Featured

The Thoughts That Stop by.

I am wasting time that I could be using

To relax, revive

The spark of creativity at my fingertips

Kidnapped and held hostage

By overwhelm and exhaust.

I am an organized person,

Buried by my chaos of things,

Of ambition, goals.

Every minute is murdered.

I’m not dying, I’m nonchalant.

And while a promotion,

I am not ready to lose momentum,

After finally rebuilding my feet.

Featured

Suspect Class

“…No state shall

deprive any person

of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,

nor deny any person within its jurisdiction

equal protection of the law…”

But, who you are,

Dictates who gets deference,

And who is protected

But, who you are,

Dictates who gets deference,

And who is protected.

The court says

my disability,

dictates my

ability,

thus,

the state can discriminate,

if discrimination makes sense.

But my disability has made me:

more creative.

more persistent.

and at least as capable

as the judges on that bench.

the same is true for millions

just as disabled as I.

So why does misperception,

-why does bias-

why does discrimination,

dictate that a court gets to discriminate

in the name of the law?

Featured

Seeing Shadows Again

Off behind me,

But gaining steam

From tears yet cried

It will come,

And yes, pass too,

But the haunting of shadows,

Memories,

Shoots me every damn time,

Old wounds open

and weep like queens,

Giddy with power over me

I heed,

Bow,

And beg,

Why does see you soon

Hurt

Like death, every time?

Featured

It Isn’t Toxic Waste, but It’ll do

I made chilli,

Not Nalle from a can,

But an echo of Momma’s toxic waste masterpiece,

However weak the sound.

However weak the taste.

I am slightly closer to her.

And I know the missing will come,

As much as I want to ignore death

My chilli is close enough

to make me cry

I want to get it better,

But toxic waste is an art,

and art takes time.

For now pure waste will do

Featured

Loud. A Hammer for a Screw

Loud was a personality trait

Loud and proud.

The silence quicksand

I fought.

But sound,

Is so often the tearing open

Of emotional scars

An auditory,

“That isn’t my reality!

See me!

Hear me!”

Because I expect

that all society sees,

At best,

Is “inspiration porn”

And I cut off my nose

To spite them.

Unfortunately,

My face gushes,

And my tool

Destroyed my purpose.

Before I could leave the lectern.

With a patch on the injury,

I must sell the tools that no longer serve .

Featured

Process and Pricing

If “just writ(ing) down what comes”

Is the cure for writer’s block;

I must relapse every other day.

The flow has yet to strike,

I hear of a non-discript ‘zone ‘

But, much like science fiction,

It has no address or code.

Thus, empty white electrons

Whose shine demands space,

Give me vertigo

Until blanketed

by the hollow black vomit

That slides into a thought

Or a memory.

Featured

Endings

I ache at each,

Soothing, or stabbing

The best or the most destructive,

The viability of the ending,

Matters less than the pages rising,

And collapsing on their brethren.

When all have stopped, I continue.

If only in my aching

for every single one.

Empathy and trauma so woven

There is no separation.

And yet, suddenly,

I see the power in each piece

If I can bring about hegemony

Featured

The Best of Now

When will I be at my home-

(Homeostasis)?

Now I am not flailing,

But I am not swimming at pace.

The water I am swallowing

Is salt soured sips,

Not the murky milk gulps of my past.

I am within the mirage of perfect chaos,

And slipping forward,

Equilibrium will dribble into a puddle,

Underneath where I sit.

Featured

Trauma Didn’t Scream

I know the roots of my family

Are marked with scars

From a demonic thirst,

Drenched with boiled realities.

I know the best of our twisted humor,

And the jackson-polick splashing of rage.

I know being victim and witness affected me.

I can tell at least 9 therapists,

And read their reactions,

As though they were reading a book a book horrors.

I grow and progress carrying my baggage,

Forgetting that some traumas don’t two-step or tap,

Some move throughout existence

As a silent ballet.

Featured

Excitement

I don’t need motivation,

I need her child to start my day.

When I stumble out of bed

I can hear that youthful spirit,

Occasionally echoing

within the tunnels of my being.

The promise of accomplishment is carried by excitement

When I walk alongside

Where i must move through motivation,

willing to carry all the luggage

Featured

Where I Could Be

The girl inside is aching

She wants to see Shania,

Live for the first time in two years,

Alas! A greater calling has stricken.

A purpose past myself.

And though I am not so naive

As to believe she will know me

As anything more, or less,

Than a dancing speck in the distance,

But, I do believe she can appreciate

the reason I chose better law school grades

Over a night of pure joy.

