Dear Shangning:

"Dear Rufus, ... Today a kitten called Jenson was returned to us because of his biting... I wished I could just talk to you to ask you what you were feeling when you bit someone... What were you trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

My Dearest Shangning:

You asked about a biting cat. I can answer, but I'm afraid I can't answer directly without first sharing a lot of things that will seem very disconnected. Or they will seem very connected, depending on your perspective.

*

First: not a lot of people know, but I'm divorced. I got married at 19. I thought I was too young, but he wanted to be married, and I thought I'd better go ahead, otherwise he'll dump me.

I wasn't ready. I hadn't finished becoming myself yet. I learned things about myself that were incompatible with what he wanted in a partner. He also lied to himself about who I had been all along. 

Obviously it didn't work out. I wanted to stay together and try to grow back together but his father insisted he divorce me.

*

When I adopted Rufus from The Cats' Cradle, you told me he'd been returned twice already. You also gave me an information sheet about his vaccination history. It said when he arrived on the 13th of April, 2019, the vet estimated that he was 1 year and 11 months old. How old is that in people years? Was he 19 yet? Had he finished becoming himself? Did he learn things about himself that surprised him, or pushed others away?

*

There's this surge of a theme online recently, an attitude for (usually) women who've been treated badly by (usually) men who can't handle them. There are tons of platitudinous quote images to be found if you google "you are not too much." They look like this:

*

My second long-term partner came to me in my mid to late twenties. We had two amazing years together before he went to war in Afghanistan. When he came back, things were much more difficult. I didn't understand what had changed or why, but he no longer seemed to be interested in me. I no longer felt wanted or desired so much as just kept around, and quite often I felt he found me annoying. I spent two more years trying to save things before one night I realized I was planning suicide and stopped myself. I put myself and my dog into my car and drove two days across the US until I arrived at my father's house. I arrived around midnight, crying at his back door, saying, "Can I stay here for a while?"

*

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the first time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle. 

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the second time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle.

*

*

I have so very many flaws. I try to work on them, even though I know I will go to my grave before I finish fixing them all. But I've made a lot of progress on my anger. Once when I was younger, I got so angry I blacked out. When I came to, my mother had been punched in the head and my hand hurt. In my defense, she'd been abusing me for over a decade at the time. I had to run away from home I was so afraid of what she'd do. When I got in touch with my sister, she told me that my mother was in my bedroom, putting my belongings into bags to donate to charities.

I know what it's like to have to heal from trauma. I know what it's like to never be completely healed. I know what it's like to have so many strong feelings that you can't stop yourself from hurting someone. I know what it's like when someone whose love you desperately need instead decides they don't want you anymore.

*

The ex-partner who went to Afghanistan is married now. I found photos online of him and his new wife, whose name is Fawn because of course it is, and they ride horses together, because of course she's into horses, across beaches in low tide and they splash in the surf and laugh at their reflections.

I guess he found his forever home.

*

My ex-husband also married his next serious partner after me. They have so many daughters at this point I've lost count whether it's four or five. She's a child psychologist, I think, or maybe psychiatrist, or counselor. Something like that. Right before he left me he told me a terrible story about childhood abuse he'd been through.

I've also lost count of how many of my exes married their next serious partner after me. Where is my forever home?

*

*

In March of 2020, I left my partner of nearly five years in Korea to move back to Taiwan. It was a happy relationship, but I was unhappy in Korea and was once again fighting suicidal ideation. I had to go back to the last place my heart remembered being happy. Corona was just becoming big news at the time. The borders of Taiwan closed four days after I arrived. In June or July I asked him to marry me, and he said yes. But by August he dumped me.

We were friends for a year and a half before we ever considered dating. He knew exactly who I was during all that time. But I think he started lying to himself about who I was when we got together. Because something that has always been a part of who I am, something he always knew about, came up, and suddenly he declared it a deal breaker.

*

When I adopted Rufus, you told me the story of his rescue. You told me he had loved the smell of a steak restaurant so much that he actually got his head stuck inside a hole in the roof and you had to go and get him out of it.

I can easily understand what it feels like to love something so much you hurt yourself trying to get to it. I wanted to stay with my ex-husband until his father pushed for the divorce. I tried to fix the relationship with the veteran who wouldn't acknowledge PTSD for two years. I think my last partner knew he would eventually dump me when I first left Korea. But I still proposed to him.

When I pictured the story you were telling me, it wasn't Rufus's head I saw stuck in that ceiling. It was my own.

*

Sometimes when I'm angry I lash out. Sometimes when I haven't slept enough, I get cranky. Also, I'm a poet, a chef, and a teacher. I'm a good listener and a caring friend. Honestly overall I'm a great person 99% of the time. But who among us is perfect? Do you know anyone without flaws?

*

Rufus teaches me many things, but most of all he teaches me mindfulness. I suspect I still have some of the ADHD I was diagnosed with in my adolescence because I've never been successful at meditating, despite trying for years. I simply cannot quiet my thoughts for any length of time, and I mean, I truly have tried it so many different ways with different teachers and texts and all sorts of approaches.

Rufus comes to me and he makes this silent, breathy, squeaky meow. And I realize I have my face in my phone and I'm not doing anything important at all. Literally nothing in any of the different apps I'm switching between has any great meaning or will accomplish anything helpful in the long run. So I put it down.

