wild melody

*notes scribbled in my phone recently after listening to podcasts about the white supremacy rampant in evangelical christianity*  i think that day i went to the garage and screamed at the sky, i was becoming an atheist. i was desperately pleading with God to show up bc i didn't believe he existed anymore, bc he hadn't met me. bc i could explain every supposed spiritual comfort with science, with delusion. i felt fooled abandoned desolate i was overwhelmed by loss and i didn't have a language or a means of articulating what was happening in my brain. i didn't choose God bc i was so sure He was real. i loudly proclaimed & inked it on my skin that I was choosing him bc i was so afraid he wasn't.  i was so scared, so lost. so i forced it. i thought i could choose to believe and silence all my questions but i couldn't. i truly believe i found God again somehow in ukraine.  but i think what i'm walking through now is the fallout of having really been an agnost...

you're listening, focusing on the top of her head as she leans out over the fence to avoid looking at either of us. this story isn't pretty, or neat, or easy to tell. her voice rises & falls with the rhythm of the waves. i'm trying to focus, trying to listen. but i can see your face. so i am lost somewhere in one of my universes. the one i hate the most, where puzzle pieces & numbers & fragments of color that i don't recall even seeing, much less taking note of; suddenly collide into a picture. an image i didn't see coming. (how is it that i never see these truth bombs coming until they are fully formed in my mind? who invented this instant connect-the-dots processor? can i return it for a refund? i'd rather realize things slowly or not at all. the human mind needs time to figure these things out thank you very much) so many small gestures & individual words & moments of frustration make sense now. i get it. i don't know what i...

i have so many ideas, moments, snapshots, thoughts locked inside. pivotal & mundane, deep & lighthearted. all of it wants out, all of it i'm afraid i'll forget; none of it seems to have language. where is the expression format for those of us who struggle with words? sometimes i wonder how such a (supposedly) small human can hold so much. at least, i am told that i am small, people try to pick me up--which ends badly for them-- (i'm a grown-ass woman what.the.hell do they expect?!) or ask how i reach things & tell me "your feet can't be tired you're so tiny they carry no weight" (america explain) & the whole world can see over my head & also runs me over because of that last phrase. in fact one of my friends recently picked up my disgusting work shoes because he couldn't believe how little it was. i don't *feel* small. this is my skin, and i can't compare it to any other skin. it's always been a funny reminder, like ...

“what are your dreams for your thirties?”  i know she’s talking to me but it hits me with the force of a stone fist to the chest. how can she drop such an earth-shattering sentence in the middle of yoga? i glance at our bird to my right, buying time.  “me or liliya?” “you, obviously.” “oh.” my thoughts scramble as liliya laughs and says something about how she has two years left how can she think about that yet?  “i’ve known what my goal for thirty was since i was 27.” i say, trying to stop the words bc i can’t —don’t want —to explain them. now both friends are looking at me expectantly and i.... am empty. my mind is a mess bc feelings. all these emotions of pain & regret & the deep excruciating ache of loss swirls up to my throat. the familiar suffocation of T I M E slowly covers my heart.  i have several flashes of realization at the same time: these girls love me.   i have to face this grief. i can’t run from it anyway. none of ...

i sat on the front steps in a corner of brooklyn, too close to government housing to be "cool" but too close to hipsters to be really "scary". trying to read the pages of my new-used book. sun was warm, breeze was cold, & i was really hoping to embrace sunday afternoon. except it was hard to focus on the words. my damn heart wouldn't be silent. so instead i give up. look up. i see you 5 houses down, also reading on your stoop but my glance keeps going. i think i hate that you can focus and i can't at the moment. breathe. if you can't escape your head, you might as well live in it. dive into the moment. there's a story for all the souls sharing this corner of the world with me. i invent some, deduce others: the two old men playing chess in the housing project gated yard a few sidewalk cracks to the left? they've been enemies since grade school. one traveled the world as a grip for a documentary filmmaker, but he's come home to care...

twenty nine. two months in, and i'm thinking this is going to be a hard year. but one that i hope proves to be integral to growth, to healing; to looking back next year from a better place. it seems i can't heal emotionally until i confront the lion in the corner. it's the scariest of all my demons. it's the pieces of me that were most damaged by abuse and that were at one time most important. the fragments of memory still hurt when i bump into them. i don't know how to begin, where to start, what this looks like. but i know i need it. i can't wait anymore. i can't let fear keep me from moving forward. it's a strange thing, that i can't move on emotionally until i sort out who i am spiritually. the two shouldn't be connected in my head. but here they are. proclaiming loudly that they're as intertwined as clouds in a sky. i can't have one without the other. i am terrified. i'm more scared of God than i am my father at this...