A Shining Wreck

I Don't Know How To Write Wedding Vows

2010-12-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

Jill,

I never told you this before,

but I knew it was love because of helium balloons.

On Broadway I saw you standing

beneath the glow of the Starbucks sign.

And there was so much helium in the moment

that my heart beat a high and silly celebration.

And I felt,

Oh my God, this is happy.

You saw me hesitate,

And I saw the question on your face,

but you didn't ask and I didn't say,

"Nice to meet you, but please excuse me,

there are balloons in my eyes."

But the best part is now,

when you know without asking,

and excuse me,

as I stand here devoted and tangled in bright ribbon,

promising to love you every day these 100 helium balloons.

CJ

Finding Home

2010-08-27T16:53:00.001-07:00

I just don't know how to be this proud,

except thinking of home,

which is a country, really, in state's clothes,

so ill fitting and tight that the seams strain and rip,

seems about right.

And baby, I can't sing,

except I sing

those songs from home

which are unselfconscious

unplugged

and earnest with harmonica and steel guitar.

Loving you croons such joy and twang.

And girl,

as though you were red earth rising in a west Texas town,

knowing you has left a mark, a stain, a fine grit in my eyes and my mouth.

You kick up and cover me like a down-home wind.

And honey, there has never been a woman like you

or a love like this.

It is a lone star, a long horn, a Stetson.

Yeah,

a Stetson,

rich and curved and every ounce of ten gallons.

And sweet girl, we will always burn

this good whiskey,

bright sun beat down on a red neck burn.

We will.

CJ

Balloons

2010-07-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

I love her 100 helium balloons filling a small room,

filling my chest,

lifting my heart until it beats in my throat.

Can you see it?

Balloons, their silly ribbons wrapped around my sore and heavy heart,

lifting, lifting until my throat is full

and I am quiet.

I love her that way,

quiet

and in every color.

It comes down to balloons, I guess.

CJ

Anywhere

2009-03-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

You are the match light I see from 50 miles

across the plains of Texas.

Take me, my uninterrupted view.

My line of sight,

Take me back to Texas.

You are the smell of coffee in the heat,

decadent and dizzy and altogether too much.

Take me, my excess.

My very and so,

Take me back to Texas.

You are the way words drip there,

amber and sweet and patient.

Take me, my honey drawl.

My southern comfort,

Take me back to Texas.

You are crisp sheets grown damp in the midnight,

and the last cool place on my pillow.

Take me, my restless summer sleep.

My heat-stroked dream,

Take me back to Texas.

You are lost in Texas,

in her rough and rusty voice

and simple songs,

so take me.

You are my every memory of home,

And home.

CJ

What Comes Before

2009-02-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

Your voice has hands and elegant fingers.

Moving along my body, it whispers against my neck.

Murmurs down my rib cage.

Sighs across my belly.

I arch the back of my mind as your voice sings at my hip bone, a lingering song.

You touch me.

Before you touch me.

Your voice has curves and beautiful lines.

I follow its swells.

And discover its hollows.

You close your eyes as I hear you so sweetly, with such attention.

I touch you.

Before I touch you.

CJ

CJ's List

2009-02-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

1. I am an accidental comedian.

2. There is no under the bed where I live.

3. There are eyes under my eyes, such that you don't know who you are looking at.

4. I have a piece of the blinking tree on my desk. It blinks messages to me.

5. I can hear the golden gate bridge. It's voice is a seduction. Deliberate.

6. I am made from cellar dust and damp.

7. I am not an illusion or a metaphor. And I am using this list to tell you about me.

8. I don't know who you are.

9. But you hurt my feelings when you don't comment.

10. The feelings that you hurt are the only feelings I can identify as truly mine.

11. I write.

12. I care more about the line than the truth.

13. Each line is the only one that matters.

14. Jesus, can I call you "J?" Have a beer with me? Please?

15. We must continue to fight the golden gate bridge.

16. I often want to go home.

17. I drink vanilla lattes and Certain Magician slides down my throat. Boo is comforted by the pool of magician in the belly.

18. This heart is uncertain about all of the coffee, but the heart has been overridden.

19. I am very very serious. I point this out because I am not stupid and know someone may be laughing. See 1.

20. Some relationships are about the music. They should not progress beyond that.

21. Please. Just shut the hell up and let them sing us.

22. I named myself.

23. The word "lesbian" offends me. I think of bitter root vegetables and diseases that eat away flesh.

24. I would like to write more lists.

25. "Goodnight my Comfort and Joy..."

CJ

Memory: Part IV: The Bed

2009-02-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Birds. Birds fly. Birds fly through my veins.

Hungry. I am hungry. A hungry mouth against your neck.

Wings. Wings beat. Wings beat in my cunt.

Rushing. I am rushing. My hips rise and rush you.

You will not rush.

"I know, baby. I know. Shh, baby. Let me."

Enter me. You enter me. Deliberately you enter me.

Magic. You make magic. You make magic in me.

Your certain magic is a certain rhythm, and my body sings in its minor key.

"That's it, baby. My baby girl. You and me and nobody else."

You and me and nobody else.

Space. Every space. You take up every space in me.

"You and me and nobody else."

Reach. Your words reach. Your words reach a moan in the center of me.

I moan that moan in its minor key.

Turn me. You turn me. Your strong arms turn me.

Pull me. You pull me. You pull me to my knees.

Tender. Soft leather. A collar around my neck.

Loving. Sweet winding. A lead around your hand.

Sharp. So sharp, this breath I breathe in. Gentle. So gentle, you enter me again.

"I'm right here, baby," the lead pulls sweetly.

Tethered. I am tethered. Back and back to you.

My spine. My shivering spine. Your hand runs the length of my shivering spine.

My hips. My eager hips. Your hands on my eager hips grind.

I grind into you.

You fuck me to love me to hollow out the place you'll always be.

You aren't anymore.

You'll always be.

CJ

Memory: Part III: Kitchen

2009-02-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

I feel safer close to the ground.

I sit on the floor and watch you move around the kitchen, making your certain magic.

You arrange the food on the plate, to nourish me and to speak, in a language of color, texture and flavor, your love in this safe place.

After dinner, I stand at the window of your house high on a hill. You are behind me, your arms around my waist, your mouth at my ear.

"Cardinal," you whisper. "Golden Finch, Robin Redbreast, Whip-poor-will."

You speak the poetry of birds.

I close my eyes and lean back against you.

"Baby, you're missing the hummingbirds."

No. No I'm not. They are feeding, here, in the center of my chest.

To be continued...

CJ

Memory: Part II: Driving

2009-02-06T23:39:00.000-08:00

I am vibrating, overflowing with the energy of many minds.

You reach over to touch my hand and I flinch.

I am instantly sorry. Your fingers forgive me and lace through mine.

I squeeze your hand, "I love you."

I lift your fingers to my temple, "I'm trying."

You know I can't hear you, so you don't speak. Instead you rest your hand against my cheek and cast sweet spells to welcome me.

Your eyes' blue, my red flush, the sun's breaking yellow, June's green rush.

Your certain magic paints the sky.

"Almost home, baby," arcs your rainbow.

I understand this language.

To be continued...

CJ

Memory: Part 1: Arrival

2009-02-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

It is a risk to travel to see you again.

"No planes. Shatter the tattered heart. Squeeze your chest, no rest. Pain for planes. you'll bleed," warn the voices. Silly rhymes. I would laugh, if I didn't believe them.

But I will take any risk to see you again.

You worry, making me text you when I get on the plane and at each stop.

But you will risk me to see me again.

I like this about you.

Storms travel with me across the country. I am 7 hours late.

My voices were whispers this morning, but now they are screams.

I will myself to get off the plane and walk down the jet way.

There are curtains drawing at the edges of my vision.

I lean against a wall and count, "1 2 3 4 5," gently covering each voice with a number.

But I can't think beyond 5, and the room is starting to fade.

"Chair. Suitcase. Shirt. Window. Airplane. Sky." These are the things I can see.

This is the world around me and I am here in it.

With the names of solid heavy things stacked neatly in my mind, I start to walk.

In the days before the trip, you tried to build landmarks in my mind.

Every night before sleep you said, "out the gate, towards baggage claim, down a hall, out the door." You spoke slowly, calmly, infusing the words with rhythm. A mantra to ring in my ears when I am past thinking.

My mind is hurting my head.

A chorus of voices sings different directions in my ears. I can hear the thoughts of other travelers. They are laughing at me and planning things.

Your instructions hum in the back of my mind. I know they are there but I can't make them out.

But you are a promise keeping me.

I lower my eyes to reduce stimulation and walk again, following the feet of the person in front of me. Magically, the feet lead me out of the double doors. I am blessed and grateful.

I see you drive up and pull your truck over to the curb. But I am frozen, stranded in this cacophony. I cannot move to meet you.

You step out of the truck and walk toward me with measured steps. You never hurry.

Deliberately, you put your arms around me.

"I know," your arms say.

"I'm glad you're here." They tighten.

"I've missed you." They hold me hard.

"I'll take it from here." They crush me against you and there is no space between us.

To be continued...

CJ

This First Sight

2009-01-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

I never saw anything till I saw you.

You slouch in a chair, lazy with beauty.

Your long legs splay so easy and lean.

Your hair argues all over your head, debating in red and gold.

Your eyes, the color of fertile soil, blink me buried in you. I grow and grow.

Your skin glows the color of new. You are unlined like morning.

I stare at you until you hear the sounds of my looking. And you notice finally, as my eyes sing their vision of you.

I love this first sight.

CJ

Janelle Martin Has Disappeared

2009-01-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

Janelle Martin, you are my first familiar face in this city, the first name I know.

"They call me 'Ji Ji' on the street, but Janelle Martin, that's the name that's gonna get me up on outta here."

Janelle Martin, you polish the "T" with your tongue till it shines.

The sidewalk is cold. I start to shiver as my muscles tense against the chill.

"This ain't no place for you. What you doin' out here anyway?" You are suspicious.

"I'm lonely."

"Do better to be lonely than cold."

I stand to leave, face burning. I am a child, silly and sent away.

I pass you every day, holding your half hearted sign and your empty cup.

Are you hungry, Janelle Martin with the shining "T"?

I bring you fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and root-beer to wash it all down.

You thank me, taking my hands in your hands. They are so soft and warmer than mine. Don't let me go, Janelle Martin. You are the first to touch me in this unfamiliar place.

I am your shadow sometimes, Janelle Martin.

You twist your hair around your fingers. This is anxiety, pulling at you gently.

I watch you stand to leave your post beneath the Whole Foods sign. You smooth your jeans and fix your shirt. You take your time, folding your sign into a neat square and tossing your cup into the recycle bin. You are Janelle Martin going home.

You walk to the corner, and suddenly you are Ji Ji crossing 4th. The street juts and swings your hips. It rides your jeans low and hikes your shirt high.

I follow you a little ways sometimes, but I'm scared, and I don't really want to know where you'll end up.

On a Saturday, the day of your 41st birthday, I come to find you. I have a birthday cupcake and a root beer. But you aren't there.

I don't see you for many days, but sometimes I sit in your spot under the Whole Foods sign. Sometimes I twist my hair around my fingers and whisper your name with a golden "T".

I check the cracks in the sidewalk. Have you slipped through them?

I check the margins of my many books and notepads. Are you there, at the edges of things?

Janelle Martin, are you up on outta here?

I make a sign on lined paper and tack it to the pole across from your place under the Whole Foods Sign:

JANELLE MARTIN HAS DISAPPEARED

My sign is gone by morning.

CJ

Holes

2009-01-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

"I know you," you whisper hot breath in my ear.

"Holes. Just holes to fill." You say the essence of me in your hard and careless way.

And you fill me, brutally. Your face and body straining against my emptiness. Your cock, a wire brush, scrubbing me clean.

You stay, though I leave you.

I adjust the rearview mirror toward my face. The morning light is unforgiving.

Here are the shapes of your fingers, black and dull against my neck.

And the marks of your teeth, bloody against my lips and chin.

And my face holds your hand large. Red and blue rising against my pale skin.

It's an hour to San Francisco. I bleed into my jeans the whole way home.

You stay, echoing in the clean and empty and ache of me, "Holes. Just holes to fill."

CJ

From Texas To California: Day 1: Secrets Of The Yellow Brick Road

2008-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

The night before my trip, I dream of Dorothy.

“Kansas whispers,” she says.

“Tell me. Tell me the magic of Kansas, Dorothy.”

“See the yellow brick road.”

“But how will I find it? It’s not on my map.”

“The yellow brick road nourishes the soil and dusts the air. The road’s odd and wonder will find you. Magic grows tall as sunflowers there."

“OK, Dorothy. But will you come? I’m scared to go alone.”

“Don’t swallow the orange pills and I’ll ride shotgun.”

The morning comes. I leave my pills in the bottle and put the cooler in the backseat.

Dorothy will ride with me today.

From Oklahoma, I cross the border into Kansas.

Kansas is flat and a green so green that other colors seem sad. The sky looks tired and the sun, unwell.

Within minutes I see signs:

IF YOU DIE TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEND ETERNITY?

ABORTION KILLS WHAT GOD CREATED.

THE COST OF AN ABORTION: A HUMAN LIFE.

CHOOSE LIFE. YOUR PARENTS DID.

“Dorothy, this is creepy.” I am nervous.

“Kansas whispers,” she hushes me.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means shut up and drive,” she says sharply.

Every 15 miles or so, a Jesus, white robed and 15 feet tall, stands surrounded by flood lights. “Trust in me,” he says.

“Don’t do it,” Dorothy warns.

Later, a sign tells me that Russell, Kansas is the hometown of Bob Dole and the boyhood home of Arlen Specter.

In Wakeeny, I see men with guns in a field close to the highway.

I am truly in gay hell.

Sensing my discomfort, Dorothy speaks for the first time in many miles, “Don’t worry, CJ. It’s all just a distraction, to guard the secrets of the yellow brick road.”

And then, I see the sign.

SEE THE LARGEST PRAIRIE DOG IN THE WORLD

And Vern is, indeed, the largest prairie dog in the world.

Taller than the neon Jesus, he lives in a castle beneath the ground. He sits on a throne of gold and red velvet and rests endless cups of tea on his considerable belly.

His voice is a good natured rumble, and we sing multiple rounds of “Home on the Range,” and “There’s a Hole in the Bucket.”

As we get up to leave, Vern places a gentle paw on my head, and says, “Drive safely and listen well. Kansas whispers.”

We see Mayo, the six legged steer, who asks us to relay a message to Roscoe The Miniature Donkey who lives just up the road in Oakley.

Roscoe is 46 inches tall and cranky. We share some sipping whiskey and he sends us on our way.

“One piece of advice,” he says as we are leaving, his words slightly slurred, “Kansas whispers. Oh, and don’t trust in the neon Jesus.”

It’s been 19 hours since I’ve had any medicine, and I can hear voices in the corn.

I cannot vouch for what the corn told me, but I know the giant Leprechaun in the middle of the field was real.

In Goodland, Kansas, Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" stand 80 feet tall on a giant easel made of steel.

I am enchanted in this good land.

"See?" says Dorothy.

I see, Dorothy.

Kansas whispers the secrets of the yellow brick road.

CJ

From Texas to California: Day 0: The Cookie Loop

2008-09-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

I am the center of a circle of dogs.

Four sets of eyes shift from me to the cookie jar and back again, full of love, expectation and wonder at the magic of my opposable thumbs.

I give them each a treat in turn; the moment is an ecstasy of crunch.

But the moment passes, and I look again to Winnie, who received the first cookie.

I hear the words her eyes say, "CJ, life is just a series of moments. In this new moment, I have received no cookie."

From the center of the circle of dogs, I wonder at the texture and shape of my soul. I hope it is soft with four legs and a tail.

Ben interrupts my reverie with a sweet, low sound. "The cookie loop is momentary and infinite," he sings.

From the center of the circle of dogs, this seems wise and good. So I complete the circle again.

And again.

And again.

And I wish for my soul the wisdom of puppies.

I've been here, at my mom's, caught in the cookie loop, for 2 weeks.

The dogs are getting fat, so I know it is time to leave.

CJ

A brief explanation: I am on day 2 of my drive to California. This is my first traveling story, which, ironically, took place before any traveling occurred.

On The Trauma Unit: Fresh Bread And Clean Windows.

2008-08-25T17:16:00.001-07:00

Dear Debbie,

The first time we met, I saw fresh bread and clean windows. Whole wheat steaming and light streaming through glass.

Is there a laugh left in you? I imagine you laughing if I told you that.

Your husband dropped you off. I remember his John Deere cap, a relief of green against the relentless blue and gray of our lobby.

He held your little girl and waved until the door shut, fear and hope were the arc his hand made.

You watched him disappear behind the door and turned to look at me.

And your eyes were the ocean, Debbie. A flat expanse of blue, when I looked into them I saw nothing for miles. And just under the surface, there were huge black shapes, circling.

"Come talk to me," I said, "I'll tell you some lies about the quality of the food."

You smiled like it hurt and followed me to the table. But you didn't talk to me or anyone. In three weeks you hardly said a word.

Silence was alive in you. I named it "Quiet," and imagined it crouching in the corners of your mind. A word parasite, it fed on everything you needed to say.

I told your therapist about the creature, Quiet. I told her how you opened your mouth sometimes and Quiet ate the words before you could speak them.

"Oh CJ," she said, and wrapped her arms around me, "are you not sleeping again, sweet girl?"

She didn't believe me, Debbie. I should have said it differently.

But your violent Quiet slept when you did. That first night I came running at the horrible keening coming from your room.

So still in your bed, eyes shut tight, you spoke the suffering of wounded animals. You sobbed buildings falling.

I woke you up that first night, but after that I left you to howl until the nurse made me stop you.

In your sleep you screamed of snakes and tree houses and men. I wrote down pain and naked and the torment of children. I gave the words to your therapist. For three weeks you told your story this way.

You seemed better at the end, holding your husband's hand as you walked out the door.

About six months later, a married couple in their sixties were murdered in their kitchen. The killer used a hatchet. They were your parents, and you came back to us, stiff and slow with the awfulness of it.

Your ocean eyes were flat and forever. Your skin was gray with despair.

But still, looking at you was sweet warm bread and the evening sun through a window.

In your sleep you cried for your mother, and held out your arms to hold her.

"Mommy," you wept, in a small child's voice.

"Daddy, " you begged, "Daddy, come back."

I couldn't bear this, and woke you up as soon as I could. You sat up and held me, your arms fierce and desperate. When I tried to get up, you tightened your grip, so I let you rock me and weep until you were finished.

