And the big ball in the sky and the slit eye of Un Chien Andalou and the upturned chin wielding the knife and the rinsing sink pouring sacred wine said:
Why don’t you believe in yourself?
Others who are fair to middling to pithy served over weak tea (don’t you just hate tepid and the nudity of wearing clothes?).
The result of waiting in your head, as others stream out and strap their wings, the consequence of exile, invariably madness, the quiet kind most likely, sometimes the type they label histrionic
which is really a way of saying get it out, your woman-hood and your messy gore, leave us nothing of who you were, be gone feelings, welcome the sunshine state of not giving a good god damn
They believe. They over believe. They sit fat and grand with crown and chips and mushy peas and rosacea and secret leak-proof underwear
they preen and fetishize their dusty heads with nothing special inside the sagging tent. So why not you?
You who are marvelous, hideous, magnificent, repulsive, malodorous from not washing (did Simone Mareuil wash underneath her arm-pits before committing suicide by self-immolation, dousing herself with gas-lit-fire in a public square somewhere)
when the rot and the unplanted bulb decays in damp corners and still produces no birth. You who are broken in the long arm of fracture and making an art of surviving by licked many times, thin string, waking to the caw of crows and their beady-eyed-scream. Why not you?
You who succumbed to the Piper and didn’t wake up, not once, somnambulist, you write behind your wafer-thin eye-lids, ink streaming like borrowed tears, nobody reads, water or divination, they simply don’t believe that crap anymore (I don’t even believe in YOU anymore)
We wouldn’t lie to you would we? (whisper whisper whisper) we tell the truth (oh surely, we do, we do) we venerate you on Monday and poach your blue eggs badly on Thursday. Liar liar liar! You let the cat out and she was run over by the hill you never walk UP.
That’s why. That’s why. That’s why.
Ooohhhh that’s why It fits like a glove (big hands, black heart) not your glove, your glove is velvet and lost, your glove didn’t ever feel right when it was on
fits like a mussel in your mouth, squirming. A muscle unused (you don’t desire me, I have lived too long and too short, I don’t drink enough to blot it out, I am a thing of dust that isn’t touched or fucked or run-over) cold mussels in brussels (overcooked always worse than raw)
I tried to be frank (all cold thumbs, warm brain, brain on fire, leaving debris of a life badly lived, in little love bites around her neck, praying mantis wearing jewels)
you turned me down for the jingle jangle and fizz and pop (old hat, large gloves, ashen feet, holes in the middle of you like whiteout) one pierced ear, Queen of Hearts. Black nave of Diamonds burrowed deep in fecund rib.
I would if I could (believe) but your exquisite lie is a third eye in my fever dream, it pulses like Soho
It tells me not to swallow.
(Inspired by Un Chien Andalou, 1929, Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí).
Our society worships entirely the wrong animal, venerating them and reducing others to ash.
The news recently devoted a good portion of the sports coverage to how much money certain sports figures were going to be paid for kicking a ball across a field. And this in a time when our jobs are dissolving, our society is being wrecked, our economy may be irrecoverable and certain industries will cease to exist en mass. Put simply, there will not be jobs to come back to folks but apparently we still need to pay these guys billions for their service to humanity?
I cannot understand how ANY society and how any of us can tolerate/accept a sports figure being paid anywhere NEAR that sum for what they do when those who really do jobs worth paying, are dying in droves because they are not receiving enough personal protective gear to protect themselves.
When did we start paying someone to kick a ball millions and a nurse who saves our life, hundreds?
What’s wrong with us?
If I were an alien observing our planet, I would seriously wonder if we all were crazy in our assessment of VALUE. What we value. What we do not. If nothing else, Covid-19 has given us a chance to see this once and for all and try to do something about it.
We have marched for Black Lives Matter during this time because it was over-due and our raw emotions on the subject burst out of their polite shell and filled the streets with ire and a desire for equality but how many of us really want equality? Not all of us that is for sure, look around and you can see it in every facet of life, a desire to be above someone else somehow.
We still routinely under-react and permit by our inaction, serious hideous crimes like rape to go unpunished in this country and others.
It’s the year 2020 and we still think inequality for women is acceptable in some forms and fashion. Let us not forget what Maya Angelou said about wanting to vote for a white woman over a black man. She said – women were the original oppressed group, thus we should work backward until all oppressed parties are equal. I agree with her.
