Hour 24: Good Morning, Witch Haus!

In these slight hours

when the sky beings stir

and streak the clouds 

with wakeful orange 

light peeps in

through slanted blinds

and curtain parts

like a child

excited for the day

 

As the world lights up

I am cool and asleep

in a canopy cave

mossed over in teal tulle

while I rest

the little pekingese 

rolls on the greyed carpet

the border collie trots 

lovingly behind her human

with one watchful eye out

for fallen morsels of toast

 

I wake in the late morning

meeting someone in the kitchen

to entertain the shared daily curiosities:

“Whatcha up to today?”

“How were your dreams?”

 

The walls are draped

with pothos, floral arrangements  

and affirmations

because we need them

like this house 

to hold well big hearts

buzzing with intentions

 

connection

creativity 

freedom

healing

growth

magic

play

love

 

Outside of

Inside of 

our home.

Hour 23: Chee-whiz

My cycles and wheels of cheese

Have turned throughout the years

Initially of Kraft singles, I found myself afeared

 

A yellow-tinted substrate fastened to the bread

It seems a clear conclusion, that we have been mislead

 

A plasticine monstrosity that some of us abhor

Is forgotten against the backdrop of that which I adore

 

To the kitchen I would creep, quiet as a mouse

And leave a trail of cheeto dust as I snuck back through the house

 

To great chagrin, lactose could not be a friend of mine

I think of cheese above me in the moon and how she shines

Hour 22: in just one day

I did this last year

scoured and scourged my mind and body 

for the lines to play coda of this heroic symphony

I squeeze the last images for their finery

infuse an internal rhyme with notes

peppered with hints of revealing process

and referential specificity

I slap myself back to wakefulness

having taken a cat nap frommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Oops – I lost myself to sleep again

if I sit like this there’s not way I could fall asleep again

 

Syntax slip

to surreal marmalade

in which float the crumbs

of the many snacks

I have consumed

on this day

 

Even the small muscles

twitching away in forearms

are rebelling–

rendering the labor

in these long hours finally felt

as a stone rolled

 

Soon, the sky will grow lighter

and I will run out of letters to jenga

then, and only then

will I relinquish my seat

for the crook of a soft couch 

where I am bound to curl up like a cat

 

After much rest

after the mental debris settles

I will look behind me and notice 

how much ground I have covered

In just one day 

 

Hour 21: A Form Letter

Dear [current employer]–

 

You have been so near and dear to my heart. With you in my life, I have had the opportunity to achieve my promise and life’s work of saving [quantity] of the [insert special interest] in [geographical data]. All the while, flaunting posed diverse collateral of [client type] in  

 

This has truly been the work of providence. I will be forever changed by your ability to slip from my grasp the concepts of self-care and mental wellness. Thank you for indoctrinating me with your shining models of charity and martyrdom. 

 

This season, can you return the life energy I invested in this machine? 

 

And, if that is not within your means: give me money. As much as you can. Right now.

 

Signed,

 

[Former employee]

 

P.S. – Quit your job, then get this tattooed on your body as a reminder. 

Hour 19: Inimitable

Inimitable

not by design

but by my twistings

like a leaf in the wind

turning on a dime

the details are unimportant 

would you be changed by knowing 

that I’ve had 2 eggs, veggies and toast for breakfast for too many months to recall

Or how many sit-ups I did yesterday

(I don’t count)

Nothing

 

I have a small aspirational mountain of books beside my bed

A notebook of half-written songs

And fingers that are learning to walk

The sharps and flats of piano keys and guitar strings

 

You would do better to know

That I believe in humanity

After having been disappointed, 

And on occasion, sorely

By both those I have seen as community

And the structures that were never built to hold them

 

That I believe in you and your magic

even when you don’t want me to

and when it kinda annoys you to have someone in your corner

Hour 18: Always Pink

It is possible to be beleaguered by ribbons

Always seeing them as serpents

Waiting to spring out with thirsty fangs

Lace-lined pink torture devices with long and rusty nails stuck through them

Ready to sink into unwilling

Chubby flesh too frozen the run

Hour 17: Vine-ripe

“I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it.” – Hanif Abdurraqib

 

I once located my creativity

In the epicenter of a profound

And unnamed pain

Of course, others assigned labels

As they are desperately want to do 

To throw one off the scent of 

A significant realization

 

They called it:

Being a worry-wart

Puberty

Depression

Anxiety

Stress

ADHD

Poverty

 

I believed the only way to make an impact

Is to lose myself in the act

Of art only

While turning my heart 

Inside out

 

When I have sat at the feet of elders

And observed mature creators

They do not continue to heave

That which does not serve

Grief and pain are crises

Worthy of being held

Through to wellness

In the name of surviving 

wizened and vine-ripened

 

I aspire to leave the baggage behind

And get on with the process

Of whistling wind 

And living into 

The art

That chooses me

As its apt vessel 

Hour 16: Dropping Logic

I gave up on reason during my 20s

it had not served me well

The formal logic I’d used

to deduce my next steps

had me caught beneath the weight

of a glaring fallacy

believing that the nature

of the universe is solely logical

 

This now clearly strikes me as BS – 

if the universe contains all

then it contains the holy 

irrational, Irreverent and divine 

alongside your, so called “logic”

 

Give me a prismatic perspective

through which I can honor 

the hard-fought multiplicities

that I have come to hold

on the behalf of my infinite selves, 

as well as yours.

 

Convincing?

 

Hour 15: Yes/No

If I could go back in time

I would say “no” to you

And who you told me I was

When I was starved 

Like an infant left

With hungry skin.

 

I would say “yes” 

to myself more often.

 

I would rewrite 

The voices you left

in my head

who informed me 

that I was wrong

 

I would rewrite 

the voices that said

I didn’t deserve 

a pleasurable life

and the parts of my heart 

that believed it.

 

If I could go back in time

I would ask you:

Why you thought

it was ever ok 

to call me that

and who, at some point,

had done the same

to you? 

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