But, why do I have to pay, to learn

And serve my country on the bench?

Featured

Contemplating Myselfies

I take selfies because I am proud,

Of a time, an accomplishment, or a merger.

Those memories we want to hold,  yes.

But more that eyeshadow my Anti-dexterous hands let me have

…free of clown face.

The shoes I could manipulate my feet into,

Within 15 minutes

And those mergers

between the self I feel,

And the self I see,

The mergers I was once dying to see

And would have killed for.

I see those more and more now.

They still feel like I am catching magic,

And I still take pictures.

Featured

Watermelon Memory 🍉

Watermelon is summer with brothers and sisters

And the roo.

The one who screams,

The berater, batter-and-chief.

And watermelon is winter in another town.

Hermiston melons.

With a worshiper of Strappy

Flipping me like a pan-ee-cake

In the cool school morning

Silly and giggley and

“This is how you love,

this is how you stand up for yourself. “

So, even in law school I am the vocal one,

And I am an ego booster for anyone.

Fueled by bipolar fruit at breakfast.

Featured

Me, and Marathons

Life is a marathon,

Not a sprint they say.

But I can do neither of those things.

I would like to suggest instead,

Life is a game park.

At times hammer games,

Usually I am the ball in the game bouncing towards the hole,

Yeah that one.

I don’t know the name anymore

Because I have had so many impacts with the walls

But the persistence is a lot more violent

Then a marathon.

Featured

Who Are We?

If we are afraid of the dark?

If our imagination is closed

To the knowledge of the stars?

Who are we,

If we do not challenge

Our own minds,

Walking the unbeaten path of thought,

Because we already get to beat other people.

Who are we,

If we cannot sit with all that we don’t know,

To learn more about it?

It is up to us to decide.

Featured

Veterans’ Day

I will never understand why

There is one day for veterans.

Why do we need a day to show the respect

That is rarely shown the rest of the time.

Does one day make up for

The half-assed efforts every other day?

We have national doughnut day!

Doughnuts make us happy,

But, all they give is bad health.

Now, I am not implying

That we need to get rid of those golden-glazed-glories.

But, we could at least make it

“national give a vet a doughnut day “

At the very least.

Featured

Let This be The Beginning

I keep trying,

Because one day

If I keep working

I will be able to say

Remember…?

And I will be proud of this struggle.

I will look at time.

Finally aware of its shift

Behind my back.

The shift from drowning,

To fierce swimming

Will come.

Challenge will remain,

But I will master waves of life.

Let today be the beginning.

Featured

Don’t Just Keep Pushing.

I have a habit of trying to ask for help

Only until I am tired.

I give up as a means of energy savings.

In the short term.

But I pay,

Because it costs either way.

But in the end,

The options are two:

Struggle,

and at best barely hang on,

Or pay up front in time,

And succeed, slowly.

But succeed.

Featured

Let There Be Darkness

Monday I was exhausted,

Because of the dropping iron.

Tuesday one word: menstruation.

Wednesday, I don’t even remember.

And Thursday, oh fuck Thursday.

School lockdown,

Migraine number 1,

Two classes,

And a grade that made me cry.

I am better, I have been giving,  working and trying

And this grade, one of few

is none of me.

Moving forward I reapply and push forward.

Hours later, when I break for food,

Power goes out.

And somehow I was hopeful.

Friday I woke.

Unable to sit up,

I vomited in bed.

Vomited so hard and so often,

Everything came out everywhere.

The sound,

The light,

The knocking of the electrician,

It was painful.

I vomited again.

Took it off,

Crawled back to bed.

I slept,

For 24 hours.

But let it be known,

My Ms. Mercy Obsidian

was merciful.

She never got angry that I didn’t feed her.

She waited

purring and keeping me warm.

Which is enough to keep me going.

Featured

Past-Tense Imagining

As with so many other things,

I had an image in my mind’s eye,

A simple one,

The struggle existed,

But I managed to ride that wave,

And in space there is no crashing on the rocks.

But, my extra eye bares a free flying lash in this reality.

I can see,

But reality is muddy.

Featured

Wake up Dancing 💃

I hope you can find a day

When you can wake up

And dance on top the sparks of chaos

For no other reason,

Than the striking of a mood.

Not for being alive,

Not for the fiction of should,

And not as a matter of pity porn.

The morning may be cool,

The sky dark,

And the song you hear

Will be fire you swallow.

Nothing will fit your perfect

But in dancing, you will find,

A temporary sync of your rhythms,

With the soul of the world,

And the change.

