When things fade...

It's the day after Christmas. This year I felt oddly Christmas-y. The past few years I've not felt the spirit at all. But this year I put up a tree and a couple of wreaths and some lights. I wrapped gifts with gusto and even listened to some Christmas music of my own free will (jazzy Xmas). I enjoyed my friends, I appreciated my husband despite his bah-humbug attitude and I loved my family for being. I even didn't dwell on the fact that I really am not making enough money doing what I do and that my "career" really is a glorified hobby if you look at it on paper. Truth be told, I feel like I've wasted my life away and have very little of monetary value to show for it. My husband is talking about early retirement and says I'll have to start making more money and I'm terrified because I don't see how I'm going to do that. Yet... I have this odd sense of well being. I ask myself why.

I fell in love again - with life. I decided that life is too short to spend it agonizing about the things that aren't, the things that should be, the things that should have been, the way things were supposed to turn out... what a waste of energy. You just do. It may sound like an oversimplification or even irresponsible. But I don't want to spend my last good 10-15 years not enjoying myself. Yes, I'm now of an age where I know my body maybe only have another 10 or 15 years left of health and vitality. Who knows? Maybe I don't even have that much time left? Maybe I'm a ticking time bomb and time has started to count down quickly unbeknownst to me? I just don't want to spend whatever time I may have left being sad about the things that aren't.

So I took stock of some relationships that aren't being properly nurtured, through no faulty of my own. I made the decision to stop being sad that this person or that person isn't making more of an effort to be present in my life. If they can't see the value of keeping up the relationship then I need to focus on the people in my life who are actually making an effort. And I need to decide who I want to spend time with. Who are the people who fill me with joy and a sense of peace and well being? I need to be clear about who those people are and then I need to nurture those connections. I will stop twisting myself into a pretzel trying to make sense of people whose actions do not match their words. If you're not present, you're not present.

I will also spend more time in places that make me feel happy. My surroundings have always mattered to me. I feel calmer and more peaceful when I'm surrounded by beautiful. And it doesn't need to be much. It could be the one clematis I planted in the backyard or it could be the bed being made up and being neat for once. It could be me sitting on a rock in a park staring at the trees on a fall day. Or watching the waves touch sand while I read on the beach. It might even be me curled up in my favorite chair with a good book. Whatever it is on a given day, I resolve to really enjoy it.

So I say good-bye to the things that I have allowed to torment me. The people I have let zap my energy and steal my sleep. I will let those things go. They're already fading quickly behind me. I see road before me. Some of the terrain will be rocky and perilous, but the light is ahead of me leading the way. What's behind me is already fading. Fading into the dark.

Weak.

You been givin’ me a weak kinda luv

Don’t understand what you want

I thought you fit like a glove.

You been givin’ me an earful of trash

I can’t believe what I’m hearin’

All I get is table scraps.

You been tellin’ me a pack full of lies

My heart was bumpin’ and a thumpin’

While yours was churning out the ice.

You been cryin’ tears you squeeze from your eyes

I hadn’t sleep for a month

I missed your touch, that was not wise. 

You been sayin' your love is all and all

But you don’t put it to my body

You just hide behind your wall.

You say this and you say that and you say more

I think I finally got it straight

There’s not one thing you say that’s pure.

You been givin’ me a weak kinda luv

I think I understand now

You’ll never be here anyhow.

You keep saying that you want to be with me

But there you are inside your cage

Although I've given you a key.

You been givin' me a shitty kind of luv

I'm finally seeing the light.

I'm finally heading for that door.

One two three, and four and five and six and eight

This luv felt nice in the beginning

But my freedom now feels great.

Nine and Ten, and Eleven and thirteen

Don't even need to count well

To know this doesn't end with WE.

Mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmm hmmmmm hmmm hmmm

Feels good to finally get loose

My boots are going on parade.

BuhBye.

Sacrificial Lamb

Oh how you've enjoyed your

Sacrificial lamb

So sweet and soft to hold

So meek and mild and tame.

Oh, let her breathe

You'll just slaughter all her friends

While she watches and is grateful

That her tiny head was spared.

After all…

You love her.

Oh how you've been sweet to your

Sacrificial lamb

When she cried all week after you slay her mom.

You combed her silken wool

And fed her from the trough

“There, there, sweet lamb, I love you most of all.”

Oh, let her bathe

In your loving light

You give her honey and sugar and delights

Maybe she'll forget the blood that dyed her wool

The evening she ran forward towards the woods.

You caught her by her hoof

And dragged her to the pen

And held her down to help her heal her wounds

How could you let her go?
The pain would be too great

Impossible, you love her most of all.

Oh how you've enjoyed your

Sacrificial lamb

She bleats all night a sad and sullen song

How special that she sings you lullabies.

