Time to let go

Tuesday, January 21

Venice Beach, Ca

1.

the raving cocksmith with angel wings

its all coming down like the rain, alot of face softening into tears and laughter and making love with a new man who is my raving cocksmith with angel wings who just made me french toast and is cleaning the apartment for my sons visit this afternoon. the raving cocksmith says i have 4 faces. the fierce one, which i show the most. the nurturer, who is seemingly at odds with the fierce one. the traveler, who often looks off melancholy into the distance like i was last night. and the one i hardly show, the little girl who screams so loudly inside me that you can't hear her at all.

i drank red wine and told some sad stories and then crawled off in my leg cast to sit in the bathroom and cry alone. i turned on the water in the sink so i could have privacy with the sound of my sobs. not because i am afraid to show my tears, but because at times, i am like a cat who wants to lick my wounds alone in a corner, some very old animal instinct for solitude. the gaping wound opened again and the cool rush of infinite space and meaninglessness rushed through me like a wind or a ghost train. and i think, oh god, am i here again? sitting on some dingy bath mat in someone else's bathroom? rocking myself to sooth the sharpness of the moment? i crawled into bed and let myself be held and some part of me wondered, "does this man love me?" is anything for certain in this world as the floor keeps dropping out beneath me to expose the fine network of stars and far off galaxies and groundlessness beneath my feet?

the clouds are letting go of the rain...

it is time for letting go

winter

pruning back to the bones

what is essential?

2.

it's not my time to go

back from india
travelled across continents and oceans and broke barriers of sound to
crash land a car back in la on my third day home

twisted metal oragami car wreck

what messages are hidden in the crushed metal?
broken ankle, cast, crutches

i lay in bed eating percocets and drinking red wine

it wasnt my time

a young hispanic kid at the clinic in the hood

where i go to get my cast because i don't have insurance

asks me how i got my cast and crutches that look the same as his

i say i broke my ankle in a car crash

he says he got shot

he says they tried to kill him but it wasnt his time

yea, i say, it wasnt my time either

the furniture in the waiting room are crumbling salvation army couches that belong in a grandmas living room
i sit in the hood with people of color who carry a large percentage of the hardship in america

in a dingy waiting room with scuffed and dirty linoleum floor, we are frozen in a moment of physical vulnerability under watery, pale flourescent light bulbs

the doctor rolls his eyes at an older mexican couple who can't speak english

who probably dragged themselves through heartbreaking odds to mop floors and pick produce and god forbid they raise their heads to be seen

a black woman gets dragged in by the cops hog tied

screaming "bitches, bitches!"

her blood curdling screams make me squirm in my seat

not easy to watch the parade of human suffering

her hair is undone and nappy, her pants keep sliding down to expose her ass crack as she writhes against the grip of the cops and handcuffs

the flesh of her belly hangs loosely with stretch marks but still she has the strength of superman

she bucks her body into a straight line in the air between where they hold her feet and shoulders, all the anger twisting inside her like a lightening bolt

looks like she made some bad choices, but also i am sure

her life hasnt been fair

whatever fair is

but certainly, it doesnt seem fair that most of the people living this hard are people of color

do we pray to the same gods?

it wasnt my time and

i am a goddam testament to the resilience of the human condition

dreams broken, bones broken

i lay in bed
writing, writing
so much letting go to do
i feel like i am in a great contraction
a cocoon of winter
the butterfly, while sleeping crouched in darkness never knows what it is becoming
i welcome unknowing becoming
and wait in white linens with grey skies in the window most near me

and listen to the gentle patter of the many small feet of the rain on the roof above me
i dont get out much right now
i wait to test the cut of new wings in spring
to test the velvet softness against the cold knife of the wind
like a newborn gasping in the cold oxygen
test the mend of the bone

bone deep, bone deep
laid flat on my back i write about my family
whose memories and predilictions move like the sea of marrow within me
they are bone deep within me

they are the architecture my blood, flesh and heart are hung on

my bones the unseen freeways tracing traffic patterns of my ancestors

the sorrow of the gypsies

my new lover asks about my family

i say i dont know where they are

we are people of the air, rootless

so much freedom and guilt

so much wine and song and passion and dance

we are the colors of red and black

when green turns to gold

you know winter is coming

pruned back to my bones, and further still

laying naked in the snow

the blinding whiteness of pills and pillows

i wait in the molting to see the glory of my next pair of wings