Featured

Control

My life, the yo-yo.

Always fishing for the weekend.

I start each week with a plan,

A good one, I’m always sure.

Until it fails,

until I get overwhelmed,

My plan blown up and every piece flying.

I am lucky, I remind myself,

When shrapnel doesn’t hit my gut

But,

Just because my plans fracture.

Even when they shatter

Control is mine.

Because I control the changes I make.

Featured

Signal

I took a “testing” test.

And boy did I need it.

Because I needed to know

How unprepared I was.

It felt like a canon full of shrapnel to the brain.

And here I was overly confident,

Because #priorities.

Pick a class,

Any class,

And run with it.

Two hands can only hold one book.

Time to put the old one down,

And catch the rest up.

But I wouldn’t have looked back

Unless I dropped the testing test along the way.

Featured

The Lessons Missing

Listening to a true crime podcast,

Because I never want to be too comfortable.

I think of the criminal, so called,

And wonder what they would feel

if their family were victims?

And then,

What would happen if children,

Before school became a burden,

Were asked to sit with uncomfortable feelings.

With a simple question,

Can you imagine how it feels???

We want to make children stronger,

But we leave this gapping weakness

So that when feelings overpower,

We are helpless to them,

And thus there is no shortage

Of true crime podcasts.

Featured

Curiosity in Moderation

The only reasons today is different than yesterday,

was a dental appointment.

thus lunch was two hours late

and I laughed hard enough

at a sly mockery of my cat

so intensely that,

for a few seconds I lost control of my evacuatory system.

my productive routine in the limbo corner

getting lower and lower beneath my standard bar

and I woke up singing regardless,

I have never been able to reproduce these days

of joy, for joy’s sake.

I cannot discover the variation in the equation

which feeds my energy, persistence, my patience,

and my happiness.

I can only monitor patterns

and honor these treasures

by blooming, brief as it may last,

in that light.

Featured

Entremist

I laugh at the extreme,

and thus I laugh at myself

all the time.

I have disregarded death

and felt nothing for its power

even rushed though fluorescent halls

into emergency operations,

outcomes uncertain.

Numb.

perhaps because I wear my wounds

like branded clothing,

and dripping blood

is my name-drop.

I fear the power of minds

beyond my own,

because the perception of dependence

dehumanizes me

disables me

far more often

than any body part

and I am always battling

the endless weight of mistaken perceptions

I may not die at the muzzle of a law enforcement officer,

I will live, with my vocal cords crushed repeatedly

by new people every day

who share no uniform features

and I am not the only one

but one of a fraction,

able, and extreme enough,

to draw attention to

another uncomfortable -ism

Featured

Weak of The Living Migraine

I skipped a beat

because my body took *another*

beating,

this reheated corpse,

grew fingers

deep in her right eye socket

which spent two days trying to make room

upon an unproductive torture session

of forty-eight hours,

the digits seemed to uproot,

and migrate a few inches west

to press down between both sockets

the best of both worlds I suppose

signals of nausea and fatigue.

were sent along every roadway of this body,

on horseback, because even in the best neighborhoods,

the post is gutted.

the deliveries kept waking me,

11pm, 2:30am, 3:20am, 5:15am, 6am

the good news is,

this is their winter home

the bad news is

the other three seasons of my body

only last 28 days!

Featured

Past Tense (AKA Group Psychosis)

My eyes catch on the tents we pass

I am one fish in the ocean,

and each tent is a hook

holding a member of my school inside

as they writhe for warmth and

fight for life.

It is nothing but chance

fickle and random

as an unbitten opportunity

that separates us.

I can’t convince myself

that these tents are part

of the context of this moment,

Even though more effort was taken

to hide the forest with the trees before

because tension, and division erases

the need

if the symbiotic creature kills the only host-fish

they both sink to the bottom of the pond

Featured

The Exercise of Life

If picking myself up

after life knocked me flat

was exercise

I would be a bodybuilder at this point

when I was young,

I sought the strength that is confidence

in my interpersonal relations

the ability not to live in the consciousness of a burden,

not to fear the letdown of letdown and loneliness,

to find safety the voice of my desires and boundaries,

without the sound cracking,

whenever I called upon it,

the muscles in my legs are narrow at best,

but when someone asks how I manage to wear

a smile, as I speak of dingy moments,

and how it can remain strong,

I tell them.

I have taught that muscle well,

for it is the only one strong enough

to lift me up when I am knocked down.

it does sometimes step aside to allow for pain and loss

but my muscles of sorrow have little stamina.

