character study

i have my oldest, thirteen, and the other, nine. and i just can't make sense of how it all worked out this way. how'd i end up in the middle of the woods with a mountain man, my girls and me pissing in the snow, shitting in an outhouse? how'd i end up with no running water, electricity from a gas generator, groceries hauled up the driveway in a sled?

this is what we talked about, when we were still talking. raising the kids on a commune somewhere, or in the vw bus we had when they were babies. but she found jesus , and i found marriage then divorce, and somehow i haven't had a friend in years.

that first husband won't stop calling me to yell, to tell me i am fucking up his daughter. but he and i both know it wasn't me who did the fucking. so the youngest crashes around the house like she's on drugs, and the oldest disappears in her room with all those books i'll never have time to read. i know she sneaks up to my room when i'm not home and goes through our stash. the mountain man buys a new magazine every couple weeks, so he's never noticed when they've gone missing. but i've found them under her mattress on the the floor.

she doesn't know i go into her room. i'm not snooping. i'm just making sure she's okay. she's a real secret girl. i'm just making sure she's okay. anyway, she's got to learn about it somehow. and i'm tired. got my hands full with the little one and fuck if i know how it all ended up so damn hard.


(freewrite, 10 minutes: at your age)

travel down, look at your feet

my feet are dirty. the earth is red, soft, old wood decayed and dry. there have been few other people here to disturb the cushion. there is a path. i am unsurprised. there is a path and there are tall ferns growing, and plants with juicy flowers. flying things make the wingnoise to remind me there is life here, a world existing before and after, me.

i take a step. two steps. i am ankle-deep in spongy forest floor, dirty feet. i am foot camouflaged, foot chameleon. i plant my feet. bend to listen, bend to visit with the flower, juicy flower. say hello and thank you and what have you done? flying things land on my arm, dirty arm. i am coated in dust, dust girl, red dust traveling girl. i took the long way to arrive at this place.

i took the long way, through the different forests and i crawled through the roots of the tall trees. there was an ocean, the waves the loudest thunder i'd ever heard. and there was the tideline to walk, foamy detritus and the hiss of thirsty earth. i drank from the sea, and against previous accounting, i was quenched.

the stars. there were stars. and everywhere i went there was the sky. the moon growing larger and closer and there were planets. i colored the sky with stories of moving bodies and celestial shifting. i managed to reorganize what had once been true story, scientific fact.

reorganized that true story into something i could believe. here's a story to believe, i don't know if it's true: dirty feet mean traveling. moving planets, shifting shoreline, shooting stars, winged creatures. all moving, all traveling.

i could hold out my hands to steady myself, but that would make no difference. walls shift, cliff face, tree bark, true story, all shift and move and become unreliable. the reliability is in the nature of change. that is the truth. so i visit now with the juicy flower. and let the winged things rest on my skin. sink deeper into forest floor, let my eyes rest.

(freewrite, 15 minutes, down down down, look at your feet.)

ten for sorrow, ten for joy

the idea that i am easily left.

more stars than you've ever seen.

i don't want to grow up alone.

sage smell filling your nose as the sun goes down.

she raised me to never need anyone, and i am left with a constant hunger.

she sniffed out the secret water hole.

there is comfort in solitude, in the sounds of trees.

climb to the top of the hill; there is no one, anywhere.

i have no definition for family that summons the language i want to use.

campfire, the deepest embers glowing orange like open flesh.

no matter how good, how special, how magical, i can be left.

fissure in rock face: bat house.

the wide open ache of don't bother, you will leave.

there is nothing but the rushing river, close birdcall, dog breathing easy in sleep.

there is nothing for this hunger.

the young deer who was unafraid.

catalyst, healer, the constant grief.

ankle-deep in river water, the hunt for glowing stones.

i search for a story to be held within, one that tells the truth.

the magic of finding yourself alone in solitude.

