Tell Me, Are you a Christian, Child. I said, Ma'am I am Tonight

Be careful with the word deserve, my papa says. Don't throw it around. 

* - * - *

Yesterday, like every June 11th for the last 16 years, I acknowledged the dead. Sacrificed to the fire gods, gods of grief and chaos, to the quiet, to the natural order of life.
 I swallowed down so many 'what if's' and 'I wish' and 'but, why's' to turn my stomach sour. I kept my body still or slow, hands close to my rib cage, and my mouth closed.

* - * - *

Sixteen years ago on June 11th, I woke up to my dad screaming around 3:30 am. There was too much noise, too much smoke, too much tired to comprehend at that moment that my house was burning down. I stood up out of bed and immediately was forced to the ground -- smoke, as they say, is no joke. Confusion and incessant screaming forced me, on my knees, to the living room: rage, hot, orange, loud. Instincts said back door. I saw his legs at the front door. He did not see me. He had a mole on the back of his right leg. I watched those legs walk out to clean air.

They say he went back into the house. They say they found his body in the kitchen. I envision, even still, half a body.

When I was 14, living in the country with a step-dad and post-divorced mom, one of our pigs got out of his pen in the night. I came upon the body in the morning before school, ripped apart and bloodied. Back legs and haunches in tact -- mangled in the middle, but head, heart, face gone This is always how I think of my dad's burnt body abandoned near the pantry.

What happened in those last few minutes? Do I deserve to know?

* - * - *

What if he could say: go on?
Could I?

Sing Loud for the Sunshine

Our hands have dipped in the same mud. We have grown old together for a million years and this year is just one more. We have passed by and, since the sun warmed the earth, breathed the same breaths, maybe just a lifetime away. Ages ago, we built our house with our hands and tore the meat with our teeth. More recently, we let our sweat fall into the dirt, but with a spectacular spirituality that no one (I know) can even understand.

I know you.
My first morning I knew you - I've always known. Somehow.

you live, you learn

The water always works it's magic into my body. Early morning fog, heavy like grief - mayflies resting easily - the smell of slate rocks and dew. It's alchemy. It's medicinal. It's a balmy affair, sincere with understanding. There is never a trip to the lake that leaves me unsatisfied.

Can I say those things even if this trip was wrought with a dissonance so uncomfortable I had to shift my heart; stick my hand under my sternum and adjust that thing, slippery with pain? I think I can. The thing about magic is it's mysterious. And we can let it be.

Let me just tell you this: my cousin killed a snake. I begged him not to. Tried to reason with him. Please, you know? I said. I said, it doesn't make sense to kill for the sake of killing. That snake is hurting no one, that snake is just being a snake. Sitting in the water like we do. Sitting and resting like the mayflies. Sitting like this lake sits - peaceful and full of life and essential his surroundings.

My papa, with his wide brimmed hat to shade his nose from the sun, said he was an adult before he could give respect to life the way it deserves. He confided he used to kill birds. He used to kill birds with a gun to just kill birds with a gun. And, he continued, he wished he didn't. He has shame folded up and hidden in his back pocket. "We grow up," he reminded me.

He said he remembers when he used to hate gay people, too. More shame, more sadness. But we grow up, he said. We grow into love. We grow into understanding. Be gentle with him, he said. Be gentle with him, he'll grow.

The next morning, his friend at the dock died. Heart attack in his houseboat. His widow called my papa first - and we cried and cried. We sat with her while she shook and drank her coffee. My papa promised the dead man's wife that he will finish the eaves-trough on the starboard side - and he'll maintain the boat while she's away. We love you, he told her. We loved him, too. And together, drinking coffee in the quiet, sitting at a table that 4 hours before a dead man sat, we gave life the respect it deserves.

We grow up, you know? We grow into understanding and love. And, this now, I'm sure of.

We Will Never Die

Few things are barely connected; most things are.

Two things fucked me up real bad today. If they happened to you, maybe it would have been a passing breeze. And if it happened to me yesterday or maybe if it even happened tomorrow, maybe it'd be just nothing, but today: today, these two things were everything. And somehow, I know they are interconnected by delicate strings.

Here they are:

I watched a beetle die today. Much to my protest, this beetle died. And his life ended in front of me. I watched it. Do you get it? I FUCKING WATCHED IT.

I saw a lonely man today with a lame arm.

goddamnit. both things made me want to die. but somehow afterwards, I felt more. Just.. more.

My heart's learned to kill

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I had a boyfriend named Jon. In August, he went away to the Naval Academy where I visited him twice. It was nice. I was friends with his youngest sister. I called her MixMaster. That summer was slightly stressful - my stepdad had moved away to set up house in Arizona where he accepted a job with a huge pay bump. I had decided to stay in Indiana to finish up my senior year. I was approaching a year without my mother. Anyway, I had this boyfriend, before Arizona, before Annapolis.