Every night for three weeks, we did this.

What did I stop you from saying, Debbie?

I'm sorry.

A couple of weeks after you left, I saw you in the paper.

The police stopped you in your car on the way to pick up your little girl from school. They arrested you for the murder of your parents.

"DNA evidence," the paper said.

"Incontrovertible," it said.

I thought about Quiet, crouched and restless inside of you.

I felt your arms around me, desperate, and your wide strong hands gripping the back of my shirt.

Your wide strong hands.

We failed and you failed, spectacularly.

But, Debbie, I keep you fresh bread and clean windows.

CJ

Maple Sugar Candy

2008-08-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

This red magic has a V8 and an 8 foot bed, and it is not mine. Music plays as we coast and wind.

I have new marbles in a blue suede bag. My hand, careful and searching, chooses six.

I bend and whisper to the cold color in the cup of my hand, "Be warm. Be warm."

The marbles drink the heat from my hand. I look closely and watch myself seep into the swirl.

"In the sphere and through, be still and hide here," guide the whispers.

I know. I smile, so safe in the secret magic of marbles.

We ride a smooth ribbon for miles and miles. My magician promises maple sugar candy at its end.

We arrive at a small white building called Zewalick's Sugar House. There are rows and rows of corn around and behind the house.

As we get out of the red magic, the wind blows, and the stalks lean toward us, threatening.

An old woman comes to meet us, silver and odd. She pulls a little girl along behind her.

"Witch witch watch the witch!!" panic the voices. "Little girl caught in the claw! Little girl caught in the claw!"

I look again. The old woman's hand does look like a claw, holding fast to the blond girl with dirt on her face.

I back up fast, my fist to my temple.

"Easy, Easy," my magician casts a spell.

"Easy," the voices echo, soothed.

"Are ye looking for someone?" creaks the old one.

"No one in particular," quips my magician.

"What do ye want here?"

My magician is amused. "Well, we thought we might buy some things."

She bends down and smiles at the little girl. The little girl eyes my magician, and then looks at me. Sticking out her lip, she disappears behind the legs of the old woman.

The old woman squints and sees. "She knows ye are strange."

How does she know I am strange?

"Witch watching the mind! Catch you in the claw!" rise the warnings.

I retreat to the truck.

Red magic, hold me and keep me.

My magician, so certain, disappears into the sugar house.

I wonder about walls made of candy and clashing magics.

"The candy house eats the magician! Magician in pieces! Swallow her up! Swallow her up!" taunt the voices.

Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

So many minutes pass.

Please don't take my magician.

I close my eyes.

And then she is there, my magician so certain. She brings me maple candy in the shape of an angel.

Today, I taste the heart of a tall tall tree.

CJ

Snow and Clovers

2008-08-12T08:07:00.001-07:00

There falls a blanket on this suffering night.

Though pinned, I can move my eyes to the window.

Is this you, My Love, a strange snow upon my coastal city?

The weight shifts as he struggles, accidentally freeing my arm.

"Here I am, My Love," presses my hand against the near window.

You leave me brief kisses on the pane. You leave me.

The earth is wet and new beneath me, still Eden as far as the clovers know.

There looms above me a panting sky.

My mouth sucks. My throat swallows. When it is over I curl into the clovers.

Is this you, My Love, four-leafed and rare, so near me?

"Eat. Eat. These are our bodies to be given up for you," rustle the clovers.

I eat handfuls of the bitter cleansing green. I eat the bodies of clovers until I am full.

But not you, My Love. I leave you.

CJ

The House At The End Of The World: Today We Are Stones

2008-08-04T16:55:00.001-07:00

Today we are stones.

Olivia holds up a smooth gray rock. She lays back on the floor and closes her eyes.

My angel so fallen.

"I am smooth and hard and cold," she places the rock against her belly.

"I fall and I don't break. I am so hard. I never break," she says, as she pushes the rock further and further into her skin.

My girl so hidden. My girl so caged.

The silence looms, like a night visitor. As it reaches for her, Olivia opens her eyes.

Feeling vulnerable, she sits up quickly and moves close to me. I am sitting cross legged on the floor. She buries her face in my shoulder.

"Good job, Kiddo," I whisper into her messy curls.

Crystal goes next. As she starts to describe her stone, I feel Olivia's practiced hand slide up the inside of my thigh.

"Forget yourself," she strokes.

"Love me," convince her fingertips. "Love me."

I take her hand from my leg, pressing her fingers to my lips. I do not speak, but catch and hold her gaze, slowly shaking my head.

I move to create some space between her body and mine, but I lay my hand lightly on top of hers.

"This is love, Olivia," rests my hand. I love you this space between us.

There is a shifting in the gray of her attic eyes. I have refused her offer. We are enemies for now.

We eat dinner, the stones hard and heavy upon us.

Crystal's laugh, too bright, a prediction. Amanda's teeth against her fork, a warning.

Olivia gets up from the table and walks to her room.

Some minutes pass, Barb's eyes and the tilt of her head tell me to check.

I walk to the back of the house, cautiously. Olivia's room is small. I can see the whole of it from her doorway, but she is not visible.

I walk over the threshold and into the room. She is standing silently behind her door. Before I can speak or react, she lunges at me with a large nail.

Stunned and stupid, I think, "Where did she find a nail?"

The nail tears at my cheek, and the pain moves me. I step to one side and catch hold of her.

I hold her arms at her sides. My head to the side of her head and near her shoulder, I whisper, "Shh, Baby, shh."

"I am cold and hard and cold!" tumbles my stone girl, crashing.

Taller than me, and stronger, she fights until we fall to the floor.

Somehow, I am beneath her. She grinds her hips into me, leering, and then drives an elbow into my collar bone.

I cry out, and for a moment she is satisfied and stands.

I scramble to my feet.

"Olivia, talk to me," I do not say, but wait.

"I'm not your fuckin' baby! You don't want what I got! You don't want what I got!" She is desperate, hysterical.

Her eyes roll and cross. Saliva drips from the corner of her mouth. She is somewhere far from me.

"Olivia. Olivia." I speak her name like a spell, like a prayer.

Come back to me.

She lunges forward again, beating my chest and my aching collar bone with her fists.

I let her.

Come on, Olivia. Scream past the attic. Pound out the hunger. Batter the dark.

I am a wall for you, Baby Girl. Lean or fight, I will stand for you.

I am bleeding from the cheek and dazed. Olivia is an avalanche, a thousand years of rock falling.

Barb rushes in and screams, "CJ! Grab her!"

Barb's voice calls me back. As Olivia moves to hit me again, I spin her away from me and grab her from behind.

Silent, I stand and hold her, rocking her back and forth. She is desperately tired and sags against me.

As Olivia grows quiet, Barb leaves the room to check on the other kids.

We listen as she moves down the hall with heavy footsteps.

Olivia stiffens, cold and hard and smooth.

I have rocked myself away, and I do not react quickly enough.

Once, twice, three times, she bangs the back of her head against my cheekbone.

We crack but do not break. Do we, Olivia?

Today we are stones.

CJ

Bar Exam

2008-07-28T19:46:00.001-07:00

I haven't written in a few days.

I take the California bar exam on Tuesday.

And Wednesday.

And Thursday.

Most everyone (my 4 faithful) who reads this blog knows this already. But I thought I should say just in case anyone is wondering where I have been.

You know, I started this blog because I wanted to say things, because I wanted to connect with people. I never say things, and I have no idea how to connect with people.

But looking back, I realize that I say little about my life outside of my head. I mostly say the world inside of my head, which may be fascinating to me, but is probably impenetrable to you.

So anyway, life outside of my head is the bar exam.

I flew into San Francisco yesterday. Traveling is difficult for me because of my voices. But I made it to my hotel.

I spent today reviewing last minute stuff. I also drove over to the testing site.

The bar exam is three days long. Tomorrow I will do 3 hours of essay questions and a 3 hour performance test. Wednesday I will do 200 multiple choice questions for 6 hours. Thursday is 3 hours of essays in the morning and another 3 hour performance test.

I know enough to pass this exam. I am intelligent enough to pass this exam.

I'm not sure if I'm sane enough.

I hear voices constantly. I lose hours in a day. I am paranoid. Often, I am sure I can hear the thoughts of the people around me. I know they are planning things. I know they will hurt me if I let them.

Right now, the voices are just paint on the walls of my mind. But what if tomorrow they scream? What if tomorrow they talk and sing and chant over the answers to the questions and I can't take the test?

Right now, I know what time it is. I've been here all day. But what if I abandon myself tomorrow? What if when I wake up, the test is over and I haven't taken it?

Right now, I know I can't read minds. And I know that people aren't plotting against me. But what if I forget tomorrow? What if tomorrow they are after me?

My Certain Magician has been helping me. She calls me throughout the day to make sure I know where I am, and helps me move if I get stuck. She listens to me at night when I am paranoid and comforts me when I am frightened. I take anti-psychotic medication, and she helps me remember to take it, and helps me to remember how I feel when I don't. We decided I do best on the second day after I take it, because by then I am no longer groggy, but the voices haven't really returned to their normal level yet.

So, I took my meds last night and we hope that I will have a good day tomorrow. But what if I have a bad day?

These are the things I'm nervous about, not Wills or Trusts or Constitutional Law.

I wanted to tell you plain, whoever you may be, because I always wanted to say things and connect with people.

And maybe, if you read this, you'll think a good thought for me. Or even say a prayer if you hang out with God or Allah or Buddha or someone that listens to those sorts of things.

CJ

Lavender Bath

2008-07-21T21:59:00.001-07:00

I ride this red magic.

When no one is looking, I run my tongue along the frame. To taste such crimson is fast and metal.

This red magic soars, and I fly quiet above these streets.

Hard rain falls briefly. This red magic beneath me, I pump and glide.

The streets steam. Summer wraps a thick around me.

I am lost in the glide until I fall.

Magic is heavy and I do not bend this way.

The sound in my wrist says, "You do not bend this way."

Pain is a rainbow in my eyes.

"Shh. Shh," soothes the warning.

I try to stand, using my hands to push up from the blacktop. The rainbow flares the colors of this hurt, and my wrist does not support me. I am face down, flat against the pavement.

"Stand! Stand!" rush the frantic whispers.

OK. Please. OK.

I stand.

There is blood on me, and blood is a secret I keep. I wipe it under the cuffs of my jeans and inside my back pockets.

The pain in my wrist is an itch in my brain. I bang my head to scratch it.

"Bleed the red to the broke down magic," sing the whispers.

"Go inside now," says the dinner time sky.

"Shh," I hush the crying bone. "Shh."

Please, crying bone. Please stop your splinter.

Dinner is now. Food upon food is chaos on my plate. Screeching chaos sings, "Eat me if you eat me I'll eat you."

"CJ, you're rocking. You're making me sick."

I know. I'm sorry.

I broke me. I broke me. I don't know how to say.

"Mom, I..."

"CJ! Stop rocking."

"OK."

I broke me, Mommy. I don't bend this way.

I have to tell because I can't stop rocking for this crying bone.

"Mom, I think I hurt my wrist bad."

"Sometimes things hurt, CJ. It'll go away."

OK.

"Bed time now," say my blank wide eyes.

I rock all I want in the alone of the dark. My lips kiss warm the aching place.

"Poor baby in broken pieces. Shh, poor baby." This voice sings a lavender bath.

Thank you.

The crying bone cries, even at school.

Shh, crying bone. Please stop your splinter. Please.

And now it is Friday. Math class is fractions and a heavy book. The crying bone cries until my hand lets go.

My book falling is a loud sound.

I burn. I'm sorry.

Ms. Miller walks towards me and I back away.

"CJ. CJ! Stop."

Don't look at me. Don't look. This is my teacher and I have to stop.

"CJ, let me see your hand."

I put my hand in my pocket. Please stay away. Please.

"CJ, does your hand hurt? It's OK, Honey. Show me."

Please don't make me.

"CJ."

I hold out my hand. "Yes, Ma'am. Sometimes things hurt."

"Honey, your wrist is broken. Let's get you some help."

These words are a lavender bath.

CJ

Thank You, Claudia, for the story of the lavender bath.

This Everywhere

2008-07-18T19:39:00.001-07:00

I drive hard rain against the road.

A moan in secret places, you. You, only a drowning sound my legs scream out.

I can't hear you.

An extra beat in my uneven heart, you. You, only one in the thousand beats I pound in this race.

I don't recognize you.

I am urge. Dig deep. Dig.

Under my skin, deeper than you, is distance.

I am open. Push hard. Push.

The core of me, beyond you, is run.

"Then run, silly girl," you say. You, the mingle of heat and rich earth rising, the very thick of this aching summer.

"So what of one moan silenced?" you laugh at me. You, the music of things moment.

"Clever girl, rush your ragged heart," you smirk. You, one beat of a thousand, and I wonder one thousand times which beat is you.

"I care nothing for distance," you whisper. You, near, where distance takes me.

"What do I want with the core of you?" you tingle. You, the surface, so powerful on the skin of me.

You are right now. "So run," you beam. "See what time is not now."

You live here, the there each mile takes me. "Go ahead," you giggle. "I'll be here when you get there."

So what of where you are not in the deep and the dark of me.

So what of where you are not when you are this everywhere.

CJ

God And The Broken Girl

2008-07-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Thea,

My shift is about to end. The phone rings. It is Rich from admissions. I roll my eyes when he tells me you're coming. I'm tired and I want to go home.

"She's schizophrenic or something," Rich tells me. "Her name is 'Thea'."

"Thea? She's schizophrenic and her name means 'Goddess'?"

"Yeah, she changed it or something."

This does not bode well.

In a psych hospital, the admissions staff never offers very much information.

They are afraid we might say, "We can't take her."

They are afraid we might say, "She doesn't belong here."

But I will never say that, about anyone. I believe in rest for the weary. I believe in shelter and quiet rooms.

They bring you in through the heavy double doors.

I get up from my chair slowly, watching your body and your eyes for signs of stress, fear or violence. Your hands are relaxed, hanging at your sides. Your eyes are steady, not shifting.

Good enough. Safe enough.

I approach you and hold out my hand. "Hi, I'm CJ. Welcome."

You do not speak, but reach out and touch my shoulder. I flinch.

It's not you, Thea. I promise it's not you.

You tilt your head, your hand still resting lightly on my shoulder. With infinite tenderness, you touch your fingers to my forehead.

I am suddenly sleepy and warm.

How did you do that?

"Thank you, Thea." I mean this.

You smile at me. We are friends now. I am so glad, Thea. More than anything, I want to be your friend.

Really, I am too full of wanting to do this job.

Who are you, Thea?

Your body tells me a story.

You are in rags. They barely cover you. You are so coated with dirt and grime that I am not exactly sure of the color of your skin.

You are barefoot. Sores cover your feet. They are bleeding and oozing with infection.

Your breath smells like rotting fruit. I know this smell. It means you haven't eaten in days. Your body is starving, consuming itself.

I can smell your sweat, high and sharp. This is fear sweat, the only sign of your anxiety.

Don't be afraid, Thea.

"Will you sit with me, Thea? You can eat and I'll tell you about the unit." This is the dance I dance with you. We won't speak of your hunger, your exhaustion, your fear. We will sit and eat and talk, like people do.

You nod, your strange eyes holding me, and I feel small and safe.

I don't know what you like to eat, so I bring you a left over dinner from the stash I keep for late arrivals. I also bring you crackers, cheese and an apple. I find a bottle of cold water and two cups of grape juice.

"Thea, have you been traveling?"

"I've been through every city in every time." Your voice is a rocking song. You maintain eye contact.

This music in your voice is unusual in a person with schizophrenia, as is your insistent gaze.

In fact, your gaze, so clear and true, is unsettling. I am uncomfortable and at ease at once.

There is something inside you untouched by illness.

"You are hungry," you say in that lullaby voice. You break a cracker in half and hand it to me.

"Thank you, I've eaten."

"Take it, CJ. We begin. You are hungry for more than food."

Thea, you hypnotize me.

Really, I am too full of wonder to do this job.

With effort, I pull my eyes back in focus.

I ask you if you would like to see your room. You nod and stand. You wince as you put pressure on your wounded feet.

"Thea, would it be OK if we bandage your feet first?"

You sit back down again, grateful.

I fill a basin with warm water. I ask the nurse for gauze and antibiotic ointment.

I kneel in front of you and gently clean the dirt and blood from your feet.

I feel the miles, the darkness, the hard road on the soles of your feet. You lost your shoes a long time ago.

I am so sad to think of this small comfort taken from you.

You watch me intently. Embarrassed, I wipe tears from my eyes before they can spill.

Really, I am too full of sadness to do this job.

I cover your wounds with ointment. I do my best to wrap your feet. Even my best effort is clumsy and crooked.

I look up at you to make sure I haven't wrapped them too tight. You reach out and touch the top of my head.

I feel as though I have been given a gift.

I show you your room and leave for the night.

The next day, as I start my shift, I see you across the unit. You are clean and wearing the lost and found clothes I laid out on your bed the night before.

Your skin is the color of mahogany.

You look better, but you are vibrating with messy energy.

I sit at my table and begin taking vital signs.

You sit down next to me. I feel you, barely contained in your skin.

"Poor in spirit, my CJ, you are. Let me tell you what the shit IS!" Your voice leaps and sways.

Tell me.

"I am here. I am back and this IS the fuckin' shit! Savin' your soul, Little One. Savin' your soul."

I will listen, Thea, to everything you say.

Really, I am too young to do this job.

"I'm gonna burn ya down. I NEED my thousand years of peace. With or without you, I'm gonna have it. Are you with me, CJ, my Little Lamb?"

I am with you, Thea. You carry me along.

"I am always dying. I sweat in the heat and I die. For nothing, I carry the burden of men across my back. They never believe me. They don't know me. I die." You hold your stomach and double over.

God, angry and broken, sits next to me in a plastic chair.

"I am the Mother of Israel. The Father of the World. But I have no home in this world. This fuckin' world. This IS the shit. You build your ark. You BUILD your ark, and I won't send rain. I send FIRE! I burn you DOWN for my thousand years of peace. I need my peace!"

My eyes are wide. I can't help it.

My God, you are caught in our terrible vernacular. "Let me tell you what the shit IS!"

Oh, Thea.

"My blue eyed child, are you frightened?" You are music again, suddenly.

I am frightened of you. I am frightened for you.

"You should be frightened, my Broken Girl. You WILL BE broken as you are broken, Little One."

I know.