Oh, you loved her so

Until she grew those fangs

And learned to dig her way through rock and stone.

How you felt betrayed

How could she be so cruel?

She bit your cuff and spit blood on your shoe.

With heavy heart you slay

Your sacrificial lamb

She never would again dare be so bold.

Oh how you've enjoyed

Your sacrificial lamb

So sweet and soft…

You'll have to start again.

Bandaid 1

I feel myself slowly peeling away

Away from you

Tight plucking pulling away

Each tug a wincing stab

To follow each careless action you rubbed into the wound.

Like underestimating my desire

Telling me your want of another while keeping me hungry

Pluck pluck pluck

I impassively listen

While pieces of me are ripped right up

Like a rat escaping a glue trap

You in the other house - oblivious.

Tug tug tug

Careless selfishness

Your own needs superseding mine

You offer no compromise

Slowly the numbness sets in

The fervent desire softens to a dull ache

Rip rip rip

Miraculously

I feel nothing

Nothing at all

I must be healed.

Nothing Left

I have emptied my veins slowly
Into the bucket you left beneath me
(Waste not your sustenance
While supplies last)
Drip drip drip
Ever weaker
Waiting to be fed
No transfusion came
I have bled myself dry.

Soul contortionist extroardinaire
Dumpster hobo
Pockets turned inside out,
Empty and useless
Sad and odd
No currency exists to fill them
That you haven't already pilfered.

I have given you all my words
All my screams of love and anger
I have given you all my songs
My soul in a melody
My laughter for your drive home
My moans, my sighs, my panting.
I have given you all the sounds of my being
While awaiting your reply.

I have thrown my body into your wake
For you to ride like a wave.
I have faced you unabashed
All my emotions lay bare
All the while you are a speck
Too far away to be seen and
Giving so little care.

The only thing I have not given you
Is coming to you soon
As I lay dying from all my wounds
The insults and the disregard.
My furious flame is dying down
My passion falling still
My once bright skin is growing dull
My lips are wearing thin.
Your feeding is now nearly complete.
You'll have the last of me soon.
You'll have the thing you haven't had.
You'll have my last rebellion.
Keep it as a parting gift.
You've earned it.
I leave you with
My silence.

All the women are done.

All the women are done
Done smiling through the hurt
Done gracing the disgraceful
Done adorning your eyes.
Done with the closets
The closets where we hide to shed bitter tears into shame filled pillow cases.
The closets where our self loathing hangs on display.
And, the closets where the numbers hide
On pieces of paper
On your phones
In your pockets
Else, lining up in your brains.
The same brains that forget milk and diapers and garbage bags.
The women are now accepting
Forgive-me-nots.
Keep your patronizing chocolates and numbing wine.

All the women are loud now.
"Shush!" no more.
The women are loud
By necessity.
The women are loud from all the fear.
The women are loud from all the years of
Shoving down their personhood.
Years of invasion
Invasion of personal space
Invasion of dignity
Invasion of self regulation
Invasion of uterus, of work and of thought.
Invasion even of the right to protest.

The women are done.
They are done, my man.
Start the apologies and the bribes because, buddy...
When you next look at them,
The women will be done.
You may be done too.

Six

Woke up feeling a six.
All those feels dropping like a stone,
Fantasy losing its sheen.
Sober reality shook me whispering,
"Walk this off. It isn't real."
This is how it goes with pleasant dreams
And fun island getaways.
But then you try to find a melted clock
In the desert while riding a tiger
Dressed as Marilyn Monroe
And you realize it's not even worth the effort.
Where's that man who couldn't make it to you?
Oh right. Now you remember.
You're a spoon without a spoon.
Get up.
Wash your face and get pretty again.
Time to do the walk of defiance.
Head on parade.
Heart in a box.
Lock it up.
Walk.

Descarada

Me muero y me levanto
Me caigo y me reinvento
Mi piel se pela imperceptible y se reemplaza:
Milagros de la naturaleza.
Como tú.
Que vives allá con otra
Más me llevas atada a ti
Con cadena frágil e invisible
Como la seda de la araña
Que es tan bella como lo es fuerte.
Yo, descarada, deleite al saber que me llevas
Escondida en tus bolsillos.
En nuestra esfera no tenemos leyes humanas.

Somos superterrestiales.
Yo te alimento con llamas que te tragas como un hombre sediento en el desierto.
Tú me regalas arcoiris y puestas de sol
Que hacen de mi cuerpo una aurora.
Después me admiras con el candor de un orgulloso Creador
Como si yo no había existido antes de tu toque.
Y pues, sabes bien que hemos nacido juntos,
Casi gemelos,
Tu mano en la mía,
Guardandonos secretos
Que murmuramos entre besos,
Con caricias, con lenguas y manos,
Con miradas de almas antiguas.
Así fue que entendimos
Que la naturaleza es suprema;
Porque nos permite existir conectados
Tú allá, yo aquí;
Muriendo y reviviendo
En los momentos cortos que unimos
Nuestro aliento entre suspiros,
Tremores en nubes de hierbas.
La tierra dando su permiso
Y la luna su bendición.