He was a nice boy. Smart. He loved to make out in his Caprice Classic, he had a wonderful mother and dad. He liked me a lot. Once, in a moment of vulnerability, he sort of proposed to me. This, however, wasn't *before* Annapolis. This was during. Anyway, I had this boyfriend.

I was with him the night my dad died. He left about 3 hours before it happened. We didn't really talk that night, we did a lot of kissing on that green couch. Well, anyway, he was the 4th or 5th person to stand next to me the morning after my childhood home burned down. He was the one who waited on me while I told the firemen "exactly what happened as [I] remember[ed] it". He let me lose my shit.

He moved away weeks later. He accidentally proposed months later. And I cheated on him. Lots. I was a vacant human being. I know now I should have been nicer - fuck, I knew it then. But I couldn't.

Let's be honest: I couldn't do anything. School, and grief, and school, and grief, and blowjobs, and movie theaters and lots of Fazolis, and the loneliest, scariest nights of my life. That's what I had to hold on.

And the distinct memory of watching that green couch in flames as I escaped the house without my dad.

He died 13 years ago today. I was the last person to see him, the last person to talk to him. He didn't really like my boyfriend.

i've already been here once, and now, again

I forget, you know?

I am, in the tiniest way, part of this earth. We are lucky bastards to breathe in tall grass and blue herons and sticky burrs. We get to drink down the wind and walk through may-flies all a tizzy and we get to know what it sounds like when 15 ducks fly off water together.

And sometimes I want to die. And sometimes I want to live forever. But I always want my naked feet to decompose in the mud.

We took serious pause yesterday when we saw a deer skeleton - laying disrobed and basic in definition only. We didn't pray, but we did. We felt vibrations and grief and hope. And without saying a word, we both knew - our future is with the dirt and the crows and every single hair that used to cover that doe. We live, we die, we live forever.

Amen.

Far more aware than I have been

Today it was mostly eating the small moments with a delicate fork and well poised knife. "The sun really showed up and is doing it's job" was a good salutation to a really weird morning - but it's true what he said. The sun had armies. They blew my face off.

With unsteady steps I walked up my stairs in someone else's purple sweatpants and fancy blue shoes, nearly my burial shroud, or so it felt. The only longing was for my empty bed- dried wine in the cuts on my lips. A bruise on my chin. Arms that smelled like vomit.

Let's get one thing straight, I don't ever mean to binge drink. I don't ever mean to nearly die in my friends' new home. I don't ever mean to make other people's husbands carry me to their homes. Last night, I fucked up. And I'm embarrassed. And I'm sorry. But, in a very serious way, I'm grateful.

And way scared.

I'm blood and carbon and magic. And these ribs and this heart - I've only been given this. And I'm sorry I'm not a better steward. And I'm sorry that I'm falling into a stereotype. And I'm so goddamned sorry that I have to keep saying sorry.

But like I said before, the sun showed up. Thank goodness. And the moments today, even the ones where I felt heavy with a coat of guilt, were welcomed. If I would have felt better, I would have thrown each minute today a fucking party. Hugged them like I'm picking them up at the airport.

my heart feels unprotected

I do the things I need to do, you know, to function. Brush my hair, wear clean underwear, pet my cat, blow out the candles at the end of the night, drink wine, occasionally dust, wash out my cuts, eat some fruit, smile at strangers, text, sit criss cross applesauce, and work on my posture.

I wear a bra mostly, I cry alone mostly (except for Fat Tuesdays. On Fat Tuesdays, I cry to boys who let me), I shave my legs (sometimes) and listen to sad songs on lonely nights. I breathe heavy as I fall asleep. I remember nice things and feel nice. I try not to remember bad things, but, like everything, that's hard to do.

I fall in love. And out of love. But mostly, in, at least 3 times a day.

I participate in normal human activities. Sometimes, I even enjoy it.

Sometimes.

let's talk over mai-tais. waitress, top it off

Life shifts often. My skin comes off everyday and my hair falls out and my finger nails grow, get dirty and I bite them off, but here I am, the same human. Kind of.

The shifting. The death. The life. It's all too much at times. The standing up tall and watching everything change, that's something else, too. I barely can stand it.

All of this to say: I'm getting old. I can see it around my eyes and in my blood. And with the friendships I've cultivated for so long. The shifting. The slow transfer and melting away and putting our hands into the cold river that never stops - these things tell me, you know, nothing fucking stays the same.

And I mean it: nothing.

like the pine trees lining the winding road

There are serene moments in life that don't make sense. Laying flat on my back watching the stars fall right the fuck out of the sky, like love, while the cicadas sing until their membranes are raw with vulnerability.

Covered in soot, the fireman telling me that my dad's ate up corpse was found near the kitchen door, leading to the mudroom. Calmness like fog, calmness like fucking fog.

