A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish,–some way back,
I could not fix the year,
Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I know
I’ve met the thing before;
It just reminded me–‘t was all–
And came my way no more.
There beyond the big top’s glitz of laughter,
the dark curtains paired were splintered aside
by light spied from behind the ringmaster,
where a boy and hunched clown sat close beside.
On a latchless traveling chest they warmed;
in the aged backroom of the arena,
a bleak camaraderie had been formed
like the silent knotting of an idea.
Tight-lipped with white clumps creased in sweated folds,
the clown’s faded costume swished forward when
tears years behind him, he had to behold
coasting past a pert nose and filthy chin.
A bow-tie blotted his wet reddened cheeks
as the boy gazed at the funhouse mirror
above the cloth bound around his bindle,
just near the clown’s lone cot–splayed and sooty.
I create in complication and you interpret it later on as a masterpiece.
“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed- and gazed- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Here is where the wind carries me:
down
the gaping mouth, a hollow
acorned path that calls for more
empty
shells to lie, upon
the severed fringes of Black
Cherry limbs and smattered
sunlight on the forest floor. I shall name what glows fallen
stars broken, they are
unfit for the broad sky–
still beneath the fog of rich green. Resolve
coasts through me like a final breath
amid the feet of slanted trees, pointed
high at the heavens like Satan’s brow.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream- -and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- -and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on! ‘
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- -nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- -which is more- -you’ll be a Man, my son!
I adored him. He was a fake fake fake. I thought he was the best person in the world. Adam was his name, he was the only person in my world. Perhaps I esteemed him, creating a man who never truly existed. I tied the blindfold and knotted it with a yank behind my head. I uttered, “I trust you.”
LAST SUMMER
Fingertips squeezed the creases of my ass. I was lying on my back staring at the beams projected from outside. I was in shock. I couldn’t move. Somehow the blinds became interesting. Whoever was in the room before forgot to fix the upside down triangle wedged in between them.
But I managed to shout. I prayed . I always react and nothing changes. It never does.
It felt like donkey kicks were forced on me. Something was digging in my skin and it ached.
But there was no one else in the room. Just me.
The next day dark blue bruises marked the back of my upper thighs. I didn’t tell anyone what happened. I didn’t even notice that I had marks on me until I used the public restroom at the train station. I was on my way to New York to find him.
The following week I received a letter in the mail from Planned Parenthood stating that I have HPV. I was also informed that my vulva was swollen. I never had HPV before. I was not sexually active with anyone. How does one catch HPV without physically having sex? So, I guess I had non-consensual sex with a ghost?
No, I was raped.
And this virus causes cancer. I can die from this.
HPV- Human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States.
TODAY
I informed the clinician of everything that had happened last year. I recorded the conversation for my own use (cell phone). I knew what her response would be. She suggested that I speak to a doctor or psychiatrist about my troubles, and that it fell on the lines of being my imagination. It was fake. No one broke into my house and raped me. I had contacted the police about the incident last year. Instead of knocking on my front door to save me, I was threatened to be taken away for my “fake” report.
After the check up today, I was told that my vagina was healthy.
I got on an overcrowded city bus and wedged myself next to a woman who wore black fishnets and shiny red shoes. She sipped on Starbucks iced coffee.
FLASHBACK
“It’s a mermaid with her legs spread wide open”.
Brian was referring to the Starbucks logo. We were discussing how popular Starbucks was, centered right in the middle of entertainment at Playhouse, a popular restaurant in Nashville . It was my second day and he, being the “head bitch in charge” gave me a tour. Growing up, my family nicknamed me Ariel. Playhouse held an Under The Sea Event that day.
“Take a look at that line,” I joked. “So many people here to see me sing.”
He laughed before walking away.
“You mean so many people here to taste you.”
NOW
I thought about how people take other lives for granted. Whether it be making love to a spouse or sex with a fling. An STD is just the same as attempted murder.
The passenger seated across me held a book in her hand.
The book was titled Death and Judgement.
The wind does as it wills. You cannot dictate to the wind. You cannot tell whether it comes or goes.
I am a visual learner. In my mind, when I see, I record, I remember. That is the best way for me to put a new file on a mental bookcase or shelf. My sight is the semblance of a picture.
That is my learning style. It has always been my learning style.
I remember things by seeing them in the mind. Pictures form when I read, they create memories. I use to call memories mems.
Have you ever wondered what sees into your mind? Who sees your mind? Listen, not your eyeballs. What is inside of your brain that sees life and creates? Who lives in your mind? Who has been in your mind for all these years? Helping you? What is ferrying images after you see or glimpse? Who sends instant comprehension? The author of your brain is… Who is Jesus of your brain?
