free. flow// 7.13.23

They are finally working on the crisp apartment building across the street. With certain breezes you can still smell the smoke. You called it Canada… No, it’s just next door. The dampness of fire. The longing for belonging. 

There’s been a few white guys off and on checking-in on the property. A trailer moved-in where the cars used to park. Where I stood that early morning for the missing persons to show their pale whale skin out of the black smoke. I’ve seen two working crews: one mostly all black, another mostly all mexican. The few white guys in the trailer. 

These hot July days it’s been mostly the mexican workers. Ninety degree days with bad air quality. And you’re in the crisp building. I wonder what you notice…I wonder what matters to you. Your shirt says, “Best dad ever.” We are all complaining about the air quality, but for some reason no one can find a fuxking Canadian goose…

It’s a weird process to watch. but for some reason I can’t look away. And, I thought they were going to tear the whole apartment building down. Good for you for saving a brick or two. Should I pat you on the back now? Even though your negligence almost caused lives to stop beating. I don’t know what to tell you. I guess I’m still working through the anger… 

by this time most of the cleaning has already been done. The charred belongings and papers and books, blankets, and pictures, and kitchen plates you brought from home. The pictures. The memory that attached itself to this person you no longer have. And I sit in front of you thinking I almost didn’t have you…

I wonder if you found the cat’s body. That’s me. Thinking about the return of the cat’s body. I am not sure why I had to see Maya’s body after our fire. I am not sure why. But again. One of those things I had to see. As if it would make it better. Knowing she wasn’t burned, none of her black fur was touched by a flame. And if it had? Maybe I couldn’t live with myself then? Perhaps I still can’t live with myself now. But for some reason it helped. The guilty feeling of knowing the smoke got to your lungs first, before the fire got to your body. 

But that it was the smoke that got her first. “It’s peaceful,” they try to tell you. To try and give you some comfort in this in-between. But even then, no matter what, you never— it’s never anything that’s good enough to hear. 

I could imagine she was scared. And that’s the thing that lives in my blood’s memory. A protector that failed to protect, that I failed to get to her in time…

So, the guys work— day-in and day-out— and I’m left wondering what are your complaints? How are your lungs? They break during lunch under the big tree in the grassy park. I see them as I walk past them on my cool-down from my lunch break run. In 90 degree heat because — you’re working too — why shouldn’t I? 

And I’m left thinking about these things. Contemplating these things too much. We are born into privilege, we work for privileges, but when fires burn, when the air quality is intolerable— we all share the same air, don’t we? Where do the Canadian geese go, the squirrels, the homeless, the first-responders when the air is bad? 

It’s not yet seven and the workers have gotten here before the guy with the key to unlock the gate to let them in. One lies on our front grass on his phone. Another on the back bed of his truck, dangling his feet back and forth with a little boy’s innocence…

“…Meanwhile the wild geese, 
high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again…”

and I sit here and wonder—
Will it ever be home again?

...

Another day,
Another dollar.

free. flow// 10.29.21

// “Loving you was easy…

Loving you was easy. It’s the saying goodbye that’s the hardest part. The letting go of the shell. Something us in our shells here have to continue doing and putting meaning to everyday. This month is. pain. It’s hard to breathe as the waters rise&rise. The ones you love, who loved you — their hearts start bleeding…continue bleeding. Half of us fashion the mask to wear. For protection, for survival. But, my God Bub, each time— I do not know how to mask a bleeding heart. So I retreat. And the people who love me, who loved me, they understand. They give me grace in the process, they give comfort in the space between. To know when I am able to rise to the surface again—there they will be.

It hurts seeing how we change. How this changes a person. How it changes you, me. I desperately tried so hard not to fashion a new mask. To make a new one when you left. though I admit to cope I did so at first. I put the mask on and went back to work. Because I had to stop… hurting myself more. Because the pain. The pain was never going to go away. There is no numbing this pain. A pain. Any pain. // “Isn’t it funny to live in a culture that thinks this to be possible?”//

I pull away from social media. Breaks are good for mental and creative clarity but I feel. more disconnected here. Like it’s a hit of the drug I crave the most—connection—but it is nothing of the sort. there is no good high here. no sustainable means here. of connecting here. // “True, authentic connection.”// It’s all hurry. Like, comment, heart, (fake) smile. Like our consumer-driven world, it feels like forever 21 in here. too many choices. too many channels. too many faces. half-told truths. half-told lies. Like Heathrow’s airport except I can’t see your face. Hear your voice. Touch. you. // “So how do I trust. you… with this bleeding heart?”//

// “Bub, where are you?”//

I don’t recognize the man I love anymore. Or perhaps the one face I knew of his when he was with me… it’s gone now and when I see him in this physical world I only see this shell. Like… well, I don’t want to say what it’s like… I just miss my magnolia tree… Oh, trees. With their grace of bearing such weight of time. Of understanding. To talk. To listen. // “When did we stop listening?”// When did we stop talking? No, I don’t mean, “How’s the family?” or “How are you doing?”. to the people who pass us by every few full moons. But to the person across from you who told you to close your eyes and dream. A white dress in front of a desert’s sky. Now you can barely look into his eyes. and just. be. vulnerable. Raw. Shedding the layers. The faces, the masks. The make believes and false pretenses. And the dreams that were once being walked into realities now… // “I’m tired.”// I’m tired, too…

I’m sorry. For the rains that start to flood you. us. They slowly rose above your mouth so you could no longer speak. Above your nose so you could no longer breathe. I’m sorry we let go. But maybe. maybe. Maybe this is the only way to find our way back to ourselves. For when we were together we always tried to save the other. Splashing and splashing. Running and splashing. Perhaps if we surrender to the waters, they’ll show us how to be free again one day. Perhaps in letting each other go, we can learn to swim parallel to the shore…

For there’s a current out here. There’s a current that always takes me away. in October.

free. flow// 3.9.21

When things are happening and you're scared, but the sky tells you to keep going anyway...