Once, I stood on the lip of a canyon and brought iron into my lungs.

Things, some things anyhow, make my skull break apart, make my blood a mudslide.

I Think I'm Cured

It's been a long time. And I'm not going to sugar coat anything, so, be prepared for facts that slice through human bodies easily and without remorse.

Let's start with the basics: life can fuck you up. That seems circular, I know, but go with it. Truths are vague and ever changing and unfair. Existence is hard, because it is, and also because, if we go in and out of it, is it really existing. Okay. Basics covered.

Now, on to the hard-stuff: Remember my grandma who had the health scare? Well, it wasn't over. As it is with life, things only got worse.

She was finally diagnosed with Giant Cell Arteritis. The devastation is, though, she was diagnosed too late by her back-woods physicians. She has lost complete vision in her right eye and approximately 80% in the other. No peripheral. She'll close her good eye and cry about the "gray mud" she sees. "Gray mud" she'll cry - that's all I see. Now, the 20% she has retained is dim. She calls life the "Dark City" - and it wouldn't be so beautiful if it wasn't so shattering. She'll smile and shake her head and cry and convince me that she'll be fine living in the Dark City.

Yesterday morning she woke up and everything was a little dimmer. She began shaking and crying and we admitted her into the hospital again. This time in Indy. (We'll never go back to Ball Memorial in Muncie. Fuck those guys).

Blindness, guys. We are battling an auto-immune disorder that attacks blood flow to the brain- it's already killed one optic nerve and it's trying so hard to slaughter the other.

We're sad. My papa cries and cries when she's not around. She cries and cries when he's not around. We're all dying in the Dark City.

But I suppose we all are.

I will write more about this somewhere, sometime.

Nothing Matters When We're Dancing

When I was seventeen, I was fighting for my life. And I was scrappy in typical 17-year-old ways. Making out with boys in the back of my car, in barns, at stop signs on desolate country roads, on couches, on beds, standing up, on their door steps, in clothes, out of clothes, at parties in fields and so on and so forth. I had about 4 or 5 guys in my rolodex and a boyfriend. I know - despicable. And mostly, I'm not proud.

Haven't you noticed that life is hard? I was learning that shit on the front lines, and quickly. I had one dad to die, one mom to move away, brothers who had to follow and the entire life my little brain knew vanished - fell in between the railroad tracks on it's way out of town. I was (mostly) alone in the world. So, I filled up on fake comfort, tongues and sweaty encounters. And who's to say I didn't enjoy it? Things were fucked up; I was pretty and without a curfew and had a badass Buick. I don't hate it that I learned life like this. Because I had a chance to.

Two 17 year old kids got killed in my hometown on Saturday. They tried to out-run a train.

They tried to out-run a mother fucking train. Kids, you guys, just kids who will never have a chance to find out that life (kind of) evens out as you get older. Grief is coiled in my stomach for their families and for their friends and for the train conductor and for the first responders and for the void my small town will suffer and for the mercilessness of this world. I'm sick. And I'm so sorry.

Sorry.. but also thankful.

only, I don't know how

I happen to be okay by myself. Which is shocking and unexpected news from someone who rates as a 99% extrovert on all the personality tests. (Let's be honest, I've only taken the Myers-Briggs: ENFJ, gentlemen.) But I'm okay alone. Let me clarify, though, to allow no room for error. I'm okay alone for a small amount of time. And by alone, I mean, surrounded by people. Because here I am on a Friday night, the husband is out of town and I tote my laptop to my favorite pizza place, order wine and listen to the hum of happy families eating. It's still alone, right? Just *not* alone. It's a seriously complicated paradox, but me? I'm okay with it.

It wasn't always so, as it is with every love story. In college I was not okay. The middle of my sophomore year I was a funeral march. Everything was devastating - I stayed in bed for hours and days and hours in a day and months more like, it was foreign to me. The soles of my feet were heavy with pain - why would I want to walk?

And here's the turn around: one night, locked in a study room in the upstairs of the library trying my little heart out to type a Philosophy paper, I called my Nena and cried and cried and cried about everything. I just kept sobbing "I'm so sad" over and over again. She waited until I took a breath (a gasp, a "MAN OVERBOARD" kind of thing) and she said calmly and seriously and full of the softness of a goddamned rose, she said: "pack your bags. I'm coming tonight."

That's the woman who helped build me.

That's the woman who had a major health scare this week - everything is fine, now. But Tuesday I was convinced that every breath I took, every red light I saw on my frantic drive down to her house was going to be forever stayed in my heart as a fucking curse.
Did I mention she's fine now?

She is. And I'm not sure I've ever been so thankful. Because here is the truth: my life is nothing without her joy. Because sharing a bottle of Merlot with her on the north porch in my hometown beats everything. Everything. She is mine and there is no simple way to say it. With her living, I live.