Featured

I Don’t Need Children

I went from a child peacemaker

To enter adulthood through a hall of invisible terror

I would have clicked my heels three times,

there’s no one like old Misty,

*click*

there’s no one like child Misty,

*Click*

there’s no one like farsighted Misty,

*CLICK*

Once through that ten-million-mile hall

I have no desire to turn around,

even facing the Sisyphean task

of constantly dressing wounds

of so many siblings,

trying to hold a mother’s tidal wave of chaos at bay.

As I tiptoe through the start of middle age

I am facing the possibility

of a life without children of my own,

but, perhaps I have more to offer than DNA

whose only limit is the span of my entire life

Though that is not the choice I will ever make

I will not feel empty if it is a choice made for me.

Featured

I Despise Erasers (or I did)

Have you ever written, drawn, or otherwise created something that you put hours, or longer into? Did you reflect on your favorite part and excitedly tell your test reader about it, only to find out that they don’t get what you’re trying to say, or see what who you drew? I can’t be alone!

I had two main reactions toward the negative reactions of others, and even my self, which held me back for a long time. First, and especially with writing, I responded by getting defensive or angry. How could “they” understand the picture I’m drawing for the reader? (This was my initial reaction to feedback about the overuse of metaphor!) When I went back to reread the manuscript I started to see them though! Metaphoria, so to speak! So, even though the manuscript has taken 30 months to write, I am editing, changing and plain deleting sections because they take away from the story.

My approach to drawing wasn’t as defensive, I knew I “couldn’t draw.” I could start out ok with a single eye but, when the other eye didn’t look even, I didn’t re draw, I kept going. my hope was that by not hounding for perfection, I could avoid burnout. The end product was always disappointing, and I gave up on drawing for many years.

When I tried again early this year, I started with a low pressure class online. I took my time, I practiced, and I erased and redrew. I liked the instructor. (JW Learning on Skillshare.) He was realistic about mistakes, and redrew parts in his videos! So, I stayed with it, I’m still practicing, learning, and trying again when I know I can do better! Truthfully, erasing and reforming my written imagery and my sketches keeps my desire burning! Time is my friend, so I hang out with my projects as long as needed instead of rushing to complete. The results are fantastic!

What is your experience/ approach to drafting?

Featured

Anger

I prefer explosive anger if I am going to be mad.

I burst, reel, and collect myself,

reflection and redemption are easier

than vendettas or the crackle of annoyance

Anger has a purpose

in fueling growth and change,

but the little flares I get of it

over things I have no power over

are draining in spirit,

and time required for acceptance

some people are mirror opposites

because bursts of rage would destroy them.

through the destruction they would wrought

and it leads me to question my disability

is it a blessing or a curse in that light?

All I Can do is Give You Space

I told you I wanted to know the truth

about how you’re feeling.

the answer being complicated,

all I can do is give you space in my mind.

And for what little it helps,

you have a mansion in my mind right now.

Dropped Papers

You noticed I dropped my Exhibits while I was trying to find An exact phrase to reference

And you judge me as disorganized

I noticed you.
Acting on a misperception

I noticed compliments given unevenly and your silence on errors On one side

I do not hold against that side the errors they made. I question the ones you choose to note.

I did you notice how ableist you were. But I do not judge you. I hope against hope that you just don’t know I had to wonder why I find myself.

Offering you grace And put it on your tab, when you offered me a label disorganized.

In your world, rising to go to the bathroom. As needed is a solution, but if I had How would you have responded?

I knew better than to ask and find out.

I dropped papers.
And if I could rise to pick them up, I would have.
I knew which exhibit was which Even if I had not memorized where each were set on each page, I am disorganized perhaps.
And you are ableist

You didn’t even notice the skill of my colleague.
In your on able frustrated body.  You lost track.
Of her competence,

of her knowledge of the record.

Of her grace.

When she tells me I have room for improvement. Her words have weight and I will act on them.

She even in her able body has taken the time.  To understand The experience of disability and to Admit that she doesn’t know everything about it.
As far as I’m concerned,
Her knowledge is more valuable than yours.

Propping Up a Body

When one feels this awful

It’s hard to remember

If this  thought has scrolled a page before

I cannot tell you how many times

I have propped up a dead body

with pills and hope and time.

That body a puppet driven

By commitment. by determination. by restlessness. by trauma.

by fear.

Self care is a lie And escape so that the world should not feel bad for pushing us.

The workplace is one place

Where it is expected that the Burden should shift to the survivor.

Expected the courtroom be inescapably bias….

