I wish...

I wish I could be as open with everyone as I am with the people I trust. I wish I could look at you and tell you what's in me and hear you tell me what's in you.

This is my new favorite animal. Notice the colors, and how the low lights perfectly frame the face. God is a genious, and I feel a genuine likeness here. Can you also see it in the eyes? Perfect dark halos. You could fall into them. There is something very alluring about this Cephalopoda- it may be its bite-sizedness, it may be its perfectly spiraling legs complete with baby suction cups. I want to market this fella out as the toy that comes in cereal boxes. Oh, little Octopus Vulgaris, YOU are a superstar.

And this is my second favorite animal. It is "enough said."

purr bark tweet glub neigh moo baa rawr squeak

We heart pets. We do. We talk about them all the time. If you heart pets too, you should say so. Matter of fact, you should yell it. Wear it on your shirt. And if you need someone to sit your pet, ask us. Cause that's what we do. And we heart doing it.

Best Friend's Keeper: Professional Pet Sitting and Care

Nikki & Lauren

Books?

I run out of books to read so fast, and this makes me sad. It seems every time I get a new one, I've read it within the next couple days. Then I don't know what to get next. Magazines? Nah. I need an infinite supple of reading material within grasp at all times. I need books to fall into my lap on call. Anyone have any suggestions for what to read next before I result to the cookbooks across the table??

ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies ponies

My throat is sore, but there are a lot of good things happening right now. My life is coming into full circle, and I think I see it. I understand what the Chinese say about spirals and how God does answer prayers, again and again and again and again. I'm hesitant about saying here what is going on because I feel if I form the words, if I give them a body, everything will crumble and turn to dust, then I'll be back to emptyhandedness. I've seen this happen so many times. Though, I'm so excited I can't contain; I want to shout REALLY loud. One good thing I can say is that there are lots of ponies for me to ride now. So I have something fun to do during the day. And I feel this is my practice in life, helping ponies. Learning from them what it is to be raw and truthful. Also, I have nothing else to say and I want a potters wheel to make my own cups. I'm adamant and difficult about it.

But if you could lend me your prayers...

Were our mouths as full of song

as the sea,

and our tongue as full of joyous song
as its multitude of waves,

and our lips as full of praise
as the breadth of the heavens,

and our eyes as brilliant
as the sun and the moon,

and our hands as outspread
as eagles of the sky

and our feet as swift as hinds -

we still could not thank You sufficiently Hashem,

our God, and God of our forefathers,

and to bless Your Name for

even one

of the

thousand thousand, thousands of thousands

and myriad myriads

of favors that You performed

for our ancestors and for us

from the NISHMAT

a prayer before purification

in the Ritual Bath's (Mikvah)

The White Cosmonaut

by Jeremy Geddes

I gleam and cry at this.

May 4th, 2010

Yesterday was my resurrection day. It was a good resurrection day. I bought an orchid, I wrote a poem, and on the back of a vespa going down Berry's Knob at the sunset, I saw my life was magical. I even said so.

My bowl is empty. But it's my bowl, you see, and I love it.

All of us, all of us, all of us

trying to save

our immortal souls, some ways

seemingly more round-

about and mysterious

than others. We're having

a good time here. But hope

all will be revealed soon.

Excerpt from "Zurich"

Raymond Carver

I am in love with this man. It is a very, very profound love.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is thundering outside;

Today is a good day,

despite...

I am trying again. A man has to begin

over and over- to try to think and feel

only in a very limited field, the house on the street,

the man at the corner drug store.

--Sherwood Anderson, from a letter

I'm here in the house. And I want to try again.

You, of all people, Anderson, can understand.

Trying to Pray

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying

In its dark thorns.

Still,

There are good things in the world.

It is dusk.

It is the good darkness

Of women's hands that touch loaves.

The spirit of a tree begins to move.

I touch leaves.

I close my eyes, and think of water.

James Wright

Evolution.

It dies with us. The whole thing dies with us.

Jack Kerouac said there were four essentials for prose:

Accept loss forever.
Be submissive to everything, open, listening.
No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge. And,
Be in love with your life.

I looked around me. No one was there. I had no one's approval or permission, and no one cared whether I wrote or not. I asked myself why I write.
I write because I keep my mouth shut a lot and my ego truth is I want to live forever. Not only do I want to live forever, but I want the cup of tea I had this morning to live forever, too, and my left sock and the orange peel and the woman I saw pushing the shopping cart of canned foods. I hurt at my impermanence and at the edge of all my joy, I know all of this will end-the sunny days in spring, my house on Clubhouse Court in Franklin, Tennessee, a perfectville in mythical America. Then no one will know what it was like to breathe here or to stub your toe at the sunset on the hills as the sky moves in layers of color.
I write because I'm broken and hurt and I need to know how to make hurt okay. Rivers run through me, and if I don't allow them to cascade from my fingertips, I'll build a dam. With the fulness I'll die. I'll just implode.

