the jogger

My sister said she was too tired to jog today
I said "yeah I know what you mean, for the past couple years now I have just been
too tired.
I used to know what the forest looked like, everyday
 what gate to avoid
I would run in the middle of the road trying to keep the PTSD at bay
jumping out of my skin with each barking dog, a panic attack lady jogger
a person desperate to find sanity in the woods

Yeah- perhaps a few years of sleep....
I think the jogging was a way to wear out the mania swirling inside me like a storm drain gushing, like a frenzied heart on speed
reeling

Today- I eat white pills tinted yellowish
white pills tinted peachish
pills with food and water, pills before bed, pills that make me sick and sleepy.

In bed I close my eyes and see the forest, the certain tree that I marked my run by, it's roots and a silent prayer. Always the same. you will be okay.
breathe.
 you are alive.
In bed I convalesce. My curtains are drawn, held under a stack of blankets. My skin and eyes want the darkness.  My birds are morphing into one another, becoming the same color, creating the same mannerisms and behavior.
I realize I am becoming more and more like my stuffed animals, jammed up against the wall, slipping into the crack of the bed. All day quiet, fluffy white in the dark room painted pink.

homeless house

This knife sits much smaller in my hand

after so many years, the weight of it has lessened, shifted

the curve and massiveness of the handle is dwarfed by my adult fingers

hand, forearm, eyeballs.

the knives, pickles in a jar, sturdy cans of SlimFast, 

his kitchen stuff makes me remember.

I haven't seen these butter knives or the sharp ones with the red trim in over fifteen years. It's unbelievable that these objects still exist- artifacts
 not carved out of some false memory of my childhood-
imagery burned into my cells
 embedded in my bone marrow by some fantasy transfusion

in fact true.

here. spreading butter, cutting bread and meat in his house.

Seeing them now I feel relived

I feel bewildered.

my same heart thumping still

only certain dishes can be used here, the squalor the wreckage is wearing a thick coat, 

privilege

the infection infects itself insular breathing it's own hot breath back in

a stale hot cycle.

                             our existence is too terrible 

our eyes 

I shower scrubbing off the turpentine workday. 

My skin is older

a stranger in the tragic tub shaving adult legs

hands and feet with black nail polish, a woman notices 

the water pressure- the architecture of the bathroom

it reminds her of being poor, being a child, having thick long ratty hair

wet and cold down the child back

put my head in a laundry bag and shake it

cover it in cotton ball fuzz

numb buzzing around my nose, inside my teeth. my ears hum.

I am wet in the water 

   I try to remember outside of this space

I say the word  

      
           human 

out loud.

I try to morph the piece of trash child into the shape of a human woman

I feel bewildered.

I feel homeless in this house.

sleep. just go to bed, leave the woman body here

I am in the bed at seven pm

being lucid in this place is the ultimate nightmare

So Many Years

a familiar suffocation

it is this that make 

Settling

 and 

    Survival 

run rampant.

I hear coyotes

I close my eyes and go to them

a guest at my fathers

horizontal again

like so many times before the terror takes over the blood, the organs, seeps in the bones
a stew of adrenaline.

fight or flight fight or flight fight or flight fightflightfitflgtflitigiftt

heart is pounding, breath is audible, it's cause I am under the covers and it's hotter here, take your head out
relax, let the sweat on your face dry, go to bed like a normal woman your age and forget this ever happened.

forget it.

Outside this window I can hear the air. In the darkness bright orange fruits, ruddy avocados hang heavy, they are cold at night, they sleep like human hearts, heavy, pulling, alive in the blackness.

Raccoons run across this roof. I hear their little feet above my head. I am hungry for dinner, but I will stay here, horizontal till sunrise.
It's the feeling of being skinless, chicken meat raw, without the skin, fleshy, wet and structureless
that's about as human as it gets here in this house. Pushed up against the unstable mountain side, with citrus and cacti and wildflowers. A house shell that holds one man, eight surf boards, one motorcycle, five automobiles and years, decades of sadness

the mud slid before, once killing three sleeping people here. Right here where I am laying
 horizontal now.

