Waltz to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

We are all insane, and the only thing keeping us sane is our insanity.

Brother, if I feel these pangs of life so rootedly, so do you. If my mind swerves into madness, so does yours.

It amazes me that out of the same person, the same body, the same mind, I have become different persons. Just like spinning a round fish bowl and witnessing the stability of the water and plants- not moving, though the world, the walls, the glass is spinning. And when the earth spins on axis, when the rock at the park (and the seagull on that rock) remain stagnant when the sun rises, the water trickles and the clouds pull like threads of yarn and the leaves flicker. The world remains the same like stone, noticable like a mother, but changing like the whirlpool in her womb.

Out of my heart comes out an aching rod of panic. And out that same heart, that same planet, that same earth, comes drenching happiness. It stretches like these legs and arms, one half sustained to the gravel, the other suspended in the sky. The muscles stretch like rubber, first a tight ball of dough and then a thinly twirled flat bread, yanked and stretched all over.

When in panic and when my eyes feel tense, unable to stare at people calmly, I go away to myself and take bits of my so-called insanity and talk to myself.

"Tell me what you are excited for in the near future, Steph?"

I then answer without thought, without shame or hesitation or embarrassment, speaking quietly like a vulnerable patient.

"I am excited to feel his warm muscular arm around mine as we walk through the door and to rest my head on the lump under his pillow."

Then I am happy and relieved for a bit, forgetting about my mind. Then, I am in control.

Sometimes I wish that someone can come from beneath the shadows and scream and scare me until I'm screaming, too, both of us screaming, one louder than the other. Then I'll put my hand to my heart, breathe heavily, and then, then we'll both laugh, barely able to speak, pointing a joking finger at our childlike fears.

Sometimes you need the Boogieman to reveal the mystery and pop up and say, "Alright! I really do exist!"

You shake and quiver coldly like a hungry dog, as if you are craving the shadowy monster. Once you see the face of your monster, of the thing in your mind that you call "thought," you will laugh and lay bare your chest and say, "Do your best destroy me" (as Ray Lamontagne sings). It is just a shade of gray, you'll say. A neuron, not even an atom to the eye. And all these years will flash and flicker like a shadow of a dancing tree on the hardwood floor, and you'll realize that the leaves weren't blowing fiercely in the wind and that the darkness of the shadow was a contorted mirror, and the lump beneath your bed was only a bundle of colorful laundry.

Paul told me to embrace everything that comes my way, even these panic attacks. As he was telling me this, I was shaking from fear at hearing the "p" in panic.

How? I thought, could I embrace something that feels so unhealthy and deeply horrific. Though it is a demon and a hard seed, a plant that keeps failing and tilting, it is something I am now trying to embrace and love.

An old lover sees a beauty and a strength in me that I cannot and have never seen. And though I cannot see it, I know it is there. That strength is a shadow, and (oddly) as I wrote "there," the sunlight cleanly flapped through the blinds and onto the word "there."

"Here Comes the Sun" sounded beautiful early today. It's alright. I never knew these words as I've known them today. I felt my bones recovering, and when I went to bed last night, my skull felt like glowing skin and my breathing and my muscles were moist and light.

Right now, I see my strength as a darkness: not sure if I am void of one or if it is shadowed like the monsters inside me.

The sky was changing, from light blue with thin strands of white to pink and purple and blue. But it was so genuine and new. I didn't know if it was the beer or the fact that the sky was unbelievably beautiful now. I looked at the pond and saw a pink reflection sinking into the waters. I ran out of film.

I quickly paced to the swerve of the park, racing with the clouds and the darkness of the end of day. I made it to my neighborhood, walking alongside stray cats and hopping birds with seeds falling out of their mouths. A man with a looped belly stared as he wiped his sweaty forehead and a woman picking up sticks near her mailbox didn't turn to greet me.

The mystery man's lights were beaming through his closed blinds and I felt his eyes. The weeds were plucked and thrown on the sidewalk; my sister was sitting with her muddy feet up against a chair. The sky was gray and mosquitoes blurred my eyes like a camera out of focus, and I hugged the shadows of the black garage.

My mother's image in the car replayed, the way her ears resembled mine, the way my ears resembled hers and how my hair droops down along my head. I fell in love with her and the way the black leaves appeared separate from the sky, unlike an oil painting. The world was all that it is...and I saw it for that moment.

The Sleeptalker

At four in the morning, I thirst. Warm and bubbly my saliva tastes,
a candy-like essence of rum.
Ice knocks in my cup as I drink,
and I sit and talk to my sleeping sister in the shadowed bed across from me. Her eyelashes cascade her purple cheeks,
sweet like the taste of the night's sparkling cups of spirits and talkativeness,
confidence and epiphanies included in the bottle.
And I sit there talking, mouthing and creating a story,
answering questions to an interview.
I forget if I am speaking aloud or whispering, maybe even mouthing voiceless words,
my jaw cracking and my dry tongue clacking against my lips.

I drink my cup, releasing cold and barren breaths. And how sweet,
the taste of nothingness,
turning neon into pastel,
sparkling desert into dew.