I get down on his level and I start speaking to him. He meows back in that strange, almost-silent way. And he will take as much attention as I want to give him for as long as I will stay focused on him. He never runs off. He stays right there, meowing at me for more.

I know what it feels like to need more.

*

Did you do the time math earlier? I said my ex dumped me in August. I adopted Rufus the first weekend in October. I had been looking for a place to adopt from for over a month. I needed to rescue someone because I needed to believe rescue is possible. That trauma doesn't make us worthless. That a hurt thing can be loved. That a flawed thing can be cared for. That a difficult personality can still attract someone who won't give up on them.

*

*

Another of my exes who married the next serious thing used to make me feel very strange. He was a hardworking capitalist who loved to blow money on his poorer friends. One day I was finally able to put my finger on how he made me feel. He wasn't loving me as a full, complex individual. He liked me as an accessory. Just like he would spend $300 on shirts randomly, to make himself look good, just like he adored his French cuffs with cufflinks, he liked having me on his arm. Me, the poor bartender. The poet. The activist. I gave him a sort of credibility, a boost to his personality. I made him feel good about himself.

A lot of people keep pets without loving them as full, complex individuals. To that ex, I was just a bird in a cage.

*

I work a lot. If I ever go a couple days without really focusing on Rufus for a while, and really giving him attention, I find out. He reminds me. As he's following me from room to room, like he does, at some point he'll let out a strange meow and rush past me, biting my leg on the way. I don't think it's painful, but I do have a high threshold for pain. It's more of a warning. Or sometimes on the arm, if I'm just lying on the couch ignoring him.

I know what it feels like to be ignored.

But just like me, and just like cats kept in cages, and just like dogs kept on chains, Rufus is a whole, entire, living being. He has a personality. He has desires. He has needs. 

He prefers to be watched at mealtimes. He loves falling asleep in my armpit. He adores chicken liver so much that once I forgot some on the counter and he ate a quarter kilo in one go, even though he'd already had his meal. He doesn't scare or startle easily. He always wants belly rubs and will never do the hind-leg-kick so many cats do when they ask for belly rubs. He likes his ears to be petted. He goes crazy for catnip. Sometimes if I'm eating something meaty for dinner he wants to get his face all up in it, just like that steak restaurant roof, and it's really hard to convince him to leave it alone. His ginger spots on his nose look like a funny moustache. His white-tipped ears look tie-dyed. He loves climbing and jumps like a gazelle. He truly enjoys it when I sing him lullabies.

And sometimes, he gets moody.

And sometimes, I get moody.

I wonder if Rufus ever has nightmares about being returned to The Cats' Cradle once again? I had to board him one weekend and chose the poshest place I could find. They had a camera in his cubby and every time I checked on him he was curled up in his bed, doing nothing. When I returned, they asked me to come get him out of the cubby because he wouldn't come out for them.

When I came into the room and said his name, he heard my voice and his eyes went as big as Baby Yoda's. He poured himself into the cat carrier like liquid, ready to go home.

Home. Forever. Forever home.

*

So to answer your question, "What [was Rufus] trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

I think Rufus was trying to tell you, I'm hurt. I don't understand why, or how to get better. What I really need is someone to be patient with me, and focus on me, and make me feel safe. Someone to treat me not as an accessory, but an actual living individual.

I think to help Jenson, you need someone who will give him those same things. Someone who understands a thing or two about trauma. Someone patient. Someone forever.

*

Dear Shangning, thank you for helping Rufus and me find one another.

Dear Jenson, so many of us know what it's like to feel so strongly that you hurt people. But there's someone out there for whom you aren't too much. I pray they find you soon.

Love,

Someone who was also too much.

*********************************

Rufus and me the day we first met, heading home from The Cat's Cradle:

The first time Rufus slept on my lap:

Rufus sleeping in my armpit:

Cuddling at home:

Would you get a load of this cuteness?

A couple of clowning lovebirds:

After I brought him home from the boarding place, he fell asleep holding onto me:

i meant to say

When I said I had to leave I meant:

these 13th floor windows look too much like doorways. I meant:

I'm a fish drowning in all this air.

When I said I missed you I meant:

you are my water, my ocean, my sweat,

tears and blood, meant

everything smells like metal since

we said goodbye.

When I said it had been too long I meant:

time had become a foreign language.

I meant every number rhymed

with "alone."

When I said I needed to take a lover I meant:

I know no other names but yours.

I meant: every graven idol

eventually crumbles before God.

weightchange

when one breath costs

more than your marrow

costs the world

when a meal is more

than a mountain

when a shower is a snake

and a pillow

the softest prison,

everything around becomes 

a bully.

when your head is heavy

like

an old dog is heavy

when your hair knots like riddles

when the smell

of your own sour body

is a song overplayed

when your eyes fail to focus

when your slow, dry tongue

loses how to language

when atrophied legs refuse

to stand,

you will look in the window

above the bathroom sink and see

a stranger, a sad ghost,

someone to be pitied, someone certainly

not the least of yourself.

你為什麼要離開台灣？

Content Warning: discussion of mental health, emotional health, suicide and sexual abuse

1991:

I am in fourth grade. I still believe in prayer. I still believe in magic. I read a magazine that says girls should write a list of the things they wish for in a boyfriend. I make my list. I believe it is magic. I pray.

