evergreen

this is exactly what I love:

early mist, morning in the woods
nothing in particular to do but float in solitude,
thinking fondly of loved ones
and the sacred distance from and between them.

Kote chewing tall grass
curious peacocks and one-footed hens
startled doves, and no feathers on the ground
tiny pink and white spring petals where I expected them
mosses and lichens, green on the side of everything
collecting lilac and cedar bows,
a care-filled gesture
bundled and wrapped tight and loosely
in cottons, wools, and silk
hole in the boot as usual
and carrying Sofia’s scent of some fire
her smell of knowledge
tinctures and drinking and dancing
she knows all the plants of the Pacific Northwest
our home, our evergreen.

there is no book

today you’re milestoning miles away
and you are owning life in fistfuls,
for you there will always be poems
I think of you fine, like eating all my greens
I think of you fine, like one more whiskey shot
my love for you, discovered nameless
uncovered, a swirling, effortless brook
you are a rare bird,
beautiful, and flown from the pages
body as a nest,
there is no book.

stay bolden

night is a calm wisdom that winds down circular
spinning gently as a floating flower with the year’s end
the road is a lapis knife splitting air between the trees

so,
do I want it ruby rhinestone gems
glinting in thick whipped mash-potato life-line splat
or heavy-cut dripping open orange oil tang meat

we are content or we are going to be

first blood

(found this, written a year ago)

I wake before morning
dark, moonlight
surprised to find my body naked
leftover wetness from a dream
smile sweetly, indulging
diagonal on the bed
and in the morning, first blood

homeless with money is a boring series of cafes

I am moving to a warmer middle of nowhere. I have to keep reminding myself that this is the goal.

It’s getting Cold. Cold is not a  memory, it’s a fact. And I forget every year. I remember rage, shaking hands, damning the sky and needing dry pavement like air. But I don’t ever really remember the feeling of Cold.

 This year, just as all before, autumn is a gift and my heart leaps at the thought of stretching it down the Alcan. Fall is a season everywhere else but here. Here it’s a bitter tease, a jest.

Every year I don’t have enough sweaters. Where do they go? I’ve never had a coat that seemed warm enough. I need a coat.

My dog needs a coat. She’s loosing all of her hair. One of three things is wrong with my dog:
1. Nothing
2. Auto-Immune Disease that costs $20 a month to treat
3. Auto-Immune Disease that costs four hundred dollars a month for the rest of her life to treat

But, oh yeah.. Cold.
Lastnight was Cold. I cried in the parking lot of Wal-mart because I had a really bad headache and a stuffy nose and I’m working too much and my back hurts and my neck hurts worse and my pain medication doesn’t really work anymore and they won’t give me anything stronger, not that I really want to be taking medication anyway and I know there’s a couple beers somewhere in the van underneath all the clutter, that will at least help me sleep, but I already took the pain pills that don’t work and I smell and I need a shower and laundry and my parents are out of town and I wish I could go to their house and eat and watch tv and cry in the shower but our relationship is all weird and they won’t let me have a key and whatever ’cause some people don’t have parents so fine, I’ll be fine, I’ll just go to bed and if I masturbate I’ll fall asleep faster, but I can’t even jerk off because nothing is sexy to me and I’m too cold and thank god I borrowed that sleeping bag from Aren when I did or I would be dead and I need to give that back, so I need to get some wool blankets but Wal-mart didn’t have any wool blankets but why would they and I hate Wal-mart anyway but everything else was closed by the time I got off work and I could go sit at Barnes and Noble but I don’t think I can sit up because I feel sick and I just want to lie down somewhere warm but everyone is gone or busy and nobody cares that I’m too cold and I’ve been fucking up all my relationships because I’m tired and cranky and selfish all the time lately and it’s my fault I’m homeless and cold.

So then I’m like: ok, yes, you made this decision. There’s a point to all of this and you are working toward a goal. You will get there, and it’s not that bad. Many before you have dealt with so many more obstacles. Obstacles, you are strong, you are a lion. You are a momma cat, but you are also a bird. You are smart and strong. You are resourceful. You have been through so much worse than this. Fuck everything in your way. You can do this. I can do this.

And then I just went to bed. And this morning I awoke. Still alive.

I’m going to live with my father. In November. I’m going to nanny my new baby sister, Cedar, born in July. They live in a town sixty miles from anywhere on the Olympic Peninsula. I’ll have my cats back, get a side job, walk Kote through the snowy forest, get to know my dad and have lots and lots of time to make music and art. I’ll stay as long as I want. and when I’m ready I’ll go somewhere warmer still, hot even. I’ll go to where the queers are. And I will collapse, relieved, revived, in the arms of my chosen family.

mean reds

I adore my menstration
fuck  its bad reputation
I love  the sensitivities it brings,
how it makes me soft, tender and tame

and when the pain makes it so I don’t want to eat
it feels good not to fight
take off my glasses, kick the covers off the bed and writhe
face smashed against the little acorns, rocking hips

I feel happy
no one can take this feeling away from me
I am alive.

pin holes into the sky, part 2.

give me one of your freckles
we’ll trade a tiny part of ourselves
I’ll do you and you do me
constellations of love over our bodies

Honey Bucket’s hands move just like Elena’s
and I remember warm nights
sleeping exausted
from talking and dancing and kissing

I’m pretty sure the girl at the counter at Middle Way
is something like eighteen years old
but she has a septum piercing, moustache and this demure style about her
all of which turns me into a fumbling dork when I order from her
especially today when she complimented my glasses

I told Meg I wasn’t fit to carry an anchor on my finger
but that’s not entirely true
I was born in a fishingtown
I know the quiet rocking of boats
and otters in the harbor
I know slippery seaweed dried on rocks
and red and purple starfish

if we are different people with each lover
if they each bring out varied qualities in us
and we relate to them in diverse ways
if in every relationship we are able to express unique parts of ourselves
and learn varying lessons each time we connect
then how on Earth does one go about considering
committing to a monogamous romantic relationship for the rest of their lives?

