proof of life :

she taught me to not like
myself/

especially, my image
— in photographs and in the moments themselves

ingraining a self-consciousness in me

in the candidness of my real life

in

play
laughter
effort
surprise
exertion
contemplation
fatigue
wonder
sadness
silliness
conversation
worry
unmade

pose, poise, posture, profile, perfect,

control

and because perfection

is unattainable,

in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of the beheld

she was absent from the photos of our lives, and so also was i,

becoming onlooker, background, instead of subject

and, i learned to make myself invisible

to become invisible

to accept invisibility

there are so many ways to be a thief


self-portrait, proof of life,
Kahlo, an ideal of self-possession

proof of life | 𝕮𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖊 consciousness

a perfect girl for one brief moment

james, thank you.

a man who knew my father befriended me
he caused me to question the nature of my reality,
my history, its validity,
my possibly-false memories
all viewed through the lens
of a person
who had vested interest in
indoctrinating me
who preferred my naïveté
under guise of protectivity


the last time i saw my father, Christmas break, age 6, Waukegan, Illinois

parents can write stories on the folds of the cerebrum,
their pens go unchallenged
until they’re challenged /
their ink is like cord blood,
except it can re/generate — or damage

it only takes one person
to crack the sky,
then we astronomers spend
our lives asking the zealots
a non-answerable “why?”

Famêlée

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This feels like an arrow
Made from a tree
That rose from
An acorn
That I gathered and stored
In another life

Scribed with a message continually
piercing my heart

I wasn’t only wounded though,
I was woke
into a clarity
that I was already sighting in my dreams,
writing with words
mortal and eternal

You once said, proclaimed or whispered
Every single thing
that I ever believed
My own truths embarrassed in the shadow of your confidence
My inner voice silenced in your animated persuasion
Believing you so completely – for the better of my years
Becoming like and unlike you because of it,
but not be-coming me,
Un-be-coming me every day

I ain’t even mad
You don’t know this – still,
You don’t want
to hear,
or listen;

Our time is running out
Even this admission
Is sure to haunt me one day,
and guilts me today

But I can’t call you confidant or crone
If you refuse to learn,
to evolve,
From this one archetype

The wide and long view
seems to escape you
You live in the moment in the least way, the worst way
And I don’t worship here or there, any more
The faith in your godliness is gone,
It is unfamiliar
For me to pity you
You, deaf and tone deaf

You had all the answers
In the morning shallows, perhaps
But evaporation revealed even those
Were anchor-less, yet stationary
An algae
Mucking up the colorless perfection of sunlit water

But in the deep, or dark, or quiet pools, you were always so lost
And in the ocean, at night
You drown even in its calm
You have ridden civil swells and storms,
I’ll give you that
But have you ever communed with waves
Allowing them to be part of you
Swallowing and absorbing the mystery
Becoming the colorless perfection of dark water

You seem to stay parched
Your belly’s hollow from impious fasting and pious thirst
You do know that’s where your heart sits?

But let’s agree to come around again, friend
We’ll swap places and next time
I’ll be the mother,
and the son,
and the husband,
and the elder,
and the babe,
and the foreign one,
I’ll become The Other One
because,
I want the chance to know
You

 

Wanderten Mutter

“Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut. http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard “Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut.
http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard

My life seems long, I know
My body’s mostly worn
Inside, she’s just begun to live, again
A girl gone long ago

There are bottled laughs to voice aloud
New smiles to wear with these old shoes
Time to know the world, and you, and you, and you …
between these walls of peeling, muted hues

Once Herr died
My Self was ready to return
My cadence so shy and slow,
Lamenting the awkward waste of precious years

I find my voice as I write the past,
But in my book, the Tomorrow has no page
Forever winter approaches from within
These years and years upright on hard chairs

Unreal, unseen, unheard, untouched
by the world, by the womb, it may concern, Whom
I speak through and then beyond this pain of bone and life
Before the cold within brings silence of the tomb

You see, to me, my presence still feels warm, and blush
somehow, even new
My life stretched out behind me, no steps ahead
And I forestall Death’s cue, awaiting mere glimpse of you

If you can imagine, child
I love, unsaid,
I feel as just alive, as real, as you.