(freewrite, 15 minutes. two lists, merged.)

friday mornings

in this one you are. miraculously, impossibly, small.

in this one your baby chick hair stands up static to the winter sky, winter ice white, bare bones trees in the bare bones background. in this one she holds you. warm cheek to warm cheek, you are both red cheeked, fur-lined. you are both snowbound ice creatures, static to the sky. maybe there is a sled at her feet. maybe there is a place she will take you. maybe there is a person taking the picture who loves you. who swoops you up, laughing, blows into your belly and tells you yes yes good little one, i love you.

maybe this day was warm soup, warm milk, snowsuit hung from a chair by the woodstove. snowsuit cuffs filled with snow. ice-caked mittens, runny nose, red cheeks. snow to her knees, she carries you. weight of child, weight of alone, weight of snow. footprints. a tracker would see two sets: hers, and the photographer who maybe loves you and makes you laugh. you leave no footprints, baby person. you would have been swallowed by winter if she had put you down.

(freewrite, ten minutes, in this one you are.)



the long thin scar, top to bottom. the round scar, dug with a shovel, sternum, dirt piled hastily and without thought. i will replant here one day. but for now: too soon, too wet, too tender.

write about a scar. her scar stretched across her belly. two babies from that one. the scar under her chin where they pulled the gravel and subcutaneous fat after the accident. scar on my hand from broken glass, melted wax. exposed bone, one stitch holds me closed. scar on my face, three weeks old. cat scratch, thirteen stitches, first of many signs someone could read if they knew how. if someone wanted to learn the way. scar on my face from the intentional spirit animal. the dog of earth chasing the cat of other places, the marking of a face. the man on the moon, flag planted. stars spin past, regardless.

silver hair a scar of something none of us will talk about. except once when she said: we gave you that hair so the spirits could find you anywhere, and in a hurry. hand on the back of my neck, kind eyes. the woman who surprised me by treating me like a daughter she is proud of. the scar of whatever happened to me?


(freewrite, 15 minutes, write about a scar)

not magic yet

when a girl feels so alone
what a tease to throw a bone
should've just stayed at home
when a girl feels so alone

why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
don't you know i breathe in fire?
breathe out fire?

what if my own skin makes my skin crawl?
what if my own flesh is suburban sprawl?
what happened between us makes sense if i'm nothing
and you are all
if i'm nothing at all

why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
don't you know i breathe in fire?
breathe out fire?

you are always on my mind

they're dying outside

i am not beautiful
i am not beautiful
i am in bloom as the world goes underground
and i am not beautiful
and i am not magic yet
but i am in bloom at the end of the world


fiya, tUnE-YaRdS

an enchantment

my feet are planted ankle deep and there is no moving. sand scratching my skin, sand whipping circles, my feet are rooted. my feet are thin roots, a few fat thirsty roots, thirsty veins. salt water only, thirsty veins, this kind of thirst, wild-eyed desperate. the sun is going down. gray sky, slate gray, storm gray. dark birds circling, the tide is coming in and i am knee-deep, stinging fishes. luminescence. i am stubborn, i see shipwreck, i see gangplank, i see cannon fodder. i see quick sink, gallows. i see no good can come of this. no good can come of slave trade, i am knee-deep stubborn. flit flit scratch. shore creatures skrit behind me: come in, come in. there is danger there, there's no reason there, come in. come in, just pull up your feet and join us. sea creatures, sand creatures, dark birds stinging plants all call: come in, come in. i think of buried treasure. i think of driftwood beachwood campfire. whirling water is cold, is electric, is no reason to stay. thirsty roots thirsty veins. there is lightning offshore, there is great blue whale, there is the song you sing when you're lost at sea. siren song lost song. knee-deep ankle-deep sinking stuck here at the beginning of sea, end of land. end of sea, beginning of land. it's all in the language of the story. beginning, end. sunken treasure, phosphorescence, stinging jellies, beachwood campfire, song of lost at sea, lost at land. uproot now, easy shifting sucking sound, water filling that space. drag roots, drag my thirsty veins. walk the water line, walk the path between beginning and ending. scritch scritch glowing stones, stars in the sky, whirling birds, this story, that. it's all in the telling. it's all in the choosing to believe. it's: am i lost at sea, am i beach dweller, am i sunken treasure, am i the song to sing when lost?



(freewrite, 15 minutes. prompt: adversary)

missing her.

more stars than you've ever seen.
jeff buckley singing hallelujah.
the high desert on your birthday.