have you ever held a bird in your hands with it's wings flapping so violently
you think they'll just snap off?? It's scary and urgent and messy.
my heart is like that too:
a dead skinless blob of bird
and
a live desperate flapping of a bird

it's dark and i can hear everything outside the lightweight door.
fumbling, delusion, hopelessness

in the Hollywood Hills

my birthday.
a little gift to enjoy.
a dead phone in January.
one long silence

a sadness spreads over my heart
a pancake spreading out
up against the hot hot edge
a hard ending

a hot heart
edges and lines
smoking
in the morning, all day, at night
slow burning

a birthday gift- alone.
to be seen,
looked at looked at looked at


always alone in the end
you can learn to enjoy this
            length

 the day unending
punctuated by pills & water
a steady silence
coffee and crying
you can wait it out, a steady silence

holds a heart
 still smoking

the terribleness of wanting: 2 examples

I sleep till 1pm or later, it's pouring rain outside, the day has been happening in this wet action
loose change exploding from a pocket
the quickness outside

Pulling myself out of bed
a painful transfer from one world to another, but she comes with me, actually, they both do:

I was washing my favorite painted china as the rest were urging me to hurry up, the plane was leaving soon. We had days of travel ahead of us. I packed like a wild beast, there was no newspaper to wrap the delicate objects in, they all ended up together, messy and vulnerable.

Earlier I was fiending for her.
She could not tolorate human touch and hated the motion of kissing. All she was after was emotional intimacy. Too bad the only way I knew how to approach her was with a body...
I lured her into a tub with a wrap around curtain, she melted in like a mermaid back in water, sliding into the full bath with an invisible human body. Her flesh hard- like a plastic dolls, not so much breathing, with like,
pores.
She/He came because of the story and the poetry that was unraveling in the house dialogue. Everyone on that floor of the old rickety house with too many doors and too many kittens running around scratching, had something to say about this story. Once a roommate even showed me his cell phone with a picture of Manuela with her bright blond ponytail taken in the Swiss alps. He told me what she thought of the subject.
I said she looked beautiful up there. Glowing.
Also Gloria who moved to SF had ideas about it too. She was still dancing and had more information now, even in SF they all held her like a member of the home, her opinion counted.
They knew why I was there could feel the ache
the whoosh of housemates knew I was in love with him/her and knew that she/he wouldn't let me in. Just this conversation. This was where we could stay.

So I was shocked when they slinked into the tub,
I saw the barrier- that invisible confusing inanimate body- outside of androgyny and even humanness.
None of that even registered in that  dream moment.
            it was just the words between us

amazing feelings
to be so close
and their deep dark eyes and a head of thick hair,

listening

their skinny hands explaining a thing, like a skeleton finger dance.

achey


In the shower I was covered in flour and bits of dough were happening too with the water and steam and the love sickness grew and began to overflow, out of the old tub,
set in the center of the room
on the top floor of the old wood house
 it poured out like rising dough, pushing though the windows like a slow pastry tragedy.
 Expanding, unending.

In my waking life writing this I feel the word "asexual" was being experienced and understood,
unfortunate to my dream heart.

She/He wanted to wrap their words with mine, weave them in and out of the pages in my brain, see them layer and bend, create a new story,
love, true cognitive love.

My fleshy body baking project just reached for her/him, without knowing, without ability to stop. my nerves wanted to feel skin to skin, heat, a body alive.
Each time they recoiled and retreated. I was left with this mess of soggy paper, ink transferred to my naked body, pages stuck and peeled like vending machine tattoos.
So much more.
Crawlspaces that lead to the past and future that all the characters kept jumping in and out of. I tried to avoid the smaller spaces in the dream.

At one point they shot a music video , I was in the trailer behind, the doorway was lit up, the only source of light all around. I layed on the floor inside with my teal high heels in the air, they were like trees, architecture in the space, this pose seemed safest and the least obtrusive.
a fair amount of time in these dreams was spent trying to not get in the way,
cause damage, my bodies natural impulse's where so powerful,
 I had to put myself into spaces to try....

sit in the corner

think about what you have done
I was washing the china and Jenny came up behind me, out of nowhere, I didn't turn to look at her, she just whispered in my ear. She loves me, she still loves me.
with wet hands and without turning I said still I loved her too. At that point in the dream I was not crying.
That's a first in these JH dreams.