My lip trembles. I put my hand over my mouth and stare at the floor, ashamed.

"Don't you hide from me, Little Child. Don't you dare."

OK, Thea. I won't hide.

But you are not the only one who sees, Thea. I know you.

You have become the One who endured the ultimate suffering. And you have taken away the eloquence and grace of His suffering.

You are the God who suffered for no good reason. You suffer again and again, and there is no promise of salvation for anyone. You suffer, and it will not save me. You suffer, and you will not rise in glory.

This is despair.

"CJ, help me," you whisper.

More than a vengeful God, you are a sick God. A God full of holes and burning with infection.

You clutch your side that will not heal. The wounds in your hands and feet fester.

I know where you've been, Thea.

Through every city, in every time, you've been searching the hospitals. Homeless, you haunt the places of balms and salves and healers.

"CJ, please." Your eyes are a tragedy.

I put my arm around you, and you lean against my shoulder, exhausted.

I think of you often, Thea.

My God of no answers and open wounds, I prefer you.

Yours,
CJ

I Am Not Enough To Be What I Become

2008-07-12T12:40:00.001-07:00

You inspire me.

A vague and insistent presence, you lead me to the edge of poetry, challenging my silence.

And poetry is an edge.

A fine line.

A dare.

And I have been a coward for so long.

But for you, I am willing. I am reckless. I am free.

You strike me.

I am awed in every moment.

For you, I write electric every awful beautiful brief explosion in time.

You demand me.

Words twist and spin in my mind, glorious tornadoes of eloquence and grace.

Risking me deep into the writhing center, my always echo you say, "Write."

For you, I am a poet again. I am a story teller.

I am beyond myself, with you bold in my heart.

CJ

On The Trauma Unit: Remembering Laura

2008-07-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Laura,

You tell me, "My mother lost her life when I was a child."

Here, death is a mistake, the consequence of carelessness.

Here, death is something to be undone, and life lies partially hidden in an unlikely place, waiting to be found.

I want to take your hand and help you find your mother. We would look under beds and in corners, in the backs of closets, and the tree house in your back yard.

"Have hope," I would tell you. "We'll find her."

We could gather supplies. A compass and binoculars. Food and blankets. A divining rod. We could search the world over.

"Have hope." I would say.

You have come to the trauma unit because your father abused you. Your father abused you and now you abuse yourself.

I take your vital signs. You wince as the blood pressure cuff squeezes around a fresh wound on your bicep.

"My father was a fisherman," you say as I count your respirations.

Your story reaches for me.

I think of a man bewildered, suddenly land-locked and grieving.

"He loved the sea. When my mother died, he and I were left. He started drinking all the time after she died." You turn your head away from me.

He drank, I think, to calm the ocean, to tame the wild beasts that called to him from sleep.

He drank to quiet his rage and his grief, the waves that rolled through his blood.

"He loved me the best he could," you say.

I picture a man unsteady on the land. One who must walk carefully to keep from losing his balance.

I imagine your hand in his. How small you are standing next to him!

He took from the deep and the dark. He loved you the best he could.

"We moved to a small town in Iowa. My father got a job as a salesman."

I hear the town in your voice, its single stop light and sagging store fronts. The wind always blowing, whistles in your chest.

"We moved to a two story house just outside of town." You are far away from me now, wandering through empty rooms.

Stay with me, Laura. Stay with me and say things.

"I remember our first winter away from the coast. It was so cold. We were so pale."

He must have driven fast to escape the smell of salt and a woman's perfume.

"We didn't belong there, CJ," your voice is so raw, so muffled by rows of wheat and corn.

I know, Laura. You were so lost, alone together in the middle of the country where the wheat fields threatened to swallow you.

You couldn't find your way out of grief. He was so pale and you didn't know the way.

The colors of grief are green and gold. The pale man walks into the sea of grain.

You wander the rows of sorrow; it is the green in your eyes, the gold in your hair.

"The cold that first winter was bigger than both of us, bigger than the loss of my mother," you put your head in your hands.

I imagine your mother, her colors and sounds, her voice, buried in the snow.

It is early evening, the unit hums with activity as patients finish therapy for the day and dinner arrives.

I should make my rounds, but you are not finished. I won't leave you alone in this winter.

"Gin came before dinner. He drank scotch on the rocks after. It warmed him, he said, built a fire in his belly."

I picture gray stones in a deep round glass. How beautiful they look, surrounded by amber liquid.

Sun pours in from the window behind you. I can barely see you, the light is so bright.

"We lived out of boxes. My father didn't unpack," you are anxious now, gripping the edge of the table.

I think of you, moving cautiously among the boxes. I hear you counting empty bottles and lining them up on the floor.

The winter grew around you. Your father drank and was warm, and then hot with rage. You were cold with fear and winter.

I want to lay my hand against your cheek.

"I stopped going to school. I imagined teachers and children somewhere in town, on the other side of the white. At night I dreamed of oceans, and sharks with my father's eyes." Your voice trembles. We are nearing your edge.

"My father stopped going to work. His briefcase sat by the door, forgotten. Our food ran out."

Oh, Laura, you were so hungry.

I see your father, a giant slumped against the window, staring down the winter, searching for your mother.

"He started coming to my room at night." You are determined.

Tell me, Laura. I will not look away.

His hands slid over you, searching.

His hands and the hollow in your stomach. Pain and then black.

"I woke up to wind from the open door. He was gone." The winter raged in and the bottles crashed. Your cup of coffee falls to the floor.

I would take your hand, but you pull your arms inside your sweater, shivering.

You have not yet found your way back from winter. His hands still find you in the dark.

I'm glad you came, Laura.

I am nothing much and no one, but I will watch over you in the dark.

I will bring you blankets, as many as you need, and cover you until you are warm.

You will not be hungry here. I will bring you meals and sit with you while you eat.

I will put my fingers against your wrist and count the beats of your heart. I will mark the pulse of you in ink.

I will remember you.

CJ

Crush

2008-07-08T13:24:00.001-07:00

I don't know you well. At best you are in pieces inside of me.

But these shards of you, like glass, pierce the corners of my mind, my muscles, the backs of my eyes.

I don't know you well, but I want you.

Unreasonably, I want you.

I want you and there is no sleep for me. Hollow eyed, I endure the insomnia of this desire.

I want you and there is no cure for this hunger.

I fast until you break me.

CJ

Silly Girl

2008-07-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

It is early. She is my first thought.

I think, "Her voice rides a motorcycle."

Delighted, I write it down on a yellow post-it-note and stick it to the mirror.

I pull my tank-top over my head, imagining her voice traveling the highways in my mind.

I slip on my jeans and boots, my eyes on my thoughts of her in the mirror.

One last look, through the words and under them, and I grab my backpack and head out the door.

I find I cannot leave the words that hold my thoughts of the sounds of her all through me.

This is what I have.

I turn back, taking the stairs two at a time. I fumble with the keys, open the door, and take my words back from the mirror. I fold them and put them in my pocket.

In my pocket, folded small and secret, she presses against me.

At the coffee shop, I study with one mind. The other wraps around her voice, leaning with it into the curves of my imagination.

I take a break from studying and take the note from my back pocket. I sit, my eyes unfocused, with the words of her in my hand.

I slip the note into my front pocket. My legs are stretched out onto the chair in front of me, and she is snug against my hip.

This is what I have.

The Deep Red heat is under my skin. I pack up my books and retreat to the cool dark of my room.

I am so hot.

I take the note from my pocket and strip out of my clothes.

The paper is soft and warm and moist. The blue words on yellow paper are blurry like dreams.

I sit on the floor and rock awhile, these soft wet thoughts of her pressed against my face.

Blushing,
CJ

What Becomes of Me

2008-07-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

I made you go.

I remember the day you left. I remember the room and its loss of you.

The shelves emptied themselves. The tables and chairs weakened and shrunk. The paintings blanched.

Now I live in an empty place. Blank canvases hang on the wall. Your white shirt rests on a chair.

I read about the minimalist style in a magazine. "This is the fashion now," I think.

Tonight I dream of helium balloons floating above bare hardwood floors.

I buy a bird. It sings its flying language throughout the day and into the night. It sings to fill my empty house.

I haven't seen you in days. My bird sings. I write its flying language throughout the day and into the night.

My bird sings. I write. The words drift off the page and into the air.

I haven't seen you in days. My bird sings throughout the day and into the night. It's flying language drifts and tangles in the air.

I dream throughout the day and into the night. I dream of helium balloons and open windows. I dream of birds, and a flying language tangled in the air.

These days I lose you slowly. Alone and weightless in empty rooms, I feel you seeping out of me.

Please don't go.

Slowly seeping out of me, you lie, a pool of memory, on my bare hardwood floor.

These days I lose you slowly. Alone and weightless in empty rooms, gravity forgets me.

I hover, like helium balloons, above bare hardwood floors. I drift and tangle in the air, a spare and flying language.

I am an empty place.

CJ

Heart Break

2008-06-30T08:22:00.001-07:00

The children's unit of a psych ward is a gray place, a waiting place.

On the children's unit, the cries of a thousand lost kids mark the walls.

"I was here - 19--"

"Fuck this fucking place."

"This is a cage."

"I wanna go home."

"This is the place you land when you are done falling."

"Don't leave me here."

I read these words like scripture. I run my hands over the fast and crooked letters, committing them to memory.

On the children's unit, there are mysterious stains on the carpet.

Ted, Jackie, Jennifer and I spend one whole day betting on their origins.

We kneel and examine, measure and hypothesize. We discuss color, size, and shape. We consider any lingering odors.

Ted carefully marks our conclusions on a white sheet of paper. We are not allowed pens or pencils, so he records our data in red crayon.

It isn't until the end of the day that we realize, we will never know if we are right. Smiling angry, Ted wads up our work and throws it through the nurses station window.

On the children's unit, there is no school, so we play cards to pass the time. Hearts, War, Spit, Speed, even Go Fish.

On the children's unit, we watch and wait. Explosions are common, sudden, and violent, like summer storms. We pretend that we aren't afraid. Ted holds our small group together.

"GO FISH!" Ted screams at me, as the techs drag some kid to the ground.

The kid spits. I wince. You should never spit. Now it will be bad for him. They flip him, and one of the techs sticks a knee in the kid's neck. He whimpers in pain.

A small sound escapes me. I am horrified still, after all this time.

"GO FISH! Are you fucking deaf?" Ted is frantic.

I fish.

Today we are a motley crew, lying around the day room like dirty dishes or old newspapers.

Ted is shockingly handsome. Outspoken and the most functional of us, he is our leader. No one knows what's wrong with Ted, probably because there is nothing wrong with Ted. He is 17. He's been here 6 months.

Jackie is dull and unwashed. Her eyes are a warning today. She sits alone with her simmering energy. Jackie has come and gone 3 times. She is 15 and bipolar.

Trisha stares. Her eyes are sunken and black. I wonder how long she has been awake. Trisha simply cannot sleep. She is 16 and haunted by visions. I don't think she has a home anymore.

Jennifer mumbles her song under her breath, "let me go on like I blister in the sun let me go o-o-on." Absently, she tears at a rip in the plastic cushion.

She is "oppositional and defiant." I do not really understand what this means, but it must be bad because she has been here for most of the year. She is 16.

I sit next to her, my cheek sweating against the blue arm of the day room couch.

I am unbearably sad. My mind is a constant betrayal, and I am caught and suffocating in sticky heavy memories. At 14, I am the youngest. I am also the least functional, silent and often disoriented. I have the most exotic diagnosis, the strangest eyes.

Still, they do not exile me to the other side of the room where the "zombies" drool. Choosing instead to treat me with extraordinary kindness, they are my first friends. I have been here one month.

I throw up every hour. This started three weeks ago. My throat is raw and I am scoured empty. I can think of nothing but remaining still.

Jennifer strokes my hand, still singing.

I've had a crush on her since I arrived at the hospital a month ago. She knows this, and nurtures my infatuation. She always has a hand on me. An arm around my neck.

"Boundaries," the nurses tell her, "boundaries."

"Fuck you fucking cunts," she tells them.

Today I do not have the energy to enjoy her touch.

"My girlfriend she's at the e-end she is starting to cry. Let me go o-on, like I blister in the sun," she whispers into my shoulder. This is always the song she sings when she sings a song.

Today my heart is a hummingbird.

I need to throw up.

I try to stand, but I am not able. Jennifer grabs me before I can fall. Ted gets up and hauls me to my feet. Trisha stands to block the view from the nurses station. Jackie, seething, has a good excuse to freak out. She creates a diversion while Jennifer and Ted help me to the bathroom.

Three weeks ago, when the vomiting started, we decided it was best that the nurses and doctors not know. This did not require much discussion.

"They'll give you more pills. You don't need more pills. You're whacked enough," Jackie said.

It does not occur to us that what is wrong with me could be worse than what might happen if the staff found out. It does not occur to us because we know of nothing worse.

But it is becoming difficult to hide. I am losing weight rapidly. I can no longer stand.

We make it to the bathroom. Ted loiters outside the door. Jennifer comes in with me and turns on the water to hide the sound. When I am finished, she pulls me to my feet and leans me against the counter. There are no towels. She wets her hand and runs it across my cheeks and forehead.

"Fuck. You need to stop throwing up."

I flinch at the sound of screaming and furniture overturning.

"It's OK. It's just Jackie." But she looks uncertain.

Ted kicks the door with his heel.

"We need to get out of here," Jennifer says, pressing her lips to my forehead.

My heart is a stone on water, skipping and sinking. I take a deep breath. The day room is miles away.

As we approach, we see Jackie pinned to the floor by 3 techs. She has stopped struggling, but when she catches sight of us, she grins, winks, and fights again.

Their hands full with Jackie, the techs don't notice as Jennifer rights an overturned chair and Ted drops me into it.

My heart is a vice. I breathe in shallow bursts as it squeezes. I am exhausted.

A few minutes later it is time for art therapy. They give us string and multi-colored beads.

"I don't think this is the most productive use of my time," Ted sneers.

"How am I supposed to get these tiny fucking beads on this tiny fucking string when you have me on LITHIUM," Jackie roars, energized from her battle with the techs.

The art therapist looks frightened. She always looks frightened. We all enjoy this immensely.

My heart is a battering ram.

The room yellows and fades. I crash to the ground, landing in a scatter of beads and vomit.

When I wake again, I am still on the children's unit, lying on an examination table in the make-shift doctor's office.

The doctor comes in. He does not try to hide his disgust as he takes in my puke covered shirt and the sweat dripping down my face.

My heart is a plane crashing.

He takes my wrist in his hand and looks for my pulse with two fingers. I watch his expression change from disgust to alarm.

I throw up on the floor.

The doctor picks up the phone. I hear him murmur, "Her pulse is 275. Call an ambulance."

My heart is breaking.

CJ

The Diary of Silent Days

2008-06-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

These are the moments after.

These days are charged with a volatile strangeness, partway between serenity and storm.

Today I wander through silent landscapes of gray and blue.

I wait for you in hours of quiet color. I love you in slow hazy thoughts.

I will always be here in this half-sleep.

I'll wait for you.

Today the world has gone silent, as I am so full of sound.

I struggle through thick symphonies of whispers and moans.

I wait for you inside of these crying scars. I love you in bounding flashing thoughts.

I will always be here in this breaking.

I'll wait for you.

In deep water, weightless, I wait for you.

I have been here for so long. So long. Weightless. Wrapped in the arms of the forever ocean.

Come. Wash away your identity.

Forget yourself. I'll wait for you.

Today is full of canvas and fading color. Moments frozen and framed.

I wait for you in places of fractured perception. Drifting through painful angles of love and geometry.

In deep red, I wait for you. Where love is a compulsion. An ecstasy of color.

I'll wait for you inside of one painted kiss.

The sky has no edges and the hills are on fire. Burning with an ending flame.

Memory is a fury boring holes in vital parts of me. Burning with an ending flame.

Look for me when the sun shines at a remembering angle. When the trees stand naked like sculptures. When the hills burn.

Look for me in the ending flame. I'll wait for you.

It is imagination that keeps us. We can reinvent ourselves. Be whatever it is in us to be.

I imagine you. Hovering around the edges of magic. So full of wanting. I can taste it, like salt on your skin.

I imagine you.

Remember me.

I'll wait for you.

Again and again.

In these moments after.

Through these silent days.

CJ

After The Storm

2008-06-25T12:29:00.001-07:00

I will be given no more storms.

But in the days and weeks following the tornado, I cannot know this.

I think of nothing but escape. I believe that I am magic. Standing in the sun, I stretch out my arms to call down the storms. I throw back my head and mouth words to speak the rain and conjure the wind.

But there will be no more storms. In the months following the tornado, I learn this.

My sweet relief, once and gone, sours and stings. Safety, once and gone, breaks me.

I do not speak storms. I am not a conduit to primitive gods. I am a little girl left. A lamb upon the altar.

I go to kindergarten now. But school is over for today, and I am outside while he lurks in the house.

I find a small piece of wood. It is big enough to swing and small enough for me to hold.

There is an old tree in front of the house where he lives.

I run my hands up and down the bark of this tree, the trunk against which I have leaned and pressed and hidden.

My still, silent friend, help me. Please.

He watches me from the window. I am sick under his gaze. I grip my piece of wood tighter and move slowly to the other side of the tree.

I am running out of time.

Please. Please don't. I am ragged and spun.

His eyes in the window. Remembered relief. I shatter.

I am a wild thing and I am tied. Feral with terror, I unleash furious, unfocused energy on the tree. Over and over I hit my piece of wood against the tree, until bark flies.

A small sliver of bark flies into my eye. I rub until the bark comes out. My eye is watering and aching a little.

I hold the bark between two fingers. I read the signs in the tear stained bark.

I am inspired.

This pure tree. My blue eye. Ritual and sacrifice.

I begin to hit the trunk of the tree again, methodically, reverently.

Finally, a larger piece of bark falls from the tree.

Thank you, my one friend. I press my lips to the tree's small wound.

I bend to the ground and pick up the bark. It fits into the center of my palm. I am deliberate, certain.

Ritual and sacrifice. I do not yet know these words, but they wind in and through me.

I jam the bark into my upper eyelid. I am blind. The pain is beautiful and serious.

I stumble into the house to find my Nana. She gasps at the sight of my red eye, my protruding eyelid, my eerie calm.

"Sweet Jesus. My poor baby." She picks me up and puts me in the car.

I cry now.

Help me. Nana, you see me. You see me.

I am, Nana. I am your poor baby.

The hospital room is clean and cool. I don't remember past that.

