Nightmare in Turlock

For the first time in a long time, I had a bona fide nightmare.

I was a guest on a late night talk show and was being asked if I would ever have sex for money, but before I could answer I “woke up.” Yes, it was a dream within a dream.

When I woke up I was in sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Can’t tell you much about the room because it was dark, but it seemed bare and unfamiliar. A holographic image of James Franco was standing over me. He had one leg on either side of me, standing on top of the bed looking straight ahead beyond me. I yelped and said, “Who the fuck are you?” and suddenly he disappeared and reappeared sitting in a lit corner of the room to my left hugging his knees to his chest.

I got up on the right-hand side of the bed and grabbed my phone, which was exactly the same one I have now (same screensaver and everything), and prepared to call 911. I even slapped myself on the face and said, “C’mon, Lizzie, wake up...” and I swear I FELT the slap. He then suddenly reappeared behind me and his nose was bloody—so much so that the streams of blood covered his entire mouth and chin—and he said, “You know who I am” while I screamed repeatedly.

I kept backing up as he continued to approach me and held my right hand up ready to punch him square in the face. Somewhere deep down though I knew he wasn’t real… That’s when I heard Ana calling, “Mommy? Mommy, are you okay?” and woke up in this reality.

I don’t particularly like James Franco. I don’t dislike him either, but I don’t understand how or why he would seep into my subconscious. Also not sure what he could symbolize. Funny thing is, he was sort of glowing throughout the whole thing, almost like he was a ghost.

I doubt I’ll be able to find a distinct interpretation of this on a dream website, but what in the holy fuck could this mean? Better question, why do humans have to attach meaning to everything? Maybe everything is “meant” to be random and crazy.

Damaged Goods

You can find me at Ross

with a mark-down sticker

on my thigh

Thrown out from my Creator

because there’s something not quite right

about me

I look well enough at first glance

but my stuffing has been poisoned

and the stitching is a little crooked

All I can do is hope that someone

looking for a bargain

will settle on me

IG: @daydreamifications

On Depression (Part One)

She does not always come tattered, smelling of gutter, pathetic and miserable,

is not always tears on a pillow, smeared mascara, and empty tubs of ice cream

like you’d expect.

Sometimes she slinks in dressed to the nines

with the click-clack of heel and a Vegas-watt smile,

shows up warm as wine when everything

is going right.

You would think her prickly, a bad rash,

a bra two sizes too small, an erection at church.

But she is often as soothing as a blanket,

effortless as a shadow.

She will suffocate you and call it hug,

take lazy and call it rest,

and set impossible standards

so that you may always know 
failure.

She does not knock politely.

She will combat boot stomp into your chest

until it is a cave where a heart used to be,

a cave you once convinced yourself a tunnel,

a thing with light, 
with an end.

She makes smiling feel like work, steals the desire to want to,

thrives even when you know better,

when you have tools,

have support.

She peeks behind the post-it notes all over the house that remind

“you are enough” and “everything will be okay.”

She will give you a phantom life,

something you only used to feel.

She will make you immune to joy and numbed with fear,

the fear that all those despicable lies you’ve told yourself are true,

(“You’re a burden, not worth remembering.

You make too many mistakes, carry too much baggage.”)

true because you can never seem to stick to anything

that’s good for you.

Sometimes she is the bang of a two-year-old drum pot band,

other times she is pin drop.

Though what she never seems to be

is needle in the haystack.

She might hide 
between the lines, beat beneath the floorboards,

hide like belly fat behind a pillow.

But she lives in the small ways you express shame

without even realizing it.

And yet you find yourself tapping the hollow of your elbow

fiending for her to stay,

because even though you know it's fucked up,

she's the closest thing to home you've got.

So you keep your home like you keep your life—an organized mess,

pile emotions into projects to take care of…one day.

keep guilt 
neat in the corner of the room with the perfectly lined up free weights

and worry you’ll never free yourself

from the weight of it.

Afraid you’ll always live on autopilot

with a fear of flying.

IG: @daydreamifications

What Being A Woman Means

Yesterday there was a woman.
(Excuse me, a lady.)
She wore pink pumps, zipped lips, and a ladle.
Smiled politely and kept her belly full of sons.
A pin-curled pincushion with steak on the table,
this woman defined becoming
a definition.

Today there is a woman.
(Excuse me, a womyn.)
She clunks about in the ashes of burnt bras
in the shoes of women past, filling and faking
and fighting.
She’s married, she’s single, she once was a man.
She is books and wine or none at all.
This woman is choosing.

Tomorrow I will be woman first.
No breed, no class, no belief comes before this.
Not person farmer, machine
for the senses, skin shade or hip bone.
I will be lullaby and rock climb,
see saw and Wall Street.
I will decide what being
a woman means.

IG @daydreamifications

I Once Was Blind . . . (A Short Open Letter to White People)

Dear fellow white people, 

From what I understand so far, one’s “blackness” is a fundamental part of one’s identity, so to say you are “colorblind” is to say you do not acknowledge an entire group of people who do not have the privilege to NOT consider race on a daily basis. How can you respect someone you don’t acknowledge, someone you don’t SEE? 

Black and brown people don’t get to be colorblind because the color of their skin influences every facet of their lives—from walking down the street to attending a university to employment to harassment/violence/death at the hands of law enforcement. Our family and/or peers as well as the media have socially conditioned us to stereotype. Until we live in a society where we can SEE people and strip away this conditioning, then maybe we can take a true step forward. Much more importantly, if those who control every single social institution suddenly stopped discriminating/purposefully hindering/attacking/killing black and brown people, then maybe we can claim racism as a thing of the past. 