And what can alter the brain? I think everyone should contemplate, meditate and ponder the answer.
Oh photographic memory, I see the faces of my loved ones as I greet them in person and electronically communicate with them. I can still see their faces, hear their voices, I close my eyes and name them. Yes, I name them. I can describe my house, my dog, my computer and phone and places I have been too, favorite foods and other units posted on that timeline of history and future.
Then something awful has happened. My brain blew up, those pink noodles of grey threw up. That matters. That grey matter, matters.
I realize that that person in my brain is gone. That genius who delivers at the speed of light is vacant. What I have now is a blank computer that serves as a substitute for the brain? That genius who once was is not in. He is outside floating all around me. My mems became shiny dust moats.
The area of my radius is gone. Here is a question for you? If (Pi) is Jesus, if (Pi) is the line of a radius or diameter and the circle called Earth and the words that define (Pi) mean constant and neverending, then how does one calculate the missing area of a (Pi) when the calculation is: π (Pi) times the Radius squared:A = π r2?
I walk out the door, I see my mems planted on the faces of strangers like split roots seeking soil to nester and sink.
I do not relive my past, I relive my memories until I get out.
And I say nothing to the stranger wearing my siblings face who looks very much like my sibling and is acting the part but is not my sibling and if by chance I say anything at all to the farce I lie. So I say to my neighbor who was once kind but is now acting very much like a former boss who I despised in my memory many months back that you are me and I am you, and the store we are in I once owned and your house is very much like my own and that retail store looks very much like my closet and I owned so many cars you would believe it. My memory has a parallel that spread on you like a long transparent mirror.
I say it until I find him. I miss him that genious so much I’d make love to him. I replaced the dog, the sibling, the enemy, the stranger in my brain that did not belong. Whose idea was it to put them there? The ones who didn’t belong. My point and target of thought when I operate during the day is not “Woof” “Woof.”
See, I don’t think you get it yet. That helper who is missing in my brain, he was replaced by an old memory. That helper was replaced by a ghost. That helper was replaced by the ghost of someone else. That helper was replaced by a strangers dog. That helper was replaced by a terrible moment reenacted with others as I step out in public. Pay attention. How many times have I heard this conversation?
I am so tired of saying I don’t feel like myself. I was so tired until I found my genius.
I was so tired until I found my real loved ones and friends.
How can you say I have issues, categorize me, when you set the system in place?
YOU ARE A LEADER, BRAVE, A RADICAL, A CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, A BELIEVER IN JESUS, A REVOLUTIONIST, AN INNOVATOR. YOU BELEIVE IN POSITIVE CHANGE AND ABOVE ALL THINGS YOU LOVE THE TRUTH AND HATE SLAVERY.
…you have been made to believe that you have a mental disorder, but you know that in truth, you really don’t. There is something inside of your brain. Something is forcing you to act in ways you would never act. And guess what?
If you tell me that you do not have a disorder, I will say “I believe you”.
“I believe you”
Written on 3.2.2017
It comes back and then fades. I think at times my soul is elsewhere and I am awake in a coma, living someone else’s life. This is not me. But there are terrible times I remember.
I recall:
-Being told that I am a sacrifice
-Seeing dead people
-My ex.. his hours changed at work. He slept during the morning and day because he began working the third shift. I was alway alone. When we did see each other he believed I said things to him that I did not say.
White man #1
-Seeing the same two white men, both in the same clothes. One jokes about how I move when I have an orgasm. When I climax my legs shake and I am loud. He watched me have sex with my ex, in our home. I have seen this man before, in real life. I have to draw his picture and post it here. This means he is watching me. He also makes jokes about my chest to the man described below because my D-Cup isn’t as perky as he’d like them to be. I saw his ghost, standing in front of me with his palms below his chest as if to say that I have “Saggy Tits” <—he is racist and has threatened bodily harm if he ever got caught. He is thin, gaunt face with dark blue eyes. Blonde hair. 5’8″?
White man #2
This white man, he claims that he is my husband from another time. When I see his ghost, he has on the same clothes. Both of them always have on the same clothes. Blue sandy jeans. But he is about 5’6″, blond hair, light blue eyes, He acts like the older brother towards the one above who may be mentally ill. There is a scary, dangerous trait about him. I cannot name it. It makes me wonder if they both collect teeth and locks of hair. If they both tortured animals as children and light things on fire. It makes me wonder why they haunt me and if they are the ones who…
Okay. Maybe I am taking this too far.