I can’t stand the way you chew your food
but I liked watching your fingers
wrapping thread around the needles
your teeth helping you hands make the knots
and the blunt side of the needle gently parting your moustache

the reason I call myself a queer dyke
has nothing to do with physical attraction
and everything to do with socialization and social construction
so stop fucking calling me a lesbian
and fuck me

so good, I thought I started my period

taking the wide curves in the dark
sliding around and through
the gorgeous monochromes of winter
and text and texture
I think
it’s the space between the notes
that music happens
when my housemates are out
that’s when I can feel
everything between my fingers
that’s when I can play it out slow
over and over and over again
that’s when I find myself
it’s the space between the notes
where the sex is

I told Emily that
when I came lastnight
it was so good
that I thought I started my period

pin holes into the sky

here there’s a certain kind of light just at dusk
blue stacked on white stacked on pink
the bare trees reach backlit black, upward

I don’t know what to say

a tattoo is made up of hundreds of single needle pricks
we’ve been going to fast
so we sit on the dirty carpet and poke intentionally
into each other
each point is an action
a map
I think of the one on my knee
jess you can
jess you are

in the black sky out the window
I watched the same star all the way back to Alaska
head full and heart heavy
knowing I’d forget the taste of Aden’s mouth
knowing I’d forget the clear color of the sky
what were you like as a kid?
did you get into trouble?
were you shy?

Alex said
that hummingbird and elephant hearts beat
the same number of times their whole lives
and that’s what relationships are like
is it true?
we all have a finite number of chances?

I told Beautiful she was the kind of girl I’d drop anything for
no matter where or who I was with
but I didn’t kiss her in the cabin in the woods underneath a stranger’s quilts
even though I wanted to
I remember vowing to become a musician just to sing a song for her

the people we leave our back doors unlocked for
planning trips and scheduling intimacy
climbing through each other’s windows
the friends we love, the friends we fuck
the love letters we’re writing behind our eyes when we talk
over coffee, over beers
great loves and perfect moments
slipping through our fingers and up into the sky
time and chance and distance
and sometimes working, sometimes not

I want your

cactus
spiral
f note
sunflowers
blue stars
four squares
puzzle pieces
crass
catfish
black spruce
anchor
cupcake
paw print
buoys
roses
airplane
black bird
heart
sinchi warmi
bambi
highbush cranberry
ship
clock
totoro
don’t worry
diamond
imaginary moon phases
stars
stars
stars

I’ve never told you that I love you
I told you too soon
I tell you all the time
I don’t tell you enough

new years eve

Survived a turbulent (productive) therapy session.

Appreciated the hella fat glowing moon.

Met four gorgeous and amazing queer women on the dance floor.

Did not drink.

Wore really gaudy earrings. And crimped hair.

Laughed so hard I cried.

Gained a new sense of hope.

Fell asleep while masturbating, laughing exausted, exclaiming:

I found the dykes!

friends become our chosen family

My mother had a little wooden plaque that hung in kitchen windows and hallways wherever we lived that said this: Friends Become Our Chosen Family.

Some of us don’t know what family means in that Hallmark sort of way. Some of us don’t know what it means to have fathers. Some of us are distanced from our families by religion or beliefs or space or time or death or abuse.

We want so badly to comfort each other in the face of such challenges. And we do, even though sometimes we don’t know how. Sometimes we say the really bad wrong thing at the wrong time. But we know we mean well. We forgive each other and we work on our shit. Because we know the power of communication and messy love is what saves us. We loan each other spare parts to build patch-work Macgyver kinda shit out of our hearts. We know how one another really feels about the world. And when we are apart we send each other hope in the mail.

A family’s function is to promote survival. Together we are surviving. And even though we don’t always feel it all the time, we are thriving.

sunday prayer

I go to where the ocean meets the mud and sand
this is me I think
I am like the water lapping up against Anchorage
but the tide doesn’t assign value to how far and onto which shore it breaks
it just flows and I want to be content to be pulled by the moon

west, the Alaska range glowed brilliantly across the water
more clear than I have ever seen it before
Sleeping Lady, dusty shoulders deep in shadow
east, the Chugachs were skirted with low snow clouds
approaching that range, watching it rise up before you
I swear, it’s like praying
today the earth is showing me something like god

everything beautiful in the world is survival
the lion’s mane is there only to protect her neck
we must build whole entire lives on the bare threads of the past
melt down all that fucked up shit and turn it into infinite love
next weekend my ex-boyfriend is coming to town
and he has agreed to help me pick out a knife

the tide does not assign value to the shore on which it breaks
and I know that the most radical thing I can do is love myself
even in the face of all these undesirable experiences from my past