Regardless I woke up carrying both of them inside me, like a kangaroo pouch attached to my heart.
I am up now, feeling super handicapped, I have too much weight in one place, my body is off kilter and the whole system has to overcompensate for this deformity. I am top heavy and being vertical feels like such a struggle. I just want to crawl back into my cave bed.
Ask Gloria and Manuela what they would do...

 when everyone they love is impossibly absent, how to cut the chord, how to look-
and learn to see
and                        want        a different kind of human.

night storm

I wake up with a start- who is next to me?
exhale
No one,
I move the covers to check,        no one
strange. Who was I expecting?
No One.
The porch curtains are flapping wildly outside my window, it feels like someone is out there rustling around.
My skin on my face is raw from the scrubbing, dented from sleeping, my hair is plastered in an aqua net pillow mohawk, the NKOTB sleeping bag zipper is touching my skin, I hate that touch.

It's still dark out, as I creep along the house, dressing and washing.
Several times I peek out the windows to see if someone is there, thick fabric drenched with rain is lifted and snapping in the winter air, the spray paint cans are all rearranged, like a robber jostled the paint table on his way out.

The storm is thrashing around the old house, it sounds like a box of junk being kicked.
It feels violent, broken things.
I find socks, I zip my boots.
I am surprised at my concern, the noise of the rain and wind is unsettling and my heart just jumps into  pounding

It's not frozen ice mornings any longer,
but the noise is heavy and new
it reminds me of early morning earthquakes in California, being caught in a storm at sea
cops coming to the house, kicking a box of red and blue lights and sirens.

This type of weather
 I think provokes freak accidents and crime, as I ride fast over the melted ice puddles I do a little mantra in my head, I make a bubble of safety around me and my bike. I haven't felt this sort of fear since Baltimore.
Heart racing and eyes darting was an everyday day
pot holes big as bathtubs, forties, plastic bag trees, and hubcaps in the road, tin garbage cans knocked over by rats as big as purse dogs.


I am safe here.

melted puddles, clean wet black streets
I always look in the same windows- the red room traced with Christmas lights, the kitchen window seal old bottles all lined up. It's like getting tucked into bed, I see these every morning,
 and I am calmer. Safer.
I breath hard when I finally get to the top of the hill, I forgot my inhaler- in my show bag from last night- that always happens, it's right in the gold bag,  mixed with the glittery make up.


I drink and drink and drink coffee. I try to let my chest relax and open,
I don't move or talk, I listen, I pray,
I try and become stillness

I try to begin again.

New year newness

I woke up full of dreams.
After being fed and fed coffee and coffee and hot chocolate too
I am back to sleep
this time on the curvy love seat, a cat nap spot at the foot of the bed.

I dream hard.
I am with her, walking into Central Park holding hands. Its a fall day, I think we skip some, or there is wind and we are happy.
Soon there are koi ponds all around, pathways and ditches, bridges and smooth rocks
we both watch the koi swirl and swirl under the glassy surface. We bounce over the ponds wildly,  like luck moves in, like giggling.
At one pond she picks me up and walks into it, her tail coats floating behind her like fins. She is holding me sideways, I am curled, my hair dangling, my high heel boots jutting out like daggers. Dry and sharp.
A Huge ancient koi whips around below. We are both surprised at him, massive gills moving inside the tiny pools.
The older women lounging in the water laugh and tell us all about the secrets there. It's not warm but they are very old and happy, spread out as if the sun cooed them into spreading out pancakes on a griddle.
I love the women and love being there with Johanna. We hold hands like a key inside a lock. It is creaky and engraved  and precious and simple. A piece that fits like a smooth stone sinking. slow. clean. soft.

I run into Lindsay from MICA. She is beautiful and is still with the same man she was dating seven years ago, they are holding hands. I hug her in that sophisticated white coat, I tell her I am so happy to see her, that I am happy for her move to Baltimore, happy happy.

In my waking life I am bundled on the love seat. I feel hungover, achey, saddish.

Not all my dreams feel so free. In my waking body I need.
My waking self sees snow falling, wears impossibly high glitter heels, spends all day exhaling, trying to feel a feeling, hoping to make a life that feels like jumping, that feels like gasping at the giant fish swirling.