Hours later we return to the place where he lives. My Nana puts me on the couch under my Sesame Street blanket. A patch covers my damaged eye.

I watch her take a small, sealed bag from inside her pocket. Inside is the bark that the doctor extracted from my eye. She takes the bark and holds it in the center of her palm. She walks to the kitchen and places it on the window sill above the kitchen sink.

I don't know why she does this.

She stays close to me this night, pressing her lips against my forehead, brushing the hair from my face.

Nana, I hurt. Nana, you won't leave me this night. You won't take your eyes off me.

He sits in his chair across the room, a silent fury. I can hear him breathe. He is nearly panting. He shifts in his chair.

Outside, the tree stands wounded. Inside, my blue eye throbs. Across the room, he will not touch me.

I am off limits this night.

Ritual and sacrifice.

In the years after the storm, I learn.

Pain pays the miracle.

CJ

Water

2008-06-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

Lately, I dream of water.

Glistening and black.

Still and flowing.

Trickles and floods.

And you are there with me, dreaming of water. And we are washed clean.

I dream of water, of glorious baptisms from memory, from fear, from the wars in my mind.

I dream of water and I am never drowning.

I am sleek and I am streamlined.

I am light and quick and shining.

Now, always I am dreaming of water. Dreaming of you, breaking over me like waves. You, moving me like currents. You, rushing and flowing, emptying and filling me in perfect tidal rhythms.

Dreaming, I learn your body like water. I find your center, warm and wet and glistening. I drink you in.

CJ

Instead Of You

2008-06-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight, instead of you, there is lightning. The sky is raw with explosions. The air is aching and charged.

Tonight, instead of you, a spider spins its web. I watch it dance and weave and wait.

I'm standing here alone, listening to the night time voices.

I can hear you far from me when the train cries.

And you are close in the low songs of frogs.

In all that rustles and sways and speaks in the late hours, I can feel you.

In your absence I want to hold the whole earth.

I want to capture and keep what is green and growing.

I want to run my hands over wild things.

I miss you.

CJ

Yours

2008-06-15T10:28:00.001-07:00

Dear Dad,

I want you to know, I remember every moment.

I thread each through sturdy leather cords.

I wear one at my neck; it falls at the tender hollow of my throat. I wrap them strong around each wrist, like cuffs, binding me to you. I feel them, tender and heavy against each ankle, weighing me down when I would drift from you.

I carry your story. You are 19, working two jobs. Young and poor, you find out mom is pregnant. That night, you write a letter to God, asking for a little girl.

"You were mine, right from the start." You tell me over and over, your eyes a certain green and turbulent with emotion.

"My prayer, Baby. God answered my prayer, without any of the usual bullshit." You smile.

I don't know what 19 year old men dream about, but I'm pretty sure it isn't crying and feedings and sleepless nights. I believe you, though. I really believe you.

I am an anxious baby. "Not ready for the world," you guess correctly.

I don't sleep well, so you learn to lay me flat against your chest, lulling me to sleep with even breath and a steady heart.

I am 6 and always seeking magic. You take a trip home to New York. Walking on the beach, you find a starfish in the sand, long dead and dried in the sun. You pick it up carefully. You keep it intact through hotel rooms and airplanes, through baggage claims and the ride back home. You bring it home to me. A fragile magic, the soul of the sky from under the sea.

I am enchanted.

You enchant me, Daddy, all my life.

I am 7. Our weekends begin and end with ribbons of highway and setting suns. You sing, your voice naming each mile a different song. I listen and remember. I sing those miles still.

I am 9. You take me to work with you during our 3 weeks in Summer. I sit against you in your truck, my legs around the gear shift, your 2 guy crew jammed in next to me. I breathe in the smells of concrete and earth, salt and sun.

I sit against walls, and on the hood of the truck, watching you dig holes in the ground. With skill and patience, you shape them into every geometry. You line them in cool blue colors and fill them with water.

You look up at me constantly, stopping every couple of hours to rub more sunscreen on my face, open endless bottles of Gatorade, and feed me packages of salt.

"It's too hot for you out here, Baby," you worry.

"Please, Daddy, let me stay."

I need to watch you build these refuges, these oases in the desert.

I am 14, still sleepless, and truly haunted. Home from work, you are fresh out of the shower and laying on the couch. You pull me close to you, pressing my ear to your chest. I take in your smell, aftershave and sun, and you lull me to sleep with even breath and a steady heart. You walk me to bed.

When I wake from my restless sleep, you are sitting in a chair a few feet from my bed, a cup of coffee in your hand.

"What are you doing?" I am startled.

"My poor baby," you whisper.

I am 24. I tell you I'm gay over the phone. I am raw and sad from mom's reaction. You are at a job sight, fixing a crack in a pool. My voice shakes as I tell you, but I am resigned to lose you for this truth.

You are silent for a second and then you say, "I'm sitting on the grass in the shade of a tree, and I have the biggest smile on my face. I'm so proud of you."

For this moment, I am whole and healed.

I am 25. You are helping me move into the apartment where I will live during my 3 years of law school. I am sick with shame, my face burning. My shame makes little sense, but it is always there. And today I am ashamed of needing your help. My hands shake as I try to help you put together my bed. My breathing is shallow.

You put your hands over my shaking hands. You kiss my shaking hands. "Easy, Baby."

I am easy in this moment.

I am 29. It is two weeks ago. You are helping me move from the apartment where I lived during my 3 years of law school. We are going to pick up the moving van. I've given you bad directions. I start to stutter and sweat, as I try to tell you that we made a wrong turn. My face burns with shame.

"It's fine, Sweet Pea," you say, so sincerely. "You made a mistake. You're allowed to make a mistake."

My thoughts tumble and trip. I am caught in a traffic jam of words.

"Thank you, Daddy," I cannot say.

I am a prayer you prayed.

Right from the start, I am yours.

Ever I am grateful.

Thank you, Daddy.

Love,
CJ

Be Careful

2008-06-12T13:44:00.001-07:00

Be careful what you say to me.

I am a peculiar creation, the result of unnatural combinations.

Sex and a small girl, I am crave.

Terror and imagination, I am lunatic magic.

Exploited and innocent, I am boundless.

Selfless, simply a body, I am give.

These are the elements of dark miracles, awful wonders destroying to save.

I am a vessel for these dark miracles as their vital elements churn in me.

These hard days I am empty of miracles and aching, on fire with this awesome chemistry.

I am need beyond shame. Be careful what you say to me; I will make you a miracle.

I will make you a miracle and you will lose yourself. Mindless Awful Wonder, you will claw, push and bite to find your way inside me.

I am an ancient prayer praying, a moan for a savior. I am a low song singing, a call for brutal deliverance.

I am need beyond shame. Be careful what you say to me; I will make you a savior.

I will make you a savior, and you will forget yourself. Savage Redeemer, you will take me, break me, swallow me whole.

I need and I don't care. I am crave.

I am a peculiar creation, the product of unnatural urges.

I need and I don't care. I am lunatic magic, deformed wishes.

I am need beyond shame. I will feed your baser instincts and fuel primitive inclinations, stoke them until you are consumed. Until you are willing to consume me.

I need and I don't care. I am give until I am gone.

Be careful what you say to me, and be careful what you don't. I'll hear you either way.

CJ

The Carpenter's Hands

2008-06-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

I think of the carpenter's hands. The carpenter's hands on wood.

The carpenter's hands know the wood. Wide strong hands along the grain of the wood.

The carpenter knows, the shape and the feel, every curve and straight line of the wood.

The wood cries out for the carpenter's touch. The carpenter's hands soothe the wood. The carpenter's wide strong hands.

The carpenter holds the wood, cradles the wood. The carpenter sleeps the wood. The wood lies flat beneath the carpenter's hands. The carpenter's wide strong hands.

The carpenter's eyes see the wood, into the true form of the wood. The carpenter's eyes see what waits in the wood.

The carpenter whispers to the mind of the wood, whispers true forms to the mind of the wood. The hard wood yields as the carpenter's voice becomes the thoughts of the wood.

The carpenter works the wood. Adores the wood. Smoothes the wood with broad strokes of rough magic. The carpenter works rough magic.

Broad strokes of rough magic and the wood is fine and eager under the carpenter's hands.

The carpenter wields shining blades, exacting blades. The carpenter enters the wood with a tender blade.

The carpenter cuts the moaning wood, releasing spirit from the wood.

The spirit glistens and spreads in the carpenter's hands. The carpenter drinks spirit from her hands.

The wood is in pieces by the carpenter's hands. The carpenter's hands break the wood.

The carpenter carves, honing the pieces. The carpenter leans, her strength for the wood, shaping pieces to reveal true forms.

True forms spring from the carpenter's hands.

The wood becomes under the carpenter's hands.

Certain of this magic, the carpenter realizes the wood.

CJ

Saved

2008-06-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

The car is blue low long sinister.

It creeps, making slow progress toward me. My stomach is a fist. My body is shaking.

Every day after preschool my Nana picks me up. She is always on time.

I climb inside. The car is hot from the Deep Red sun. The leather would burn me. The metal seatbelt would scald my skin.

"Be careful, Dolly, it's hot," my Nana warns. She spreads a towel on the seat and buckles my seatbelt for me. She kisses me and smiles, saving me from this small pain.

I am bereft.

We drive in silence. The car smells of stale cigarettes and miles and sweat. I am too small to see over the dashboard, and I am sick from motion and fear.

As we approach the street that is before the street where he lives, I ask my constant question, "Does Pop have an appointment tonight?"

My Nana is instantly, unreasonably angry.

"You should be ashamed you ask these things! Poppy loves you, and you don't want to see him? No. He doesn't have an appointment. He's home."

She has a cigarette voice. Deep with hard life. New York loud.

I despair.

My hand against the window, I am despair.

Sudden wrong-heat in my little girl cunt, I am despair.

My breath, fear-cold out of my mouth, I am despair.

I wet my pants. I watch the stain spread. I am despair.

My heat, my cold, my wet, the awful butterflies flapping in my mind's every corner. This is instability inside me.

My terror, his cock and weight have opened me to mystery.

Instability and Mystery. Ancient prayers pray me.

Please.

Ancient prayers pray me suddenly.

Green sky.

Ancient prayers pray me furious.

Scream the wind.

The car slows and my grandmother's hands fall from the steering wheel. She makes the sign of the cross, and grabs for the small gold one that hangs around her neck.

There is no God here, Nana. Don't you know? God is mind-empty, too pure to save us. Don't you know by now?

I unbuckle the seatbelt and sit on my knees to see. Ahead of us is a great twisting wall of wind.

Here is grace, Nana. Here it is.

Throw your cross to the wind, Nana. The Son of Man to the mouth of the wind, a pleasing sacrifice.

You won't.

It forgives you, Nana. Whatever you don't offer, the wind will take.

Ancient prayers pray my despair miraculous.

My Nana regains her composure and turns the car away from the tornado, away from the street where he lives.

We pull into the parking lot of a supermarket. She grabs my hand and starts to run. But I do not run.

Ancient prayers pray me taken.

She picks me up and rushes away from the wind.

"Nana, please leave me here," I do not say. But I stretch out my hand.

Ancient prayers pray me taken.

Inside, people are gathered, watching the weather. My hands against the glass, I watch.

It will take hours to get to the street where he lives this day.

Ancient prayers pray me a reprieve.

CJ

If I Could Just Be

2008-06-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

If I could just be, then I am these things.

I am
at rest between your thighs, my head at the precise center of you.

I am
my breath in and out. I am so still, just breath in and out.

I am
hot breath and smooth skin against you.

I am
your center-heat.

You swell as I be against you.

I am the want in you.

I am and I make rain in you. I drink in the rain as it drips from you.

I am
my tongue against you.

I wait, a firm tongue against you. I wait, your hips answer rocking. I am the music in your hips.

Your hips sing a rocking song, a tidal song, my song.

I am
the song your hips sing.

I am
heat and the swelling core of you. I am the rain maker and the song you sing.

I am and you watch me be against you.

You watch me be against you, your hands in my hair, through my hair, my dark hair against you.

I am my dark hair around your fingers. Twist me, pull me, your hands in my hair grind my face into you.

I am
yours.

My movements your wishes. My position your desire. I am pliant, all give. I am the power in you.

You are strong with the weakness in me.

I am
my tongue, the rhythm of the song that your hips sing.

If I could just be, then I am these things.

CJ

I Can't Sleep

2008-06-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

I am sleepless again. This is the third night. My eyes shake, and the world trembles with mini-earthquakes.

I am raw and blistered from the sun. I am losing time, minutes and hours. My burning skin tells me this, but otherwise I have no idea where I've been.

I moved out of the place that has been my home for the last three years. All of my things are in a 5x10 storage unit. I want to live among the boxes, in that small hot place with such limited air.

My dad helped me move. When we were finished, he held me tight. "Will you be safe?" He asked.

I don't know, daddy.

If things get too bad, I can still go there. I have the key that opens the lock. I can roll up the door and close myself inside. If things get too bad, I can go there. I will be safe there.

But for now, I am in the world with some clothes, an old blanket, and the secrets that fit in my backpack.

I stay in an anonymous place. I am a room number and a weekly rate. Only a magician can find me now. Only a certain magic can reach me.

But I can still hear the Chainsaw Lady and her terrible symphony of saws. Three nights sleepless, I am listening for her.

She is in the distance, but gaining. If only a magician could find me now. If only a certain magic could reach me.

The Chainsaw Lady is bigger than the world and stands beside it. With a giant saw, she cuts the world in half. She cuts precisely, and people stagger on one leg, moaning through one-half-mouths. They fall forward and stand, fall forward and stand, making hard progress to find the rest of themselves.

I have been halved a thousand times. And I cannot describe the fear or the pain. I can only say that I can't sleep anymore and I am afraid all the time.

I am responsible for the Chainsaw Lady, as she was born in me 26 years ago. So I am also sleepless with shame.

When she finds me again, she will assume her place in the corner of my mind, whispering threats and building a deafening cage of saws around me.

It's later and later now. The pills don't work so well anymore.

Three nights sleepless and I am close to tragic.

Three nights sleepless and I am devolving. I want rough magic and brutal spells.

Flailing,
CJ

The Tamer of Saws

2008-05-31T10:05:00.001-07:00

Certain Magician, you live at the top of a mountain in a house of glass.

I am trapped in a tower of screams and saws.

One thousand times I try to escape. I am one thousand wounds.

Certain Magician, do you know me anymore? I am your own magic, the throbbing heart of a wooden bear.

Do you know? I am the work of your hands. Have you forgotten me already?

Certain Magician, you quiet screams with whispers and muffle them with weight.

Blades of every kind sit docile and serene in the recesses of your magic place.

You are the Scream Soother. The Tamer of Saws.

Certain Magician, please.

Send a hummingbird to the roaring tower to taste my blood with a silver tongue. And you will know me again, a wounded magic still your own.

Certain Magician, please, come for me. Sleep the saws with a glance.

Take me to the house of glass high in the mountains at the edge of the woods.

Heal me with clean water and a magician's touch.

Hold me, fill me, feed me till the spell is broken and the saws wake up.

Return me to the tower, and I will go quietly.

Certain Magician, please, I will go quietly.

CJ

Crooked Hearts

2008-05-26T16:09:00.000-07:00

We sit in church in soft pews. I watch the little boy in front of me who draws hearts with a purple marker.

"CJ," my mother hisses, "CJ, you're rocking." She puts her hand on my leg in a way that does not match her voice.

My mother is embarrassed by the way I tilt my head and rock myself away. My constant motion nauseates her.

The little boy draws hearts and hearts. "Here, Mama, here," he says. "They are hearts. I drew them."

"Shh," she says and smiles. "Shh."

I watch and rock.

The man at the alter talks about the man who loved us enough to save us. "Begotten not made," he says. "Obedient unto death, even death on a cross."

When the service ends, the boy's mother will have a stack of crooked hearts.

"CJ, you're rocking," my mother says.

Lullaby: Slow and Steady

2008-05-17T00:57:00.000-07:00

My heart writhes in my chest. You lie next to me on the bed. My breathing is ragged and heavy. I am panting, your own heavy breather.

"Shh..." You whisper. You turn toward me, sleepy in the half light. "Shh. You need to be calm, baby girl. You need to be calm."

Tell me twice. You tell me twice. Thank you.

I am not calm. Not calm.

"What do you need, sweetie? Tell me what you need."

I am full of the evening sounds of a lit up city. Forks chime and food swallows. There are chewing sounds, and plates that fall and break. There are waiters waiting and chairs scraping. There are checks paying, and I am choking on the smoke of a hundred different laughters drifting towards the ceiling.

The cacophony of the evening lives in me, and I am cymbals crashing.

You are so even. So steady and true, blinking at me in the half light. I know your eyes are heavy.

"Tell me what you need." You love me more than sleep. I am so grateful.

I can barely hear you over the left over dinner sounds. I have boxed them up and taken them home.

I put my hand on the tender place on your neck, just under your chin. Your pulse lives here, the slow and steady beat of you. You are still and quiet, but your hand reaches up to my hand. Your fingers play over mine. You stroke the wide scar that divides my hand in half.

"Tell me what you need."

I can't tell you. Your heart beat presses against my fingertips. It's not enough. This will never be enough.

You read my mind. "Come here, baby. Just come here." Your voice is low and dry. You pull me close. My head is on your chest.

This is not close enough. Not nearly close enough.

I am frustrated, rocking against you in an uneven rhythm. Your arms are tight around me.

"Tell me." You whisper loud so I can hear you.

I can't tell you. You know I can't tell you.

You pull away from me. Put your fingers under my chin to tilt my head towards you. You look directly into my eyes. "Show me."

I can do that.

I climb on top of you, pressing flat against your chest. I put my heart on your heart.

I am your second skin.

"Show me."

My hips move to your heart beat, following your heart beat. They are need against you naked in a slow and steady rhythm.

Your heart leaps toward me. Your hips come to meet me. Your hands are on my back now. Your fingernails Trace the length of me.

I shudder. You groan.

"Show me." Your words are edgy pieces, but your voice is soft and steady. I like this. Your jagged want won't cut me.

Your heart is out of rhythm now, faster then my hips. I hesitate. I don't know what to do with this.

"OK, baby. It's OK." You flip us over neatly. You keep the rhythm steady.

You put your heart on my heart. You are my second skin.

Your arms are strong around me. You keep the rhythm steady. My head is off the pillow as you lift me and you keep me.

I grab your straps for safety, like reigns though you ride me.

