The fig

She came through the water in parts and knew most of her body was missing. Her colors all faded. It was one hour past dusk in her own time. She saddled her horse and rode east. She arrived at the fig two hours later, climbed its branches up to the farthest peak and dove in. She swam, avoiding the fiery pits of twinkling lights. She carved until her fingers bled. Then raced back before dawn, sun nearly rising and emerged on the other side. She checked her forearm and watched as it brightened and the violet embers of her healing fig faded.

Give Love

It's Friday on a Wednesday. I have a four-day weekend of peace, love and turkey to cheer about, and a wondrous world to be thankful for.

Much love to you all.
xoxo

Listed

I would give you what you think you want.
But I know you better than that.

Sometimes I prefer to start at the end and walk backwards.
Where is the end? If only I could remember.
I was born under a roaming sun.
I have poor directional sense.
I’m making a list of things I’d like to remember.
But I can’t take paper, memories or tattoos
to the other side.

Circus lovers

On the sand. You hold my hand and a kite string. The world springs out of a jack-in-the-box.
We catapult into the wheel of death. I say Fire in Cantonese and explain I speak 301 languages. I close my eyes and forget them all. We stand on the moon alone.

Entre dos aguas

Friday inspiration:

Paco de Lucia (1976)

Demons of mine

I was born with little demons that crossed over from the other side on the first day I saw light. We were attached. Of course, it wasn’t actually the first day I’d ever seen light because it’s never the first day anymore. They knew this too.

They had little black eyes that they’d wink at me with and I knew they were all mine.
But as I grew I forgot that I owned them. I forgot that without me they’d drift all the way back to that other world where their little black eyes would see nothing at all. And they forgot too.

One night I cowered under the covers certain that if they found me they’d devour me in one blink.
But then I remembered why they couldn’t.
“I own you,” I said as they hovered.
And they cowered a little.

Then I stood like a giant ghost beneath my sheet.
“I own you!” I said again. And they cringed.

Then I grabbed them, one in each hand and watched as they flickered and their thorny wings grew dim. I shoved them into a glass jar and screwed the lid shut.

The next morning I opened the lid and watched as they flew away careful not to prick me with their thorny wings. And I smiled and they blinked and I realized they were just butterflies. And that the only demons I’ve ever known were never out there, but in me.

Stumbling

We stumbled up

the stairs. You held my face and it burned. 

We spent ten minutes on that clear

counter-top in your kitchen

before you disappeared.

Cast

I was visiting moments like they were dripped-through ice-cream cones and coming up blank. The sun was sinking fast then and I was running out of road. Some days every word is a dead end. But I didn’t fear the end and even the realization that I wasn’t afraid brought up nothing. Then it was luck that conjured the image, but I didn’t care. It was the first impulse I’d had and I followed it.

I pulled onto the bridge just as the road veered hoping to find something but expecting nothing at all. Hello?” But it was my own voice I heard winding around the vacant ledge. Another dead end, and the sun sunk deeper. I sat and folded my legs over the edge and allowed their weight to hang. It was as if I’d been swallowed by the damp sky and it had merged with the sea and I could no longer tell which was which. A giant wave began to form then somewhere out beneath the grey and swept toward me and all I wanted was to know. But all the while I’d had no questions. I'd driven out to the bridge and sat on the ledge and accepted the emptiness of it all, the dead ends. I'd never cared enough to question whether or not I’d created them. But the sudden grey and shift in temperature had prompted this wave that forged its way toward me and now I needed to know.