wisdom white

they say that rain is the wisdom of oceans & clouds & rivers falling back to it's rightful place; i think snow is just wisdom that sticks.


snow makes us wise because it makes us see all the dark spots.

it makes everything stand out that doesn't fit, & makes the ugly uglier. that's why road trips in summer feel so much more free; you can't see all the sludge your sixty mph dredges on the earth.

all those flakes make new mountain faces, bearded and layered. it's funny how snowfall makes our world clean & new; wisdom gives fresh perspective.


wisdom is knowing when to be loud too. storms are loud because they bury your car & your plans & show you that you never really have to do much of anything. i think sometimes i'm too quiet; or maybe i'm too loud to shut up and listen.

i think winter's trying to tell me something.

shadow secrets

i think winter's sneaking into my system, & it's full of shadow.

you know when you're trudging up a mountain and the shade's ten degrees less than the sun? it's funny how sometimes it weighs with all those thoughts you usually hide.

secrets always seem safer in the shadows.

the december still speaks to me the same way it would when colorado winter wasn't dead.
it says the things that my head buries to ignore, but sometimes they crawl out anyway. i've been drifting through those charcoal memories, the kind you're not quite sure happened just because you've tried to believe it for so long.

it'd be easier if they were just bad dreams.

but that's where the overcast mountain's been taking me, back down dark roads i'd rather shy.

it's funny how the past can steal from you if you let it. like how these ones are stealing my sleep & crowding my waking hours. it hurts that they still make me cower like when i was five & eight & nine & nineteen.

luckily the shadows today weren't so dark. he was there to make my mouth-corners look up sometimes. maybe the shade isn't big enough to grab me when i don't get swallowed up alone. maybe it's easier to choose sadness when it's just two feet instead of four. those books with my memories make me shake, i hope they'll keep their distance.

i hope the heavy shade will stay away too, i can't carry it's burden much farther.

beauty miss.

thinking on those two sweet faces that mumble nonsense & those four feet that stumble for parks make me swell. they're the bright spots too. they're ones that shatter my haze; at least they've got their bright heads on straight. it may just be a "you're crazy, aren't you?" or a wicked witch chant, but they make me remember that drops falling don't need to make me so serious.

& he's kind of like sunshine whenever my brain's cloudy. he kills all my muggy thoughts & lights up my darker greys. he always knows what to say when i'm drowning in storm; it's always just a simple "you're okay," or "you're a good person," but it still makes the rain break.

 i love all the ones that make me dance too, be it a living room meltdown or a hallow's eve mash. all those self-loathing aches fall off with a cupid shuffle or reggae romp. i may be white, but grooving with the good ones always makes me heal.

& her old apartment where we swam in the rain & sang our off-keys. instead of stopping the rain she soaked me in it, showing that rain itself carries light & there's nothing to be scared of. all these are the ones that remind me of what i'd forgot.

eyes peeled in  half moon make me love all those that my eyes haven't seen much. those nights full of them and their lessons make me see the beauty in missing. bless up to those that make me whole, & bless down to all those who have.

river remembers [three years and counting]

remember those months that i'd tear my body just so i could ache with the stream for you? i can still feel winter breathing its grief into my cracked lungs & water whispering icy sorrow into my harrowed ears.

remember that night i woke up & your toes left earth & those bed sheets took your soul? i can still hear the shrieks of my dream telling me you'd gone, & the crush of knowing your shine would be disappeared from that moment hung forever.

remember when we swung in summer night & you told me to seek love? i still taste your sweet words & how they shaped my days that followed.

remember when i would stare at your five feet & 8 inches from my four-foot-something & dream of when i could be just like you? i can still hear my clammorings for dinner-side seats to your absurd stories & tales to seek after.

some days i may not feel you, but i will always remember. i'm amazed by how sharp the memories are & how deep they still cut. my soul hasn't forgotten yours, & i'm still so grateful for the light yours gave mine. my steps are laced with you & the beauty you wrought. thank you for the days we shared, & for scarring the earth the way you did.

rest easy, dear aunt of mine.