You thrust away the evening in a slow and steady rhythm. To sleep your ride me gently. You keep it slow and steady.

Punctuation

2008-05-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I graduate from law school. Actually, tomorrow is today. I can't sleep.

The round blue pills sit on my night stand, unused for two days. I want to be in this, all me and shining weird.

My heart is a plate falling to shatter. Seasons churn inside me and I sweat and freeze. My skin is so alive, it writhes me.

Withdrawal is an orgasm. I buck and come.

My meds paint me Monet, blurry and sublime, a whisper in cool blues and gray.

Uncloaked I am a Picasso, fractured to startle in bold colors.
I seethe in purple. I am all red imagination, a third eye blinking.

Once I had a train of thought, but now I ride lightning.

I have to go soon before I abandon punctuation.

Tomorrow is today. I pulled it off.

Graduating,
CJ

Broken Dolls

2008-05-12T02:17:00.001-07:00

There were broken dolls in the blue room. Resting high on a shelf where I could see them.

Dead eyes floating in plastic heads. Tiny clothes ragged and torn. Rubber skin, blackened in places and wearing away.

One day, an any other day, a push and a no-scream, and I was high on a shelf.

I have never been as pure as I was that day. Sitting with the broke down dolls, looking down on me with no me inside.

Dead eyes float in an empty head. Raw skin, abraded and wearing away. Without me, I am a perfectly formed body, small but stretching. A rag doll, I that is not me, move with him. There is music to me that is she down below.

I met God that day. He was up on the shelf with the broke down dolls.

Who's reading this?

God is a mad scientist, experimenting. God is an artist, and I am found art.

Who's reading this?

God is pure in a way that you don't understand. The mind of God is empty. The mind of God is filled with motion and color and sound. A voice, small and sweet with pain compliments low groans of release. Light on silver hair, glinting. Sweat on young skin, glistening. It is all beautiful and strange.

I have never been so pure, as empty as the mind of God.

I have never been so holy, as empty as the mind of God, just flesh receiving flesh.

CJ

Holy Water

2008-05-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

It is summer in the Great Falling City.

My kids are restless and mean. We walk listlessly outside. The heat from the concrete makes its way under their skin. The sun flashes in their eyes, and it is dangerous. Barb and I both see it.

We plan quickly and keep the kids in their rooms.

I walk up and down the halls, stopping in rooms, talking to my girls, feeling them out. How far gone are we? Who will act out?

C's laugh is a little too bright. I sit on her bed and we breathe slow breaths. My laughing girl laughs with a breaking face. Together, we think cool thoughts. I whisper about glaciers and great redwoods where the sun cannot find the forest floor.

A is squinting too much behind her thick black glasses. This is her fighting squint. I know she is hanging by a thread.

I am concerned about O. Her voice is as flat as her eyes are wild. She crosses her arms and keeps her distance from me. I do not linger in her doorway. I keep my hands loose at my sides.

Barb makes the cheese sandwiches and packs the water.

"5 minutes. Bathing suits or shorts and T-shirts, towels, and one plastic bag for each of you."

They have a task. They set to it, grateful for something to do.

We pack up the van and the kids. Barb and C ride up front. I sit in the back with the other 2 girls.

A sits on the very back bench seat alone, half reading a novel. But she is still squinting, one eye trained on C in the front of the van. I am glad that they are so far apart.

O curls up against me despite the heat. This could be good or bad. I put my hand on her forehead and she closes her eyes.

I'm not good at most things. I don't catch on quickly. I'm not witty or funny or friendly. But I've spent my life looking for the words under the words, the meaning behind gestures, the struggle inside a hurting kid.

With my hand on her forehead and over her eyes, I can feel the tension and the conflict and the need.

How will you get what you need today, O?

Her eyes twitch. A decision. I hold my breath and she relaxes against me, letting my hand hold the weight of her head. That's it, kiddo. Trust me for a minute.

We drive east. The terrain changes and the air cools. Barb rolls down the window. A drops her book and lets the wind blow her hair back. O opens her eyes and sits up to see. She holds my hand tight.

I get it, beautiful girl. I can be yours today. I am yours.

We drive until the kids are noticeably calmer and then Barb drives up a steep hill and takes a sharp left. Suddenly we are at the edge of a short cliff, and below us is clear rushing water.

The kids are ecstatic. I see the heat and the anger tumble out of them like coins in the sunshine. I feel the danger subside. Barb and I glance at each other. We read them right. We bask in our small victory.

The kids rush from the van, leaving a trail of towels and shoes and socks. O lingers behind with me, still holding my hand. Clinging.

I planned to sit on the bank and cheer the kids on. I am afraid of water. It touches too much too quickly. In the water, I feel old hurts new again.

O does not run ahead, though I see her heart jumping into the water. She is still holding tight, her arms wrapped all the way around me now.

My attic girl, my starving hidden child, you are afraid to want.

I will deny you nothing. I will not make you ask.

"Are we going to swim or stand here and sweat?"

She grins a lopsided grin and runs towards the water, looking back to see me follow.

I have granted a wish. I am a genie. I am a magician. I am a falling star. Thank you, God.

We jump in and O swims away from me, moving through the water like a mermaid I knew once.

C shows me everything. The tire swing with the fraying rope, the way the sun glints off the water, how the stones are smooth where the water rushes by.

A lays on an old black raft, her eyes closed and relaxed, her hand trailing in the water.

O finds her way back to me, still needy, still wanting. She wraps her arms around my neck and floats, pressing her cheek to the back of my neck. I continue to inspect rocks with C, and we put the best ones in our plastic bags to keep.

I ignore O carefully, because she is not sure yet what she is doing.

"Is this bad? What will happen next? What if I rest here? What will she want from me? I feel good. What does that mean?" Her thoughts ebb and flow, I feel every one as her grip tightens and relaxes.

I don't want anything from you, sweet girl. I don't want a thing.

Soon she stops wondering because the stream is a cradle, and our touching skin a lullaby.

A floats by and grabs the branch of a low hanging tree. C continues to pile rocks into her bag until the bottom breaks. O holds on, content.

I tell them a story about a mermaid named Katherine Finn. We find a rock with a perfect hole worn through the center. We eat soggy cheese sandwiches in a stream east of a great falling city.

We are whole and healed under a gentle sun.

This is holy water.

CJ

Empty Place

2008-05-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

I have a recurring dream.

Since I was about 6, I have dreamed this dream.

Alien creatures dressed as human take me by the hand. They are kind, and I am shaking with gratitude. For the kindness in their touch, for this overwhelming feeling of safety. I lay down because they tell me to.

A creature kneels beside me and brushes a hand across my forehead. This touch, my greatest wish.

Slowly and carefully, the creature places a leash around my foot. And suddenly, I see the strong rope attached to a craft of some kind. Still I am not afraid, I am dull with touch and tenderness.

Suddenly I am alone. Lying on the ground. And then there is a rushing sound, and my foot jerks painfully. I am in the air, and the craft is dragging me. Higher and higher we go. Until the wind is cold and sharp. And as I drag through the air, the wind strips me of my skin. My mouth opens in pain, and my teeth are torn from my mouth. I close my eyes, but the wind and the speed will not have it. And soon I have no eyes. I am pain and more naked then I have ever been.

I am becoming an empty place.

I ended my relationship. My beautiful girl, far away from me now, and stunned. 4 years. I am so sorry, baby.

I finished law school. I took my last exam and left the building.

I have been making this place an empty place. I have boxes. But mostly I run up and down the stairs, throwing piles of things away. I hear them hit the bottom of the foul green dumpster. I rest my head against the sticky hot metal. I am low and sad.

I am pain and more naked then I have ever been.

Who will touch me? Dull me first with tenderness. You don't have to mean it.

I don't care what you do after that.

CJ

Fever Dream

2008-05-03T08:47:00.001-07:00

My instinct is to not park my car directly in front of my coffee shop, because I don't want them to know that I'm coming.

My mom doesn't know my home phone number. Or that I have a home phone number.

M wanted me to drive us to school the other day. Another person in my car feels desperately invasive. I drove, my heart racing. Hoping she wouldn't find out.

What? What is it that she might find out?

K used to ask, "What do you want for dinner?" or "What do you want to watch on tv?"

The questions are needles, piercing my mind. Don't ask me that. Don't ask.

I have lived in my apartment for three years, and I can count on one hand the number of times another person has been in it.

M says, "What do you have going on over there, a meth lab?"

Kind of. Maybe.

Eerie voices live there. Don't put your ear against the door.

A strange brew boils. It is poison, but it is oblivion and the fulfillment of every naked wish you've ever had.

I can do this one thing.

Come home with me. Put your hand over my hand and guide the key into the lock.

Come in. Breathe in a delicate poison. Taste me with your tongue.

I am wide open. A body for you.

I can do this one thing.

Come inside me. I am a beautiful disease. I'll infect you with shining horrors and thrilling sickness.

And when you have caught me, I'll be your fever-dream.

And when you are raving with sex and monsters, rave on me.

Break me. I am just your fever dream.

I can do this one thing.

CJ

Paper

2008-05-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

I don't feel good today.

I am disappearing.

Last night I dreamed of paper.

A single sheet floating in front of me, blank with possibility.

And then a tearing sound, horrible in its precision, and pieces and more pieces falling to the ground.

And then I look around at the place where I live, and everything I own is made of paper.

My desk, so solid and smooth, the place to put my head down.

My lamp to keep out the darkness.

My bed and my blanket to cradle me for rocking.

The shelves to hold my books.

The pens that keep my thoughts, liquid and blue, before I think them.

The clothes that cover me in the closet that huddles me sometimes.

Everything is paper, yellowed and old, disintegrating before my eyes.

Please don't go.

I reach out to touch my things, to stack them or pile them or staple them. To save them. But the oils on my hands, the poison in my touch, disappears them. And now all of my things are gone.

I am panic in an empty room. I look to the wall I use for leaning and fall against it. But it crumples and caves, white paper pretending to be a wall.

And then I am nowhere, after the paper is torn and the pieces have fallen and the wind in space has blown them away.

I can see again. Please don't make me see. Please.

The people I love...made of paper.

Their faces crack and yellow. They crumple and tear. They beg me in thin white voices. They fall in pieces at my feet. They blow away in the wind.

I'm sorry.

CJ

A Thousand Selves

2008-04-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Once I learned oblivion in a blue room with animals on the walls.

A push, a cry, and a splitting pain in the key of chainsaws, once I learned oblivion.

I am in two halves.

Once I learned oblivion, so grateful, so sure, suddenly of what you wanted from me. My silver haired monster, all cock and sickness, I knew how to stroke you, how to swallow.

My Sand Man, I am boneless in a blue room, bend me any way you like.

Yesterday, my dad said, "You are me."

Yesterday he told me, "You are high energy, athletic, ambitious."

Yes, Daddy. Tell me what I am, please.

Yesterday, K said, "You are like me."

Yesterday she said, "You like to stay in, to watch tv and be still. I know you want a regular job, no stress, no commitment past 5. I know you, baby."

Yes, K. Please, know me.

Once my self broke into a thousand selves, the veins in a blood shot eye.

I am a very good girl.

Tell me...

I'm your baby girl or your slut.

I am still or in motion.

I am silent or full of sound.

I am legion. A throng for exorcism and worship.

I am words like candy or a body always ready and always wet.

I am awful magic pieces.

Tell me.

Up on all fours. Down on my knees. On my back or face to the floor.

I am a very good girl.

I am a very bad girl.

Tell me.

I am many empty rooms and some that are filled.

There is a dead man on a cross behind a locked door, in me He never rises.

There is a little girl ghost on a shelf who sings herself to sleep and builds a magi-nation from wooden blocks.

There are whispers and moans muffled behind doors.

But I am many many rooms. Fill me.

I am no one and everyone and I am the one you dream about.

Tell me.

I am so brilliantly empty. I know you, because there is no me in the way. I do not see darkly.

I am a thousand selves and I am free.

Pick one. And then pick again.

Just tell me who I am today. Please.

CJ

Certain Magician

2008-04-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

To A Certain Magician,

I'm sitting outside. It must be warm, but the wind feels cold against my skin.

I close my eyes and feel my whole body from the wind. I am. Here. A body in the wind.

Today at chapter 11, when I could not learn anymore, I went to the ocean and sat on the rocks. I felt the spray like I feel the wind. I am. Here. A body in the spray on the rocks.

I found my mermaid in pieces on the beach. Her tail was rotting, and green scales fell and glittered around her.

Gems on a death bed. How perfectly awful.

God is the Great Poet of Awful. He writes me disappearing.

I am so hungry but cannot eat.

I am ribs and sharp hip bones. I am hollow cheeks and huge eyes.

God is the Great Poet of Awful. He writes my nightmares in impossible colors and the rich near sounds of bells and saws.

My nightmares, in God's Great Poem, a refrain.

What He wrote, He writes again. How perfectly awful.

The refrain is a swinging pocket watch. You can't take your eyes off me.

The refrain is a melody, so eerie, so thoroughly inside of you. You cannot stop listening.

You are a Certain Magician in the woods today.

There is a book called "My Side of the Mountain." A boy runs away in lives in a hollow tree.

Certain Magician, Please.

There are hollow trees in the woods today. I paint my face with sap and dirt until I am bark and black. Look for me when I blink blue eyes.

Find me, bright blue in a hollow tree.

Carve me a place inside the wooden bear, and I will beat there, his heart. And you will have made a live pulsing thing from wood. And it will be magic.

Certain Magician, please hear me.

Cage me in the bear and he will be the world all around. Hide me from the great Awful Poet, and I will be your own magic.

Certain Magician, keep a throbbing magic always near.

Yours,
CJ

Planting Seeds

2008-04-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

Dear James,

Heather. You must have said her name 20 times in our 30 minute conversation.

I was sitting outside the coffee shop with my feet propped up on a chair and a book in my lap.

And then your voice, hesitant, behind me, "CJ right?"

I didn't even turn around at first. I'm not used to hearing my name.

You were sitting behind me, drinking tea.

I know you, James, by your shadow and size. I know you from your rituals.

You ask for tea in a large mug. And then you ask for a mini sample cup. You steep your tea, moving the tea bag in and out of the cup.

And I have been hypnotized by the gentle twist of string around your finger, and the way you gaze into the water. What do you see, James?

And when the water is dark, and the vision cloudy, you pour the tea from the big cup to the mini sample cup. You do this over and over until the tea is gone. You are the gentle ticking of a clock, James. You are the steady drum of rain.

You know my name. I turn around. Say it again, James. "CJ, right?"

You are a lullaby. "Yes."

"You're in law school right? Are you almost finished? How are you?"

I look at your eyes. They are warm from sun and tea. And they glimmer, James. That's crazy. You've been crazy. And the flash, that's saved.

I know you, James. There's a man on a cross hanging in your heart. And Heather.

Why are you talking to me, James?

"I'm well," I lie. "You?" I don't look away.

You pause, your big hands wrapped around that tiny cup.

"Heather died while I was in Iraq." Your eyes sparkle and moan.

Who's Heather, James?

"My wife, Heather, she died in a car wreck right up the street. I came home for the funeral, and then went back and led men to war."

You led men to war. That is a strange specificity. What do you want to tell me, James?

Heather, twisted and broken in a car. Our bleeding, skinny God on a tree. The men you led to war. Your poor crowded heart.

"I'm so sorry, James."

"You know, after Heather died, I kept coming here because one of the girls that worked here looks like her. My wife's name was Heather."

I know, James. What else? Tell me.

"I quit my job. I'm going to seminary. God is leading me. I'm going to minister to soldiers." You rush, your hope neon with pain.

I understand, James. You will lead no more men to war. You lean forward. What, James?

"I don't know if I'll be any good, but I just plant the seed. Right? I just plant the seed?"

"I think you'll be a wonderful chaplain, James. You need a kind face, an open heart, and a willing soul. You have all those things."

"Really?" You are ridiculously happy. "Really?"

Oh, James. "Yes. I think so."

"God took Heather from me, only to give me this gift." Your heart lives right in your eyes, James. I see the sun glinting off a ruined car. I see the red of the blood of soldiers and a carpenter. I see the strength and grain of the wood that held our strange God.

My Soldier-Gardener, my Grief-Smooth Stranger, be careful what seeds you plant.

Lead no more men to war.

Your Friend,
CJ

Beyond Reason

2008-04-18T03:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Jen,

Your name is common enough. And you don't need protecting.

I was 17, almost 18, alone in a dorm room my first semester of college. I opened the computer and logged on to a chat room, and there you were.

There were a hundred people in that chat room, and I never said a word. I would just come, night after night and watch the conversations.

And then you popped up on my screen, a private message.

"Hiding?" You wrote.

How did you know I was hiding?

I never quite fit in at school. I didn't know how to make friends. I was lonely. I was 17.

Every night, you appeared on my screen, like a magic trick, like a wish granted. You told me stories about your life and your family and a Great City of Falls. Your stories were lullabies, life vests, saving graces.

One night you asked, "who hurt you?"

One night you said, "I know you hear voices."

How did you know, Jen? How could you know when I never said?

One night you said, "you're not gay, CJ. I can help you. It's a sickness I can cure."

How did you know I was gay?

One night you said, "I can make the voices go."

I never told you about the voices. I believed that you could hear them. I believed that you could make them go away.

All of the nights, the things you said, they were cat's eye marbles in my pocket.

One night you said, "Come to me."

I left my life and fell and fell and fell to the Great City of Falls. I had just turned 19.

6 feet tall, eyes bright with a feverish light, arms and voice powerful with zealotry, you held me, and I loved you.

I loved you, Jen. Beyond all reason.

You pushed me down to my knees, and I repeated the words, "Jesus, come into my heart."

Jen, I meant you.

You stood over me, and I prayed, "Jesus, cleanse me. Make me whole again."

Jen, I meant you.

I shut my eyes. "I repent. I leave behind my homosexuality, and accept your gift of new life."

Jen, I tried to mean it.

That night you took me to bed and told me to take off my clothes. You removed yours and climbed in beside me.

You touched every part of me. Running your fingers through my hair, over my breasts, down my stomach, cupping your hand around my cunt until I was aching and wet. You wrapped your long legs around me and pulled me into you.

"All things are pure to those who are pure." You whispered. "Say it."

"All things are pure to those who are pure."

"Touch me," you whispered.

Shaking, I touched you, just the way you touched me. I tried to kiss you, but you put your fingers to my lips and shook your head.

I was sorry, so sorry, Jen. Only what you want.

You rubbed your body against mine, you pulled my head to your breasts. "Drink," you said.