1992.05: 

I graduate fourth grade. I have been at the school for four years. It is the longest I have stayed in one place all my life. For the rest of my life, I will never stay anywhere longer than three years. Not until I move to Taiwan.

2002.08:

I get married. I'm too young. I get married because he wants to get married. If I say no, are we not allowed to be in love anymore? I know I'm not ready, but I love him. I want to give him what he wants. We've been together two years, and we've always said we would get married someday eventually. This is what people in love do, right?

2004.08: 

I get divorced. 

2009: 

A man I've never met moves to Korea. His name is Matt. He lands in a work culture that almost forces you to become an alcoholic. He becomes an alcoholic. He is still a good man, and smart. After nine months, he leaves. I know nothing about this at this time.

2011.05: 

I finally graduate university with a bachelor's degree. It's been a rocky life, never staying in one place, and I still haven't gotten over that marriage. It feels like I've finally won something. I stayed at that university for three years, and that's the longest I've stayed anywhere. Maybe I'm a grownup now.

2011.07-08:

I go to Taiwan, to a city in the south called Pingtung. I don't have any experience with East Asian cultures. My only knowledge of them is limited to the white boys in school who never fit in, and talked about Japan and China as the perfect place for them to go, be nerdy, and find girlfriends. I hate that kind of talk, so it made me uninterested in East Asia. But my friend told me about a scholarship program to study in Taiwan, and I applied. I got the scholarship. I have no reason not to go. I've traveled ten countries by now, but they've all been in Europe or North/Central America. Why not? I fall accidentally in love with the country. I want to stay. But I'm now in a long term relationship again. It's rocky but I believe it's worth fighting for. We've been together two years, and I believe we could go the distance if we work on it. I go back to the US, and move into his house in Tucson.

2013.05:

Only one of us is working on the relationship, and it isn't my partner. On mother's day, always a difficult day for me, I am heartbroken after another failed attempt to work on things. I am wandering the streets at dark, deciding which car to throw myself in front of. The fact that I have my dog with me stops me. I go home. Home? To his house with my things inside where I no longer feel safe. I put my poetry books and my dog in the car and drive two days from Tucson to my father's house in Arkansas without calling him in advance. I wouldn't want him to worry. I pull up in his driveway at midnight and ask, "Can I stay here for a while?" For two weeks I eat soup or nothing. I lose twenty pounds in those two weeks. I lose a lot, actually. My partner is still trying to get me to kill myself from afar. It's really hard not to give in.

2013.06: 

The man I haven't met, the man called Matt, moves to a town in southern Taiwan. The town is called Pingtung. He starts working. The drinking culture there isn't nearly as bad as Korea, but it's still there. He quickly becomes a darling of the scene. He is still able to hold down his job, and his students and their parents love him. I still know nothing about him.

2013.07:

I go back to Tucson. My partner is not in the house. He is currently on deployment somewhere beautiful, like Portugal or southern Italy. How he must be suffering, I feel, as I sort through the belongings he threw into a giant mess. I try to sell them but he's still harassing me. He wants me out faster than I can possibly manage to pack up my life. I have to abandon most of it. But in the packing, I go through my journals. They go back more than thirteen years. I find a pattern in my relationships. The two four-year relationships as well as other flings of different lengths. Any time I date a man, he is inattentive to my needs, he doesn't value me. I have to hide parts of myself. He thinks my interests are silly. Most notably, not a one of them can hold their liquor. I am grateful for this opportunity to see so clearly, so objectively, cycles in my life. I feel certain that vision this clear is rare. I promise myself not to forget. I swear on my own heart that this will not happen again.

2013.08:

Talk about kicking someone while they're down, or rubbing salt in a wound. While I'm nursing my emotional health, I go on a date with someone I shouldn't have trusted. He rapes me. When I tell my ex-partner, he simply says "I hope you went to the police." It's perfect.

2013.09.06: 

It is my thirty-first birthday. My father drives me to the airport. I have two full suitcases and two big carry-ons. The woman at the ticket counter jokes, "Wow, are you moving?" Yes ma'am, I reply, I'm moving to Taiwan for two years. I'm going back to Pingtung.

2013.11:

It is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. I have learned that a man on an internet forum I frequent is also an American living in southern Taiwan, in my city of Pingtung. I invite him to Thanksgiving dinner. He declines. I later learn that he didn't want to meet a girl from the internet. She would probably turn out to be weird.

2014:

About a year later, I finally get this man to hang out with me. His name is Matt. He is funny. He is a truly caring friend. He remembers things I forget that I've even told him. He pays attention. I hang out with him more and more. He's positively dreamy, but it's so rare to have a friend here. It's easy to have acquaintances, but rare to find someone with whom you share a first language and cultural experience. Then once you find that, do you even get along? We get along. He's perfectly sweet. I hope he finds a good girlfriend. He deserves one.

2015.08:

I've always had community in the US. No, communities. Many different groups of friends, some overlapping, that I can interact with as often as I like. Most of my friends are cuddlers. We have slumber parties. I miss human contact. I convince Matt to become a cuddling friend. But it turns out, we've both always been interested in trying something more than just friendship with one another. Physical closeness leads to more physical closeness. Before I know it, we're being physically close pretty often. But my heart is still broken. I'm not looking for love. I know he is, and I don't want to get in the way of that for him. I don't want to change him, either, but he spontaneously stops smoking cigarettes. I tell him I love him, but I'm not in love with him. He tells me in all things, I'm the boss. He'll never push me. I believe him. I trust him.