[i'll love you forever, i'll like you for always, as long as i'm living, my baby you'll be] 

sun(flower).

i'm realizing that colorado's poisoned me with endless sun. all those rays have made me a junkie, & without pails of vitamin d, i start to wilt.

i lose my face & get lost in the world indoors. i forget what it means to be joy. that's why i think i might be a sunflower; i can only keep my head up in the daylight, otherwise my shoulders start to noose themselves. 

the sun lights my soul & shines the fifteen inches my scalps grown from root. it makes me remember all the steps i've taken along with these fifteen inches, and reminds me how far i've come. & i've never thought i could have done it without the sun, especially on the days i needed to screen that scalp of mine from nicarguan rays. i may have been white & bald, but at least my shoulders could still brown.

so i will keep finding the time to capture up the light we're given daily. at least that's way i won't get stuck with a face full of pavement. 

desert & me.

i was surprised to find out that i can laugh by myself & it'll still taste sweet. sometimes i feel like the hollow ones i make when i'm in a crowded room are all i have & they always leave an empty grim on my tongue. but i just discovered that desert sun and finally freed skin make for joy that's light & laughter that cures.

my broken body made me slow & led to a journey halted, which seemed just right due to where i've gotten lost just now. it made me remember that it's not always about reaching an end, but maybe about discovering the going. maybe i didn't see the magic arch, but my toes found sand & heart felt warm & i forgot about all those endless "where i should be's."

i think the wind & the stone & the cactus spines made me remember there usually are more pressing things than the future. i got lost in the desert & the desert got lost in me & now i can breath clean air again. enough with that future drowning, now i'm just loving each step as i get there.

castles & spoons.

sometimes there's something crawling in my veins that makes me start to dig. it's almost like its telling me to slump so i can look up and find where i should be going & forget where i stand. then my present/future suddenly become a dichotomy & neither are good enough.

now i'm thinking on what paulo says, we need to see the castle walls while never spilling an oil drop; otherwise we're neither present nor foreseeing.

i think durangan summer made me focus on my oil spoon & i never looked up. my months here ticked by, each day building new walls, & once my eyeballs finally reached up, my brain started to sag. i hadn't noticed that my castle came to brooms & rags & plastic smiles, not salvaging words that tie its speaker to earth, ritual, and dirt.

once i saw my castle walls were not what they must be, i slopped oil down my front and made a mess of my present. i tore down all that i'd created and made it something ugly. i forgot that even though i'd seen the walls, i can't drop the precious oil from my spoon.

instead i need to see my current castle being one that i'm renting for a time, til i can build one of indigenous words. i must still be grateful for its shelter. my current castle is laden with desert & mountain breathing, & full being my own being.

i need this part-time castle so i can have one full time that won't crumble. without a foundation of life, what would my word castle be built on?  my oil spoon may be empty of my deep set passion, but at least it's full of beauty.

so now i will refill my spoon & have eyes opened, hopefully no longer ones drooping. my present is building what will make my word castle a home of sure joy, rather than empty dictionary piles that weigh my soul.

one step at a time, grasshopper, lest you drop your spoon.

clocks.

i think we have rhythms just like nature & just like most things. & a lot of times those rhythms run on timers & when they go off they shout.

like with my clock that struck go & sent me to my new world full of red earth & front porch bears. i didn't know i was meant to go til i heard "get the hell out," & a final stroke that pointed southwest.

or with the one that reminded me & my purpose are decided & that the tongues that fall silent are my greatest grief; this one didn't need to roar quite the same, as it only needed to speak over the mind-lulling open/close of a cash drawer. this clock is ticking for books & lessons & languages that will be stuffed into brain so some beauty can be saved that the world has yet lost.

or with the one that ticked off the love & just ticked it back on when the time fit. moments apart can be just as blessed as those spent with, & now the second's nearing that our clocks will be met. then we can smash both their faces & linger in bed later than needed.

my clocks are calling, & they seem to be right. maybe time's made-up, but at least it keeps us from forgetting.

one-track mind.

most of the time i find myself trying to batter my brain with weird thoughts; i shutter to think who i'd be if i'd remained two-dimensional when my cries met first air. but now i'm coming to find that the one-track mind i'd always side-stepped might be where i'm heading.

four months & 24 hours ago my lips lost their pair & my heart lost its match & my fingers lost their ten they'd held. four months & 24 hours ago i started a new path that meant my fingers would have to hold themselves & wonder where their match had gone to. four months & 24 hours ago i blazed my old life & left the love that had kept me warm the three years past.