I know you understand.

i am ready, i am fine (guilt shame and pain)

Human bodies are strange things. It's an odd idea to be alive - to be moving these bones around with a mystical force - to allow this blood to pump all alone to every single space inside my skin.

Today is a day that requires lots of thought. I feel like I'm on the cusp of understanding something big. But I don't know why. And, especially this, I don't know how. I feel this way when I'm saying my goodbyes to people (and whether you know it or not, I've probably said my goodbyes to you). I feel this way when I know that this body of mine could fail at any given moment. I worry too much, I know. Quit telling me that. I've known for quite sometime. I live this life with this brain and this anxiety. I get it. I'm a big ball of worry, but guess what - it's true. We die. Quickly and without reprieve.

Someone asked me this weekend why I'm so fearful. I answered them as I would've answered anyone. And the song is sung like this: "wouldn't you? wouldn't you worry if you heard your dad scream as he died in a house consumed by fire and fear? Wouldn't you worry if you watched the electrical lines bounce around alive outside your childhood home as everything burned down? wouldn't you if you were haunted by the half corpse that was collected by the firemen who couldn't have cared less?" I didn't say that. I didn't. I wanted to. I said, "because my dad died quickly - and it makes me nervous for everyone i love."

He said I was tormented, this person. I told him that I knew I was. People who live just are. People who live and know how close they are to death just are tormented. And I will be far longer than I want to be.

heavenly shades of night are falling

I know I've said this before, but, guys, I hold grudges. I hold them tenderly, infants I coddle and nurture and help grow, until they're too big. So, then, I put them down on the ground and walk along side them. They become part of who I am. Remember that girl who hurt my feelings by ditching me for the cool group in COLLEGE? I remember her. With disdain.

What about that family who used to sit in my section when I would sling pizzas and beers... the family with the kids who threw macaroni in my face, the family with the kids who minced up straw papers like expensive garlic. I remember them. The kids, okay, that's excusable, right? They're kids. But those grown-ups couldn't rip their fat faces from their iPads and Netbooks long enough to.. well... parent. Those kids are growing up with no hope. Those grown-ups deserve a well-fed grudge. And I'm just the gal for the job.

Okay? Got it? I understand where it comes from. I do. It's lengthy and vulnerable and for another post. But it has everything to do with trying so hard to be the peace-maker as a child and failing - marinating in a world of not being in control. Those things make me miserably hateful to strangers who suck major dick and incredibly devastated/broken-hearted when the people I love can't reciprocate the way I want them to. It seems like peace-making as a child and holding grudges don't go together, but they do. Believe me. Anyway, like I said earlier, that's for another post.

But, coming back to my original point, I hold grudges. But sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes I see things that make me want to be the "water off my back" girl. Sometimes I don't want to bite my nails because I'm so angry I can't do anything else. Sometimes I want to avoid the anxiety I have about confronting this weird toxin. All the time I want to be better. Better and better. But I just don't know how.

And let's be honest, I'm not sure I have the energy to put forth the effort. Especially when these people just don't understand how hard life can be. People fucking die and people fucking hurt and i'm fearful, like, all the goddamn time-- and here you are, nonchalantly allowing your children to throw macaroni in my sad face while I'm just trying to live.

I know. I'm selfish. But I've never claimed to be a good person. 

i'm sure hard to handle

My neighbor across the street has died. It's unfortunate. He died alone. And that's a bummer - almost one of my biggest, most brooding fears. Hell, I'm afraid of driving to Indianapolis alone, so dying goes without saying, right? Anyway, his family is here cleaning out his apartment, trashcan after trashcan, box right after box and it got me thinking, what would people find going through my lifelong belongings. It's an odd thing to think about, everyone rummaging through the things I've treasured in my life. Anyway..

 books. (i mean it, BOOKS) bowls. it's sick how much i like buying bowls. random little notebooks with poems. The X-Files on DVD in collector's sets (season 1-7), fabrics i don't really ever intend on using. cleaning supplies, lots of them. my love letters to and from andy. wrapping paper from last holiday season and the season before that and the season before that. rock band. coats i haven't worn; coats i have. bedding because i really don't think anyone can ever have enough sheets. a rosary that would confuse my mom and friends alike. make-up i have never used; make-up well loved and used frequently... i mean, the list goes on.

I haven't seen my neighbor's family keep anything. And isn't that just heartbreaking? And if this blogpost is anything at all, it's a salute to companionship, to my partner in life. Because my grandparents wouldn't want my copy of American Indian Myths and Legends but, i really do believe, andy would go to war for it if i died. Same thing with that little blue prep-bowl we use daily for our meals that i bought that one time at that store that's out of business now. Or that dumb pillow case with obnoxious poppies on it.

I can't even think it through. I'm going to stop.