Me, Undone

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the expectation of a different result. Doctor told me today I've caught a head case. I'm certifiable. Meds and all. I've taken to chain smoking a pack of marlboro. It's official. In search of working brain. I have to leave you.

It's Christmas and I am home sick. Not deadly sick, or even major sick--just sick enough to avoid the customary pomp and circumstance of Christmas. I suppose this sickness was manifested, sort of like "The Secret." I love the Christmas spirit, but I can not tolerate estranged family members buzzing around over-cooked turkey and stuffing. I don't like random people in my space. I have managed to continue my Christmas traditions. I watched "The Little Drummer Boy" on Christmas eve and exchanged gifts at the stroke of midnight. That's all I require. R is off visiting her family and undoubtedly preparing to bring me home a number of warm treats.  I have time to reflect. Time to think through this crazy year.  Space to produce an artificial cataloguing of time. 1. Work I've moved on from my teaching job. Now I am a special education administrator. More money, less stress. More flexibility, less crap. Quick, what's the most undervalued profess...

i s it ok for me to ask you to rescue me? i’ve never asked this of any one before. An abdication of any semblance of independent thought, need, and desire. here. grab my hand. take me with you. i won’t resist.  sweep me up in you. imbibe me. bones so tired of moving. i am woman. let me lean.   strength will return. but for now. please. come. rescue me--a feminist burning bushes to light the way home. 

I am all geared up for a protest. I am ready to burn down buildings. Turn over cars. Spray paint dirty little words like "sanctimonious," and "fascist, " on white walls. I hear that in London the Brits have taken to the street over tuition hikes. The PEOPLE are bloody screaming, rock-throwing, finger-flipping, flame throwing. I'm certain our revolt is on its way. The thugs are holding us hostage. Penalizing the workers. Misappropriating public funds. It's going down! I've filled my bucket with hot water, torn bricks out of the wall, and duck-taped phone books to my chest. I am waiting...I am waiting...pacing back and forth, peering out the window. Somebody give me the signal. Show me the sign.

“Being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven’t conquered yet.” --For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf  But I have a plan...

I NEED AN INTERVENTION!! They, meaning the savvy, conniving, retailers of America, lured me in to the stores with lights, shiny stars, cheap tricks and promises of holiday bliss. Oh...blessed black friday. I vowed to never go back to sterile arms again, but alas, I failed.  I am terribly human.  "Hello, my name is $%$*&$ and I am binge shopper."  There, I said it. I am the American consumer.  The ultimate economy stimulator.  In my closet I have two unworn bras from Victorias Secret, one pair of fresh, shiny boots from Nine West,  and drawer of sweaters with H&M tags still hanging on them. Please, someone, intervention me! Email the lovable Suze Orman so she can deny me the new Macbook I am typing on, with a racially tinged "Girlfriend." Call Sandy or the bald guy from A&E;  trick me in to coming to a personal interview;  have all my estranged family and friends gather around and read notes on napkins about how my bin...

I started my first and only gratitude journal three years ago. A week after I began listing my gratitudes, my mother died. I haven't allowed myself to be grateful for anything since then. There is no overwhelming joy. I was the saddest to see it go. I take no comfort in stability. No solace in consistency. Everything must change. This I know. Perhaps my response is not logical, but I. Am. So. Afraid. Three years later, there are glimpses of healing. This Thanksgiving I am grateful for teeth, a nose, ears and feet. God wouldn't take those away from me. I think. My mind randomly drifts the indigenous peoples--so grateful for the little trinkets and stones the pilgrims provided. Little did they know that the pilgrims also carried small pox in their sleeping bags.

Don't feed me no tepid love like stale bath water and food warmed over again I don't want my love auto-tuned looped and pulled for primitive ears Leave me be my sour notes sloppy highs and sobering lows Don't put my love on cruise control smooth middle of the road rock me through the bends and curves press down hard on me I want my love unwashed Feed it to me unruly and matted Like red fire, let smoke rise up to choke me

Am I crazy to live with such ferocious intensity--to love and to dance with reckless abandon? I've come to believe that living life to the fullest is like running down the road full speed with a purple blindfold tied tightly around your eyes. You know very well that somewhere along the way stands a brick wall. The question for me is will I smash in to the wall or will I break through?

Something gives way when you realize you can no longer return. A general malaise. Like the burning of leaves. I feel this for you when I catch you alone. I remember, still, love for you. And perhaps I always will. How do I measure what is lost? It burgeons wide and vast--pulsing, expanding, filling my lungs until I can barely breathe. The chrysalis must first die before the butterfly can begin. But no one ever remembers the sacrifice.

I thought I had time to organize my effects, clean out my closet, transfer title, and wash my body of dead skin. She lit the spark. Fetched the twigs one by one. I did not wish to know her. Not yet. But she has wandered along my way, famished from the journey. Broken bones and all. Mary full of grace.