2015.10:

I want to share my favorite magical place with this special friend of mine. I convince him to spend a weekend on a nearby mountain with me. It's an aboriginal area, and the woman who I call doesn't have any vacancies in her room. But she hears my accent on the phone and asks if I'm foreign. When I tell her I am, she offers her ancestral home for me and my "boyfriend" (her word not mine) to stay in. When we go there, it's amazing. Slate house, porch on the roof, all windows open and we sleep next to one on a slab, listening to running water and chirping frogs. The name of the mountain is WuTai, meaning fog platform. We sit on the roof porch and watch the sun set and the fog platform roll in beneath us. We sleep above the clouds. We make love on our slab next to the open window while the frogs and falling water sing to us. Damn, I think. I'm in love with this bastard. I'm done for. There's no going back.

2016.02.25:

Matt and a friend go out drinking. Matt, as he often does, has far too much. He gets blackout drunk. How did he end up on a naval base? Was their perimeter not secure and he just found a back way in? Did he actually go through the front gate and no one cared to stop him? We may never know. But he is arrested for drunk driving on the military base. He is taken to court, where he is counseled to plead guilty. The judge asks if he wants to remain in Taiwan, and he says yes, more than anything, he loves Taiwan. It's true, we both do at this point. We don't want to go back to the USA. The judge accepts his guilty plea and charges him a fine for drunk driving and espionage. The fee is equivalent to about $3,000USD. He pays.

2016:

He never pushes me. He never asks for more than I have to give at any time. He never does anything without my consent. He listens, pays attention, and remembers. I don't have to hide any parts of myself. He loves my ugliness, my brokenness, my scars. He accepts me and celebrates me as I am. I allow myself to be vulnerable with him, and I've never felt more safe.

When I am depressed, he instinctively knows exactly what to do. I've always had to hide my clinical depression from my past partners. They either didn't care or actively said they didn't like it. But this man knows what to do. He knows if I need to be left alone, he knows if I need cuddles, he knows if I need pillows and blankets and children's movies. One night, before we move in together, I send him a message. I feel silly. I've been too depressed to take a shower and I'm starting to smell bad. He comes over. He takes off his clothes but keeps his underwear on. He tells me he doesn't want this to feel sexual. He carries me to the bathroom and puts me on a stool in the shower. He washes my hair for me and scrubs my skin. Another night my anxiety is so bad I'm trapped on the couch. I cannot get to bed to go to sleep. It's getting late. Again I send him a message. Again he comes over and saves the day.

At some point, I have a talk with Matt about his drinking. I've never been so cared for, so respected in any relationship. Truly everything is perfect except this. I tell him about the journals and what I promised myself. He promises, too. He promises to cut back. He drinks only at home. No more driving anymore. He buys a certain amount, and doesn't drink more than that. But the amounts he brings home get bigger. But he keeps his word.

2017.02.12:

We go out with some friends. We ride together on his ride to get there, so he can't get too drunk to get us home. The first drink he orders is a bathtub of a margarita with two beers turned upside down in it. He says this way, he only needs to buy one drink for the night. Then he buys a second drink. I ask him to stop. He starts drinking water. But when we go to the next bar, I can see his eyes getting glassy. He orders a rum and coke. Then a second. He talks with the bartender about how much rum goes in, and it's fully three quarters of the glass. I can see the Matt I know has gone away from behind those glassy eyes. It is another man who picks up that drink and puts it to his lips. As I see him do it, I know that I am less important than a glass of rum and coke. I know he is already blackout drunk. I call a cab and take him home. On the drive he becomes less and less lucid. By the time we arrive I'm barely able to get him into our home. I get him undressed and in the shower with the water running. I bring him water. He starts to throw up. I'm dying from the heart out. I'm trying to tend to him without shattering into a million pieces. I go to the kitchen to get more water and when I come back, he's climbed out of the bathroom and into the hallway where he's thrown up a lake. I start hysterically sobbing and wailing. I lock myself in the bedroom. I sleep until it's time to go to work.

2017.02.13:

When I leave the bedroom to go to work, I find a puddle of vomit-infused water in the floor. I have to put plastic bags over my feet so I can walk through it to get to the door. I realize my relationship is over. I made a promise to myself that I intend to keep. We spend the week separated. We live in the same apartment but sleep in different rooms. I'm trying to fight for us to stay friends. He has quit drinking for good. He has started exercising. But he says it will hurt him too much to stay friends. The worst is happening and I can't stop it.

2017.02.18:

Matt brings home a cigar - one of our favorite pastimes is to sit on our 5th-floor balcony together with no electronics and share a cigar and conversation in the breeze. Over the course of this conversation, we realize we both want to continue fighting for this relationship, the best either of us have ever had. We've always been good at communication and working together. He asks me if I remember him giving up cigarettes shortly after we started dating. I do, he quit cold turkey. He tells me, the most difficult part of change for him is to commit to the decision. Once he's done that, he says, it's finished. I believe him, but I'm scared to trust him. We decide to work together to save it. He lets me set the pace. He never tries to rush things. We slowly move forward, then back into the same bedroom. We continue to have weekend adventures all over Taiwan. We spoil one another on each other's birthdays. He writes me poetry and loves everything I cook. When we talk about the future, our plans always include one another. There is no future without him. My home is where his heart is.

