women, poets: do not do this

“Do I fall for men not this girl’s father—as fuel? As a tonic for the waiting? As a way to ruin? As a way to subvert some painful remnant?

It is so easy to abandon the self—-as the lover becomes the constant daydream which life interrupts.”

From Kimiko Hahn’s “After Opening her Text” – from The Narrow Road to the Interior



Dammit, is there something on my skin?
Cut the mane, cut the cords, I look into menboys eyes
and see their soul, the space between Them and Everything,
like the emptiness between neurons—
love is a neurotransmitter of height, and bluebluesky,
and dark earth and skin-toned rainbows.

Love is the chain around my heart,
the locket that clicks: open, close,
swollen joints, like a bone spur, two synapses, a scent-memory…
The sea air in France.
Then San Francisco.
His cologne like redwood bark, sharp woody earth scent, soft as skin that’s never seen day.

Darlings need IVs of meaning into their energy ducts,
set their chakras spinning with wild food and OM and an open-eyed kiss.
They come giving me their feelings, their second thoughts,
and I don’t know what else to do but bury them.
Pick up the shovel and run. Send them back, reroute
faux passion: you think you can get that love from me?
Honey, you are higher than I thought.

Sink down, turn around, look to me for the road
but not it’s ending
both heart and hearth are in that pinpoint of life
that keeps you whirling like a pottery wheel,
you are the kenning and the poetry and the song that won’t stop singing.
Baby quit chasing me and take it straight—
I’m willow of wisp, I’m siren of the sick,
to fall in love with anyone but yourself is the ultimate sin,
put your hand in the fire and I vanish like dawn mists, like desire,
like smoke and your soul I am everything, nothing,
the spokes of the wheel and it’s ever-beginning—how can I inject this connection?
How to show you: run your hands down both our lengths and tell me they are not perfectly mirrored, that after wethey implode in a lightgasm of chance all is not rightfully balanced.
Close your eyes for two hours.
Bury yourself in a mountain.
Watch children, ocean waves, learn how to sew yourself up and roast good meat.

But I digress: think:

Priestess as psychologist?
My hormones are phosphorous
but darling you glow just as bright if you’d take those pennies off your eyes.
I can only sit back, assess, diagnose and confirm,
send you away with white bottles and smudge sticks and a message you may not even hear.
I can’t read for you, can’t dream for you, can’t fuck for you,
even from the couch you are sad enough to break my heart, but no…
Can love you, yes, but you’re choking on a culture that demands finding fullness in the other
and empty tv screens and blank hearts and hate,
spit it out and put something good in your mouth for once:
green clover,
the truly wanted, your lover,
yourself,
hold it there.
taste.
then relish the hollow in the back of your tongue, the lump In your throat.
Stop goddamn running and start godbless praying, baby, ask and ribbons will spring from your fingertips, bridges and railroad tracks and sturdy hands will grasp the farthest things, bright loving edges of a horizon, a fulfillment you thought you could never hold on to--

self-love day 09

Like a lot of single girls women people, I used to get pretty angsty over being "single", especially on Valentine's Day. Over the past couple years I've realized a lot of truths about relationships of all sorts, written a lot of word vomit, listened to an ass-ton of Alanis and Ani, found the quirkyalone movement, fallen in and been pushed out of love, and finally come to acknowledge that I have found my special someone--myself! And in the face of heteronormative do-or-die romanticism, my friends are just as, probably more, important to me than any certain someone.

Today is Self-Love day, and I've spent it helping elementary schoolers with science projects, falling more in love with this city, and getting my Shakespeare gender-bender on in true queer-English-geek form. And of course, memeing. (es de daisy, one of the upper echelon of awesome blogistas in my life.)

Self Love Day 09!

1.) Post one of them thar banners on your blog and declare February 14th as the day you not only love your one and only, but the day that you love yourself!
2.) Post one nice thing about yourself……then ask others to post one thing that they really like about you.
3.) Enjoy yourself!


So, something nice about myself:

This sounds arrogant, cliche, hella Xian, or all of the above, but: my faith will get me through so, so much. It seems strange to me when people say "My faith got me through it", as though it's a last resort or a crutch, as though life wasn't made of faith. I sometimes feel like I've got an umbilical cord to the Universe, providing a context and Eagle's eyes for all of my actions. It's a weight sometimes, especially in this culture, but always a blessing. My faith doesn't get me through things, it pulls me to them, the one untangled thread in the loom of crazy that sometimes inhabits my brain.

Also, petty-nice thing--I think I have really, really pretty hair.

