day to kick ass. Don't let social media hold you back. Get back to your sacred expression. In whatever form. Respect yourself and they will respect you, too.

If you get tired, by all means meander, online or off, but come back to yourself and your connection with what only you know and let it speak. Make that fashionable statement only you can make, whether its how you dress how you walk how you talk how you write how you sketch how you  skate how you run how you gesture how you preach how you teach how you fight how you give how you help how you see how you feel how you deal. Be you. Be free. Be real.
  - K

character sketches (writing process)

the personality how do we bring fullness to the personality in words. words are limiting but not as limiting as one might think. anyone who is well read would know that. maybe we limit ourselves by thinking about how limited we are. the personality. unearthing character traits of course, disposition, moodiness, relation to self and society. then of course the motivations, what gets the character out of bed in the morning (presuming they get out of bed at all, in some famous works, characters hardly ever get out of bed). personality will be more than all that, there are other elements. how does a character walk and talk, how do they think? do they touch upon repetitive thoughts and actions? well, everyone does. rituals. what about nature and nurture? are they defined by a microcosm? trapped there? how does the macrocosm feel about all that. freedom, mobility, immobility, inaction. mental health or illness. where's the spirit in all of that. oh! words are great for that, capturing spirit over time. meaning pages. you can paint a spirit over the course of a novella or novel for sure. or even in a poem if you're really good.

you were the one all alone

The skies were always one way or another, laughing or crying back then. The horizons were wide and unflawed, or you couldn't see them at all. You traveled another highway, singing to yourself. The sea was waiting for you, carbonated foam rolling up and reaching out for anyone and you. You would walk in and never be seen again. But not today. Not today. The kids smiled when they saw you, immortal in your pain, you smiled, too, for you both knew forever, in a day the way you walked, your hands half in your pockets caught on the loops. The little hands they wouldn't ever let go.  But not today. Not today. You were the one all alone.

thought life possession montage

Think of what we could have!
he thought with his eraser
our blood all pooled together
finally!

erasing his sketch lead
with a frenzy
all touching!
leaving little bits
of processed rubber
in flecks on paper
reunification!
rubbed to death
finally!

there she goes
washing her hands again
the radio plays Coltrane quintet
someone on the pedal
brace upon the fret
air billowing cheeks
jazz circus
freaks

spring sun showers them like rain
summer fun they
disdain

sitting inside
needing to hide
lacking
needing to name
all alone together
having to judge
god forgotten
all processed out
like seven eleven sandwiches
mystery meat on rye

thinking all the while
are we dead
did we die?
then back to the sketch
back to the eraser the hand washing
routine on the edge of a
razor

thought progression
composed of thoughts
kitchen sink
porcelain
water marks

back to getting lead out
on paper
and thought life
possession

Trane on tenor sax
thought life
progression

back to being dead
under skin
composed of thoughts
only wax