these four months have meant adventure; i have seen & met more of southern colorado than i'd ever imagined possible in a summer. i've swam, i've camped, i've run, i've biked, i've climbed, i've jumped, i've driven, i've soaked.

these four months have meant independence; my lonely hands have been in the world without their ten best & they had to learn to be contented alone. i've met, i've made, i've created, i've baked, i've explored, i've danced, i've been whole in myself.

these four months have meant discovery; i've found new depths and widths of who i've made. i've grown, i've grieved, i've ached, i've laughed, i've melted, i've longed, i've loved.

but these four months showed me that all the adventure, all the independence, all the discovery don't taste as sweet as the love made by those ten fingers & two lips & one heart i lost four months & 24 hours ago.

brother & his love made me remember the best i'd shared with those adored fingers and blessed lips and sacred heart. it made me remember what it was like to be one-track minded when those were all i'd dream & need, when those were my world & we made each day neat. they made me remember all of the road trips we've been on, & all the moments you & i made (mosquito hells & desert suns & the like). they made me remember how much i love teasing grins out of those two lips and holding those ten fingers while we watch the fire die. they made me remember the taste of our sweet companionship, and i can't shake the aftertaste.

i want to ask you for glasses of water when you get up while we watch movies together. i want you to make me mad by telling me how slow i am. i want us to fall again & never get back up. these four months & 24 hours i hope won't grow long; my fingers & lips & heart want their pair. before i always needed you, but now you're all i want. i want to let my mind to be one-track and for you to be the only song it plays.

now i think our hands can roam but at nightfall they'll be linked if you let them; my ten have already learned yours are the only ones that fit.

things my mama told me.

sailing over hills & diving into valleys brought my ears stories that my 6 year old self forgot to tell me. all of them were what mama used to say.

when my left torn hiking boot dragged up to its tromper sister at summit, i started to remember some of those things mama used to say. you know? i think that's what fall always does to us. it sits us down & shuts us up, & tells us all that we've forgot.

like staring down on the aspen gangs flashing their colors and making us stay. mama always used to say when leaves make aspen gold & everything slows that i'll need my flannel coat. she used to say that when the leaves let go and the branches do too that we need to decide what we hope is letting go of us too. she used to say a lot of things, but i've always loved the way she spoke of those trees.

& when that hawk spiraled & linked talon with branch i remembered why mama always used to say the view's always sweetest from the top. she always used to say that it'd make us remember how small we really are, and that thinking you're too big might crumble all the rest. she used to say that the view from the top doesn't mean you deserve anything more, just that you understand most things better than the creatures who choose to stay below.

i remembered a lot of things mama used to say while i scoped magic spires and wanderlust peaks. the most important thing i think had to of been what mama always used to say fall meant. she used to always say fall means we should let our lungs grieve and let ourselves be naked; she always used to say autumn's telling us to shed the bad and love our losses. i think fall reminded me today of what mama used to say, and today's the day i really feel it.

the opposite of meaning.

lately i learned that seeking rather than creating means boxing rather than making. and i think i used to let boxing make most of my decisions.

this era, i've turned myself on my head with targets set at life with less meaning. i live a life steeped in repetition, drowned in circle dating, (circle dating's when you don't want to find love and you dream none of the other). in my creation, i've written that which i hope to never see/do/say when the sun sets on my days and my last chapter's sealed.

i think today i decided my head got lost in the summer bake and now the fall's bringing my heart back into my throat. now i want to start speaking my truth and letting my love bleed. i want the messiness of being lovesick and feet over head. now, i think i may have found i'm ready to create something that makes my mouth still and my chest ache again. who was i kidding with that meaningless bullshit? i'm addicted to love.

family.

the blood that i course proudly came from irish flight & god-only-knows-where links me to humans that made me into the woman i find in the mirror each morning.

this family always has meant celebrating with costume just because, & catching me when the world crashes into me and i'm near crashing into dirt. after three months of separation from the arms that have always been refuge, i found myself wondering how i ever manage to leave them. be it the arms growing daily of my beloved first grader or those attached to the womb that wrought my body with life, they will ever be my home...despite what my mailing address may be, & how many times those numbers & streets & avenues change each year.

i've also been blessed with families i've created, beyond those lines of lineage & ancestry. one of the most sacred had always been my family that called boulder home. we're made of many (giant & mini, tribe & mountain), and we have shared life in beautiful ways since the days our hearts met. but upon my return, my family greeted me with crossed arms & loathing, & my heart broke more deeply than i'd imagined.