Now is the time to ask--any lurkers have nice things to say about me, themselves, the universe, etc ad inf? Do so :) Mwah!-mwah!s to all my relations. -t

Constructing the "I"

What makes you fall in love with yourself?

(This may sound like the same question, but it's not: What makes [made] you fall in love with me?)

How do you prove yourself to yourself? To others?


My answer: I don't know yet, specifically. In my own mind I am an energy, a taste, a be-ing, but I think of specific things: my poetry, the sweetness of my own skin, a desire to serve, good listening skills... it's good, but am I really in love with it?

It's ironic that when in love with another (or as "another" we can be) things to adore just bubble up, but how often do we do this for ourselves?

So what makes you unique to you, what makes sends you head over heels everytime you look in the mirror?

I have no idea how this relates to our current reading, "The Tale of Genji" by Lady Murasaki, but it was what we discussed in my humanities seminar today. Interesting as all hell.

Dear Universe,

I want-need, in this order:

1. To have my ideals, intellect, goals, ideas, and body mutually respected--not overprotected or singularly revered.

2. To be held.






With love, T.


(I could say a million other things, but honestly: this is what I am starved for.)

Re-Stepping onto the Mat

My yoga practice differs greatly from many others, for both obvious and more subtle reasons. Most people in the West, if they delve deeper into their practice, it is to physically strengthen themselves, conquer asana (pose) after asana, maybe bringing some meditation/relaxation into the practice. Of course, when we clear the mind that opens a channel for change, and many people do find their lives—their selfs—changing greatly after taking up regular meditation. From what I’ve seen, unless someone possesses a great depth and, usually, a great trauma or hurt in their lives, they rarely take the time and thought to use the philosophy of yoga in conjunction with mat practice as a conscious tool for change.

Since I’ve restarted, that’s kind of what I want from my practice—conscious change. When I first got into yoga, I went in to class blithe and enthusiastic—at first. I was overjoyed to find something physical to do that I truly enjoyed, and determined, finally, to accept, explore, and love my body for what it was. Who cares if I can’t touch my fingers to my shoulders? Who cares if I can’t straighten my arms, or if I collapse in downward dog, or can’t rest back on my heels? I went home every night ignoring the pain, relishing in finally feeling energy and tranquility flow through me in ways I couldn’t remember ever feeling before. Always, since childhood, I remember mostly feeling anxious and stressed—either too much in my body, (irrationally?) fearing for my well-being; or entirely out of it, head in the clouds or a book. Yoga equaled peace to me… Until I came down from the initial high and began to look around. The studio I went to did not have kind energy towards the physically unable, the intellectual, or the lower-middle class. It abounded with “kick my ass” suburban moms and twenty-somethings, and more middle-aged lean-serene-yoga-machinis, and had zero sense of community. I began looking around classes, seeing people older than my mother easily doing poses that made me shake and wince. I did remain optimistic, but the idea of my own youth, my own weakness chewed on my mind. Something is wrong here.

And then I was diagnosed. This was after I had finished yoga for the summer, and was off to live my first year at college. A week later I was on a toxic drug that didn’t help at all, had a rhuematologist’s card in my wallet—just in case—and was moved into a dorm with a full load of classes to tackle. Leaving home for the first time, adjusting to the big city, and being diagnosed with a crippling, incurable disease—rheumatoid arthritis— it’s no wonder I was miserable that autumn, though I didn’t realize at the time. I let myself wear sweatpants to class, something I had never done in high school, as I took school seriously. Looking around me, college felt like an extension of the yoga studio—everyone professional, exuberant, well-dressed and well-adjusted, while I sat in the back of my mathclass in stained sweatpants and slippers, aching everywhere despite the Plaquenil. I took a yoga class that semester but only learned, from my rather hippie professor, who looked like santa claus, that Bikram yoga symbolizes everything that is wrong with society today. We did the same slow 4 sun salutations every class, and my mind was usually elsewhere.

After some changes that made spring semester amazing—namely a new roommate, less lounge clothes, and more medication—I’m back home for the summer and at a new yoga studio. I work four hours a week in exchange for free classes, and am on good terms with the owners and a few teachers. I’ve had nine months to come to terms with the words chronic and dehabilitating, and am finally ready to consciously use my Self & yoga as a tool for change in my life. Trouble is, I’m not sure what to do. I never had an intention beyond “love thyself” in former classes, and the last few weeks I’ve spent getting reacquainted with yoga. But now I need an intention—I’ve never felt good categorizing or settling on a single thing for myself, whether it’s sexuality or religion or disease. I don’t want to devote myself to one thing, I want to experience them all, so the labels I do use are usually complicated—“Eclectic Pagan”, “sapiosexually panamorous”. I’m a poet—at least that I can settle on—I like words, I like descriptions, I was made to define and expand upon everything I experience. One word, one idea just won’t do it for me.