2017.04.27:

A Taiwanese author named Lin YiHan kills herself. She had recently published a story about a girl who is raped and abused by her teacher. People speculated that it was auto-biographical although she denied it.

2017.05.12:

A new law is passed in Taiwan requiring background checks for teachers. People hope it will keep children safe from predators, and so do Matt and I. When our bosses ask for our information to do background checks, we happily provide it. No one should have to fear abuse from their superiors, and no children should go through what the protagonist in Lin's novel did.

2018.05.12:

Matt and I board a plane together. We've taken many short trips but this will be our first long journey. We're going first to visit his family so I can meet everyone, then to mine so they can meet him. I will be able to stay longer in the USA than Matt can, and I look forward to spending time with my father.

2018.05.27:

Matt flies home. His journey is just awful. One flight is fourteen hours and the woman behind him is digging her feet into his chair, hitting an area where he has a surgical wound we've been tending for ages. Upon his exhausted arrival, he learns from his boss that his work permit has been revoked. His background check turned up the DUI. It doesn't matter that he paid his fine. It doesn't matter that he's been sober for a year and a half. The permit has been revoked. I am in denial. He believes he will have to leave Taiwan, but I beg him to fight it. He never hurt any children. His students and their parents love him. His bosses make every call possible.

2018.06.04:

I am on a road-trip around my part of the USA. It is about 9PM and I still have about 5 hours drive left before I get to my destination. I get a message from Matt that he is being deported. There is never a moment where I consider staying in Taiwan. My home is where his heart is. They aren't deporting one man, they're deporting us both, because I cannot stay without him. I pull into a roadside strip motel because I don't trust myself to keep driving. When I explain my situation at the front desk, they give me rum. I drink it and go to my room to shower and cry.

2018.06.06:

Matt checks the mail and finds a letter from the government. The letter says he must leave Taiwan. The deportation date is June 5th. Yes, you read that right. The official letter arrived on the 6th and said he had to leave the country on the 5th. He calls the office. He tells them his girlfriend will return to Taiwan on the 18th. Could he please stay until the 20th? Could he please see her for one day before he has to leave? They make him promise that he will leave the country on the 20th. When he hangs up, he sees on the bottom where he can call to appeal the decision. But everyone has been called, and at this point, we're through. We're exhausted. They win. We'll leave.

The Future:

I will go back to work in Taiwan. I will probably work until late August, early September. Early September is when I first moved to Taiwan in 2013. That means I've lived there for five years, after my original plan was for just two years. I fell in love with the land, the mountains, the beaches, the plains. I fell in love with the people, the families, the friends, the shopkeepers. I fell in love with the food, the god parades, the night markets. It's the longest I've ever stayed in one place my entire life. I wanted to keep staying.

I don't know where we go next. But we will go there together. This is the man I wrote about in my notebook in fourth grade, the last time I ever stayed somewhere more than three years. He is my spell, he is my prayer, he is where my heart is. I will follow him to any country. I will follow him to the moon.

To the ex who said he didn't know what it meant

 Recorded in bed before falling asleep

25/30: exhausted

I am Tired:

of being angry about houses
I don't have the tools to rebuild.
I'm tired of waiting for flowers
to arrive.  Tired of looking
over shoulders not my own.
Tired of counting and counting,
and counting things I need to be
counting.  Tired of math
and of language, tired of all
the things I don't know.  Tired
of not sleeping enough
and of sleeping too much.
Tired of sleeping around.  Tired
of Quit Playing Around And Get
Back To Work.  Tired of
Just Because You Write A Thing
Doesn't Make It True.
Tired of Mr Right Just Kidding Mr
Wrong All Along.  Tired of politics
and people tired of breathing air.
Tired of ain't got what I need, tired
of cain't get what I want.  Tired
of wanting and needing at all.
Tired of pay this and buy that and earn
earn earn tired of disparity
tired of depression and anxiety
tired
of exhaustion
tired of writing
this poem.

16/30: Catching up, and a silly ode

Today I woke up and my friend was still dead.

I took off work yesterday.  Keith and I hadn't been close since I left the Hot Springs area, but he was always someone who had significantly impacted me when I was younger, and you don't just lose that.  I was some sixteen, seventeen year old punk kid who tried writing and was scared, and he was one of the people who encouraged me.  He and a short list of others made me believe I had value, my voice was worthy of being heard, I should continue trying this crazy thing called art.  We'd catch up whenever I went back to visit, but he always seemed a little distant.

I guess now I know why.

Depression is a motherfucker.  And that ain't the half of the reality.  It KILLS people.  Don't think of suicide as selfish.  Think of it as tragic.  It is not something people do with the intention of hurting others.  It's something that happens when people cannot possibly hurt any more.  I wish I were back home right now, I wish I could gather with everyone who wants to honor Keith's memory.  I wish I could shake his daughter's hand and tell her how honored I am to meet her, after hearing so much for so many years about her, about how much Keith loved her.

My friend isn't coming back.  When I go visit home next month, I won't see him.

So I have to hug the ones I see even harder.  Love them even louder.

I love you.

Hi!

So you're reading my blog!  Wow!  Every year I get more readers, more views, more comments.  I remember once, talking to an ex-lover about something I wrote and said, I mean you probably haven't seen it---

He interrupted, "I read everything you ever write."