We still think hate crimes against Jews and telling Jews that Israel should not be their country is somehow acceptable, despite those Jews having descended from that country. Would we say the same to Black People about Africa. Of course not! So why do we say it to Israel? Because of the Palestine Question which Europe in particular has decided to side with, uncaring of the history of persecution toward Jews and their right to have some land of their own. Of course we shouldn’t persecute Palestinians either and of course, Israel has made mistakes but it’s now about what optics politicians choose and what side of the story is half-revealed via inaccurate news reporting. It’s essentially about which side looks right to support? Because Trump supports Israel, most left-wing supporters are against it. Yet it is not that simple and never should be. Lest we forget our history.
We still think homosexuality is unnatural and abhorant and that being queer isn’t natural. We don’t say it out loud because it’s not popular to say it, but we think it and we act it and gays know. They know.
We talk about slavery and how horrific it was, but half the time we just pay lip service to the deeper issues, because we don’t know our history so we don’t mention Native Americans and how they were exterminated en mass and continue to be disenfranchised. We’re so proud of ourselves for changing the Red Skins but we think that’s enough. Or how slavery has never really gone away, it’s just changed hands and outfits, but it’s still well and thriving in many forms.
So it’s never enough. Until everyone is equal and inequality and racism are a thing of the past. But will they ever be? With people who seem to thrive on discrimination and putting themselves ahead of others and putting others down? If people think wearing a mask is too much, is it any wonder they really don’t give a shit if you are sick or you are vulnerable? Don’t they just want you to die and bugger off?
Likewise with illness, with chronically sick people, it’s never enough to just have laws that allow them to not be discriminated against because discrimination comes in a myriad of differing forms. Subtle. Unreachable. Devastating. People of color have to put up with this EVERY SINGLE DAY as do women, as do gays, as do sick people. Just one roll of the eye says everything. Says; ‘we think you are pathetic‘ invalidates an entire moment.
Chronic illness is a little like amputation. Obviously anyone who has suffered an amputation will refute this and rightly so. But metaphorically it remains akin to the loss of a limb. You are left flailing, unsure of how to right yourself, and continue as once you were. A part of you is lost.
They talk of periods of adjustment. The stages of grieving: Anger for what you have lost. Shame imposed by a society who now judges you weak. Acceptance of a ‘new normal’ that includes intolerable things such as chronic pain etc. For many, those stages of grieving never really end, they cycle and you go through different dilutions depending upon how you progress.
But progress is perhaps not the right word. In our linear society where so much is expected. For someone to drop off and no longer thrive, in nature they would be left behind to perish. In our society they are carried along but reminded frequently, of their burden, of their ineptitude.
For many who suffer mental illness, physical illness, both, there is a lot of shame attached to their existing after this fact. Even as people do not come out and say it directly (and believe me, many do!) there is a thin veil that is easily penetrable. People know when they are treated differently, seen differently, worse, judged without jury.
Being ‘sick’ in any manifestation is seen as a ‘weakness’ by our society. This invariably goes back to the ‘dog-eat-dog’ notion of surviving. The weakest link perishes or is a burden to the whole. But these days, with our so-called faith and mercy in place, one might imagine a little more compassion? And if you did, you would be sorely disappointed.
Since getting sick in 2017 I have felt intermittently well enough to continue working and ‘accomplishing’. But as with any pendulum, when it swings deeply toward illness, I am right back at the horror point of when it all began, down on my knees, imploring the universe for healing. And for the most part I have done this alone, because as all those who have been sick for a time will attest, most people do not stay by your side. Even those you expect to.
You can’t plan any longer. A trip is a fear because what if you get sick? Then someone suggests; maybe it’s in your head, maybe you are making yourself sick? And no matter how many times you prove otherwise, they think maybe it’s a choice, just like being gay is a choice, right?
Wrong. You can’t rely upon yourself like you used to because you never know how it’s going to be, how you are going to be. And usually you could be relied upon 100 percent and now that’s gone and somehow you still have to plan a future, but how do you plan a future if you can’t rely upon yourself?
I try to take something from every experience I have, including negative ones. Without learning we don’t grow we just regurgitate and I would rather grow even if I’m throwing up and in pain as I do it. I have taken from this experience what is obvious, but I have also tried to take from others experiences, and have noticed disturbing patterns among those I know who have also been sick for a while or a very long while.
People leave.
People don’t care.
Poverty goes hand in hand with illness.
Anxiety and fear are natural outcomes for a plethora of reasons.
Loneliness can kill.
What I have come to see is this. Sick people are TRUE WARRIORS.
