smoke break

i wanted to get to know you 

the bosses drove us hard 

leaving us depleted... 

you spoke. they caught us 

it's not a crime 

we needed the money 

they hid behind a story 

an don't care about ours 

i wanted to get to know you 

maybe on break

i don't smoke but 

i will

#katyamills

workers on break

slowed heartbeats

inhaling the rain 

on break

stirring grounds 

in the kettle

pushing the embers

cutting earth out of the sole

with a blade

cherishing a smoke

with a friend

#katyamills

pre.vail

may the spirit prevail through 

heat smoke and virus 

fire and political storm in twenty

twenty. i push and make demands

of this lethargic clumsy body 

just the same 

#katyamills

disparity of a spirit

the ash has fallen and losses are revealed. a lucky one. i am surrounded by all i have. though i may fight my growing belly and hard won responsibility, i see i lack nothing. today the sun rises in a great dispersion of rays. no more the orange coal. the fires are contained. my spirit can laugh once again.

smoke

the sun rose red
in an ashen sky
my failing was fast food
and an instant
high

searching

I was looking for you, after the rains came, searching for you in the mist, a cool night in the early hours of the morning. No one knew what year it was. No one cared. You had a smoke somewhere with a stranger, you stood high and carelessly tall. All I knew was it was Fall and some day I will stop searching. I did not know what day it was, in the middle of the night, the leaves were still on the trees where they could play with the light and bend to make shadows on the streets below. I was caught inside a maple, walking with a staple in my stomach. I don't know how it got there, but I had worked in an office too long. There would be no children. The roosters started out from the backs of their skinny throats, it was never too early. I thought I was awake, but when I woke up I realized I was not awake before, and I wondered if I could wake up from this. Life would be easy on your own. No one knew the time. Neither did I. The stranger, he didn't know a goddam thing, he didn't know anything at all. The day I stop searching is the day I die. Hell. Everybody knows that.

you could be compromised

I knew I could be compromised and I am, I am compromised, I would be a fool to think otherwise. My system. My physiology. My psychology. Compromised all the time. I do not mean the kind of arrangement like when I allow my neighbor's pomegranate tree to grow into my yard in return for being allowed to harvest the pomegranates. This is a choice. I am talking about events beyond our control. Solar flares from the sun creating electromagnetic chaos in our atmosphere. Medications which we must take for our medical conditions, which may compromise our systems which have to process them. Our livers have been crossed one too many times, perhaps our kidneys are overtaxed. We are compromised. I cannot just stop breathing the air, yet this morning when I step outside my apartment I can smell and taste the woodsmoke from one of two fires burning multiple thousands of acres just north of where I live. There are thousands of people north of here whose homes and very lives may be altered. We may all be forced into migratory patterns. Compromised. This is why I care.  Because what happens right here, or way over there in a faraway land, may be comparable, systemically, to a solar flare. We all feel it somehow. Maybe not now, maybe later. Do not ever think yourself too exceptional to be compromised, you could be compromised. If you look closely, you may realize - you already are.

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!

coloring

Blues ran into yellows in the rain, and burst green upon the scene. The olive drab of soldiers bobbed up and down. Prayers drifted in purple-lined clouds above them, holding fear condensate.

Someone smoked a rolly with their arms hanging over a molasses colored wall of old earth. A child was watching cartoons on a clean carpeted floor. His auntie with auburn up-do, was dusting down the bookshelves to the sound of looney tune orchestra, rain and marching boots.

She could see the back.of the man hanging over the molasses wall, and the nuanced transparencies of smoke exhalations, fog and breath. The sun might not peek out today, she thought, but no matter. An extraordinary day to be alive.

Blues ran into yellows in the rain, and burst green upon the scene.