That those in power will pretend.

pretend that it’s not unreasonable

If I cannot jump out of the moving vehicle on the highway to insanity

the city of torture that is.
Endless work.

I am liable for the insanity to follow.

The survivor is liable..

And so I prop up a body every other day with medication,with coffee, with time, determination nation, and hope.

and I  continue.

To work.

To change the standard.

I have been told that my endless drive to work is my Trauma.

It’s my childhood;

my need to be approved

But what the people saying that don’t realize? 

The trauma that drives my work is the trauma of business and success?

It is the trauma of this nation. It is their trauma. .

It must end.

So that we don’t have to prop up bodies anymore.

Don’t Let Me

Got me?

I get me,

Gripped tight enough to bruise.

When I am wise-minded and rested

I can tell the difference between

trauma and determination.

Most days I take medication for a sleep disorder.

Fighting a battle on multiple fronts,

I don’t know how, I pick myself up,

My worst enemy is the enemy of my worst enemy,

And don’t they say,

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

My worst enemy

is me.

Black and White Done Under Blue Light

Success is ‘done.’

35 years in,

And I see,

In a fleeting moment

Away from the light,

Why I am perpetully blue.

An accomplishment only exists for me at its death

Because during its life,

I am fighting to breathe.

Living in that mindless

Doorstep of consciousness

Blind in the name of survival

Too pained and exhausted to be anything close to successful.

I am looking at the roots

Of my sense of perpetual

Unenoughness

Marveling

At the simplicity

Of my ostentation

As success sits behind the glow of blue light

SOME NEWS

Hello everyone!~

I want to create more content for you so I am going to! I’ll be posting at least 3 poems a month!

I have also created an option to subscribe to my blog/site. If you subscribe, I will write you a poem on the topic of your choice and feature you on the site for a month. I look forward to engaging more with you all! The monthly subscription is less than $ 1.50.

Slither

I remember that at one moment

I remembered the women lingering

around my connection

she keeps meeting my gaze

but my mind can’t find her.

When she finally cracked and said “fall,”

memory began to slither,

a snake, dismembered just below the vital organs,

I walk, still.

and will fall again,

and I wonder as I move,

not for my fate.

Would the minds resting

on an able body,

and resting on disabling misconceptions

about “people like” me

would they jump

back into a court room,

a classroom,

a seven-hour final exam

not with ease

but with joy

to win,

to learn and question,

to succeed?

No, the deciders

are not as strong.

Sitting Across From A Ghost

All that comes to mind is, more.

More presence in less space.

The stereotypical desire of women I am told

I am teaching my self over time

to grow more

acceptance

confidence over fear

determination over depression

to put down these words feels false today

rosey and naive and I have existed in this place before

just waiting to be swallowed by these hallow concepts

but, they lacked teeth

since I had so many, I crushed my fears and fed them to acceptance

it is not in full form yet; as it started premature and behind, but it is growing.

In most measures I am behind

but, growing, is key

perhaps, I tell myself,

I am so short because as I grow

I drop blossoms in my path

full of a thousand seeds

such that

when I am absent the places I’ve been

I will be permanently present

and those ideas of fear and depression

will be no more than manure

buried deep to fuel the growth of great things yet to come.

May 17th 2019

Low income USA

 / LEAVE A COMMENT

The quiet tenant

who pays rent right on time each month

known for her strolls

rain, or shine, or snow, or 2 hours post colon removal.

Rarely an enemy, often too much a friend

deathly afraid of failure,

starving to be more than what others see

while lacking a mirror.

Education sought. but like a jumping CD,

the same questions repeat upon first contact,

talented enough?

Smart enough?

Brave and strong enough?

Yes. so much so that their “flying colors”

paint the world, feeding it,

thus it grows alongside the standards.

careful climbing,

the ladder is uneven and rickety

more height: more fearful strangers

pushing down those unknown

me. we. i am.us.

Discovering June 10, 2019

All the things I want run heartlessly

knowing my legs cannot follow

the aggressive calls, from the stairwells,

every closed door that weighs at least 5 lb,

the bathrooms, the whole concept is cursed,

kitchens are passively out to, at the very least, mortally wound.

Everything screeches irritated,

“Not welcome here.”

not even segregated.

Just not welcome

like so many categories, pitied

and still further different

utterly without value in the eyes of the whole

specks of golden honey to a colorblind world.

What is labeled “useless” is given, thrown, or buried away.

Mindlessly teased with consciousness and enough sense to know.

What is being offered, and then denied.

And given enough heart to feel it’s poison if it should choose to stop

and instead kill the meadow all around