They fight the unimaginable that most of us never have to endure. They have to get pacemakers in their 40s, they have to struggle through taking 2 hours to get dressed and STILL MANAGE TO SHOW UP and this strength – this strength is what I have learned the most from my experiences and listening to others. Strength comes in many forms. We dismiss most of those forms but they are real.
I watch people who have seizures and brain tumors, fight and fight and fight and I realize, we’ve got it backwards. We should be applauding these people not marginalizing them. But we do everything backwards, because as a whole we are poisoned by false ideas of what is valuable and what is not. We toss aside those we deem un-valuable when they are perhaps some of the most valuable people in the world.
So if you are disabled in any way, be it in your head, or your body, remember that. You are some of the most valuable people in the world. Let nobody ever let you forget that. You are some of the most valuable people in the world.
This is written for my sister Angie. You inspire me every single day. You are that light in the dark that refuses to give up and because of you, I refuse to give up too.
Quarantined kids escape briefly, screeching loud into empty streets
their thin bodies desperate for release and water sprayed
high into quiet air
I grew my nails because I am not touched, I do not arouse desire
there is no purpose in their being short or useful
for love I had once, in the magnolia dimness of loveliness.
Racketed sound is a mockery, a reminder of how things used to be
when you believed in love and it slipped through your hands
like porcupine quills that have no sharp
distracting yourself with empty boxes and things unpacked
for you belong not here nor there, nor any place
always the need to pack up and relocate, find what
has never sought finding in great wild.
You may judge if you wish
I did a good thing, though you will say it was wrong
I saw nature today at its most timorous and yet bold
I let it go, I let it go.
Many months I planned the capture of her off spring
as she ate from my plates, watching side-ways with distrusting gaze
I am after all, someone prone to superstition and wonder
she arrived a month after the death of my cat
it seemed in her resemblance, it was his return
then she is pregnant and I believe I can have
a house full of life again.
But this heart cannot take one more attempt at loving
this body though young, remembers the torment of losing
those mercies in the night and belief things last eternal
when nothing but the certainty of natures hammer sounds
and nature is not a kindly thing
though perhaps in her supposed cruelty, she is pure
whilst we save cats and neuter so that they may
grow fat and listless without purpose, swatting flies for entertainment
our city nearly drained of ferals and life, and hope, it occurred to me
I didn’t want her caught and diminished by
our belief we know what is right for
creatures of the wild.
I would say, especially as a virus seeks to diminish our population
a mass of humanity grown out of control
this is natures doing, this is the deliberate
consequence of our unprecedented surge to exist
maybe she will forgive
if she does not, is that even wrong?
We place our beliefs as if they are more
than tin soldiers and waxen effigies
as proofs of some superior knowledge
all against the tilled marrow of this earth
long outlasting us, fecund dirt and soil
from which life springs eternal and unfettered
laughing at our arrogance with our
purple capes of chastity and piety
golden crosses forged from raped stone
rules to contradict and suppress the powerless.
She was caught in this cold cage and I saw
her yellow eyes find mine
they say if you stare too long into the eyes of
a wild creature they will perceive a threat
better to bow your head in prayer and submit
they say too much that is tired and old
she looked at me and with the beseechmentof her kind and mine
she asked to be wild
not neutered for ‘her own good’
because she will develop cancer and her kittens
will die time and again to the coral snake and all
other natural things.
She wanted her chance at freedom
she would take them away now, her kittens whom I watched from
my isolation and my hurt, brightening my day
a salve of selfish joy, what is it that saves
the sanctity of the unsaved?
Her shoulders were down, almost crushed, I knew
to release was the greater good
as the wild rose is always more beautiful
on the wild rose tree and not in a vase
in a sterile room to bloom and wilt and lose
richer, than the bland salt-less life I lead
tame without children, without those who
call me when they promise to love and obey.
Our human folly I saw as glaringly
as those kittens in a line, following their mother
through high grass away
my heart stung, same as when my own cat
breathed his last and we said it was a mercy
to euthanize him in his pain
but what of his freedom?
Did he go from that place of needles and
kitty grooming and dental hygiene for pets
to something as noble as her green field?
I saw roses die when I was very young
even as I dried them and tried to keep their wholeness
they crumbled because life is bidden by our false extension
but the visceral and the sad and the sorrowful and the tragic
and quite often
something more achingly beautiful than we
with all our art and books and music
could ever be.
I didn’t want to let her go, I wanted to control
insert myself into the story
trap her kittens to tame them
save them from a less noble fate
and yet who am I?
Am I a worthy example?
with my loss of love, my lack of family?
who was I to prescribe my way? To these
who had every right to live their way?