A yoga teacher, who’s classes I’ve been to before, described my practice to a mutual friend as pain. Albeit, her classes are Vinyasa (Flow) classes, and I’d say a 7 on the 1-10 Unofficial Difficulty Scale o’ Yoga. So yes,I was in pain during most of her classes—but I found her energy and style of teaching so uplifting I chose to take those classes anyway. I’ve thought about this, pain as a practice—am I causing myself pain by practicing? pain I have to work through? The teacher who made the comment continued, saying that I’d reach a point where the pain would no longer matter. I believe she referred to a change of consciousness, but when I first hear that I was undeniably pissed.

Anyone who has rheumatoid, fibromyalgia, lupus, etc, will tell you that one of the worst things to hear is “work through the pain”. This is not acute pain. This is not a stitch in your side trying to reach the finish line, or a cramped muscle, or a bleeding wound you can sew up. There is no before and after, this is chronic pain, this is waking and sleeping and breathing, pain is not a few moments but your life. By working through—ignoring—acute pain that you feel, you are probably causing irreversible damage to yourself. And I guess you can argue that with any pain, but then I think about the pain that signifies change, acute pain. Something that comes on all of a sudden, something you can forget about once in a while, something that will fade. The death of a loved one, breaking a bone, building muscle. That is the pain we need—the kind that allows growth. Chronic pain, I believe, causes damage without growth (as we were not meant to live in pain), and arises when we hold on to things and refuse to accept what is. When we refuse to surrender and accept the thing that caused the pain, that is what damages us. (And of course, to be explored another time: what I am I not accepting that has manifested into RA?)

Unless you have gone through chronic pain, do not tell me to work through my disease, my pain. Unless you have said disease, an in-depth background in physiology, or are my mother/best friend, you probably don’t understand what you’re saying. (And if you are my mother or friend, you still probably don’t, but we understand each other). When I leave the classroom, the mat, the job, I’ll still have this ache or that flare. My immune system doesn’t sleep, my fingers will not reform when I leave your presence. Getting out of bed is working through the pain. Living is working through the pain. If my practice is pain, then so is my life, as terribly cliché as that sounds. But then, aren’t we supposed to extend our mat into our everyday life, and act from a place of love and acceptance in our mundane encounters and not just in yoga class? I suppose this is why I’m having a hard time “deciding” on an intention for my practice, because to me ife is part of my mat and vice versa. My only “intention” in life is to do my best, to act from a place of love, to strive to be closer to the Divine—that is, happiness, eudemonia—in all that I do. It unnerves me to bring such a vague concept to the mat, for if it isn’t a specific intention I find my mind wandering. I still get a spiritual experience, but not as strong as I’d like. (Or perhaps, not as strong as I feel I *should* get. Hmm.)

Four times now in the past year I’ve drawn Medicine Cards in reference to my yoga practice, and always gotten the same two—Dolphin and Turtle. Dolphin signifies mana, or life force, and connecting to that life force through the breath. Turtle signifies the bounty of mother earth, and using one’s boundaries properties. So before my stretch class tonight I drew Turtle, for the second time, and read it again—I realized, especially after beginning Susun Weed’s Healing Wise, that one way to abundance is through surrendering to the Mother Earth, who in turn surrenders to you. I’ve had a lot of problems with energy and feeling constantly drained/numb, and also have always had issues with security and trust. The idea of giving away physical things has always scared me, I remember identifying so strongly with the things I owned and took into me (food) that disrupting any of that—losing things, giving things away, sharing—made me extremely anxious and hostile. I remember around 8 ot 9 struggling to feed myself, analyzing and planning my meals for maximum nutritional affect, but feeling guilty for eating any more than my sister because I knew we were on a tight budget. The idea of dying and no longer being “me” has kept me up at night as long as I can remember. I’ve gotten a lot better since it was shown to me, again and again, “you get what give”. The generosity of the Universe only extends as far as you do. So tonight in stretch class I gave everything to the Everything, selflessly, but with the faith and trust that S/He woud love me right back. I gave away the new opening I could feel in each muscle, the discomfort, the tingling energy rising up. And she gave right back—I breathed a little deeper into each pose, the idea for this post slowly surfaced in my mind. You eat me, I eat you. The teacher, a kind woman, leaned over to correct my pigeon toes and there were silver turtles dangling from her wrist.