in a light bulb...

i know we are we are the lucky ones

bif says this. bif naked. she's from here i think. she's all tattooed and pretty and in-your-face and has a sweet sounding voice nevertheless in between the gutteral sounds...

she speaks to me in this though and i love her for that.

and i do feel lucky today, more so when i hear that others have been unlucky- they are heartbroken and lonely and sick. and it is horrible that through that i feel that i am healthy and loved and able to get through this. am i a lucky one? or am i an ignorant one?

my friend still lays in the hospital bed waiting for his body to catch up and i am here worried about deadlines and snow boots and bad hair days. luck is tricky, Luke luck. he is my overseer, the one that makes sure that nothing bad happens or if it does that beauty comes out of it.

mom says that i live a charmed life. today i believe it.

Going Home

soon soon. i'll be gone from here, the city, the noise, the people, the subway, work, school, classes, back to the simple, back to the room i had when i was little. but the monsters are gone, and i'm not scared of the dark.

fire lily

Fire and Hope

i met a man today who had no face
claimed by fire
his lips, his ears, his nose
his eyes could see me
in them I.
and he reached out his hand
for me to take it
but i am afraid to take it
in case i hurt him
in case i hurt me
i am afraid
it looks so dead, waxen
unattached and
would it feel like putty pulled over bone?



i am lucky
but i have seen the unlucky ones
on the bus, in the lines, on the corner
and i know they are unlucky
when their eyes don't shine
and their lips don't move with the music
of the city
their feet scuff the sidewalk
and i call
but they won't answer.

The Marthas

Cleansing the Space

yes. it is a necessity to clear out, clean up, move, shift, dust, dance, lift, carry away all the things that linger, the things that you don't want, the thoughts that plague you long after the crisis. that's what i did. i cleaned the space and i cleaned myself inside and out.

and here i am. ready to take on what i need to. ready to devour other people's words and make them my own. ready to make creative the stagnant, make beautiful the ugly smudges of coffee on the pages. there is coffee beside me getting cold.

i feel young, 5 year old young. i found a picture to remember what i looked like and in it i see the thoughts that i had, so worried and so uncertain of the people around me, of what i was supposed to do, who i was supposed to be, why i was so much taller than everyone else, that much closer to heaven and yet completely unaware of this gift. it made me angry, this being different. i wanted to be a jessica, a vanessa, a jennifer, an allison, a lisa, a jackie, even a mary but not me. i wasn't ready to be me, a young girl with an old woman's name. it's something i needed to grow into. and now i love it, the other marthas and i have a link, we have a secret, you can see it in our eyes, we are the lucky ones to have had to grow into our names, to have something, a force make us grow. we are the morning glory vines, we grow so much and so fast that we have to wrap around each other before space can catch up.

me and my geraniums

Morning Snow and Archivaria

I finally joined the ACA and got my very own beautiful copy of Archivaria. It's great, interesting, there is even some material that I can use for both of my major papers! Okay enough of this.

I'm up early for me and the sun isn't shining but it's bright and the snow makes everything look all clean even the cars and their dirty exhaust pipes. I've got the place to myself. Mona has her back to me, mad because this morning I shooed her away from her morning "must-clean-Martha's-face" routine. I feel good, using "I" too much but that happens when you are all alone and enjoying your own company. I am here. I am happy. I am awake. I am thirsty. I am hungry. I am going to have to go into school and work on that paper....and they say that the life of a student is magical. Hmmmm.

I'm 23 and I have yet to publish my first novel, buy a house, marry my sweetheart, land the perfect job, do a full cleaning of the apartment, come to terms with my idiosyncrasies and emerge the woman on the clamshell, the geranium in bloom on the windowsill, the butterfly, the worm afraid of drowning. Why is it that as busy as I get, the things that are sacrificed are the things that I love the most? Laying in bed reading, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, painting, knitting, making anything, visiting with my people, my person...I've got to stop that.

My Mona Bologna
My Girlie Goo

Today and Every Day

It's about time I started doing this. My fingers are aching to type away at something interesting, something that doesn't have a specific deadline, or outline or best practices involved. It's scary that I haven't written in a long time. It used to be right before I went to bed but now it's making sure I'm getting enough sleep, that Mona's fed and there's enough time to say I love you over the phone. How those three little words get lost over the phone...

I'm a little worried about how this will go, but I know that I am only fooling myself. This will be yet another scapegoat, another reason why I am writing that paper the night before when I've had months and months of thinking time.

It's a Friday night and here I am, me and my cat. I am supposed to be working on that aforementioned paper - the just out of reach- but here I am typing and listening to the hum of the computer over the noise of the outside. There are so many things I am supposed to be doing, to have done, to have all thought out and planned and ready and...damn it sometimes it's just easier to be like Luke and NOT WORRY. But how is that possible? How can I let go of something I have become so attached to; a presence that is always with me? Yes, my worried mind is my constant companion.

But let me shift. This is supposed to (bah that damn word) be a space for me to finally be creative. It's been too long and I am so pale. I want to write here, write nothing, write everything, make it all make sense, speak sleepyspeak when even the love of my life has no idea what in the hell I am talking about. This is for me to get rid of my toxic village, the one that has pretty trees and gardens planted right over the sewer line.