I sleep on the thought of recovery but dream of scratching my scabby elbows,
purple blood flooding my broken palms. I dream of a hopeful elder who walks in casts, blood seeping with each step. She cries standing on her bloody feet, being held shoulder to shoulder with a family that is not a family, who can't understand so they tell her to keep walking,
to let the pain hold her captive for just this moment, like letting a dog sniff your crotch so he'll smell the mystery, tilt his head, and walk away.
But she cries and swears to never walk again, to never look into the red eyes of pain, refusing to waltz with the devil.

The voices beneath my window buzz like bees and I count how many car doors slam.
Four slams and it's the Colombian neighbors.
One slam and it's the mystery man across the street.
One slam and a beep-beep, and it's my father.

The morning before this one, a pale doom flickered and chunks of the sky ripped like pages of a thick book.
I hear the sound of metronomes, each tick competing with the previous, saying
now is real, no,
now is real.
The silence after a tick awaits the next, a new reassurance of existence.

I sit alone in the quieting day, asking a bobble head questions,
of fate, fortune,
happiness, surprises.
But the dog nods in a teasing manner, swaying its head on an angle,
giving me opportunity to ask yes or no questions.
We'd choose to have things our way,
the yes to our hopeful question,
the no to our fearful one.
Yet, the sincerity is pounded and worn.

The world needs to explode,
to rumble with storm and to vibrate with sperm,
to erupt, tearing down warm homes with closed doors, ripping trees of their leaves and throwing them into still waters like debris.

There's now a circle of sunlight on the lake, a puddle of ducks drinking on the gold, a delightfully sweet cup of the end of day, shivering and tingling after the boil, alive and renewed as if the first day of creation was having its first sunset, birds applauding with a flapping of wings.
The water moves as if it's gulping itself, so intoxicated and lush, making love unto itself.

The Wild Onion

The Union Station bench smells like vinegar. I sweep the salty seat with my fingers before sitting, and smell my hands.
          Sour.
Ketchup remains after being licked off by Chicago.

Track numbers echo repeatedly. Those who don't keep up with the city, those who sit instead of flee, become consumed with insanity when hearing the repetitive broadcast, seeing the same types of scurrying business people going up and down the escalators with ice cream cones in their hands.

Or maybe to be a Chicagoan is to be crazy, to linger where others scurry,
to sit beside a homeless man as he opens his can of tuna and eats with a plastic fork, some tines broken off like his teeth. He asks people for smiles and not coins to put in his coffee cup.

A man with no legs in a wheelchair tells me to "smile, girl" as I pivot past him across Madison. I shyly smile like a child pleasing a school photographer. He mumbles a "there ya go" as he rolls behind me, the wind laughing through my hair as it shades my face.

Chicago sits in a corner with a homeless man, peering behind an "Unemployed" sign, stealing a coin from the Saxophone Man's hat.

And then you realize, the city is not crazy, just an undulating wave of highs and lows, rich and poor, and loud heels and broken heels [in manholes].

I thought too much and my head was hardening, so I went downstairs and put water in a large pot and started peeling potatoes. Just sitting on the cold kitchen floor and watching the brown skin elegantly slice into the trash felt new. A newness was there; I was just peeling away the old, the grainy cloak filled with dirt. New was there. Old was just being taken away. Well, nothing is ever really new...just a taking away of the old and revealing what was hidden for so long, boiling in the trapped heat, its structure melting and slouching. Peel away the shell and feel the tender, cold touch of new. She's waiting to be opened.

Happiness Hit Her

The speed jolted through her body with a pang, shattering her peeling snake skin. Every sensitive touch tickled her nerves and she laughed with watery eyes.

Haunt

And then there was light. The emptiness in the sky cracked and the sun proved its existence. It was as if it shone for her, gifting her with a speck of color, a warm radiance of life, a hint of nourishment. She squinted into its bold rays, knowing it would speed hastily away and fade like a mist behind the foggy clouds. So she tested her fear and hid herself away, turned the lights on and closed the bathroom door. The light was still shining through the cracks, and the blue of her walls were beaming with a clean white hue, not an artificial paleness. With the doors closed, she could see the clouds opening its jaw for the sun to peak through, curling out its rays like newly bloomed petals. The sun winked through the cracks and pierced through her skin like lasers.

She closed her eyes in the bath, her ears deafening with the sound of water thrusting through the pipes, feeling like little pebbles against her back. The water began to roar through her foamy hair and she opened her eyes with quick gasps, startled with the sudden terror that came from beneath the hidden shadows. A hidden shadow? she laughed in fear, pierced by her own shaky voice. Where could a shadow hide? Behind the deceiving sunlight?

Her chest began to tighten and her short breaths became heavy. She told herself to focus on her routine.

Shampoo is for cleaning the hair and scalp.
This scrub is from Syria and it scrapes away the blemishes.
This soap leaves a sugary scent on my skin.

Blood quivered through her veins with a rhythmic pulse and she glared at the sun's glare with her thighs throbbing with dread. The apparition of faces echoed against her window now, and the sun took back its heat, leaving her with a dry hunger. Defeat socked at her heart and pounded her in the stomach. Her organs tightened up and stung with acid as her body ruthlessly vomited the poison inside. How could such a reeking puree exist in such a being? It forces out the body as one cries out for a settling breath and the vulnerable organs are bitten with sting.

But this feeling of hers was a dry pounding and it bruised more than it stung. She had lost every amount of healthy moisture from her body, and she remained a cracked being. The sun made her sweat like a wet rose until it sucked out the life from her, shriveling her up into a naked widow, wrinkled with death.