You see, I have long known I am not
their superior, they are not inferior to me
I am neither their master nor willing to decide
their fate when they have a greater sense of life
real life, than I, in my artifice, ever will
I do not eat flesh for this reason, it is to me
a cannibalism in the way we farm and produce
milk and animal products neatly spit out
without thought to their suffering, or the
terrible way they know what will happen.
We are unnatural in our artificial world
we are too aware of things, our intelligence
can be as much a curse.
Many days I wake and have such a pain inside
me, I know only comes from the unbearable
awareness and I wish I were as simple and as
loving as those felines in my garden or that
I had not listened to sensibility as a young girl
and like this cat, who so resembles mine, who is dead
believed like the earth, after rain, we should
grow wild and free
unbidden.
Yet we have in a way, and with our vast numbers
disease and famine, virus and pest try to
even the score
it is as natural as it comes to get a virus and die
but we are not able to accept that, we believe we
should conquer this God given earth, spreading ourselves out
until we are no different to bacteria or roaches.
I pity us, I pity what we know and do not know
in some ways we are the same as this mother
trying to save her kittens because of an impulse
in her case the purity of instinct
in ours we have choices and often they lead to greed
and an insatiable desire for more.
I choose
seeing her resigned, defeated self
I release the cage, it springs back, she rushes out
it feels so right to see her dart across the field, unencumbered
I know she will take them far away now
I know I will lose them
I also know I never possessed them
and that it is right this way
for pets are not ours to ‘own’ or be master of, they are the chained
learned mules and horses who have been broken
maybe they do not know it and are happy
but what of those who are still wild?
Who am I to take, to decide? To think I know best?
I have read all the books about feral cat population
show cruel it is for nature to flourish unchecked
how disease runs rampant and sickness abounds
and I think of us and our wish to have choices
even as the same thing happens and we perish
to the hands of disease and the will of something more powerful
than our tinker toys and our belief we know all.
As much as she punishes me for my error
walking away, leaving nothing but footprints
in dry sand on my emptied deck
I feel I have listened to
something deeper than talk radio or
my biology books, I have instead
heard the call of the wild and it told me
do not always think you can disturb
this felted land with your superior knowledge
you should only know, you do not know
much.
How am I an example with my perpetuate grief
my unfulfillment, unhappy childhood, empty rooms.
All the awareness we have can be a curse
better to be wild, not to expect love or loyalty
those are human constraints, doomed often to failure
better to be without rule, not to live for glory or purpose beyond
the simplicity of instinctmy instinct told me to open the cage
it has always sought to protect rather than capture
even if she dies out there, she dies intact
not a creature molded by us, into something hybrid and wrong.
I have nothing in my arms now, as I had
nothing in my arms then
and I don’t cut my nails because there is no-one to love
or hold me when I need to be held
because humans promise and break those promises like
egg shells cast on skillets
because you told me you loved me always and
soon you couldn’t even lift a finger or try
to write a line in love, for your bitterness soured your
entire soul and I had a heart filled
but with no way to empty it.
I no longer want to be let down and told
I don’t write because there’s nothing to say
and I don’t want a relationship based on writing
because all those who were separated in the past
wrote letters to each other many, many times
no matter their distance.
It is rather, our modern impatience that says
I want it all now, I want it all or none
then you shall have none, as I shall have none
and all those wasted years were a grave mistake
just as many things I have done are.
I am not making another mistake
I will not keep her behind bars
where I have been waiting for you to do right by me
where I have been expecting to be treated right
when most people are anything but … merciful
it is our human world and I wish I were
instead that mother or a deer unbound
it is sad that we die of the virus
it is more sad, that we live as we do
things happen as lessons to teach us
will we listen? Or will we repeat
and repeat and repeat?
I release her back
into the mercy of the wild
where she looks once
over her shoulder and then
quick as lightning
she is gone.
Written in memory of the cat who loved me loyally more than any person ever has and whom I loved very much and brought with me to this country so long ago.
In the New Year I am going to do something drastic. I’m going to close all my social media down and take the majority of my books/work offline/out of bookstores. The work that will remain is what I’m most proud of; SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like (an anthology, 2019), We Will Not Be Silenced (one of 4 editors/contributors, 2018) and Pinch the Lock (Finishing Line Press, 2016).
When I began, I really believed I could contribute something valuable to the world through the medium of writing. I saw many other people trying but I did not know how many and since 2015 I have seen that there is a glut of people all self-publishing, indie publishing, small press publishing, all with the same ‘dream’ of being a legit writer. Mostly wasting hours on social media futilely. I realize 99.9 percent will never be. The only ones who can do it are those on disability, who get a cheque without needing to work, or supported by husband/wife/family or you’re a retiree. If you DO have to work for a living then it’s rare you can put in enough work to even get to the indie publishing stage.
