cassiopeia.a better perspective.

.....For she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
Revelation, 18.7

i am an impossible movement

the stars tonight, a simple stark reminder

of origin and order

i inspire constellations, each joint a point

of pure light

a moveable feast*

of skin and surrender

goddess they name me

since i step into life

as it were molded to my feet

a birth rite beyond reason

i tear each collar

snarl at each leash

mocking the owners

as insignificant supplicants

that forgot to leave

proper sacrifice

in the face of a terrible deity

i could make you

forsake your own name

if summoned properly

but i am bored

restless in this guise

of human error

the trials you work through

offer me no consolation

a mindless penance of the blind

working the machinations of the mind

limited to the spectacles of flesh

labor at your clockwork

or envision a greater purpose

serve me your soul

and watch as i mold the clay

toward a greater purpose

when it is all said and done

there is no greater joy

than the feel

of my internal fire

i am the phoenix

and i purify

all that wishes to be consumed.

just be careful.

the devil you know

is oft better than the devil you don't

i writhe in wait.

*ernest hemingway and all due respects.

.the very end of lucky and nikki.

i wonder how you will imagine the story of us

how you'll piecemeal it all together

casting

soundtrack

and how one dimensional you will make our characters

knowing you as i know my own skin

i hear a backdrop

of beatles, nina simone, self-pity, and regret

and see the grayscale your self-justified mind paints in

the costume i own

seems eerily similar to the role i walked away from

to begin with

but by all means

give yourself all the reasons

why i doomed our addictive love story

and made it into a lifetime movie

i forgive you even now for your blind hindsight

rearrange everything, my love

i knew very well

how the bits of your puzzle

didn't fit the overall mosaic i strive everyday

to make with the broken parts of my mind

but stubbornly, i wore your collar and your dream

like a tattered security blanket

that's part of the deal

i have to play the villain

a gluttonous idiot

feasting on fucking and foolishness

how often did i not

fill the emptiness in you

and how often was that intentional?

how many times did i not

satisfy your hollow hunger

and how many times did i not care?

put it all together

my goddess

and make it into

a flimsy, nonsensical bandage

over your heart

tell them all

how self-centered i am

whenever they ask

and how you sacrificed it all

to appease the mindless god

that i became

walk the path of martyr

and don't forget

to carry on your bent back

the crucifix forged

out of resentment and need

and while you are busy playing storyteller

even to yourself

i will know

that a decade of loving you

did not change you

nor did it alter my sight

i will know

that the memories

you will hold closest

will always pale in comparison to

the harsh truths of a life well lived

and

i will know

that no one will ever

know you

while you are busy

spinning tales

of tragedy and victim

selective memory

will keep you just as

unfulfilled as my love did

keep to your script

and its shallow comfort

my beloved

i know

it is all you will have

when nothing else

will do.

.ashes.

‘what am i, darling? 
cheers darlin’

i’ve been coaxed
out of this hole
rough-spun words
harsher from the glare
of computer screen and it’s impersonal removal
of more than a decade

more than coaxed
hoaxed into playing a shadow
i no longer recognize
in knife gleam
but the green eyes blaze
their defensive stance again
and a guilt i do not deserve

the love i bear you

more than a decade

i can only sigh
the sword is rusty
and i am in no state for war

i have battled so long
i was more wounded
that i could possibly have shown

gathering those who love me best
with a question
‘who am i, since all has gone black?’
pleadings to replace the memories
i destroyed along with every bridge
i burned with ferocious abandon
that would have brought me back
full circle
yet each green pill
propelled me farther into chalk outlines
of characters i pulled into
like clothes that were once home
and couldn’t possibly bind the phoenix any more
than i could be who i was
ashes fall where recollection should be

a call cradled in scar tissue
that built over older wounds
i knew once

my mind circled over and over
with nonsensical heeding
of each mouth born with their own agendas

you are queen
they all say
queen?
the hearts are all splayed
against the walls
carnivore and voracious
i devoured and displayed
the trophies
that atrophied
when i tore the card into pieces
and whispered them into the wind

let the keepers of time carry them
i only wish to be loved
and healed

how often did i play healer
confessional
therapist
when i was slowly losing
more than myself

i have misplaced and misused
the mind that might have kept score
yet i never knew i had to tally up
with the ones i loved most

i am lost
along with you
and i always kept the faith
that within the fog
i could reach out
and feel your hand

your bitterness
i could spit out easily
on a brighter day

our hands built differently
but the cast has always been
a die that should have been kinder
to softer palms
so forgive me
for not being able to grant what you would want

i was busy
rummaging in the dirt
for all the pieces remaining
of my own shattered psyche

and i just simply believed that love
would have brought me home

the realization of difference
in love and perspective
has once again
left me shuffling debris alone

who is anyone
to tell me
at this point
what is best for the fallen queen
and the shade that rests in her place
when i have always loved you all

unconditionally.