I was found.

Night after night we did this. "All things are pure to those who are pure."

I was not pure.

My voices were loud. You heard. How did you hear?

"CJ, the voices are demons invading my home."

You pushed me down onto the floor. I was flat on my back. You climbed on top of me, your knees pinning my arms, your weight on my chest.

You pounded my face and chest with your fists. "I rebuke you! Leave this child of God! I rebuke you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!" Your eyes were glowing, Jen. They were glowing.

My little voices cowered and hid. They were quiet.

My face was aching. You kissed every bruise. You let me up and held me. You pushed my face to your breast, "Drink."

We went to bed. All things are pure to those who are pure.

Days and nights passed. You heard my voices again.

"Jen, forgive me," I prayed. "Jen, have mercy. I am sorry for my sins."

"CJ, you need to spend some time alone with God."

You opened the trap door. You led me down the rickety stairs to the basement. The walls were made of dirt. It smelled damp and moldy.

I pulled the chain on the hanging bulb, but nothing happened.

"You don't need that. You have the light of God." You were so sure.

I started to shake, realizing what you were going to do.

I loved you, Jen. Beyond reason. You were my light.

You made your way back up the stairs and closed the trap door.

I sat alone for hours and days. You opened the door for food and bathroom.

Then the weekend was over, and I went back to my babies at the daycare. I held them tight, and breathed them in.

When I returned at 5, you led me down the stairs.

"Please, Jen, come into my heart." I prayed. "Please, Jen, touch me again."

After 5, days off, and weekends, I spent in the basement, thinking thoughts of you and talking to my voices.

Once God showed up. Then the Devil. The Devil wore a top hat. God was ragged and bleeding.

Eventually, when I was out in the sun, I began to miss the dark.

One day, you let me out. I never went down again.

The sun still hurts me, 10 years later.

You never held me again. I ached for you. You eyed me suspiciously, feeling my want. Hearing my voices.

One day you threw me out. "CJ, there is poison in you. You are not willing to let go."

"Forgive me, Jen, for I have sinned." I begged you to let me stay.

You would not change your mind. My demons had infested your home.

I want you to know, Jen, what happened next.

Alone again, in the Great Falling City, I felt the nails of love unrequited, of want, of lust and longing push through my hands and feet.

And then I felt nothing. I hurt until hurt lost meaning. I wanted till want was gone. I was empty of you and weightless, floating above the spray of the Great Falls in a Falling City.

My voices still live in me, Jen. You didn't keep your promise.

And I'm queer, Jen. I'm still queer. I'm out and proud. A living rainbow flag. A dyke.

And I'm not sorry.

Loving you still beyond reason,
CJ

The Rocking Girl

2008-04-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

I don't even know your name.

But I think of you still, when I have no one to tell, when I am dissolving.

My rocking girl, I am dissolving.

I was working a unit, sick with my own sadness and ache, when they called me from the admit building.

"Combative autistic patient...female age 12," they said.

I ran, afraid for you.

I could hear you before I saw you as I ran up to the admit building, a terrible moaning...

And when I got inside, there you were, your face against the floor, 3 people lying on top of you.

The nurse manager was filling a needle.

The floor...old hardwood, rough and full of gouges, my porcelain girl, it must have been acid to your skin.

The furniture, with its unfamiliar colors and shapes, how it must have violated you.

The smells of the people, too close, too heavy, salty and bitter and sweet and acrid, how your mind must have gagged and retched.

I know, my mystic girl. I'm sorry.

I screamed, "Just let her up!"

The nurse gave me a warning look, but nodded, and the techs moved away, sweating and breathing hard.

You sat up and started rocking, pulling at your hair and your skin, banging your head with your hands.

"CJ, if she can't stop I'm going to have to shoot her." The needle looked big to me.

"Just put it away," I snapped. You banged harder at this new sharp sound I made.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry." I whispered.

Desperate, I sat behind you with my legs in front of me in a "V."

You rocked and hit up against me. I was still, my arms at my sides. The quality of your moaning changed, just a little.

I inched closer as you rocked, and you rocked into me in a new motion.

I began to rock in your rhythm, moving closer until my chest was your back, and we moved together.

"Shh" I whispered not too close to your ear. "Shh."

And it was a song we were singing and a dance we were dancing, and a wall we were building against the violent hardwood, and the clanging furniture, and the unbearable taste of unfamiliar skin.

You put your arms down at your sides, I put mine around you, hand on hand.

My wide open girl, I needed you. "Shh," I prayed.

Take me in, my magic girl. Take me in.

"CJ, we have to take her down to the unit."

Just leave us here. Just leave us.

"1 2 3 up," I sang new words to our song, and you cocked your head deciding whether to hear me.

"1 2 3 up. 1 2 3 up. 1 2 3 up."

And then we were standing, and you pressed your body into me, hand over hand.

They took you away in the white van. I never saw you again.

My rocking girl, where are you? I have no one to tell.

Sing me your song and dance me your dance. I can't speak. I am pain-wide and open, my magic girl. The world burns its way in. Build me a wall of rocking. Please, I can't take it.

Take me in, my haunted savior girl.

Please,
CJ

Carpenters

2008-04-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Daddy, please come get me. Please.

I don't want to be where I am.

Daddy, please.

I can't talk about it. Just look at me the way you look at me and fix it.

I know you can fix it. You told me once that there are beautiful things in broken pieces. You told me once that there is art in scraps. You just have to have the eyes to see.

Have the eyes to see. Please?

Daddy, fix my broken pieces.

Remember the blue glass pieces we found in the trash? You put them together and we made a mosaic. Remember? Do that for my eyes, Daddy. They're blurry and broken.

Make me a fire, Daddy, out of dying leaves and limbs. I can't stop shaking.

Take me out to the porch swing, Daddy. Pull me close as I can get. Tell me, "fuck it, Shortcake, you'll be OK."

Daddy, make it morning on the deck we made. Brew the coffee and make two cups. One for you in your mug. And one for me, the way you do it just for me...4 spoons of sugar and 1/2 cup of french vanilla creamer.

Tell me, Daddy, all the morning things you tell me when the sun is rising and no one else is up.

Tell me again how you hoped for me before I was born. You hoped for me, just the way I am, and it was a miracle when I happened just the way you hoped.

Tell me I am still just the way you hoped, Daddy.

Tell me again, about when I was a baby. How you used to lay me on your chest, and I fell asleep with my finger in your pocket.

Daddy, come get me please. And fall me to sleep, like you do.

Daddy, please. I can't stay here anymore.

Worms

2008-04-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

Dear S,

After all these years I think I'm on to you.

You came to the unit where I worked late on a Tuesday night. It wasn't the acute care psych ward, but more like a workshop for adult victims of childhood trauma. Clients generally stayed three or four weeks, trying to let go of whatever poison they were holding on to.

You were laughing, relieved maybe to be locked in somewhere. To give yourself up to the care of others.

You were a teacher, I remember.

You flirted with me as I checked all the pockets of the clothes that you had packed. You winked when I carefully refolded all your boxers and sports bras.

"Dyke," I thought. "Thank God."

As a 22 year old, it's hard to get a group of women who are older and wiser and not the least bit crazy to follow the rules, wake up on time, eat bad food, and let me take the underwires out of their bras.

The weapons in my arsenal included a baby dyke vibe and tight t-shirts for the lesbians (who at any given time made up about half of the 20 person unit) and youth, wide eyes, and long lashes for the moms (who made up the other half).

S, I thought you were going to be easy.

I showed you your room.

"Aren't you going to stay and tuck me in?"

I grinned at you and shut the door behind me.

You were there about two weeks, working the program, making progress, cracking jokes about the food and the staff.

And then the new housekeeper forgot to put up the wet floor sign after mopping your bathroom.

You fell, hard. I heard you. We broke your damn leg.

You were furious, swollen and red with the indignity of it. They put you in a rainbow cast all the way up your thigh. You threatened to sue.

There were letters and meetings. You were stern and well spoken when the hospital brass came down to placate you.

But you still kept trying to put your hand on my knee anytime I took your vital signs.

A couple of days after we broke your leg, I got called into the nurse manager's office. This was a first for me.

"CJ, she's not going to sue. But she has some conditions."

I just waited, my heart sinking a little.

"She wants an extra two weeks for free," the manager paused a bad pause.

"And?"

"She wants you to help her bathe every other day."

S, you are a formidable woman.

And so it began. Every other day, you cheerful called to me, "bath time!"

The nurses in the fish bowl snickered.

And like a dead man walking, I followed you to your room.

First, I carefully avoided looking at you while you undressed, handing you a sheet that you never seemed to want to use. Then, I painstakingly wrapped and tied your casted leg in one of those insitutional yellow trash bags.

I'd fill the tub with water. You'd smile your lopsided smile. "Not too hot, CJ."

Then it would begin. You'd climb in, and for a moment things would be calm.

And then, "The Trance."

Now that I'm onto you, I'm sure you remember. At the time you always claimed amnesia for the event.

"Worms Worms Worms!" You'd scream. "Worms!"

Ok. I get it. Worms.

You would flail. Dunking your cast. Slipping under the water.

"Worms!" You'd reach out to me.

Sly, really sly, S. I have to say I admire you.

I'd frantically lift your leg to try to keep it out of the water. You'd wrap your arms around my neck, and pull me into the tub, very nearly on top of you. "Worms!"

Yeah, I know, worms.

I'd make my voice calm and soothing, "I'm right here with you S. There are no worms. It's 200_. You're safe."

Eventually, after feeling me up, unintentionally of course, you would "come back to the present" and I'd help you out of the tub and wrap you in a sheet.

You sat in the wheel chair while I brought you your clothes.

"CJ," you'd say, "that is NOT a sleeping shirt."

Awfully fashion conscious for a woman just drowning in a tub full of worms, don't you think, S?

Eventually, the ordeal would be over.

I'd wheel you out, triumphant and sparkling clean, to the day room.

I'd drag my ass back to the nursing station, shivering and holding my own personal wet t-shirt contest.

My comrades, still snickering, had towels waiting. And invariably, "How was that for you?"

"Fuck off."

You'd roll up to the fishbowl window, and sincerely thank me.

S, you were so full of shit. And I was so naive.

But you still make me smile.

And you taught me two very important lessons:

1) Stop at nothing for the woman you want.

2) You can always get some, even in the most unlikely places.

Worms. Jeez.

Warmly,
CJ

Unraveling

2008-04-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Pop,

I am all unraveled today.

I miss you sometimes. I'm glad you never held me or cuddled me, because I would probably miss you all the time.

Where did you go when you left?

I heard a couple of years ago you were arrested for indecent exposure in Kentucky.

Where are you now?

Sometimes I hold my breath until I am dizzy, to remember you.

Sometimes I put my hands around my neck to make your mark.

You made your mark on me, Pop, and when I can't find it I panic a little.

Sometimes I run my hands up and down my body and feel the curves and swells.

And then I close my eyes, back and back and back to you. And your rough hands are up and down my body, but there is nothing there to touch.

What did you want to touch?

I can put words to your hands now and your cock and your weight. I had no words for those things then.

Back and Back and Back...

Your hands were desperate hands, quick and reckless and rough, tingling with little girl secrets.

Your cock was a living thing, pulsing with life and want. Were you trying to get clean, Pop? Did you think you would be washed clean if you pushed your way inside of me?

You were never going to fit. I was so small and you were bigger than the world. And I am sad to think of you, struggling to go to where you could never go. You could not stretch me that far.

On mornings like this morning, when I am unraveled and missing you, I think of your cock in my mouth.

I think of Sunday school pictures of Jesus touching the sick and the dying, and washing the feet of his disciples. He goes to every awful place and washes it clean, but he never gets dirty.

Back and Back and Back...I am washing you clean. I am holy. I am choking and gagging.

Your weight is tremendous and feels like empty pockets. That doesn't make sense. I mean to say your full weight, the weight of you spent and exhausted on top of me, is more than I can take.

You are more than I can take, and magically, I disappear.

You taught me magic.

I am unraveling.

CJ

The Laughing Girl

2008-04-11T16:28:00.001-07:00

Dear CB,

You were already living at the House at the End of the World when I got there.

You smiled at me. You even had smiling hair, laughing around your face.

And the way you talked...your thoughts were lazy errant frisbees, gliding in careless arcs in bright frisbee colors.

I want you to know, in this place, I chased them down. Every single one. I wanted to hold your bright spinning thoughts. Slow them down. And toss them back.

We played tetris, you and I. Constantly. Remember? You just let the bricks fall, every time. Just for the color of it. Just for the sheer wonderful chaos. You never cared that it ended your turn.

"Slow down," I would say. "Think it through."

And you, with your hair giggling all over your head, and your mouth twitching with irony, "It's just a game, CJ." You patted my leg. "It's just a game."

Remember when it was our turn to make dinner? I let you put eggs in a metal bowl into the microwave. The microwave started to smoke, and then there was a pop and a flash.

We made the 4th of July in the kitchen that night. Fire and light, we were makers of magic. You were thrilled. Actually, so was I.

I wonder who you grew into, kiddo.

Remember when you tried to run away? You wore boxers, a T-shirt, and no socks on a freezing night in the northern City of Falls. You ran out the front door.

I thought, "It's just a game, CJ. It's just a game." I locked the door. Barb just looked at me and shook her head.

CB, I want you to know how my heart chased you, pounding with trust and fear and uncertainty.

4 minutes later, blue lipped and shivering, you were banging to get in. "You're SUPPOSED to CHASE me." You screamed through the screen.

I let you in. Your tears were freezing on your cheeks and you put your head on my chest. "Why didn't you come after me?"

"I knew you would slow down and think it through."

You and I and Barb had hot chocolate and discussed it. No skating for a week. You were good with that.

That night, after I tucked you into bed, I started to read your life in that thick blue chart. I'd been at the House at the End of the World for almost 6 months, and I'd never thought to read anyone's chart.

Anyway, that night, I started to read. But I never found you there. Just what people had done to you. No frisbees or laughing hair...just sadness and a word called "frottage."

The word, in psychiatry, means rubbing up against someone to achieve sexual arousal. I'm sure you never knew the word.

I think of you, 10 years old, frantic and rubbing...not sure what to do with what had been awakened in you. But desperate for the ache to stop.

I know that ache, mysterious and painful. And if you don't get it out of you, you feel as though you will die.

My sweet laughing girl, I never looked for you in that blue book again. I'm sorry.

Love,
CJ

Amends

2008-04-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Katherine Finn, we lay down in our beds with the half wall between us.

Katherine Finn, this place never closes. It is night but people walk by our door and shine flashlights.

It's hurting me to be looked at like this.

Is this a carnival, Katherine Finn?

There is screaming, Katherine Finn.

I whimper.

"Come sit on my bed," you whisper.

I come onto your side of the room in the moon and star pajamas that my mom packed for me. I hold them up, because they took the draw string out of the waist band.

"Why are you here?"

I can't answer. I still have not answered one of your questions. I think to you, "I don't know why I'm here, but I can't sleep and when I do, I dream of lobsters and blue blankets and a man that steps out of a photograph."

The flashlight flashes again as the spectators look in. Your eyes are very green in the light. Sea glass...mermaids are made of sea glass and the moon forces that create the tides.

You show me your wrists in the dark. They are bandaged. Then the scars on your back. "My dad," You say. "But I got the fuck out of there, ran away. Fuck him. Fuck me Fuck him"

You ran away, Katherine Finn, to the edge of the ocean when the moon was high. The moon and the sea made you new and took you in. But they caught you in nets, and you've been here ever since.

The flashlight flashes. And someone steps in the room. Two small paper cups, and two smaller plastic ones.

I see there are pills and water. Eat me. Drink me.

Katherine Finn, you throw back the pills and the water and show your tongue to the man standing above us.

I do not move.

"Take the pills, CJ." your voice sounds nervous, a little.

I eat and drink.

The flashlight man moves on.

We sit and wait, and then the room gets thick and my body feels heavy. Your sea glass eyes roll back in your head. We are under water. But Katherine Finn, you are too tired to swim.

We sleep.

In the morning, there is still screaming but now there are food smells and chewing sounds.

I get up and see breakfast and a girl in the corner strapped to a bed...her arms spread wide, her legs long and and open. Tied. She is tied and screaming.

Katherine Finn, I can't find you.

I sit in the corner and make myself quiet. Then my mom is there and the girl is still tied.

Then we are gone. But we are leaving AMA. We are leaving Against Medical Advice. But I am ok with that. I can breathe again when the metal doors open.

I didn't say goodbye.

But Katherine Finn, I went back. I grew up and went back. Did you get to grow up? Did they bring you back to the sea?

I went back and filled out an application form. They gave me a job, and keys and a clipboard.

They showed me around because they thought I had never been there. That would have made you laugh your cresting laugh.

When they showed me our room, I smiled.

Katherine Finn, I stayed 4 years. I protected you, whenever you came in. And me.

We always had different names and faces, but I knew us when I saw us.

I'm moving to a city by the ocean, Katherine Finn. I'll look for you on clear days and when the moon is high at night.

Your Friend,
CJ

Mermaids

2008-04-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Your name is Katherine Finn.

I saw you for the first time lying on the bed on your side of the room. You had tangled red hair and green eyes. Your tail flipped and glittered on the hospital sheets.

The half wall that separated our beds was paint-chipped and full of graffiti.

You told me your name, Katherine Finn. You told me to sit. Your voice was fine sand paper.

Katherine Finn, did they trap you in nets? Did they spot you, glorious in the deep? Did they make you promises to lure you into shallow waters?

I am no mermaid, just a girl who can't sleep.

Katherine Finn, you fought them when they tried to take your clothes. I am no fighter. I shivered under the lights, my clothes piled up on the floor. They turned me around. They wrote down my scars.

My lip is trembling.

"Better not to cry," you say. "Better to watch your back."

Your eyes narrow. "The doctor got you already, didn't he?"

The doctor put his fingers inside me. My belly and thighs are still sticky, where he made circles with his fingers.

Katherine Finn, there is banging.

You move from the bed to the desk facing the window, in one easy movement of your arms. You arrange your tail in front of you. Your eyes are a wish for the sea.

"Come look." You say.

My legs are weak. I look out the window. We are three floors up.

The banging is louder and I hear shouting.

"Don't look away from the window." You say.

There is a breaking sound, and the boy dives in a spectacular fall of glass.

"He looks broken, Katherine Finn." my voice is a whisper.

You look at me strangely because I am strange. "He was already broken."

I am just a girl in this place of mermaids and diving creatures.