I see them at different time periods in my nightmares too. I see them around a parade of white people who hate black people. I have seen my dead, naked body hung on a noose on a sunny day. The color of the tree was light tannish brown with ropey veins. I have never seen this type of tree before, but I have seen a similar one in Florida. Sandy dry, brown dirt was on the ground beneath me. No grass. I do not know where this was, but I know that the white man #2 found me and cut the rope. As my naked body flopped to the ground , he fell to his knees and wept. Rocking back in forth with my back on his lap. It would always be him, defending me against his family. And when they pressured him enough, he would give in and treat me as they told him to. Which is why I wondered if he is slow as well. I was told that white man#2 served in the war and had a brain injury and that was the reasoning and justification for his behavior.
His family hates me for not being 100% Irish. During family outings I’d express myself when we were all together. Their eyes are magnifying glasses. Their ears were recorders. They would judge every word, every sentence that came out of my mouth and always have something to reprove. They wanted to drink my white blood.
White man #1 beat on me and raped me. I saw my face in a bedroom of a house somewhere. Eyes swollen. As he raped me, he reproached me. He said I should not say the things I say. He tenderly kissed my face.
Key note: *Both of them may be in that secret mason society*
4.25.2019
My Dearest Love,
Today I walked through the aisles or isle (?) of the library thinking…should I seek out Virginia Woolfe? My brain is fog. These days I just feel pain. Some mornings. Some nights. Somewhere I think it is all an illusion. It isn’t real. But my thoughts went from little snips to sharp slices. Something, snacking on my head. If there is a tap worm for the brain, that is it. But it isn’t brain cancer, it is a funeral in the brain.
Hence Virginia.
Please ignore the errors, the grammatical mistakes.
There was this comedy on a few days ago and the lead had his legs hanging out of the oven. Here is the story: He is in his mid-twenties, rich, married to a beautiful woman and happy. She leaves him, takes EVERYTHING from him. The trust, $150,000 in cash. The family business is in jeopardy. The kicker here is that she threatens him with blackmail. It is one of those “If you follow me, I’ll ruin your reputation”. She dug lots of dirt on the family. She’s filthy. She is now filthy rich. Daddy and son are screwed. She was a professional con artist.
He didn’t—,she didn’t—really know him. Okay. . . he, they did not know each other.
Scary right?
I remember rummaging through documents in our home. Your files were neatly labeled, you were always tidy. I heard stories of you, about you. I was told by more than one woman, that I did not deserve you. I put your puzzle pieces together in your paperwork. It started with that car accident that you had back in 2015. You would tell me things in a subtle manner, but not outright and looking back I know now. I know that you could not tell me and I am sorry for not reading you then.
How does one deliver a message without verbal communication?
So many women and men want to take my place for you. I remember writing my first piece of poetry and you looked at me and said you wrote it. I understood you, that exact moment last summer in Riteaid, right before I sold my car and moved South. I am back in Connecticut now (btw). But that night I had a Rolling Stone in my hand, standing in the magazine row in tears. I felt like I could breathe. I hadn’t breathed in such a very long time. I had on a thin black t-shirt, denim shorts and flip flops. My fingernails were unusually clear and my hands were in need of lotion.
The article paid tribute to Yoko Ono and John Lennon. She spoke about how they new they were in Hell. All I sensed was danger in the descriptions. But, there was a part that stuck out to me. John looked at Yoko and put his sunglasses on her face. He said, “These are yours”. In a deeper meaning, he was protecting her.
I can’t recall the entire article. When I find the magazine, I will type a new letter and make corrections. I will appropriately revise and cite. I honestly think the person whom I am staying with stole it. I have a long list of missing items gone within the past few years. But this magazine was a Rolling Stone.
Here are the facts:
-I realized on the day that I put your puzzle pieces together that you are a Gatsby.
-I am burning myself.
-I realized on the day that I put your puzzle pieces together that you are like Gatsby. No one really knew him, but everyone had something to say.
-Your fairy little boyfriend is trying to murder me. The gay man is really my competitor.
And Lastly,
I’ve been feeling a little bit like Sylvia.
-Call me June 8 (Was that real? Or was that real to reel?)
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”)
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;—
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy.
Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:—
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
—But there’s a Tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears
I saw no Way—The Heavens were stitched—
I felt the Columns close—
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres—
I touched the Universe—
And back it slid—and I alone—
A Speck upon a Ball—
Went out upon Circumference—
Beyond the Dip of Bell—
I Began To Love Again... 