family, i'd always believed, was unconditional. family i thought ignored zip codes & loved beyond separating highways; family i thought would love me despite when my road led afar. but here my newest lesson is painfully full of darkness; maybe this family isn't unconditional. may be their words of love were empty because they were silenced when my feet needed to stray to find their next stage. they say that i won't let them be characters, but they wouldn't allow me just the briefest guest appearance; instead, they chose hatred of my choices & my tears once met with embrace were left to crash in my hollow ears..

i guess i'm learning more about the different kinds of families we can make. & this time, i don't really like what i'm finding.

learning to love ghosts (oh my).

a lot of times being haunted has a tone that makes me shiver. but i'd rather give my ghosts credit for being reminders that keep me standing tall.

everyday the sun gives me has built upon those it rose upon before, stacking towers wrought of lessons (some more haunting than others). should i shy from those ghosts i'd be spun, forever twirling in flat tires & wretched lines & water logged days. my ghosts make appearances to remind me of the moments that have made me progress, be them poltergeists or angels.

my history lies in my ghosts' chests, and i pray to be haunted til my soul soars with theirs. i will keep them as master, and i as their forgetful servant...at least when i remember that i am nothing but a composite of quartz that shines with my victories and ash that grays my stumbles.

to my ghosts: your spirits keep my feet light...haunt on.

overflow.

i read once "be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains."

i think these days i'm beginning to flood, and i'm spending days lost in laughter & contentedness, mostly at the hands of humans i adore & their words & their stories & their light.

just now that hand rolled cigarette & the clouded night sky & my after-thirteen-hours-of-work-porch-lounging made me see i've learned to overflow. i overflow after whiskey nights when my mornings are robbed by unexplained laughter & river plunges knocking some hangover death off my haggered corpse. i overflow when i try to take naps in salted sunlight, & sleep can't catch me & i dream up sweet faces. i overflow when i wander through the so many i've come to adore, despite differing coordinates & rusted friendships & months spent astray.

my life is drenched in memories that make me gush. it might be beachside lightening dances followed by raindrop filled flor de caña & juice. & it might be a drive nearly four-times-too-long & remembering that the road less traveled usually means good things. or any of the other absurd things that make my heart rise and my blissed mouth curl.

i overflow for those that have made my belly ache and my soul swell, be it in acting as my breadmaking master or newest mortal combat rival. i'm falling in love with the people the world has brought me daily, both in durango present & old dream past. today i am a fountain, & i'm predicting more fountain days to come.

mi patria.

i remember the first moment that my timid feet met foreign soil (or i guess foreign airport concreted earth). i remember the taste of the thai air and the smell of the bangkoked world. i remember wishing for my own bit of language & markets & beaches that helped me know who i am.

i remember being asked what my culture was when i sank into cuban sand and soaked up varadero breeze. i remember being wordless, and aching for some sort of colorado salsa to answer the rhythms of their freed hips or some bouldered cuisine to challenge their cassava dreams.

now i can remember when i realized that i can create my very own cultured existence.

my culture is dancing til i'm salted and red by face. my culture is baking yams with a bit of yeast & flour. my culture is plunging mountain streams/rivers/lakes with their snow melt shock. my culture is whatever i decide to say it is each day i wake.

so now i know that my patria is mine for the making; never will i identify with fast food chains and semi-trucks and monolingualism, i'll keep dreaming up something more interesting.

shapes

why is it that we grew up with all these square ideas that master who we become? i don't want to change my shape so i can fit into such a rigid puzzle. i don't want to be what everyone tells me i am. i don't want to just make expected sounds, i don't want secret bits of myself locked up in hidden safes.

i want to escape the lines and draw myself with curves and waves and dots and stripes. planting myself into a world where i am nameless and faceless has made me realize that i can be who i want to be. i'm creating myself, having left all expectations of who i should be and what i should say and where i should walk and how i should dream packed away in forgotten boxes in a 334 mile-from-here basement.

these new windows where all can see in and i can see out probably means i'm meeting myself for the very first time. to hell with squares, i'm pro-oval.

days

i'd always heard about this thing called the present, the place that we're supposed to live rather than whispers of the lucid past or screams of the drifting future.