What kind of mad praise is that?  My whole heart sat with that and still sits with it.

I saw one day last week I got nearly two hundred views. In one day!  I mentioned it on Facebook, and a few different people said they'd been poking around, catching up, reading old posts... Think about how much it means to be SEEN in this world.  To know that people are looking at you.  On purpose.  Because they want to see you.

SO many of us don't know this feeling.  I think Keith didn't know.  If he'd known how many of us read his book, how many of us looked forward to seeing him again, would he still be here?  Would that have been medicine enough?

You are my medicine.

Say something.  Leave a comment here, or on a past post you enjoyed.  Or one you didn't enjoy!  One you hated!  Tell me what's working for you in the piece, tell me what isn't working for you and could be tightened up.  Tell me what you miss.  Tell me who you love.  Let's communicate and celebrate - we're still here on this side of the ground.

Yesterday's poem was part for Keith and part for all of us with depression and life-threatening mental illnesses.  Today's poem is part for Keith and part for celebrating life and part for poutine.

Yesterday was hump day.  The 15th of the month, out of 30 days.  So now we're coasting downhill toward home.  Why not write a silly poem?  I've been serious all month.  Today let's celebrate something that made me happy.  Today, that thing was a poutine burger from A-Chi, the best burger joint in Pingtung and maybe even all of southern Taiwan.


I neglected to take a photo before I dug in. I was too excited to have it in my mouth.  Halfway through I thought, I should write a silly fun poem today, for Keith, and took a photo.  No "after" photo because you've all seen a blank plate before.

Ode to the Poutine Burger at A-Chi:

Behold the meat patty,
so full of potential,
so undirected: raw
in the cold air, behind
a tightly sealed door.  Behold lettuce,
ripe tomato, white onion thinly sliced.
Pickles bathing, relaxed,
in their vinegar.  Behold cheese
and bun.  Take all of this and you would have

a burger.  But today
is not just any day. Today we add
mashed potatoes, brown gravy plus cream
and mushrooms.  Today, I glut.
I debauch.  I celebrate another day
on this side of the ground with
GRAVY.  There be no tidiness
here. No means to dainty my way
through these pillows of exploding mash,
these gravyfalls of deliciocity!  This
is bliss, and it's all over my face:
someone once
told me
a terrible joke.
I will now suffer it upon you.

What's the difference
between pussy
and mashed potatoes.

Pussy makes its own gravy.

BUT NO PUSSY EVER COVERED MY FACE
LIKE THIS.  Oh, poutine burger, inappropriately
named, in this country without curds I don't care
what I look like, seated outside at the table
in front of the restaurant, I wear you without shame,
I wear you with prize, nose to neck, sweet sweet
poutine burger, I left my last wife,
the chili cheese burger with real pickled jalapeños
FOR YOU, in this country with no chili
and no pickled jalapeños, for YOU, oh my love,
there can be no other above you, no day of work
is too terrible that you cannot wash
it away with your sauce, gravied potatoes, gravied
bun, gravied lettuce and gravied onions, gravied red
ripe tomatoes, oh my god, gravied PICKLES.
The occasional saucy mushroom tries to escape

but my fries are at the ready.  POUTINE BURGER,
never leave me.  POUTINE BURGER, never die.
POUTINE BURGER, only you
can stay
my wandering eye.

15/30: For Keith, who stole pencils

There is community and then there is
community. Some you can see.  Girl Scouts.
A crowd dancing under manic lights. A weekly

cancer support group.  The huddled prisoners
of war in their cells.  Two bodies passing in a crowd,
a nod when they recognize each other's tattoos.

Participation in community begets love and loss
and loss.  One scout moves to another town, one dancer
kisses friends goodnight.  Cheryl doesn't show up

for this week's meeting.  Tomas doesn't come back
from interrogation.  Some loss is heavier
than lifting. Who can say what the community feels?

I can.  Today I heard of a poet's death, his lifelong struggle
with a disease no cheaper than cancer. Keith took his life? No.
Depression did.  A poet, depressed, still writing, he was

my community and on this unholy day I feel
my own death here in the room.  It is small
as a baby's fist.  A sour, overripe plum

cradled between my teeth. It poisons my thoughts.
He isn't coming back like so many others and this disease
is killing my friends, my heroes, my mentors, our

artists, and one day it might kill me.  A fruit
I cannot spit out, fermenting, brewing a wine
no one should drink.

Keith's Obituary

Keith featuring in High on Words, a radio show

Buy Keith's Book Here

The poem Keith wrote when Pete Seger died:

Pete

I listened to your voice
more than I did that of my own parents
though I did hear theirs
much more often than yours
your voice told me not just
what I needed to hear
but what I wanted to her
as well

Now, I will bid farewell
to part of you
but not the part that matters
the part I still posses
so do millions of others
all around this world
some are still around campfires
as I once was

That’s when we were first introduced
it did not matter much
that you were physically absent
from that introduction
we still formed a bond
that will not be broken
not even with that hammer
the one that works morning and evening
all over this land

We still have a bond with
millions of voices loud and soft
and those voices are still
as effective today as any hammer

“If I had a hammer
I’d hammer in the morning
I’d hammer in the evening
All over this land…”