--Celia Castro

(for Asher)


============= Translation ===================
Brazen

I die and rise up
I fall and reinvent myself
My skin sloughs off imperceptibly and is restored:
Miracles of nature.
Like you.
Who live over there with another.
Yet you hold me bound to you
By a fragile, invisible chain
Like the silk of the spider
Which is as beautiful as it is strong.
I, brazenly, delight in knowing that you carry me
Hidden in your pockets.
In our sphere we follow no human laws.
We are super terrestrial.
I feed you with flames that you swallow like a thirsty man in the desert.
You give me rainbows and sunsets
That make my body an aurora.
Then you admire me with the candor of a proud Creator
As if I had not existed before your touch.
Of course, you know well that we were born together,
Almost twins,
Your hand in mine,
Keeping secrets
We murmur between kisses,
With caresses, with tongues and hands,
With the gazes of ancient souls.
This is how we've come to understand
That nature is supreme;
Because it allows us to exist connected
You there, I here;
Dying and reviving
In the short moments we are together
Our breaths between sighs,
Tremorous upon clouds of grass.
The land giving its permission
And the moon its blessing.

-- Celia Castro
(for Asher)

Negra

Todo lo que tengo me lo dieron o me lo robé

No me pertenece este traje

No me pertenece esta casa

No me pertenece este hombre

Todo es ajeno o extraño.

De mi no queda solo un hilo

Un hilo negro que me jala hacia el centro del universo

Donde la bella obscuridad y el silencio por fin se rendirán a mi

Y ahí tendré algo par llamar mío

Algo de quién podría ser parte

Yo negra entre las estrellas

Negra entre el sol y la luna

Yo bailando invisible

Como era cuando vivía

Pero entonces era un martirio

Y después en el nuevo horizonte

Será delicia-

Delicia negra

Sueño

No aparecías debajo del árbol azul

Cuyas ojas

Como tus ojos
Flotaban y

Como espadas de hielo penetraban mi pecho;

Olas fuerte me tumbaban,

volteandome violentamente 

Hasta caer como por un milagro

En un baño de luz caluroso

En la forma de

Tus rizos negros y gris-

Nubes extrañas anunciando tormenta.

Pero yo contenta y contenida

Sabiendo que esa tormenta me caería bien.

No me perturban tus caricias mientras duermo

Esas delicias no se dán ya en las horas soleadas.

Solo cuando duermo me visitas -

En formas poéticas.

=============================

You never appeared under the blue tree

whose leaves,

like your eyes,
Floated softly down...

Yet like blades of ice they penetrated my chest -

Strong waves tumbled me down

turning me violently

until I fell as if by a miracle

Into a warm bath of light

In the form of 

your curls, black and gray;

Strange clouds heralding storms

while I remained happy and contained

knowing that your storm would suit me fine.

Your caresses do not perturb me while I sleep.

Those charms aren't available when the sun is out.

Only when I sleep do you visit me - 

In poetic forms.

To Anef

You stopped eating
And you stopped fucking
What does your soul subsist upon?
Grapes?
Health.
Oh yes. Health.
Measured the way you measure it.
Sanitized cardigans over Lululemon.
A routine which justifies that bottle of wine you anesthetize yourself with.
But I'm the one who's flesh makes you crawl.
My health :worries: you.
Your secret is you wish your flesh would dance.
Free of parameters.
Free of so many restrictions.
A wide expanse of swaying hips...
Which your husband likes.
After all that Pilates
It's no wonder you drink.
To keep the vicious cycle of denial and conformity
In
It's
Place.
Girl, don't you know they get to be ugly and fat and bald
and mean
and drunk with power?
Your Pilates and your precious polite pussy will never be enough.
So hiss at me with my brazen belly and
a shimmy-like-you-wanna because...
I know you wanna
You wanna be more woman.
Be more woman.
Figure out what that means.
Then do it.
Be more woman.

Haikus...

This past week or so I've been in a Haiku kind of way. So I am posting them since I haven't posted in forever... Some are in Spanish

Para que mires

La sombra de mi cara

Necesitas luz

=======================

Imagine my Self

Falling through a misty cloud

Shaped like your essence

========================

Sería posible

Dejar en una mesa

Pedazos de mi?

Para que comas

Mientras yo, espantosa,

Fantasma ando

Devorame_así

Mi cocina es para ti

Plato servido 

Cuando te llenes

Hasta los pelos negros 

Vas lleno de mi.

========================

Oscuro vive

El caracol sin luna...

No me da pena

======================