I remember crossing the George Washington Bridge to start my life at Barnard. Me, my two uncles, mom, and all my worldly possessions piled in to a white mini van and headed down 95 toward the city of dreams. I was full of hope and laughter. The sun shined so brightly on my head that day. And then there was a boy who recently headed down 95, walked across the George Washington Bridge, and leapt to his death. With cars speeding by in the mid-morning rush, strangers scurrying across the path toward big city opportunities, he inched closer and closer to the edge, and jumped. Did his mother know that she had touched him for the last time? He could not be gay in this world and be free. Only some of us are brave. Today, under the same sun and same net of sky, I will be brave for him. Never again.

my upcoming marking

 Each hour, each minute, each second, I am never the same.

For you I leave the front porch light on stash the key under the rubber mat scribble the password on the door seal part my folds for your fingerprints

Sit watch thunder roll over the harvest moon. Catch 22. Autumn equinox is here. And i, caught between seasons of change.

i have 20 ng/dl of testosterone bruising through my veins. not enough, i guess, to slam your face in to the wall. not enough to bleed you for your evil deeds. they made me of the most delicate of female parts. two mounds, a warm clit, and two ovaries of equal size. you think me weak for them. i have approximately 65 pg/ml of estrogen wasting through me. just enough, i guess, to make you claw the retina from your eyes at the very thought of my scent f a d i n g from your bed. i win.

I've been thirty for four whole days now. I am checking myself, looking down at my legs, wiggling my arms, arching my spine. I have to say, I still feel exactly the same. I suppose I never really felt like I was in my twenties, ever. Call it the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I swear to you I did the thirties a long time ago. I got married twice, divorced once (waiting for the courts to recognize the second marriage and then the divorce). I had a significant career change. I buried a parent. Yes, my life is trending in reverse. When I was about eight or nine years old, I loved to watch the television show "thirtysomethings." I guess the turbulence of the program mirrored the turbulence of my childhood. Even at a young age, I connected to adult feelings and failings. On Saturday nights I would sit patiently in front of the television and wait for the show to come on--I'd imagine that one day I would at least be the director of my own confusion. Oh, how I longe...

I am not fond of physical limitations. Those pesky little things called barriers--sudden closings and the narrowing of opportunity. I am trapped in a cage with an angry lover. It's bloody battle royale. I am no victim. I did the crime. The punishment is deserved. But that does not stop the horror when faces turn inside out--when laughter disintegrates in to bitter chiding--when touch once so pure and sweet, now reaches out to inflict pain. The consequences have been far too much for me to contemplate. I am shocked and awed. Badly bruised this time. My heart scars a physical manifestation of her blind and uncontrollable rage. This is how she keeps me here, my dear. This is how she keeps me here, I fear.

She said sign your name on the dotted line, the lights went out, and nikki, started to grind...

dating is such a chore. do you want to love me or fuck me? speak wisely. i have a penchant for pain; i love the company of women. i have never looked, but have always found. connections are firing everywhere i turn. i am not afraid to love. again. and again. perhaps i wrote this for you. cause i can feel that you have surfaced and are waiting for me to come to you. hold fast. i'm on my way.

Life has its way with you. I am living, surprised at how so quickly my love has slowed to friendship. As if my heart has undergone a hard reset--emotional stirrings reorganized. I look at you sometimes and wonder how I kept you for so long. I don't believe in marriage any more. At least, not in the traditional sense of the word. How can I promise what is not yet mine to give? How can I commit the me of two or 20 years from now, the woman who has not yet arrived? Things change. All the time.  It is the way of the world. I can't ask you or her to remain tethered to me and my slippery ways. I am completely content walking next to you, but please remember, this skin is not your home. At times I feel like I've been sold a bill of goods. For years, I choked down the fantasy of marriage like shards of broken glass until it ripped open my throat.  Warm salty liquid is pooling in my mouth. And now, there is blood on my hands.  Blood on my hands.

It was placed in your hands. Not when or how you wanted it. But it was there. We coded meanings with our tongues. Carried laughter in our bellies. I kissed the ink scars of your shoulder blade. Call like the moon resting so lovely over you. We readied ourselves for private communion on that holy day.  With sacred wash and nectar I produced an offering –-my flesh. It was there and all for your taking.  Feeble hearts but fumble and throw pearls mistaken for trash to the ground.  Trash blows in the wind.