January 29, 2014

10/30: reasons to be angry today

1. Because I set my alarms for P.M. instead of A.M. and woke up just in time to not technically be late to work.
2. Because I can't use my air conditioner, because it pisses water all over my belongings.
3. Because I'm ovulating and there's no one around to Do Me Right.
4. Because I didn't see the sun set.
5. Because I never see the sun set.
6. Because Dove has a new Beauty campaign out that still doesn't address how much easier it is for white able-bodied ciswomen to claim Beauty than it is for their sisters in the struggle.
7. Because too many white able-bodied ciswomen leave their sisters behind in the struggle.
8. Because the struggle.
9. Because I make my students do their homework, but I still haven't finished grading their tests.
10. Because I don't know how to reach some of them.
11. Because I had to teach them about Ferguson.
12. Because Amerikkka.
13. Because maybe there is no good country in this world.
14. Because this world.
15. Because depression.
16. Because antidepressants.
17. Because infinite downward spirals of existential thoughts.
18. Because I didn't have time to eat until 10PM.
19. Because I've already stayed up too late again tonight.
20. Because tomorrow *isn't* another day.
21. Because I still haven't finished unpacking into this new place.
22. Because I don't know where my heart is.
23. Because I'm scared to visit home, because what if I don't want to leave, because what if I never want to visit again.
24. Because I want to be home now.
25. Because home is a place where companies turn the water off on poor folk.
26. Because home is a place where white men in blue shirts shoot black men black women black children black people who did NOTHING.
27. Because too many black family trees are missing limbs these days.
28. Because this makes me sick, but I have the privilege of being able to stop thinking about it because I'm white.
29. Because home is a place where businesses can tell me get out cuz I'm queer.
30. Because I'm queer and woman in a world that hates queer and woman and black and and and.
31. Because that should be so alarming that we all immediately understand how wrong it is and change it.
32. Because people don't find it alarming and don't change it.
33. Because at 10PM my alarms did in fact go off.

3/30: from a few different prompts, trying to write about depression

It won't come up on you all
of a sudden like joy or spring
rain or the first time you held
someone's hand
because you liked them.
There is a place inside you
everyone hates.  It is not round.
This place is all corners, not warm
ly lit, but warm, too warm, stuffy
even. There is either a bed
or a puddle of pillows, and most
assuredly a blanket under which
you now womb.  “But, sunshine.”
“But, exercise.”  “But, Jesus.” “But--
”   But shut up.  You've paraded
every pill, waltzed every doctor,
spelunked every self-help source.
It is always Thursday here, and no
salesmen sell insurance
for this most unnatural disaster.
Silver dust on everything,
no crawling out.  There is a place
inside you even you hate. This is where
you live now, pay rent in feelings.
It will slip up slow, swallow you
whole, devour your want
to go.

30/30: this time it's personal and it's naked and it's ugly.

And it's prose.  Whoops.

I'm feeling extremely restless.  Something about spending an entire day expecting to learn at any minute that any number of people I hold very dear had died.  Something about this ovulation being extra cat-in-heat-like.  Something about too much introspection and existential thought.  Something about I love a man on the other side of a globe and what am I even stringing him along for if I will probably just let him down by going to bed with someone and never live near him anyway.  An open relationship in theory and in practice are different animals.  A past lover asked if I wanted to get down.  I wanted to get down.  I went to see him.  It was fun and it was fine but how will the man I love be after I tell him?  And I left still feeling cat-in-heat-like.  I wanted to go to any bar and go to bed with the first person who made eye contact.  I wanted a stranger to slap me full across the face and tell me horrible things about myself.  I went home and wrote a tender poem about my love then spent my whole dream fucking strangers who said yes.  So instead I drive too fast after school down rural highways and the wind is too cold because I don't have a jacket and it hurts my skin and I like it.  And a car in front of me is kicking up dust and it's stinging my skin and I like it.  I follow the car down roads I wouldn't otherwise have taken because I want the stinging to keep stinging.  And the cold and the sting is making me tear up and I like it because I have an excuse to shed tears and a reason for them I can name.  I'm driving too fast and I'm fantasizing about leaping off and flying for a few seconds.  I hold the accelerator down until it will go no faster and dream about brick walls.  And what am I even doing staying up too late every night and I just want to sleep all day and why am I going to work what does this work mean for me for my future what is a future do I even want one?  What is living for and can't I just sleep under an overpass and start drunk fights with strangers and get my teeth knocked out?  Why do I feel like shit and why do I want someone something to make me feel like shit?  Because then I'd have an actual reason for feeling this way that I cannot otherwise name?

24/30: in this forest

Someone in my Facebook news feed referred to his pain in passing as a forest.  So I went all the way there.  He was speaking mostly about chronic physical pain, I channeled mental illness.

In this forest the tree trunks are wide
as nightmares.  In this forest I try
to walk through but my feet stick
in the muck and the branches are all arms
with a raven's grip.  In this forest
the wildfire moss soaks up all sounds,
even ones I imagine, a silence
so thick it's blinding, and now I've lost
all sense of direction.  The canopy becomes
its own night sky, no sunlight for so long
I've forgotten how it feels on the skin
and can't care.  The muck begins
to resemble the warmest of beds, and in
this forest I lie down, held by so many
ravens' arms.  Gravequiet moss
for a blanket and a night too black
for stars.  I open my mouth to yawn
and out sprouts a sapling, growing faster
than any bad dream.