"Come closer." You say, and pull my head into your sunset hair. "Breathe in."

I breathe and magic and salt fill my lungs.

"Tell me," you rasp. "Is there water nearby?"

Wait for me here, Katherine Finn.

CJ

Falling

2008-04-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

Dear K,

We postponed the wedding.

We said words like "see what happens in San Francisco" and "pressure."

You said you were tired of going back and forth. You said you felt exhausted thinking of two more years of going back and forth. I don't understand this, but I didn't try to ask. You feel the way you feel.

All my thoughts were forming in my throat and I couldn't swallow. Your eyes were dry.

When we finished talking you said you felt like a weight had been lifted. So did I.

I love you. But I feel like I'm falling.

CJ

Imported: Chocolate Wrapped In Leather

2008-04-08T05:31:00.001-07:00

I'm a lesbian.

I call myself a dyke. Queer. Sometimes I wish I were a man so I could be a flaming faggot.

I love who I am.

All these names, so sweet and heavy in my mouth. Like good chocolate wrapped in leather.

Note: I took this from my other blog. Because I felt like saying it again.

Dreaming

2008-04-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed of metal.

I can't find my way home and a woman takes me in. She feeds me and shows me my room and then goes to hers.

She stands in her bathroom doing the things that women do when they get ready to sleep. There are jars of cream and pump bottles full of soap that is just for your face. I smell her woman-smell from inside my dream.

She stands in her bathroom leaning close to the mirror, looking for signs of lines around her eyes when she feels a sharpness in her mouth. She focuses on her mouth and sees the tip of a razor blade growing from inside her lip. The pain increases as the blade pushes through. She doesn't scream.

This is my fault.

She sleeps despite the mad magic, and when she wakes up there are zippers on her forearms, and nails growing from beneath her nails. She does not scream, but pulls out the nails and lays them side by side on the night stand. She unzips the zippers on her forearms and finds sleeping children.

She comes to my room with her arms held out, and I know I have to leave.

Shhhh...

2008-04-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Pop,

There is a blue blanket on the full sized bed pushed against the wall in the room.

When I am pressed there and shivering, I turn my head and there are little animals on the wall paper and magic little mushroom houses with red roofs.

Your weight shifts and I breathe in some air.

If I look long enough the animals will move. They gather wood for their fires and cook up dinner in black kettles. They will tuck their little ones into bed.

Please don't finish until they move.

You push. The kettles start to swing and smoke.

You push again and my self goes right out the top of my head. Cold wind rushes in and blows across the vast open plain where my self used to be. I'm in the wall paper now and the animals tuck me in to a tiny bed with a blanket that is not blue.

Your weight shifts again. 'Shhh,' you say, and your whisper is a tumbleweed rolling through the plain.

Then you are up and gone and I am unbearably light with a hole in the top of my head and no self for weight. My self lags behind me like a shadow, dragging its feet and breathing hard.

Everyone is in the kitchen. Your shirt is still off. You have hair all over your body and on your face the color of my silver crayon that smears on everything. I check, but you have not smeared on me. I am still my own color.

There is a pot boiling on the stove. The lid is moving from the bubbles and steam. I check my own head to see if the top is still gone. Yes.

You are looking at me. You bend down, still staring. I wonder if you can see the wheat blowing inside my eyes. My wonder goes right out the top of my head. I look to see what you are holding, something red and moving slowly. The wheat is in my eyes, and things have no names.

You are still looking at me and drop the red thing in the pot.

The scream shoots right down the top of my head, and my self comes screeching back. The lid is closed and the scream is stuck.

You are cooking live things and they are screaming.

The lobsters scream and you are telling me a story with your eyes.

No one knows where you live now, if you live at all. And I am grown. As grown as I will ever be.

But the screams still crouch in all of my mind's corners and doorways, sleeping. I am quiet. So quiet. So as not to wake them up.

CJ

Waterfalls

2008-04-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

The House at the End of the World is located in a city named for waterfalls or mistakes.

At 19, I left the Deep Red for the Great City of Falls. I dropped out of college, left everything, and went. I was so sure of my waterfall city and the promises of a woman that waited there.

I made a bad mistake. A bad mistake. I fell and fell in my Great Falling City until I landed at the House at the End of the World.

By the time I was 20, I was working in the baby room of a day care on the 18th ave of my City of Falls. I held babies from 9 until 5. I rocked and sang and whispered stories. I breathed in their dreams while they slept.

One afternoon, one little boy couldn't sleep. We danced slow circles. "I can hardly wait to hold you/feel my arms around you/how long I have waited," I sang. He sighed, fitting his face in my neck. His cheek was warm and moist with drying tears. His hair against my face was a kiss.

We were lost, he and I, in a shroud of dreams and songs and clumsy waltzes. When my boy finally slept, I turned to lay him on his mat and saw his dad standing in the doorway.

I swam up from deep water to greet him. He told me his son had a doctor's appointment. I handed him the baby and collected his diaper bag from the closet.

He turned to go, and then turned back. He told me that he ran a group home for severely emotionally disturbed girls and asked me if I wanted a job. I just looked at him, silent from dancing and dreams. He started whispering about last chances and sexual abuse. He said "safe place" and "home." He said "rough" and "need."

I don't know what possessed him to offer me a job. I don't think he even knew my name.

But that night I found the House at the End of the World in the middle of a neighborhood street in a Great City of Falls, and I stayed.

all the stories leave me

2008-04-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's autumn in my head today. There are rustling sounds and rusty colors.

My thoughts explode in red and then die.

Break me open. Red leaves and rain will fall out.

CJ

Thinking of You

2008-04-01T11:56:00.001-07:00

Dear Mom,

You know, it's working. I don't think of you, and I write what comes from not thinking of you. And my words are shining marbles in the grass.

But I keep thinking of you today.

You told Aunt D not to come to my graduation. Why would you do that? Why would you tell people not to come?

I had a suspicion that you haven't told her, all this time, that I'm gay. So I called her. I was right. You didn't.

I told her. I TOLD HER. I tell everybody that you don't tell, and they wonder why you are the way you are. They don't wonder about me. THEY DONT WONDER ABOUT ME.

I know you're ashamed of me. But I guess I wasn't ready for the weight of it in my stomach.

I don't feel like making this bearable. Because I simply can't bear it.

But when I catch my breath, I'm going to tell the story of you.

You will be just another story, beautiful and awful. Stuck here, stripped of me and all my love and fear, just words alone in the dark.

CJ

Throw Your Head Back and Laugh

2008-04-01T05:36:00.001-07:00

Dear M,

We're friends. You're the only friend I've made in law school. You're the only one I need.

The walls in your condo are painted blue and pink and yellow.

You put cowboy boots on your book shelves instead of books.

You email me close up pictures that you take of the naked women on the hippie side of the lake so that when I open them in class I burst out laughing and look like a perv. I fall for it every time, and every time you giggle into your hand.

You order us pizza without cheese because that's the way we like it. But when we go to the tex-mex place up the road, we order a large bowl of queso.

You throw your head back and laugh. You're the only person I've ever met that actually does this.

When you laugh, I see piles of brand new quarters. I feel a cool hand on the back of my neck.

I called to see how your date went on Saturday. You laughed your laugh and told me that he was angry when you didn't get excited enough about going to a carnival. That you felt afraid riding the ferris wheel next to him, because you thought he might throw you off.

You told me that when you got to dinner, he told you that being with you was like pulling teeth.

You laughed a breaking laugh, and told me that he berated you so loudly for so long that the table full of strangers next to you asked if you needed a ride home.

You said that you were eating salmon salad.

You tried to laugh, but it didn't come out right. You said, "I just concentated on the bites, a piece of lettuce, a small piece of fish. A piece of lettuce, a small piece of fish. I chewed and chewed."

You said, "I didn't know what I was going to do when I ran out of salad."

I've been a collector of sadnesses, some that belong to me and many that don't. But I think that may be one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

I asked you why you didn't call me to come get you. You said, "I'm fine. I went home with him and let him fuck me. He's a terrible lay."

Your thighs are bruised and you are still sore.

I saw you at school yesterday, and your laugh sounded broken, because there is a cry in the middle of it. But you won't cry, I know.

You can't laugh this away. You will try, but it won't work. So I'll take it. I'll strap it to my back and carry it home. I'll put it in one of my bottles and cork it up like a mad genie.

I wish for you sweet forgetting.

Throw your head back and laugh.

Love,
CJ

The House At The End of the World

2008-03-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

Dear O,

I remember the day that you showed up at the last chance house. You had your stuff in two green trash bags slung over your shoulder.

I wonder what it's like to have your last chance at 15.

You were slouching and sighing so we would know that you didn't care that we were pulling your shirts, and socks, underwear and a dirty teddy bear out of those trash bags and onto the living room floor. But your eyes were fear-wild and shifting.

Once I saw a wrecked car in the tall grass on the side of a Deep Red highway. The sun was high in the sky and glinting off of the twisted metal. You were beautiful like that...a flash in the tall grass. A shining wreck.

On the night you showed up at our house at the end of the world, I sorted your clothes and showed you your room.

You grinned a fighting grin and threw a punch. You caught me on the side of my head, and I grinned back, happy to see you fight. That caught you off guard, and I wrapped my arms around you, pinning your arms to your sides.

My wild tornado girl, you were strong. You threw us both on the ground and wriggled out of my grip. I ran to to block the door of your room and you rushed me. I caught your weight and turned you away from the door as my partner sent the other kids to their rooms.

You rushed me again, and instead of employing standard techniques, I caught you and held you. My sweet lonely girl, you rested there for a second. I felt you relax in my arms before you tried to head-butt me.

Barb came in to help. You dumped the contents of your trash bag onto the brown shag carpet. We all stood there for a moment. I thought I smelled ozone.

My creative, defiant girl, you picked up a mess of bobby pins and swallowed them all right there in the middle of your last chance.

Someone had to take you to the hospital. I drew the short straw. I held my breath as you got in the van. You seemed calmer. We were both sweating and tired. It was 11:30 PM.

I turned up the music and drove. "Bent" by Matchbox Twenty came on.

You looked at me and sang "Can you help me I'm bent, I'm scared that I'll never get put back together..."

I kept driving and thought, "I love you already. I'm scared too."

We got to the ER. It was crowded. We sat in the corner. I asked if you wanted a Coke. You eyed me suspciously, but nodded your head.

I wondered how many promises you'd heard in your life, how many threats, how many warnings. Enough to get you to my house at the end of the world. Enough for one last chance with holes in the walls, brown shag carpet, and me.

I thought words meant nothing to you by then, so I just turned away from you and headed towards to vending machine to try and tell you, "I'll trust you for no reason. I'll love you without questions. Just stay."

I think you understood. You were there when I got back.

I said, "I wonder how long it will take to get you x-rayed. I'm on pins and needles here."

We laughed hysterically and waited for hours.

I worked at the house at the end of the world for another year, and then I left you to take your last chance with someone else.

You didn't forgive me and you didn't say goodbye.

Someone told me a couple of years later that they sent you to the state mental hospital for awhile after you tried to stab another tech. And then you were spotted at a bar....strung out and skinny.

I still dream of you, my beautiful bent girl. I hope you're ok.

Yours,
CJ

My First Real Magic

2008-03-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

As I grew older, I learned the word 'gay' and I was sad because I thought it was only for boys. But then I learned the word 'lesbian' and I wanted to celebrate and vomit all at the same time.

I think I was 12 or 13. I thought it was a miracle that there is a word for what I am. I remember thinking, "I am part of a group. I belong to a group of people." On that level it didn't bother me that the group to which I belonged was often maligned and outcast.

I spent most of my time playing images and scenes in my head. Every woman who intrigued me was still inserted into the original daydream that I described in my last post. Every woman journeyed with me through the 4 magics. But by 12 and 13, I had new images, new scenes, new daydreams. I collected them from books and from my own imagination inspired by the words I read.

I found tiny pads of paper and wrote down the lines that made me dizzy with want and friendship and daydreaming. I rolled up each tiny piece of paper and put them all in clear bottles with corks.

Every day I arranged my books and bottles around me in a circle and sat in the middle. I closed my eyes and felt a wall of words grow up around me. I conjured up characters, sentences, and daydreams. I saw words, lifted and twisted by strange winds, form the shapes of people. I talked to them and they talked back. I would say my life was full, but I was never part of anything until I was a 'lesbian.'

After I figured out what a lesbian was and I was it, my crushes and daydreams became more overtly sexual. This made me sick. I had learned by then that the things I saw and did at my grandparents house were not things that I should have seen or done. And these things were linked with the word 'sex,' and now they were linked with the word 'lesbian.' I did not know what to do with this, so I buried it under my dreams.

By 14, I was sent to a hospital because I could not be in the world. I couldn't sleep or speak without stuttering. I rocked and stared a lot. I never did figure out how to make a friend, so I assumed that no one would notice I was gone. But 3 months later, on my first day back at school, a pack of curious teenagers surrounded me asking about the "mental hospital."

They weren't cruel to me. Other kids never were. Despite not ever having friends, I was never made fun of. They just left me alone. So on that day they weren't being cruel, but they were crowding me. Standing too close and asking too much. And then, just like in one of my daydreams, KM walked up. She told them to "fuck off," took me by the hand, and led me away.

She would become my first girlfriend.

My first real magic.

More later

When I Knew

2008-03-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've been falling in love my whole life.

I wouldn't say that I knew I was gay at a very young age. But I knew I was something special.

I never wanted anything so pedestrian as a boy or a marriage.

When I was very small, I wanted...healing. I never fell for other little girls. Only women. Teachers, friends of my mother, mothers of my friends. I just put that last part in for aesthetic reasons. I didn't have any friends.

Anyway, I wanted healing. And by wanted, I mean I ached when a woman whom I loved came into the room. I stared, trying to see the magic inside that made her smell so soft and seem so capable of rescuing me.

Growing up, and sometimes even now, I have a picture of the way I look. I am always about 5, always desperate, sweaty, wild eyed and trying to escape. I am standing outside of my grandparents' house against a tall wide tree. I am trying to become the tree, or invisible, or too small to see. I know I am not going to escape. I am utterly hopeless.

In my mind, each woman I loved enters this picture. She picks me up carefully and puts me in her car. I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes.

And here is the First Magic: In my early life, I did not close my eyes willingly. If I had to endure pain and shame, at least I would see it coming.

The air conditioning blows right on me, and the sweat begins to dry. She drives me to her home, which is invariably clean and open.

In my mind, the homes of the women I loved had no corners or doorways or secret places.

I am given juice and told to sit. The lights are dim. The woman comes toward me with a wet cloth and a clean towel. She starts by washing the sweat and dirt from my face.

And here is the Second Magic: I don't flinch. I always flinched. I still flinch.

She moves the cloth down my neck and rubs gently. She pulls off my shirt and cleans me. She pulls off my pants and underwear.

This is the Third Magic: I don't cry or beg. Instead, I want.

Gently she rubs between my legs, and somehow the cloth heals the ache and the cuts and the blood and fear-piss that has been there forever.

It is sexual, but I don't know that word. I just know it is the opposite of the horror that happens to me in my real life.

She puts her forehead against mine, and I am calm.

She wraps me in a towel and we sleep in a soft bed surrounded by large grey rocks.

This is the Fourth Magic: I sleep.

As I grew older, I learned the word "gay," which I was sad about, because I thought it was only for boys. Then I learned the word "lesbian," and wanted to celebrate and vomit all at the same time.

More about that later.

Breakfast Tacos and Beer

2008-03-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

I believe that law school brings out our baser instincts.

As I mentioned in my last post, there is the law student desire to tear at flesh.

But more subtly, law school plays upon our most basic need for food or drink.

Consider the breakfast taco. It is a meat product inside a flour tortilla wrapped in foil and dripping grease. They set up tables in the atrium at my law school. These tables are designed to get you to do something. Give money. Go to Westlaw or Lexis Training. Fly to South America and single handedly import American justice. Buy your friend a Valentine. Vote for Hillary. Vote for Obama. Whatever.

Now, I think most students would pass these these tables by, but something calls to them, something sweet and keening, like a Siren's song. And I think that Siren is the breakfast taco.

I don't get it.

Then there is beer.

Come sign up to apply to the Deep Red Supreme Court! Free Beer!

Come to the organizational meeting for moot court! Free Beer!

Sell your soul! Sign up now! Free Beer!

One year, I walked out of my Religious Liberties class at 11:3o in the morning to find...beer.

No kidding. An oasis of beer, flowing freely from kegs into plastic cups in the humid sunshine in the breezeway of the University of the Deep Red law school. It's 11:30 AM! It's beer!

And the looks upon the faces of those receiving the beer, they had clearly reached Nirvana.

Beer and Breakfast Tacos keep the law school running.

I don't like breakfast tacos, and I prefer to drink alone. So this breakfast taco/beer thing never did much for me.

But I picture my classmates after graduation, when life and desire are more complicated. I wonder if they will look back with longing to the time when a day was perfect because of breakfast tacos and beer.

Who I Want To Be

2008-03-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

I can't watch Judge Judy. Because I can't stand to watch people embarrass themselves, or watch someone in a position of power harangue and denigrate another human being. My girl tells me I have no sense of humor, but watching things like that causes me physical pain.

That's why yesterday bothers me so much. Yesterday, I was in my seminar course and a student in my class was presenting her seminar paper.

I read the paper and thought it was pretty terrible. I thought it sounded like it had been written over a weekend, and I also thought that her view on the topic was socially irresponsible.

And as this young woman began to speak, I felt something that has not happened to me in my 3 years of law school. I wanted to rip her apart. I found myself using my law school education, systematically going through her paper and noting inconsistencies, preparing an argument, and salivating at the thought of taking her down. It took everything I had not to raise my hand and embarrass her.

Why on earth would I want to do that?

Generally, I believe that gentleness is more important than intelligence. Kindness is more important than honesty.

Last night I had a dream. Actually, I had the dream three times. Each time I woke up, afraid and horrified. The dreams were actually one dream, moving forward in time.

In the first dream a girl was running and someone angry was chasing her. In the second dream, the angry person caught up and began beating her about the head and neck. In the last dream, she just died. I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure this one out.

I'm sorry for what I thought and wanted. And even for the one fairly innocuous question I did ask that prompted the professor to grill this poor girl until she looked like she might cry.

Does this seem silly? It's not. I don't want to be the kind of person that finds comfort in another's pain.

They told us on the first day of law school that this might happen. They told us that we would argue for the sake of arguing, and rip things apart just because we could. It would become like habit.