There are exceptions. One of my real friends whom I did meet on social media works full time and is one of the hardest workers I know. She will succeed I have no doubt about it. She goes home from a hard days work and produces consistently some of the best work I’ve read online. People like her are rare. They are one in a million. Others have the talent to do it but it will depend upon if they have the time to make it happen (you know who you are) but the vast majority have neither the talent, nor the ability to make it happen.
When I began writing I thought I was a pretty good writer. When you read some of the stuff online it’s easy to see why I thought that, a lot of it is really poor quality. On the other hand you need to be either absolutely brilliant or someone who is in the know, to get a really big publisher. I am neither absolutely brilliant nor ever going to be someone who is in the know/networked up to the hilt. Even those who everyone talks about as having a ‘good publisher’ actually don’t. They just secretly vanity press pay or exaggerate how much they actually earn. To earn a living wage as a writer unless you are an editor, it’s the 1 percent of the 1 percent.
I don’t want to be an editor. It’s a thankless job and underpaid. I have qualifications and I am going to use those and return to my previous career, hard as it is, it can earn me what I will need to take care of myself in the future. Maybe no job will be different, maybe I will always be taken for granted and used but I want to do it on my own terms. I have always supported myself from the age of 18 and I always will until I cannot any longer. I have never had any help.
Lastly, most of you don’t know but I was recently diagnosed with a very serious eye-condition that means I am losing my sight. I realize I have to adjust NOW rather than when it is completely gone. I doubt I will still want to live if I go completely blind and I have decided if that day comes I will elect for euthanasia as I am not someone who wishes to live as a completely blind person. Especially as I have no family who will care for me. However, if that day doesn’t come or it gives me 20 more years, (which is unlikely) I still need to change my life to ensure my eyes do not worsen.
As some of you know I had battled a serious illness in 2017 which radically changed my life. It was caused by a virus and I am still sick with it but I have learned to live with it and am high functioning despite it not having completely gone. I believe it will one day completely go but it is a long painful battle. I thought that was enough to deal with but in addition to this my mother told me she no longer wanted me in her life ever again. She and I have had our ups and downs but naively I thought as she aged we would get closer. I have always loved her very much even though she was not in my life that much. When she told me this during my illness, effectively kicking me when I was down, it was the last straw. She knew she’d hurt me as badly as she could ever hope for. She succeeded. To protect myself I accepted what she said and have tried to get on with my life knowing she will not be part of it. It has hardened me and I am bitter about it but I will never be as cruel to someone else as that. I will never succumb to cruelty to deal with my own pain.
On a positive note, I am stronger for all of this. But having the eye sight issue on TOP of all of the above, was just too much. I do have it in me to change my life. I have decided to once more change my life. I am not going to carry around the rejection, fear and grief of her hate of me or anything else, anymore. When I began my blog/writing in 2015 I felt it was a chance to try my hand at writing. I don’t regret doing that but I see now realistically I have to move on.
If you know me, truly know me, and have my number and my address and we talk, then I am bound to call you real friend and will keep in touch. When you get sick you realize who your friends are and it is a good clarity. For those of you I call friends thank you for your friendship and I hope we keep in touch. We may not as we may no longer have anything in common but I wish you all much success.
SMITTEN will be my last personal project in the publishing world for the foreseeable future, although I have also been involved in YOU DON’T LOOK SICK and hope Indie Blu(e) recognizes me for that when it is published next year. SMITTEN is a wonderful ending to this chapter in my life. It is a testimony to the talent of women when they come together. Just because we are minorities doesn’t mean we support each other and lift each other up. I hope projects like SMITTEN help future women do JUST THAT because THAT is what is needed. We need to be good to one another! To support one another!
I want to personally thank the following whom I have met on WP for their loyalty, friendship, goodness and inspiration. I think you are incredible human beings; Mark. Eric. Derrick. Bob. Crystal. Erik. Jane. Karen. Raili, Rita. Susi. Anthony. Laurie, Tony. Nicole. Tara. Helena. Philip. Sarah. Tremaine & Monique. Thank you to Christine and Kindra for letting me work for Indie Blu(e) I really hope all the work I did helped and you succeed. Rita.
RIP Natalie Scarberry you are loved.
Thank you to anyone who read anything of mine. I appreciate you. I wish you only the best.