8/30: For Noah, who tried to run

I may have my detractors, but you must
give me this much, at least:  Never
were any children more clean,

more well behaved, more perfectly still,

more faces of angels, more Sunday best,

all arrowstraight and godliness.  What is a bathtub

if not a baptismal font, scrubbing every speck

of sin away?  My three boys, the disciples, John,
Paul, and Luke one by one and then Mary,
sweet Mary, the baby that broke

this camel’s back.  Noah saw her there, floating

face down in the holy water, Noah my firstborn,

my eldest, my king

                                         of troubled seas
and he was afraid.  I sang to him to coax
him back, and I sang to him as he struggled

beneath the waves, then placed him there

in the waterstorm he was named for, holding Mary

in his arms, my Alpha and Omega together

and my three straightarrow boys laid out

in the quiver of the bed where I made them.  I loved them
more than I loved God, so I sent them home to him
so nothing could come between us.  Their earthly father

loved me still, told people he wanted me to smith
more for arrows for him and for God.  But I failed him,
failed our quiver, failed God.  My babies stumbled

because I stumbled and when I let their souls fly

I gave them that gift at the cost of paradise, knowing

full well that eternity shall deliver my reward.

7/30: it isn't as bad as it sounds, i promise.

On the days when she does not come, at least

she sends a note.  More Dear Sweetheart than
Dear John, less rejection letter and more regret

to decline the invitation.  It’s fine, of course; I’m used

to the days without her, go about the apartment

just the same, step over the laundry, occasionally wipe

the dirt off the soles of my feet, don’t even look

at the neglected mop - how is it any of the mop’s business

what I do with my time, anyway?  Because the days

when Joy doesn’t come round are not really days, after all,

are they?  Just extensions of the nights when we both know

I won’t be doing any sleeping.  Here, the trash

I should take down to the street, there,

the sand I shook from my bag after the beach

and never swept up.  Now and then an empty glass

with a faint film in the bottom which I will not wash

before I fill it back up.  Who does Joy

think she is anyway?  How is she so fucking

special that I need her around to get anything done?

Maybe things are better left undone, because who am I

if not a to-do list forever unfinished, a love note

never unfolded, a single woman more comfortable

with Dirt and Despair at the end of the day, who wouldn’t

even know what to do if Joy called.

day 19 last minute haiku

Forgive me, I just finished watching Silver Linings Playbook.

So, yeah, I'm crazy.
Diagnosed SMI. What?
I still deserve love.

18/30: The day I tried four poems and didn't really love any.

Haiku:
the clap can be cured
even a cold goes away
but depresson?  oohf.


This prompt, which gave me a ghost line from Tara Hardy.
She wants to hear the bees in your chest
which is why she buys flowers
every day, new ones all the time.
She's trying to entice them with
fresh flavors, call it a buffet
of bribery, she keeps the sheets
sticky with honey sketching out
sacred circles, drawing honeycomb maps,
why she wears netting to bed,
to be ready, just in case, blows
smoke in your ears, why you wake
to find her, the side of her face
pressed to your heart, whispering,
"come on, you beauties, i know
you have secrets to tell."


A Poem About The Doctor Who Gives Me Meds:
walk in to the circus.
greet the other freaks.
step up to the counter for my ticket.
get called back for my 2:00 with the man
     i was told was a lion tamer.
as it happens, he is not a man
     at all, but a pony
and now i am the tamer.
here, pony, step up, step pretty, show
     me your one and only trick.
open that horse's mouth, say:
     "well let's try increasing
       the dosage and you can come back
       in two months."
bow for the applause.
here's your treat.
the crowd is leaving.
get back in your cage.


Somewhere I Found A Prompt That Said To Start With A Quote Of Advice And Then Work Backward Through Lines That Sounded Similar Until You Had A 14 Line Poem But Now I Can't Find The Prompt To Link To It Anywhere:
All towns are full of the same things.
Brown liquids cool beneath steam.
Frown at the fool while he swings.
Down in the pool he's swimming.
Now will you please kiss me?
How damn full these mixed things.
The cow and bull are fixing
calibre and marine
calipers on machines
Call the person with wings.
Wall off the parson 'til he sings
all of the parts in tall rings.
Swallow the start; it still stings.
Follow your heart in all things.

14/30 My favorite shades of blue

My Favorite Shades of Blue:

·         aero

·         air force

·         anguish

·         aquamarine

·         arsenic

·         azure

·         baby

·         beau

·         bleakness

·         blue bell

·         catalina

·         Catawba

·         celestial

·         cerulean

·         cornflower

·         cyan

·         dark

·         dejected

·         denim

·         depression

·         despondent

·         dismal

·         doledrums

·         down

·         electric

·         forlorn

·         fresh air

·         gloomy

·         glum

·         got the blues

·         grief

·         heartache

·         heartbreak

·         Honolulu

·         iceberg

·         independence

·         lapis lazuli

·         light

·         medium

·         melancholy

·         midnight

·         miserable

·         misery

·         moonstone

·         mopey

·         morose

·         mournful

·         navy

·         periwinkle

·         powder

·         robin’s egg

·         royal

·         sadness

·         sapphire

·         sea

·         sky

·         slate

·         somber

·         sorrow

·         steel

·         the dumps

·         tiffany

·         true

·         turquoise

·         ultramarine

·         vivid sky

·         wild blue yonder

·         wistful

·         woe

·         zaffre