ame and the tangy energetic. excerpt

Even without Maze and my past and all that’s gone and lost, perhaps never to carry us up into the thick of it again, even across the landscape of my mind so many times the thoughts got spun into superstitions like if I wear cotton candy pink today, he will come to me and see me different; then, he will come to his senses and we will be how we were again, won’t we? Or if I trace the edge of every book cover in this room, one at a time, by the pulpy flesh just between the nail bed and callous print of my ring finger… even such a great loss and mindfuck could not end me, no, for I have a home here where I am honored, where I can argue and fight and kick and scream but will never wear out my welcome, where I am known as a small but vital part of our greater clandestine movement, our secret society, to be seen and heard and neither dampened nor erased nor concealed nor painted over. - by Katya, 2018

belly button

you and me the way we

think may change the
color of our sheets unlike
the coral green they
were

when you and me we
acquired them

then

the sky a different hue than

the one she wore in 1822

before the war
how blue

the sound of the sea unlike what our mother knew through her shells

fathers buried
in sand the beach stretches
a band

me and you
imperceptible our teeth and
bellies move like gelatin

foam at the mouth
relentless the wind
the age will define us

at last

the sun dies every day
how sad

yesterdays
todays
tomorrow

the belly buttons
hollow

how smitten we are with
our world in the end

angels in portland

I have many angels they come in many forms. One time I was in Portland and they followed me there and saw I was in a weak state, susceptible to influence and likely to walk into danger. I had many an adventure over the course of several days, there, and met hardened criminals who I spoke with plainly. And I exuded an emotional honesty. I was smoking lots of cigarettes. I was in a lot of pain then, having survived a sequence of nightmarish events. I was in between worlds. I did not always realize right away I was in danger, but when I did I had enough time and conviction and skill to maneuver my way out of it. I believe I remained unharmed because of god, intuition, family, and my angels. I have become the kind of person who is more modest than proud, more intuitive than smart, more compassionate than driven, and more conscious of others than I am of myself. And someone whom anyone would be less willing to harm, maybe, more willing to get their needs met by asking me first, knowing I would be inclined to give whatever I can to you, freely.

system.closed

I passed a young man of Asian descent lying on his side, he was bald-headed and bloody. He told me how the politicians were tracking him. He had a square of metal and tapped the top of his head where some of the skin had been scraped off. He was smiling and calmly began scraping at the cut, and I asked him to stop. He asked for water. I had a bottle in my bag and gave it to him. I walked up another flight of stairs to a room crammed with technology like the inside of a space shuttle. There were operators in there who knew me. I became enraged, feeling helpless. I believe the operations people carry out across systems could be more carefully intended and tended. Instead they get rushed and executed, payrolls capping both ends. People are shut out and they suffer. There's barely enough water to go round.

'street art midtown' by k

world of black of white

The beauty in being American was and still is the freedom to set your sights on a lifestyle you dream for yourself and go after it with all your spirit and cleverness and nerve. The hurt you feel when you fail is yours and yours, alone. Maybe it will lead to a dead end street and bar or romance. An ashtray full of butts. 24 hours of loneliness can be hell. And then your back in the game, if you're young, the world is black and white.

they let me feel innocent

I was a little kid with a heart full of feeling and a head full of up to no good. They let me feel innocent and sent me to bed much too early. Though I hated it and cried and fell asleep to their laughter and songs, I guess you could say I understood. 

Archival footage K.2012

The right is preaching morality again. Not that the left isn’t. This is not news. The right is taking sides again, damn it.  They are halving these lemons with merciless stainless steel knives they sharpen behind smirks and glassy eyes, listening to Limbaugh and talking about handicaps. They are crying now, the right, crying while their daughters work their confidantes into friends into acquaintances and phone lists to drum up a ride to the clinic and some cash for the procedure. Its outpatient. Its dire. It has been weighing on the young girls’ minds for longer than necessary. And the tears fall at around the same time. Early afternoon when the lemons are being spruced up and gutted of seeds for the marinated mountain trouts. His eyes are stinging and he’s crying and laughing as the compatriots rib him over it. Like they always do. Grown man crying. She’s sedated but still more aware than she would like. The nurses told her best to take a mild sedative not a deer in the headlights dose. Why?

Now she knew why. They were right. Because hey, she was still in her body afterwards, and though the seconds were hours, they were gone like seconds and she found herself looking back into the outpatient room almost as though it were too soon to go, unnatural so. She was saying goodbye to the nurses, now. They were trying hard to smile. They were doing it for her. Focused on minimizing the trauma. No one wants this. No one asks for it or deserves it. The right was wrong. The far right. The crazy deadstare lifers with their deadweight x-rate images no one should ever be forced to see. The deadend lifers dead to the daughters of the invisible American family experience. The parents whose lives have turned a difficult turn again, and no it’s not the best time to share. Not the best time to care.

Will it ever be? Maybe. Maybe looking back ten years gone, looking back and apologizing for being absentee to the emotional discord, the spiritual movement flexing inside a young bright star, young girl got screwed and screwed up, misjudged the guy, misjudged the timing, got drunk with her friends and got stupid. Lost alertness… lost a whole lot more. Even with the benevolence of the nurses, the nonjudgment, the suspension of judgment, the carrying out of reduction of harm. The understanding the psychology of trauma and loss and grief. The grounding the girl’s process in smiles and facts and exactness of protocol so as to provide a tight container of love or compassion for someone so young and asking for help, and still learning to love self through the madness of all the bad shit we do and see and have done to us over the years. Some to survive. Others to survive longer. And all of us to endure that steady certain suffering in whatever dose we can take, and then working to stem the tide with our pharmacies by our sides. Crutches are good for a while.

What kind of world could be more intriguing than this mystery mansion with its deadends and distortions? We witness ourselves and one another, going through contortions.

Published on WordPress in May, 2012 by Katya

https://wp.me/p1qcWq-8l