I write because I'm an artist, and I mold my life through my words.
I write because I'm lonely and move through the world alone. If I don't write, no one will ever be able to say that I was here or that they knew me.
I write because I'm submissive. I give back as freely as I have been given, and I want to breathe life into everything I encounter, give it all a new name. I want to recycle everything I know before it's too late and I can't help anyone because if I can't help anyone everything is meaningless.
I'm desperate. This is all I have. I have nothing else.
I write because I'm insane, schizophrenic. I know it and accept it and have to do something before I end up drunk, suicidal, or in a looney bin.
I write because it's dangerous, rebellious, wicked even, and I'm wicked. And writing is the only way to make myself good again, to face my demons and spit in their eyes. It's the only way I can build a temple in three days and move into it. It's the home not made out of wood and stone, and the only one I'm welcome to return to no matter how long I've been gone, and want to. It's the only real home I''ll probably ever have. It's light and it's dark, and I eat it and keep it with me.
And finally, I write out of total incomprehension that love isn't enough and even writing, which might be all I have, it isn't even enough. I can never get it all down. There are times when I have to leave it, when I can't voice the words which tell what happens in my heart, in my bones. I'm left gaping, grasping at thin air for some fragment of a language to relieve myself, but there's nothing, and I'm empty handed. I'm angry. But writing is the only way I can meet myself. It's the only home I have to come to. It's the only place my soul has rest, where all the rivers of this world meet at one point of singularity and nothing exists but everything is here.

"When it hurts we return to the banks of certain rivers."

A day so happy.

Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.

Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.

There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.

I knew no one worth my envying him.

Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.

To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.

In my body I felt no pain.

When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

"Gift"

Czeslaw Milosz

Today, I walked down to the water three miles away from everything. I intended to go there to pray but realized I've been praying in my heart my whole life and there were no words I could say that weren't already known. Instead, I saw how everything else moves in prayer, the trees, the delphiniums, geese and turtles. And I found that I was okay.

I stumbled upon some deer and tried out my Equus. Reading one of the white-tailed does was like a dream. She responded to everything and I responded to her. Being able to communicate in this way thrills me like it's the first time each time it happens. I feel I'm being a part of a miracle, or rather witnessing one.

I haven't been at peace for a few weeks until today. Nature is a kind of medicine. Walking back, I no longer felt subjective to the world. I felt objective, and I let this big earth pass right through me.

Also, I didn't feel alone anymore. And that has never happened.

To go on living when one has stopped living,

I think, is a terrible end.

To no longer taste the sun on

your skin

on any old morning

or feel this big world

engulf around you with each life,

small but complete,

such a dishonorable kind of death.

I would rather die wholly again and again in a day.

If I eat this spoonful of sugar,

I will break out of my body.

my love is animal..

Because I know a lot about horses, and of loneliness too:

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

"A Blessing"

James Wright

Ode to Spring

Here's another story I found from 2006 when writing was a playground for me, something to do for fun like video games for others. That's when it was pure and natural... now I've become institutionalized, and everything's business. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I. Apparently, in this I described one thing from three perspectives. Guess and I'll tell you at the end, maybe:

I was ashamed in their beauty. The clouds were thick and I could hear them talking as they past over head: "We may not make it, but look at all we've seen." The water from the pond grabbed at my feet before retreating. Oh, but the swans! For a little while they put me in a trance, and I believed they had created the earth and myself.

---------------------------

I didn't see them unless I looked. Even if I stared their white blended with the clouds and became monotonous. The only part of them recognizable were their black feet like footprints in the sky. I swam in circles and at odd angles as one set of footprints disappeared and was replaced by another somewhere else.

This was how the world turned,

not immediate

but slowly.

--------------------------

There was a man standing before me. I wanted for him to swim to me from the dirt so I could cleanse him, keep him under like the swans which found refuge in me. "Come and wade, child-man," I wanted to coax. Yet, I think we have always done that and without much attainment. Today, he was my only occupation as he stood staring, seeing for the first time. I wanted to rise up and swallow him, have him forever. But how the earth cups me, cuts me off. Only if those clouds would rain. But they keep traveling, deep in conversation.