Goodbye, Saturn!!! I am free. Finally free. I walk closer to the shore with sand packed between my toes. The wind on my back. The sun against my breasts. Water runs around and through me--a cleansing for my next transition. Deliverance.

you yes, you reach inside of me pull tendons from muscle suck marrow from bone chasten my flesh arrest my mind

I am outgrowing her. Fast and furious. Trying to slow down. She is in the distance. I grew tired of holding her up to the light. My arms gave way. She is tumbling down to earth. My heart blown open again. I imagine her lying there bruised and bloodied. Everything in me begs to go to her. Pick her up from the floor of the earth and stroke her scalp. But descent to earth means forfeiture of flight. The slow and bitter atrophy of full grown wings. I risk capture. Engulfed by the trickery of the ordinary. The veil of comfort. The curse of the unfulfilled.

I live on the water. For two straight days, helicopters have circled outside my window searching for the bodies of two tourists who disappeared in the tragic ride the ducks boat accident. The noise from the propellers is deafening. It is a constant reminder of life lost. A reminder that there are two set of parents on planes to America to retrieve remains. They found the girl this morning. My sensitivity is heightened by the fact that I just returned from a trip abroad. To think, to imagine, that something so tragic could of happened. What do I do I with this feeling? I’ve let fear creep back into my life. It has stolen my sense of wonder and my ability to live without hesitation. We always think we have so much time to get things right. But you and I both know there is no such thing as time.

How do I describe the sounds, the sights, of such a far off land? My trip, literally to the other end of the world, was magical and intoxicating. It was an epiphany, a culture shock, a fascination--a twisted cultural musing. I stayed in a villa in a small town called Ubud. Ubud is known as the cultural oasis of Bali; the ride from the airport, or a quick stroll through the center of town reveals a mass of batik paintings and hand made woodcarvings. Ubud and its surrounding areas are also home of the beautiful rice paddies.  I lived among them. Every morning I woke up to see workers tilling the land, bending to the morning sun. Entering the grounds of the main villa was like entering the Garden of Eden. The villa complex sat perched on the Ayung River. Some days I sat by the riverbank, listening to the sound of rushing water as I read. In the evening, I watched children playing in the river and women washing cl...

  I know...I haven't been in this space in awhile. School is officially over, at least for me, and I am off to Bali in a few hours. I will write more when I am there. I just wanted to leave you will this picture--my high school students, yes high school students, wrote notes on my board one day while I was gone.  I am reminded of the goodness of my life every day. 

Instead of adding interesting places to my travel list, I am slowly taking places away. Arizona and the reaches of the Grand Canyon were once a dream excursion. I am boycotting the dusty hills, now marred by a clumsily orchestrated piece of anti-immigration legislation. The idea of “reasonable suspicion” is farcical. It is an artful legal contraption—semantics, a simple proxy for racial profiling. They find “reasonable suspicion” the same way they find “reasonable suspicion” the stop, beat and humiliate black and Latino men in NY (see recent Times report). They, those foreigners, those brown people crossing over the border, are us. I’ve also crossed out a visit to Israel on my list “100 things to do before I die.” I once longed to walk the cobble-stoned streets of the holy land and trace the steps of Jesus. But not any longer. What has been happening there for years, in the West Bank, is unholy. Every day I hear of a new settlement built or a new restriction placed on the people of...

Tia (not her real name) smashes her face against the glass panel of my door about three to four times a day. I think she enjoys frightening me. What other pleasures do teenage girls have these days? She calls me her adoptive mom and begs to come to my house for dinner. I entertain her. She is funky—I probably would have been friends with her when I was in high school. Yesterday she was in my room wearing her fedora hat and purple Converse sneakers. She is on a search for a job and got the bright idea to print her resume on pink, sparkly paper. “Isn’t that a great idea, Ms. E.,” she said. “ I had to do something so they would remember me." “Tia, one could never forget you, ” I replied. “You know you love me.” She tilted her head forward in search of a response. I looked up from my computer and gave her a smirk. “How could I not?” “So when am I coming over to dinner?” she asked. I don’t know how many times I’ve had this conversation with Tia, and how many times I’ve to...

School will be over in one month. Time has gone by so quickly. I can’t believe I am almost one year into my new life. I’ve never regretted, not for one second, my decision not to practice law. What would have become of me? Everyday I am more intrigued by my students. They sit with me during my free periods, sharing stories and seeking advice. I am so humbled by their trust in me. They feed my creative spirit. They give me permission to be young and free. I have my summer to travel to Indonesia and take classes in psychology and art appreciation. And finally, I will have the space to start investing in my writing. I plan to finish the novel that woke me up at 5 am in the morning to begin. Six whole weeks--touching and tasting every inch of this life.

We often mask true commitment in archaic notions of sex and sexuality. We sit in judgment of those who rest outside of the confines of societal constructions of monogamy, all the while ignoring the husbands, wives, and lovers starved of attention in traditional pairings—those who play house like dolls with vapid interactions. They give their bodies but hide their souls. Rationing joy, withholding common courtesies—warm smiles, small compliments, a listening ear. Herein lies the deceit... The measure of my love is not in the span of my hips. My folds do not confer fidelity. And you, you my love, are not a commodity to be manipulated in an effort to garner attention, love, and affection. I do not wish to control you. I do not want to own you or your safe spaces. I do not need to possess you to love you. Just spare me your warmth, your kindness—the stroke of your hand for a while. And allow me this—the freedom to travel the far away places of your mind, of your heart. I promise t...

