color instead

I forget how much I love painting
until that moment when it's mixed just right, the canvas is already thick enough to handle it
so much has already been said then deleted
the shapes are clearer and the hand is smarter and less spastic
then the stroke comes, that defines the space that was floating.
one dot makes her face believable.


It's not a great painting, but it's good enough for now. It keeps me working and 
lets the sadness strain through me. 
The working opens up the pores of the creature basin- and sweat pours out, like running the mile,
drenched
the toxins turn 
to deep grey, 
light pink,
a bright yellow, 
her purple-ish flesh.


Days like this I am restless.
The same song on repeat all day.
The candle flickers manic-ley on the green dresser.


I think about being under water with my gills breathing, and the type of tough skin, 
shark skin- try cutting through that with a knife, it's dense 
salt water is like air to me.
Under here I prefer the darker places, schools of fish are passing like conversations in the city
Here I can be alone
non verbal
hair like this is harder to cut too, try ripping seaweed with your bare hands


Submerged.
Cover me with the weight of the sea today
salt like air
no language just the heavy echo
inside a huge full womb


schools pass by and I hear nothing, I see only color:
deep grey, light pink, bright yellow, her purple-ish flesh.


Days like this I'm better off just thinking in color.
Just focus on the light and shadow.
I have water creature hands, they touch my wet face
tears are all around me this far down.

"suck my left one"

I woke up and could still feel it.
A tugging.
Like a long thick braid down your back, the weight of a ponytail swinging.
The baby I was nursing on my left breast was just like that, a ponytail piece of me.
It was faceless, nameless, sexless- just a part of myself nursing.

It wasn't
"my baby" as much as it was me with me.
In waking life I thought it odd that I was not terrified of it, of accidentally killing it.
But in the dream it was natural,  a thing to do, getting my nails done,  unlocking the front door, nursing a baby.
I held it with one arm while other dream activities happened around my head outside of me,
it nursed and once I fixed it back on when its kitten like mouth face unhooked from my nipple, like a bike pump "pfffffft" -ing off the skinny tire


I was not terrified
I was just a human acting like a human in a dream

If I could in real live life be guaranteed to have a kitten baby I would do it in a second.
A pink fluffy kitten without dander or poison claws or fleas.
Curled up in a circle, on my circle belly, a sleeping circle
sleeping.

quiet shapes and colors I can manage.

I can still feel the sleeping circle attached, my left arm shaped like a "U", my breast loaded with milk, a ghost weight hanging there.