3 Perspectives on swans; 1st man, 2nd fish, 3rd water.

I was looking through an old journal from 2007 that I wrote stories in and to my surprise, I actually kinda like them.. in an informal kinda recreational way. I think this one's about me and my best friend, Kaitlin, or it was inspired by me and Kaitlin, but I don't remember.. parts of this story may or may not be fabricated:

It was one of those days. She and I were wearing the same dress we wore yesterday. Also, the day before. We were going through one of those phases where you want to wear the same clothes everyday. This time the phase lasted nearly two weeks. We had always gone through phases like this. At one time we hung upside down off her bed so our hair looked like it stood on end and we sprayed a whole bottle of hair spray so it would stay like that when we stood. We'd hang upside down with the blood rushing to our heads while we waited for it to dry. We thought it was cool and we looked cool with it. Two bony nine year olds with dos like Einstein had cloned his hair and implanted it to our skulls, watered it regularly and watched it grow. This phase had lasted for a month of February on a leap year and only stopped when I had gotten sick from inhaling the many fumes from our Xtra Stronghold. Then we had gone through other phases and those phases got us here in the same dress, nine years later. We were stranded. At least we had hoped we were stranded. We had hoped for a lot of things and now we had hoped that we were stuck in the wild of the city and would have to scour to find food and shelter. For an instant I hoped we didn't know anyone else. I really hoped that. And we were a family. Family. The ones around when there's no one else. But we were in the same town we had been in for ten plus years and we knew everyone. That's why we wished we were stranded somewhere, and there wasn't a familiar face.

You don't really learn anything from it, besides the desperation and boredom of two teenage girls, so it's really not great.. or really good. But it's fun. It captures us, or at least me, in a different state in my life, when I was restless. Hasn't really changed but I believe acceptance is kicking in.

Jesus, don't cry. You can rely on me, honey.

You can come by anytime you want. I'll be

around. You were right about the stars. Each

one is a setting sun.

Mona Lisa's in the ground

You're not bad, you're not bad...

But I've grown up to believe I'm a monster, dark and angry, catching fire to villages and eating the women and children. I've grown up to hide to save myself from those who may hunt me, who know how to mount my skin on their walls and call me Trophy. I've come now to fear, to fear the warm beast inside myself and to pray that she stays dormant tonight. That she passes over blood-marked doors, dazily and unseen.

This is what my humanity taught me: to repress and to submit. But if we ride these monsters down... if we let live what we can not conform, what manner of seraphs will live among people?

These are they who are given; their ways can not be learned.

Walking into oblivion

with a smile.

But the change...

-My broda, Zak

You know, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I realized that was an idea way before its time. Oh, how the world dearly loves a cage.

There really is no reason as to why I do anything. I just do it just cause, like on a whim. I like to think that perhaps on a higher level I'm subconsciously being influenced by the Divine Father, I blow about so easily like a tumbleweed being guided by the unseen force of the wind, but I have no proof of this, yuh know? I'm just hur right now. Like this right now:

Isn't that pretty? I just wanted to put that in there. There's something ethereal about it. It's nice. There's really no other reason for it... there's really no other reason for it... (I just said that slowly and to myself.) But anyways, a story to show my point: I have a nag for Publix excursions. And I've also become well acquainted with the sushi man there. If I ask, he makes my sushi custom, and if I stand in front of the sushi "bar" scrutinizing each roll and picking out its flaws, he'll eventually go get my a basket from the front of the store cause he knows I'm about to buy a lot.. to last me the week, of course (shifty eyes). So today, on a whim, sushi fellow suggested I also buy some ginger to help clear sinuses and nasal congestion. I'm a vegetarian. I don't get sick, it's difficult to. Now that's a large claim.. I don't give the full responsibility to my being a veggie head the soul reason as to why I rarely get sick, but from my observations since I've become a vegetarian I DEFINITELY don't get sick very often, EVER, and if I've told you I wasn't feeling to well I was saying that to get out of something... my apologies for my mortal flaws. Back to my story now, so I tend to not get sick. And as a matter of fact, I felt fine today and have been for awhile and wasn't suffering from any sinuses or nasal congestion. But as to please his kind hospitality towards me, a little ginger won't hurt. So sure, I got some in my sushi. Deliceuse. I enjoyed it vigorously. He put some on the side. Then after returning home later from a pleasant walk to CVS for chapstick, my nose started getting stuffy. Thus, my healthy streak is broken. However because on a whim I went to Publix for some sushi, and on a whim my fellow added ginger to my sushi and gave me some on the side so that I had some left over, I am now nasaly clear. Bless you, sushi man, bless you.

Can I tell you something?

Can I tell you what I feel, and you will listen? Don't pass judgement, because I've already been judged so many times, and all I wanted was to talk. I want to say what's on my heart, cause my mind is just rattled. I feel my heart more. It's large and carries more weight than it possibly should. It houses things that have never been said, and through it all my life flows. I don't have the time in a short minute to tell you what it said to me this morning. But it was woeful, and still full of life. It said, speak, speak so that I may listen. I've loved you for such a long time still.

when you finally break my legs
and i can never leave the house again
then i'll finally love you
and we can have some kids.