I am in love with the feminine--drawn to feminine energy in all its subtle variations. My first experience in the feminine was at the age of seven—the year Sylvester died. Tasha and I held hands in alleyways after school. On weekends I begged my mom to let Tasha stay the night— precious moments created as we stole furtive kisses under strawberry shortcake sheets. She was soft like towels fresh from the dryer; her skin smelt of apple butter. In the middle of a gang of mangy boys, Tasha was the one I gravitated to—if I knew I could, I would have grown up to marry her, and she would have had our child. As a woman, I find myself intrigued by the likeness of transgendered women and drag queens. The sweet vulnerability—the suppleness of unfulfilled wants and dreams. I understand the need to feel and experience WO-MAN, very much like my own need to reach out and touch Tasha’s skin. Today, I’ve built myself a world of feminine. You can catch a glimpse of it when I walk by. It lingers at...

Bought my ticket to Bali and booked a villa for ten days in June. Scraping away the dead skin, dusting off my feet. Wanted: syrupy-sweet adventure.

I’ve caught glimpses of the “Six Word Memoir Bug” on Huff Post and other blogs. It is an invitation to tell your life story in six simple words. Since coming across the challenge, I’ve carried around six word sentences in the back of my mind. And then I came across a writer who wrote her life as a short story using 6 word sentences. It was simple—yet so profound. So skeleton thin, yet meaty and complete. In a stream of consciousness I crafted this... Stumbled out of college, into life Standing at the edge of uncertainty Man with warm hands touches me His love disarticulates—moves me completely Climbing out of me, into him I rest violently in the space I cannot see where I begin Loving with coils of trepidation I have a secret hiding here I cannot control what I am Months and years pass by slowly Lady in the sea surfaces again Lift her body from the ocean Step back, I realize she is me I am unhinged—open and exposed He bleeds, pricks me in bed I pay...

I’ve been haunted by dreams of children in my arms—the sensation of connection and overwhelming love stays with me, even as I wake. I assume it has something to do with the approaching anniversary of my mother’s death. She wanted so badly for me to have children. It was often the topic of our weekly conversations. She offered to come live me for the first year—I told her I wasn’t ready. I thought I had so much time. I’ve oscillated over having a baby since she died. Sometimes the urge to reproduce rises up to suffocate me—and other times I am acutely averse to the thought of giving up my freedom. I love crawling out of bed at 12:00 in the afternoon on lazy weekends. I love traveling to any given country at any given time. I love partying with fabulous boy queens until 4 in the morning. I’m sure that there are innumerable joys that come from parenting. But there is also an intense amount of fear. The fuller and purer the love--the deeper the sorrow. Many mothers have suffocated from...

I cried. If you can hear the sound of her voice, know this, we are not alone.

I can’t seem to shake my predilection for traveling. For weeks upon weeks I’ve been dreaming of Indonesia. I’ve fallen madly in love with the Bali--it's ornate temples and magenta (the one in the Crayola crayon box) flowers. My desire to travel to Bali did not come from reading Eat, Drink, and Pray . Although I found Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk on creativity to be rather fascinating, I threw her book to the floor after the first chapter. Her exaggerated literary voice was so abrading—I almost broke out in hives. I may not fancy Gilbert, but alas, I am following in her steps. I guess I see myself in Gilbert--it is somewhat disturbing. Like me, she is a woman who does not know what she wants (despite her recent sequel). She, I, am a vagabond, a pseudo nomad—wandering around from job to job, degree program to degree program, marriage to marriage, country to country, bed to bed. I am the complicated for absolutely no good reason kind of woman—unsatisfied with life presented. I...

I’ve come to realize that there are only two important things in life--faith and freedom. When I speak of faith, I dare not speak of the faith of the blind—the weak who cling to vapid traditions and poorly crafted interpretations as excuses for tyranny. This is not the faith of those who cut themselves and others with Bible verses. This faith cannot be coerced. It is not some secret gift for greedy hands to seize while others perish in the dark. This faith, I’ve carried with me since I was a child. It is the first breath of life. The last breath before passing over. It is everything—you and me, standing in all our painful brilliance, in all our glory. It is light. But faith, my friends, cannot materialize in the absence of freedom—for freedom makes thought possible. When I speak of freedom, I speak not of chains. Freedom is never given nor won. It only inhabits those who listen. I’ve seen far too many zombies deaf to its call. You’ve seen them too. They bear the mark of resignation a...