I'm sorry to the woman in my seminar class. And I'm thankful for the warning. I think, probably, you always have to work on who you want to be. And you have to be wary of the things that might destroy who you are.

For Red Mojo

2008-03-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

Dear RM (The One Person That Reads My Blog),

I have loved K for 7 years. We've been together for 4.

K lives in Canada in a city by the ocean and I live in the Deep Red in an apartment by the highway.

She was in a terrible car accident before we got together and got a large settlement. She doesn't work. That's why we've been able to make this work. She can come down here and be with me for long periods of time when she wants to.

We have plans and schemes and routes and blueprints. We have dreams and goals and sketches.

I've done well in law school. And now I have a job in San Francisco, another city by the ocean. I did that for my girl. We will live in the city and make a new life and leave our sadness, mine in the Red, hers in that other city over the border.

I will graduate from law school in May. I will study for the California Bar until I take it at the end of July. We will get married in the sand under the sun next to the water in K's city by the Ocean.

I will work as a lawyer for 2 years (if I can make it that long), and K will go to school. There is a school there that cultivates and appreciates all of my girl's talents, and that is also why I picked San Francisco. And when we are finished, we will go back home to the city across the border next to the ocean. We have to go back to Canada, because, as you know, this country does not recognize us and K can't stay here indefinitely. That's ok with me, because I don't want to live in a country that hates me.

I have no family to speak of. No one will miss me when I leave the Red. And as for K, there are few people to speak of in her city by the ocean.

We have sadness. It is deep and enduring in both of us. In me, it takes up almost as much space as love. And in my girl, her sadness has become inflamed and painful...infected.

We feel like San Francisco, our 7 miles square, is a chance.

We talked last night. We have come so far. Law school has been so hard on both of us. We are almost there, but our wedding can wait if it has to. No one is coming, so we don't have any big plans to change. For K, that is what made the sadness a knife. She needs some time to mourn. She can do that with me, here in the Red. She will mourn, and the infection will heal. She will heal. It is her talent. I'll tell you more about my girl in another post.

This is some of my life so far. I wanted to stop being so cryptic, since you are actually reading.

Yours,
CJ

Where You Are

2008-03-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Dear K,

I'm scared. I don't believe you anymore when you tell me that things are going to be ok. Because it's been so long and they haven't been ok.

The car accident, and your family, and losing W, and the pain that seems like it is never going to go away, I understand why you cry and sleep.

Yesterday you cried. "Where is my life?" in the dark of our bedroom. Yesterday, you cried, "I thought I would be happier with you." Yesterday, you cried, and your words and your tears worked on me like acid.

You always think it will be better here. It never is. And you love me, I know. But I've never made you happy.

I'm scared because we're going to get married but you've lost your life and you don't know who you are anymore.

I'm scared because we're going to get married, but I don't believe that you will stay with me in SF.

I would never ask you this, but what happened to you? Where did you go?

You don't know this, and you will never know this, because I will only say it here in this place, but I miss you. I'm tired of your pain. And I think you are going to marry me, and we are going to go to SF, and then you are going to leave me there and go back to your home. And I will be alone in SF. Trying to avoid life there. Trying not to love it. Trying to come up with another plan to get to where you are.

But I don't know how that will work, because no matter how close I am, I am never where you are.

I'm so tired and hopeless today. I have so many things to do, and you can't seem to help me do any of them.

What are we going to do, Baby? I love you past tired and all the way to hopeless.

What are we going to do?

Love,
me

Spilling The Coffee

2008-03-19T11:26:00.001-07:00

Dear C,

You drove me up to the grocery store the other day.

In another couple of weeks you'll be 16 and get your driver's license.

I know I don't see you very often, but I've known you since you were about 2. Did you know that? I wanted to tell you that you are sweet and careful, and those are important things to be.

I can see you see yourself becoming in this world. You are conscious, but I can see in the way you hold yourself that it doesn't cripple you. Some of us can't bear to see ourselves. You can. That makes you strong. Sweet and careful and strong. I hope you make your way in the world that way.

I loved driving with you. I love the way you kept your hands at ten and two and drove 5 miles under the speed limit.

You confessed to me that you couldn't park. I told you I couldn't park either and you smiled. We parked at the back of the lot where there were no other cars. We took up three spaces. I think you did a good job.

As we were driving home you had to stop short. You said "I spilled the coffee," in a grave voice. I looked around the floor and the backseat for a coffee cup. You told me that that was code for stopping too short. Your dad takes you driving every Sunday, and without fail, at least once, you hear, "Don't spill the coffee!" I wonder if those words will echo in your mind even after you have driven ten thousand places and stopped short a thousand times. I wonder if you will smile at the thought of your Sunday drives and your nervous Dad who loved you enough to tell you not to spill the coffee. I hope so.

You'll never read this. But I wanted to say thanks for the drive. I wanted to tell you that I stopped short the other day and thought, "Don't spill the coffee!" And smiled.

Yours,
CJ

Double Dog Dare

2008-03-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

Dear B&rbri,

You are behaving like the monopoly you are and being completely unreasonable. It doesn't look like you are going to offer a bar course here in the Deep Red for the California bar. Never mind that you've done it every year since anyone can remember.

I know what I said. I said I should stay here. Study like I always have. Stick to my routine. Put all my focus, for six weeks, into this last thing.

But if there is no course, I could go home with K. I could do your prohibitively expensive podcast.

I could go home with my girl. Study where I can breathe. Sleep next to her at night. We could go into the city on weekends and walk the seawall. She could tell me it's going to be alright when it doesn't feel alright.

I could go home with her. And to be honest, I am checking my email 30 times a day to see if the class has been cancelled.

I am superstitious. I believe, so deeply, in a place where reason cannot go, that if I want something, I won't get it.

But here in this space that is mine, I WANT. I want to come home. I want to sit in the Java Hut up the road and study until she calls and tell me dinner's ready.

So, B&bri, today, I depend your incompetence and greed. I hope that your monopoly over the bar review industry makes you act irresponsibily. I hope that you will disregard, as you have in the past, the needs of those who pay you $4K for the benefit of your wisdom about the California bar.

Cancel it. I dare you.

Sincerely Yours,
CJ

50 years

2008-03-18T07:56:00.001-07:00

K and I attended my dad's 50th birthday party on Saturday.

I'm not sure how one might characterize my relationship with my father. I might say we aren't close since he left when I was five and we've gone months and years without speaking.

On the other hand, I might say that in my head, he is always my daddy and I am always a little girl.

That I search his face and mine for similarities.

That I delight in the fact that people say we walk alike or share certain personality traits.

That when I see him in a room, I am drawn to him, as though he is a missing part of me, or I of him.

So we arrived early to help decorate, and my dad walked in unexpectedly. What happened is what always happens, I fell into his arms and rested my head on his shoulder.

I don't know why this should be.

The sight of his face, his eyes that look so much like mine, his soft voice inspire forgiveness in me. Or maybe what happens isn't quite so selfless or divine as forgiveness. It's the breaking open of a deep well of need in me that swallows every disappointment and all righteous indignation. I just want my daddy.

On this day, he looked at K and I and said, "yous are so beautiful." "Yous" being New York speak for "Y'all" here in the Deep Red, or "You all" in more civilized parts of the world.

He said, "I'm so proud."

Proud of me. And my relationship with my beautiful girl.

Oh Dad, please live another fifty years.

The Patron Saint of Law Students

2008-03-05T11:20:00.001-08:00

To J,

You are the girl that runs the coffee cart at my law school. The bagles are stale. The tuna and chicken salad sandwiches are scary, and you tell us not to eat them.

Sometimes I buy the turkey and cheddar, and of that you approve.

You make the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted.

You have a sweet southern drawl, and everyone is your "honey," "baby," or "child." Sometimes I get a sandwich or hot chocolate just to hear you talk to me. Sometimes I sit in the atrium and pretend to read just to hear your voice.

I'm not the only one.

For three years, I've been watching you. Law students flock around you. I hear them telling you their troubles. They stand behind the counter, leaning against the coolers or the cash register. The future politicians, the shit disturbers, the public interest law die-hards, the gunners, the slackers, they all shed whatever labels we have given each other to stand next to you and just...be

As law students we ARENT often. In other words, we don't just be. We analyze and compete and dissect, but we don't just stand there and lean.

J, I believe that you are the patron saint of law students. And I am not being sarcastic. I believe that you should be honored, the way we honor these old crusty white guys with pictures and busts and names on buildings.

I would create a small space. A square, a few feet by a few feet. And in the middle I would erect a large post on which we all could lean. When we are tired of arguing. When we are tired of being gunners and slackers and whatever else we have become in this place. When we do not want to hold ourselves in.

And I hope that in my Olly Olly Oxen Free Zone, I can somehow import your kindness and the sweetness behind that slow southern twang of yours.

Even now, I am listening for you, hoping to share in some of your ease.

You have the most important job I can think of in this place.

Gratefully Yours,
CJ

The best we can

2008-03-05T11:15:00.001-08:00

I waited most of the day yesterday and received no answer from my mom. I emailed her again, and she answered me right back and said she hadn't read the email yet, but asked what was going on. I responded by forwarding her the email again. I heard nothing.

This morning, I heard nothing. I emailed again and asked if she had received my email.

She answered this time. She was as supportive as she could be, I think. And that makes me happy.

She thanked me for including her and said that she knew that I was happy and that is all she ever wanted for me.

I think that we will not speak of this again. I think she probably won't attend.

I'm ok with that.

She wants me to be happy. She wants me to be happy. She knows that I am happy. I keep saying the lines over and over again.

I am ecstatic.

Inviting my mother

2008-03-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

To No One In Particular,

I invited my mom to my wedding this morning. I did it by email. Isn't that cowardly?

It's just that I wouldn't be able to stand the quality of her voice or the quality of the silence when I finish telling her. The quality would be rage and inevitability and martyrdom.

It's not my wedding. It's her life with a gay daughter who just can't leave it alone.

Waiting and Seeing,
CJ

Our Wedding

2008-03-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

K,

I check Craig's List every day, even though we aren't moving for months. I'm memorizing street names, and developing affinities for certain neighborhoods.

I'd like to live in Haight Ashbury or The Mission. Those are my two favorites so far. Our 7 miles square...

We're going to get married. I think my family won't come. I can't picture them flying all the way to Canada to watch their daughter marry another woman. I want people there who will celebrate us. But that doesn't leave many people, does it?

I know it is part of your sadness. That our wedding will be attended by few, and perhaps truly celebrated by fewer. I think of us, standing before the commissioner, exchanging rings.

I don't really want any of that. My pathological need for privacy is back. I don't want anyone watching us. I want to celebrate you and I before God. I wish I could whisper the vows that I will write, so that no one else can hear. I want you to myself on that day when we make these impossible promises. I want to slip the ring on your finger and kiss you like we're alone. When it's over, I want to walk along the ocean with you and see if it sounds different. That night, I want to marry you again in bed. I want to give you every inch of me, and take all of you.

Don't cry, Baby. People will come. We will celebrate. We'll eat and drink. We'll tell stories and make memories. We'll have pictures and flowers. And you will swell in my heart until I am short of breath.

Love,
CJ

Laughing Naked

2008-03-01T09:45:00.001-08:00

Dear K,

We were together the first time I laughed naked.

We were lying on a hotel bed and the sheets were tangled in a way that I wanted to keep forever. We were making shadow puppets on the wall, and I laughed loud and hard, from my toes to my cunt to my heart to my eyes. I wanted to tell you a thousand things that can't be said, so I laughed.

And your eyes lit up the dark and you started to smile, than giggle. Until you were laughing, and Baby, the sound was Christmas.

We laughed, and your fingers whispered up my thigh. We laughed and we kissed smiling kisses. We laughed and you put your hand inside me again, and rocked me gently and giggled in my ear.

We made love joyfully that night that I learned to laugh naked.

Yours,
CJ

7 miles square

2008-02-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom,
I have to make these feelings into marbles. Do you understand that? I have to shrink them down and make them glimmer. I need to hold them in my hand.

I seek ways to make this hurt more about mystery and less about pain.

You don't know this about me and you never will. And I'm glad.

How could you forget my graduation?

How could you make me feel so small when I've grown so big?

I'm going to the ocean. I'm going to a city 7 miles square by the ocean. I'm going where there are bridges and there is fog. I am going where there are trees that dwarf you.

I'm going where the sun doesn't ache me and my queer doesn't cast a shadow.

Because I'm graduating, whether you remember or not.

Yours,
CJ

When You Made The World

2008-02-28T06:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom,

I think of God creating the world sometimes, how the sky must have boiled and the sea must have raged. I think of God's first creatures, monsters, fierce and huge.

I think about this, because I'm not sure God knew what he was doing, or even if he wanted to be creating anything. They call it the "Big Bang," right? From void to violence in an instant or a billion years.

I think of this when I think of you creating me. Because I know you didn't celebrate. I think of becoming aware inside of you, in your womb's turbulent waters. I was your first creature, feeding on your ambivalence and your fear. And your hatred? Was there hatred?

In my center, where I began, I remember my first home. And I still know you, from the inside out. Your every thought, I think, in that 9 months, is written on my cells. And now I think of the thoughts that I am made of, and I feel monstrous.

Yours,
CJ

Making Rain

2008-02-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

Dear K,

You cry, and the tears are so many that they collect in small pools on hardwood floors. They evaporate into the air and hang, just below your popcorn ceiling, in uncertain clouds.

I think of you crying and making rain. I imagine a garden growing around you.

Lush and green and dense, fed on salt and water, vines wind around you. They caress your arms and legs like I would. The touch makes you cry, and your garden grows until flowers fill your mouth, their stems tangling their way down your throat.

I'm scared for you in your pain-wild garden. Please don't cry.

I love you.

CJ

This Summer

2008-02-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

Dear A,

We met. I thought you were beautiful in the way that many straight women are. You wouldn't have noticed me. Except...

Something in you recognized something in me. And you were intrigued and eventually possessive. You flirted with the possibility of me.

We say that we recognize "something" in someone, or we say that "something" in someone resonated with us, when the "something" is something we don't want to admit.

You recognized, when you caught my eye, my capacity to adore you. And that is a gift that resonated with you. Women like you were made to be adored.

I saw you see it in me. And for one brief month, you pretended I was yours. I belong to someone else, and you were afraid, so it was nothing much really.

You recruited me to work on your projects until it was personal. I knew you accepted each assignment as a mark of my devotion. "Come down to my office," you would say, "close the door." And I would come, to listen to you on the phone, to watch your mouth wrap around words, to see your surprisingly unadorned fingers drum against your desk. You wore a silver thumb ring, and it told me how you wondered about other places and other lives.

It was a night when I gave you my jacket because I saw you shiver. You wrapped it tightly around you, holding it closed around your chest. You moved closer to me as we walked. I knew what you were thinking. And later, on your balcony, when you begged me not to leave you took a long slow swallow of my beer. Your lips lingered where my lips had been.

It was the last time I would see you. Sitting next to you in a restaurant, surrounded by people. It was your hand beneath my leg, and your lips next to my ear. "Tell me I'm beautiful," you whispered. You were holding on as I was leaving. There was so much you didn't get from me. "Tell me," you said...

Yours,
CJ

No One To Tell

2008-02-23T18:05:00.000-08:00

To KM,

Two things happened today, and I have no one to tell.

It seemed too early and wrong to be in class on a saturday morning. They lined up chairs for us to sit in and there were no desks. The chairs were close enough together to make me feel claustrophobic.

I would have been so miserable, but you sat down next to me. Your shoulder and arm rested against mine. You were warm and soft and I knew it was ok to lean back against you. I closed my eyes. Just closed my eyes. You rested your hand on the top of my head and asked if I was ok. I looked at you, and said "Yes," but your eyes, blazing with kindess, hurt me and I had to look away.

I wouldn't say we were friends. Would you? You probably would. But I would not. Relationships are full of strange chemistries. We have a chemistry of kindness.

I know your soft touch, your generous words, deep blue promises in your eyes to only look at me kindly.

No, we're not friends. But we have a history, you and I, of grace in passing.

You were the one I would tell, if I had anyone to tell, about the second thing that happened to me today.

I watched the movie "Thirteen." At the end, Holly Hunter holds the girl who plays her daughter. Her daughter fights and cries and tries to get away. Holly Hunter says "I would die for you, but I will not leave you alone right now." And she holds the girl, with thin muscular arms and no blame until she is calm. Holly Hunter kisses each cut and bruise on the girl who plays her daughter. She kisses each cut as if to heal, in a way that seems almost holy.

And I felt cut, watching this scene. And I felt want. And I felt huge loneliness that seemed to come from some place small. I want. I need. There is no one to tell.

Yours,
CJ

For Valentines Day

2008-02-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

Dear K,

The Story of Us is set to music, so I'm giving you these new sounds of my heart. All the songs are soft kisses and they whisper your name to me. Every line I love you. I've been listening over and over again, scarring myself with thoughts of you.

What can I tell you, Baby? "Happy Valentine's Day" sounds too ordinary, too low for this high far wide jet plane love of ours.

So I'll tell you these things:

1. When I study outside at the coffee shop, sometimes the wind blows and I stop and daydream that the words in my book whirl like a tiny tornado right into me.

2. When people sit next to me, I eavesdrop, because words from other lives are like shining marbles in the grass.

Remember our first date?

It's Father's Day and I drive out to the lake to spend time on the boat with my dad. I lie in the front of the boat and play games with the sun. I stare into it and then shut my eyes and it plays pictures on the black stage behind them. I never think to worry about a sun burn. I usually just tan.

But the sun burned me that day. Remember?

Driving to see you, I burn so bright I am a sun. I am a hectic burning star driving 80 miles an hour on a freeway. I park in the lot of your hotel and ride the elevator up forever, the weight of my wanting weighing us down.

I knock on the door and you open it like you were waiting for me. You were waiting for me! The thought makes me drunk and brave.

You are all ivory and cream and cool. And I am strong and clumsy and so hot. I push you against the wall. I kiss you, and your lips are like cool water on my burning mouth.

I think thoughts inside this burning kiss.

I think, "Be careful with all this sun inside you."

I think, "No. I want my lips to burn her after I'm gone."

I say to my bright burning self, "get in her eyes so that she sees you even when she closes them."

I say to my new flaming-sun heart, "Burn me on her mind."

And now it's Valentine's Day years later, and the world is full of burning red hearts. And I love you with a bright red Hallmark Heart, and all of the heat of Texas in June, and all of the magic of a first kiss with the sun inside it.

Yours,
CJ