but i'd always found myself so locked up in my head that the present sailed by while i basked in previous aches or drowned in the wicked coming. then suddenly my being changed gears and now that last tick of the clock and the one that most likely will be are irrelevant and the current direction of my step is the only thing weighing on my brain. it feels good to not think so much.

the truth about dreaming

we never really need to wake up from our night lit hours. i don't think we ever do anyway. i like dreaming my waking hours and waking during my dreaming, it makes everything shine more.

i think living that way instead of the dichotomy of (un)consciousness just means that you're able to walk with decision, rather than losing your feet in the constantly breaking undertow of rest and unrest. better yet, the outlandishness of real life responsibilities can melt into the reality of dreams' unlimited freedom.

it's funny too, the tragedies of wakefulness don't seem to loom tall enough to swallow me into their shadows in my endless dream state. now i'm just floating through the nights of my day and the days of my night, and i'm not waiting to wake up. so for now, i'll keep wake and sleep dreaming and try to not get caught up in that suspicious bout of consciousness i keep hearing about.

(un)chained.

do you know henderson the rain king? he says that circuses really just break elephants feather spirits to make their heavy feet still. from first step they are hindered by ravish chains that claw a log that chokes elephant would-be-steps. then as those baby elephant feet with the would-be-steps grow to make aging would-be-footsteps, a pathetic stick is the only line between those would-be-steps and real-life-steps.

i think that's what we do to our babies too. only their logs are built of responsibilities & careers & expectations. just imagine our would-be-steps as those dreams of wild-proportions (e.g. astronaut, singer/song writer, etc.) to settling for bored realities of realistic-proportions. just break our babies' backs enough and the only stick they'll need to keep their feet still is student loans &  doing something logical & starting a family by the horribly average age of 26 and 1/3. their would-be-hopes get stuck in our babies' chests and they find themselves chained to mortgages & rush-marriages & lives that choke their spirits.

i don't want to be one of those baby elephants with the would-be-steps. i want to burn my log and melt my chains and char the earth with my real-life-hopes. so i suppose just now i poured that gallon of kerosene and dropped that match from a forgotten bar; now to see if i make it out alive. here's to dreams that don't make sense.

heavy

awareness has become the light elluding my eyes, and that which tempts my ever-searching feet. it is the director of balance which my restlessness so desperately screams for, yet today i am baring the yoke loaded with the burden of increased consciousness.

the mind over which i am just now greeting and challenging is rooted deep below the earth of my innermost being, and its reign of terror is the evil i've spent my years trying to expel from my soul. though awareness of its ravenous bite means the potential to finally vanquish the beast, today my tired shoulders sag deeply for carrying its weight these nearly 23 years; it's an exhaustion and devastation of which i've never before explored.

to fully begin divulging the wretched dirt that has for so long marred and concealed the light of my self i adore at distant glimpeses is a task wrought most heartedly of joy, yet salted by anguish raw and unfamiliar. however, my first mind is sure to prevail, though the way may be long and the journey at times steep. but blessed be this new trip of discovery, as its stores of promise mean freedom and light.

cracking my skull

in the steps that my beaten feet have taken, I'm beginning to see increasing levels of balance.

first and foremost, the boiling down of the dream i've created for myself as toxic levels of fear and swelling layers of love. despite my preoccupation of the painful interconnectedness of the fear-love spectrum with Donnie Darko's arch enemies, i've seen the harsh rule my apprehensions have stricken the best of me with throughout my years.

it's so strange that in doing what i found to be so essential in previous eras in conducting self-search, that these very endeavors are the ones that have sealed the sky and constructed forsaken fortresses inhibiting my growth and experience. instead, by silencing what i've claimed are the thousands of bits of characteristics that collectively give rise to my current, past and present selves, i may truly discover my potential and gifts. my restlessness to find my limits creates such obstacles, when what i would best be off doing is flipping my whirling brain into a non-functioning-for-the-moment stage in hopes of greeting my liberated intuition. here, the beauty i''ve always so desired to unearth can be encountered, rather than founded by force and flame.

in essence, love and peace is meant to be felt and enjoyed, rather than what i generally sought as some distant end goal off at the completion of an unknown path on which i must hope to stumble.it's here, it's now, just so long as i have the strength to reach out and be taken hold by it.