Feeling My Way Across Madness


It isn’t about what’s normal.
Or what isn’t normal.
It’s only about what I need.
And what I need is
time alone.
I’ve always been that way –
escaping into my internal world
while the rest of humanity escapes
outward.
My world is soft.
A world of pen and paper,
butterflies and flowers.
A world of observation
that I could disappear into
like a drop of water soaking into linen.
A gentle mist of rain
falling on to rose petals
in the garden.
It is my world.
My safe world,
that no one can enter into.
It has always been so.
When I abandon my world,
I am like a blind girl attempting to cross
a busy downtown intersection,
feeling my way across madness.
Each step,
unsure,
desperately
grabbing
onto the wrong people
and things,
unable to know which way I am going.
When I make it across,
if I make it across,
I do not know where I am anymore
and I am unable to get back
to where I started.
I can not recognize any of the signposts.
The sounds of the street
are like war bombs
going off in my ears
The voices are muffled and frightening,
and the hands reaching for me,
pulling at me,
are rough and insensitive.
I feel helpless to stop it.
I want to scream,
but no sound comes out of my mouth.
I want to run
but my legs are paralyzed.
It is as if I am being eaten alive
and there is nothing I can do about it.

Taking The Sun

I get scared about what’s going to happen to me.
I get scared about money
and if I will have enough
and that I have too much.
I worry that I don’t spend my days the way God wants me to.
I worry
that I worry too much.
I think about my life and I panic
over all the things I haven’t accomplished yet.
I’m not married and I don’t have children.
But then again,
neither does Oprah
and she seems to be doing alright.
But it’s not just that,
it’s more that feeling that somewhere in the last few decades I lost my way.
The ship I was supposed to be sailing left without me
and now I feel like I am in the ocean treading water,
just trying to keep my head from going under.
I am watching the ship sail off into the sunset without me
and I am helpless to try and stop it.
No matter how loud I scream
STOP
it just keeps going,
taking the sun along for the ride.
It is getting dark.
I pray that I won’t get eaten by a shark.
I feel the cold dark water all around me,
numbing my hands and feet,
chilling my stomach to the core.
It is an awful feeling.
It is the feeling of death.
I want to get back in the boat.
I want to get back on course.
But I am alone.
I am completely alone.

The Good Daughter's Work

All morning I have been the good daughter.
I tackled dental bills and hospital bills,
fought with warranties and corporations.
changed the oil on my Volvo,
and turned away from the box of hot doughnuts
sitting in the customer waiting room.
I pumped on the bike at the ‘Y’
drove to the health food store
for brown rice and green tea,
said no to lunch with my lover,
negotiated tree trimming with a large burly man
the neighbors had working next door,
found a driveway repairman
to fix my cracks,
and called the painter to see when he was coming.
I did all of this while preparing lunch,
checking my email,
and watching the market to see how much money I’ve lost today.
Now that all of that is “done”,
I don’t feel any better.
I still have the blank page before me.
Staring at me.
I keep thinking that if I could just move to Portland,
or New York,
or Madison,
everything would be different.
But I would still have bills to pay,
and rude drivers,
and parents to worry about it,
and the blank page before me.
And no one can fill it
but me.

A House of Madness

I am
building a house
with the shades down.
A madness
with nails
and balloons.
A dark empty
wrong
of whisper
and arms
scrawled with paint
pink
as a pig,
pink as a sunset.
I am building a house
caved like a wound.
A short,
poor shopping bag
of a house
with wallpaper
and bricks.
A decaying mass
flying from room to room
in search of
a window
like a swarm of bees.
Yeah, sure
sometimes you will knock
and I will not answer.
That is to be expected.
I might be reading Faust
or unable to cinch up my robe.
Or maybe I just don’t want to be disturbed.
Either way,
you’ll never know.

Martinis and Dead Engines

It is Hell outside today.
The animal inside me
yawns
wide open
like a wound.
I am
the alphabet,
letters jumbled
refusing to form words,
refusing to cooperate.
It is as if I have finally gone on strike
in protest
against the heat.
How could I melt the darkness
or put out the fire with my pen,
when there are monsters inside
roaming the streets of my soul?
You say
my mouth is a crater of hate.
My head is a maze
I cannot escape.
My skin,
is a naked beggar
thirsting for a drink.
If I were cut into a thousand pieces
and glued back together
I would never be united,
not in this sun.
I would surely melt
like a soft avocado.
I would dissolve like the old witch
and sizzle in to the ground
leaving nothing behind,
not even my shoes.
There is a name for this heat,
this poison,
that leaves me wanting to take a bath
in jello.
It is beyond oppressive.
It is beyond cruel.
It is the heat of slavery
and slamming doors.
It is the heat of lovers
and sun dogs.
It is the heat of dead engines
and martinis.
There is nothing to do
but be naked.
Nowhere to go
but inside.

My Sickness

When I get there,
nothing will have changed.
My father will be on the couch
with the t.v. blaring and
my mother will be half out of her mind
talking about Jesus.
She’ll ask me why I’m not married,
and fret over who she should give her engagement ring to,
my sister or me.
I will be greeted by wagging tails,
dog hair,
and the stench of dry dog food left in plastic dishes for days.
I will wonder how they live like they do
and then I will quietly thank God
that somehow
I managed to escape this part of my upbringing.
I will come to them
with my heart full and hopeful
and within a few seconds it will be dashed
by reality.
My father is just as happy
watching old movies on t.v. as he is seeing me
and my mother is always one second away from saying something nasty to me.
It wouldn’t matter to them if I came for an hour or two weeks.
So why do I go?
Yes,
that is my sickness.

New Summer Video

I just learned Final Cut!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvGM3MUmCC4

Hope you enjoy on a Summer day!