There are five empty coffee cups in my room, some still have coffee remnants at the bottom. This morning I acquired a bottle of 100% pure aloe vera juice, and its not good. But I carry Texas in me. I had to have it. It reminds me of home and all of the sunburns I endured for the sake of getting fresh air. In Texas, Aloe plants grow wild which is cosmically orchestrated cause you'll suffer from third degree burns if you stay outside for more than ten minutes. And you'll kiss the aloe plant for its healing plant blood while you curse the flatlands and its dryness and the infernal sun... I have many times. This is what I read about internally consuming aloe vera juice from The American Chronicle online:

The health benefits of aloe vera taken internally include: improved circulation, regulation of blood pressure, promotes healing of bones and joints, strengthens the immune system,

defends the body against bacteria, heals internal

tissue damage,

heals ulcers, improves and even eliminates constipation,

blood sugar regulation, and reduces itchiness in psoriasis helping it to heal.

Drinking two to four ounces a day is all that is required to gain the

many benefits of aloe vera

juice.

The detoxification properties of aloe vera juice also act to

detoxify your blood stream. If you have intestinal or stomach problems

it can help your digestive

tract to work smoothly.One of the most important health

benefits of aloe vera juice is its operation as an anti-bacterial and

anti-fungal agent, helping to prevent the onset of disease in the body. One of the most valuable

health benefits for today's society is aloe vera's

ability to assist weight loss

. Aloe vera works to both reduce

and stabilize the body mass index by stimulating the metabolic rate in

our liver cells so that we burn more energy. The energy used for this comes from fat

and carbohydrate stores in the body. Drinking aloe vera juice

every day has been likened to doing multiple workouts throughout the week.

Another reason why aloe vera works well as a

weightloss supplement,

is because it has a high content of collagen protein. When you drink

aloe vera juice every day, the body has to spend additional

energy to assimilate its protein into your system.

But enough about Aloe and Texas... I'd rather talk about Mary Oliver who I got to hug and kiss when she came for her poetry reading. She smelt like puppies and cigarettes and a strand of her silver hair got loose and floated into my

mouth as she broke from my embrace. I swallowed it, hoping it would course through my bloodstream and she would manifest herself in my own writing. I've yet to find out if that worked...

Don't bother me.

I've just

been born.

-Mary Oliver

I am sitting in my room, wondering whether I should pick up any new addictions. Not like the ones I have aren't enough, but they're not dangerous.

I should smoke cigarettes.

I should be a wino.

I should swallow paint.

My little cat is steadily watching my birds who are also watching her. I know she wants to eat them.

Where did you come from?

I don't know.

Where are you going?

A ways down the road.

Something peculiar happened to me the other night, and I'm afraid it might have been sacriligious, but I don't know. I don't know anything really, and this is good. My cup is always empty. At least nothing bad was caused by it... it was very bizarre. I don't know if I want that to ever happen again... but it would be selfish of me to reject any gifting that may touch another. The world's so much larger than myself; there's so much more to it. It's selfish to think of only yourself, of only your individual happiness, of only how others may perceive you.. Duhhh. The closer I come to God, the more I truly realize in my being that nothing is ever about me, not even slightly. Everything is about everyone. We're all one body.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together...

COO COO CUCHOO!!

Evian was really upset last week. He said he was annoyed, and there was nothing anyone could do. He was frustrated with other people's actions, even though no one had done anything to him directly. I asked him then why was he mad. He said, "because you are everyone, and everyone is you. These people are doin' stupid shit, and they're not gonna stop and you can't stop them. So all these people are doin' stupid shit and it affects you cause you're everyone and everyone is you. Don't forget that."

Where did you come from?

Where did you go?

Where did you come from,

Cotton-eyed Joe.

Why be a veggie head.

Here are some particular reasons to, if not become a

vegetarian, at least cut back meat consumption drastically:

Human anatomy: We're most similar to other herbivores,

and drastically different from carnivores and true omnivores.

Health: The science shows that the more meat we eat, the sicker we get

-- heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and

every other major degenerative disease.

If eating meat were so natural, it wouldn't destroy our health.

Physical performance: People have much better endurance

when they don't eat meat -- whether they're professional athletes or not.

Our early ancestors from at least four million years ago

were almost exclusively vegetarian.

Our omnivorism means we're capable of eating meat

(useful from a survival standpoint if that's all that's available),

but our bodies aren't geared for it to be a normal, significant part of our diets.

The animals most similar to us, the other primates,

eat an almost exclusively vegetarian diet

(and their main non-plant food often isn't meat, it's termites).

Our teeth, saliva, stomach acid, and intestines are most similar to other

plant-eaters, and dissimilar to carnivores and true omnivores.

Among animals, plant-eaters have the longest lifespans,

and humans are certainly in that category

(and yes, this was true even before modern medicine).

We sleep about the same amount of time as other herbivores,

and less than carnivores and true omnivores.

The most common cause of choking deaths is eating meat.

Real carnivores don't have that problem.