.psychotherapy session.

`prophet!' said i, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
on this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, i implore -
is there - is there balm in gilead? - tell me - tell me, i implore!'
quoth the raven, `nevermore.'

                                                                        -edgar allen poe

“black bird singing in the dead of night
take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free”

                                                                        -the beatles

the metronome sings to me.  low and consistent, the beat of my own heart its accompaniment.  sway of pendulum and i swallow silence in between movements.  blink and there sits vertigo.  sigh and remember there is not enough breath.  consistent, oh how convenient.  what is it that they take from me?

“i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you”

fade, mirage, i am not ready for your mockery.  my skin crawls and i stare again, back into the pulse.  reading eyes, a remembrance.  i recognize madness, desperation, solitude.  my own?  steady reflections.  no ripples in the water, although it is depthless.  i sigh again and watch now the dancing candle, the little lick courting oxygen persistently as it cracks.  knife point.

let me feed you my love.  from my very own skin.  perhaps that will appease?  i laugh at myself.  if i could divvy out portions in equal measure, and love you within sacrifice, will you wake up? will you blink outside blank page blindness and see the concoction of syllable and prayer….an incantation that flutters in tune with the metronome…

tick, tick, tick.

yes a reminder.  hold me down to the ground with your consistency; bind my wings in rosary-beaded wax.  breath comes quicker now.  sit still….distilled silence coating feathers.  quicksilver shines inside eyelashes but feed me not your tears.  i am gluttonous with my own, thank you.

snap of the fingers and i open my eyes.  there sits the man who moved so quickly into the library of hidden shame, a labyrinthine model of neurosis.  he says nothing only smiles and i shift uncomfortably as i move from lying to sitting.  heh, lying.  there is no lying here in this wooden office.   only the metronome as my witness and this man as my guide. 

the shadow is a powerful thing, he remarks.  i nod.  jungian terminology and i have studied it all.  i believe you, i think to myself, but now you are about to mechanize another fall from grace.  you often feel flighty, usually being able to anticipate others and react accordingly, he states and i frown.  isn’t that how human reaction usually is?  the selfish, the id, the shadow.  desire, instinct.  his eyes quiet me, commanding, masculine, dark.  instead i turn my head and offer submission.  always back to the themes of animalistic dominance, sadism, aggression.

if i am the raven, are you the cat?  a dangerous game.  don’t you know that as you interpret my sins, i see the process of your mind…the lure.

i will see you next week.

i lick my lips and respond, yes, you will.

aequitas

my first performance.
old san juan. the poets passage.
my journey has brought me to places i still have yet to understand but i am forever grateful.

dream reposed

'the trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense.  reality never makes sense.' – the genius and the goddess by aldous huxley

 

one pill makes me big, one pill makes me small and one pill does nothing at all. -emiliana torrini

i dreamt of schizophrenia

the colors of beautiful madness

a quilt of patchwork words,

that outline freedom from guilt

threaded and encoded and strung together words

whose perspective is blindingly simple

in truth

interestingly

i have played with aphasia

for nearly two decades

when it was simply

the wrong written in all the right ways

a writer’s mind is a tremulous and incredulous thing

neuronal pathways

that lead to duplicitous presents

factitious pasts

and more than likely futures

prophet-seer

whose deeds are marked as illness

clouding the tongue in cotton

how much could one do and undo

act, react, and cause

and watch all effects

that are as much removed

as the heart is from the mind

and still live tied to the living?

is my nature such a duality

that i walk the quicksilver lining

between phantom and pharisee

goddess and ghost

watch

what i push out

in attaching syllable, word, line

stanza

lyric

poem

will be overlooked

as heretical nonsense

given as much attention and sight

as the mutterings of psychotic ramblings

found along pale dingy corridors of the asylums

that exist in secret

unless you perhaps go mad yourself

and keep company there

to remind that you see clearer than

even the caretakers

who come with little paper cups

filled with the colors

you have no choice but to wear

inside your throat

spend days

watching the shuffling steps

of the forgotten

and make music with the repetitions

mark time with the sun moving slowly from

the windows that televise a reality

so far removed

from what is real

in such places

there are no clocks

no pictures on the walls

only the prophets

the forgotten

the poets

and the few that will be free to go

once the clerical error is found

i dreamt of schizophrenia

and it was wrapped so tightly

around my shoulders

i almost sighed in relief

and when you are ready

we can have a true conversation

about what is false and true

when we walk among the mad

and deem them the sane ones.

different

revenge - the absolute