Keep. going.

You get in the car and you fill your tank with the fear, the curiosity, the uncertainty&unknown. Your roots grounded but your wings start to expand. To catch the air between each hope, each dream.

// "Why are you so scared to be who you are?"//

Because he said, she said, they told you it was not safe out there? I'm telling you the wilderness is the most freeing of all the landscapes. Away from the confines of your mind.

// "Tell me. Did you invite your heart in when you set up those prisons for yourself?"// Did you sugar them with grace and yet remember the vinegar, the salt of reality? To see what is true before you. Not an assumption, not black, not white. To feel the grey and yet express in colour...

And who would've thought the flirtation of the wind, the call of Spring's birds-- led me to my own reflection.

// "Don't you know I didn't see the colour of my eyes until you did?" // I didn't (even) think to. (Then) I started to... see more of me. I stood there. Right in front of you. That mirror. Right in front of me. This mirror. And I faced myself for the first time. And it wasn't until I swallowed. I inhaled, I exhaled. It wasn't until I said I love you to me... that I was finally free xx

free. flow// January 2020

I cannot speak much on your experience with grief— all i can do is write about my own. Days&nights following the day you left. Nights started scaring me. I became petrified of the dark. I was in love with a boy when you left. Even more so than I let on to believe. Myself and others. But he had fears, insecurities&demons, like you, like me, which kept us from getting closer than we dreamt. So alone I would be at night. A tortured soul. And almost as if I flirted with pain, teased it, played cat&mouse , I welcomed it back time&time again… willfully. Had I become some kind of masochist over the years? Not understanding how to recognize love, letting those I love hurt me, continuously coming back time&time again. // “We forgive the ones we want in our lives.”// // “No, love. Grace. Breathe. And give yourself grace. We love&forgive those we want to remain in our lives. You are learning how to not run. Love yourself with grace.”// Grief started shadowing this love, its importance -- it started setting in & selfishness started. But, God. The nights. Did I tell you how scary the nights were? To me. Me. Feeling like a scared five year old girl longing for her mother. Who cannot call her mother. Because of pride? perhaps. Was she dead, too? No. But I had already been mourning her...See her chapter on “mourning the living.” … but the nights became bad missing you. I started drinking every night just to fall asleep. To fill the void I opened my mind to another. Another who filled the void with philosophy, who wasn’t as close to you, so he would not bring you up...sometimes...sometimes… unless he wanted to make me cry. But I let him in. I let him in my mind. &the alcohol, the philosophy, it became a comfort and new stay -- away from the grief of you. It was how I came to cope. How I would get even just a couple hours of sleep each night. I knew it was numbing, I knew it wasn’t healthy for me, but I was grateful -- thankful for it all the same. ...Those nights. God. Even sometimes now they call me. They beckon me to a bar, to find the lingering smell of cigarette smoke...and I follow it. The nights Bub were so bad. Are so bad. I craved just a body next to me. I remember talking to S in anguish about it. Anybody. Just somebody. Just having a body next to me. Like the time after the fire and I was just a moving vessel—  when I was completely numb—  moving in this space—  but I didn’t know what was happening. As if I were seeing everything from above me, but didn’t know what was going on. I slept with my mom weeks after the fire. It was a torment. &the doctors give you those pills to help you numb further, deeper. I admit the first few nights I was screaming, making myself sick enough, throwing up in the shower—  but the pills. After the pills set in, you are a walking zombie. And you go into this deep darkness, Nietzsche’s deep abyss, as if you need help being shown how to numb or how to walk through this life disconnected. 

But Bub, how is it I was crying and screaming in the shower like a madman? Being in love and still not being able to have him be that person. Be that body beside me. Having someone to just hold me. As if my own demons would allow that either. Maybe not. But at night I craved it. And I told him. I did. I broke. I felt the worst guilt I could ever feel. We were not committed, but we were, and yet I told him I was on the brink of caving—  just to have someone there. I felt awful. And guilty. For craving that, for wanting that. But he couldn’t be that. And why? Was our demons the same but different? // “Does that make sense?”// Where we live in a world where we have become so disconnected that we are in love with the ones we run from and sleep next to another just to fill the space. Running away from the ones we truly love because we’re afraid of that pain. The “what if” pain. The pain that hasn’t even happened yet but we know that back in our head—  this feels so beautiful and timeless, surely this isn’t ‘earthly’ surely this cannot stay, be real. Surely this isn’t love, right? 

And I continued to torture my soul staying in love with this imperfect creature. Who loved me. Who I felt loved me, but pushed me away. And yet I cringed when others touched me, yet craved for someone to hold me. I always knew the alternative. The feeling I felt with C right before we completely were done. When you are lying next to someone but feel so alone. When there is a body there but you feel more alone with a body than that open space. So, what then? You. Me. My demons. I am left choosing between option A or B? Nights all alone with nobody next to me. Or nights alone with a body, a disconnected vessel next to me. To compare loneliness—  is it such a thing? … to finally go searching for the comfort and “home” within yourself. When the people you have loved the most in this world, the same people you have let love you—  when they leave. Abandon you by choice, death, their own happiness, you finally find the courage to go searching for all that’s left—  inside you.