The ideology of colorblindness is that we look past skin color to one’s character and, although this is true and well-intentioned, it misses the mark. We don’t need to blind ourselves to race, we need to expose ourselves to race. (Not like that, nasty.) What I’m saying is, we can only celebrate one another with eyes wide open. 

Acknowledge your privilege and learn how to use it to benefit black and brown people, study our nation’s history, and call out your white friends on their racist behavior/opinions. No matter how much you care, you will never be able to understand the black experience. Keep your ears AND EYES open in your quest to be a good ally. 

Sincerely, 

Still Learning in California

Don't Hold Your Breath

I find myself holding my breath when
I'm telling the truth
or waiting to hear it.
I brace myself for the cold smack,
the bullet between the eyes,
the belly taste in cheek from the fall.
It barrels toward me in slow motion.
Seems only safe to pause on the seam
of breath.

I find myself holding my breath when
beauty surrounds me.
Holding your child for the first time,
when the words come,
moments so tragically perfect you cradle them
as if they'll never grow old,
dancers on a subway platform twirling,
fluid and lucid.

I wish I could melt like that,
ripple and river and flow.
I am staccato, riot
breathing in pieces.
With an inhale--the crack.
With an exhale--the shatter.
I find myself holding my breath when I cannot decide
to hold on
or let go.

Pissing in the Mountains at Two O'clock in the Morning

       It’s 2am and you awaken to the realization that the piercing pain in your pelvis will easily translate into a urine-soaked sleeping bag if you don’t do something quick. So you fumble to find the flashlight you’ve left on top of the cubby next to you, but once your fingers make contact, the veil of sleep behind your eyes lifts and you gingerly place this lifeline between your teeth.

       

       You brace yourself for the stiff welcome of stinging cold as you peel the blanket on top of the sleeping bag back and emerge from your cocoon. You reach for the jacket you’ve left hanging on the edge of the bunk bed for just this occasion, and once you’ve slinked it on, you grasp the edges of the top bunk and begin the ascent down to civilization.

       

       “Next time I’ll come early,” you think as your clumsy feet struggle to find each rung “so I can snag a bottom bunk.”

       

       Finally you reach the gritty floor and very carefully slide your feet inside your tennis shoes. You don’t lace them up or anything—they are merely makeshift slippers for the night. You try to creep quietly to the door, which is really just an opening where a door would normally be covered with a sheet, but the gravel stuck beneath your shoes gives you up, and you crunch crunch crunch along until you can feel the cool mountain breeze tickling your nose.

       

       Off you go. You turn on your priceless flashlight and illuminate the pine needle path to the facilities. Not to the shed with the 10-foot (that’s only an estimation) hole in the ground, no, you’re taking the trek toward actual toilets. You nearly fall over a pinecone but regain composure as you are on an increasingly dire mission.

       

       You should feel afraid, what with the pitch black and the trees for hiding and aren’t there bears in the woods? But somehow you feel nothing but focused on your imminent relief and as pristine as the air your lungs strain to swallow.

       

       And have you ever seen so many stars?

IG: @dreamifications

MindFULLness

Buddhist monks are known for practicing walking meditation,

a state of constant mindfulness.

It is less known, but I also practice a constant state

of fear, walking anxiousness.

A child, a mother, a husband

depend on the sharpened needle

to thread arms for hugging, lips for smiling,

and a neck George casually called fat in Spanish class

for tilting back a chuckle.

She is strong.

Coffee shop nods and pillow gazes alike

ignore the blood diamonds

I’ve picked for along my thumbs.

Panic Attack

Somewhere in the distance, a cup shatters.

Not the sudden piercing cry of glass

but the rumbling of ceramic.

You watch it barrel toward the ground

but the bullet is aimed at your forehead.

The tomb cracks open and the locusts swarm

across deserts and swirling oceans

whizzing like blades through your neurons

causing a tornado to open up inside and around you.

You are in the center, but are anything but

centered.

There’s tea everywhere and the infection

is so loud.

But it doesn’t drown you.

Instead you’re inside a well where

the bricks keep tilting

and every little scrape of chair,

hollow buzz of elbow against table,

every word of every conversation of every person

fills your body with poison.

You can’t even pray, lest the camel break his back.

Dread begins to weave its knots.

You tell yourself you are fine, a familiar echo.

You are fine.

And you KNOW you’re FINE

but still the mallet of fear strikes

your bewildered heart numb.

Each breath a vibrato screaming its aria down your arm,

your fingertips,

the side of your face,

your tongue,

until all the blood of the Nile isn’t enough

to quench your tiny veins.

And the fever can’t comfort the trembles.

Even the words are too heavy to retch,

and every plague you have ever known

comes to rain its fiery kiss.

You fight to look away—you are FINE,

yet remain your own slave wondering

if this fumbling is the result of too much sin.

All you can do is patiently wait for the water in the glass

to quiet,

wait for the pillage to leave you crumpled and weary.

And then you stand up again

and each time you do,

you notice just how beautiful all of the pieces are.

IG: @daydreamifications

On Burning Bridges

When bridges are for burning, turn to watch the dancing flames.

Nothing wrong with a pause before the forward march,

with the appreciation of what life is not going to be anymore.

Yet they say, “Don’t look back,”

like looking back pays the bridge toll for self-destruction.

You know where you’re going. You know where home is.

No one but you knows the toll you suffered which lit that match in the first place,

so no one else earns the right to suggest

you should forget what has been left behind.

Salvation is much more complicated than that.

There were smiles on that bridge too, and if you so choose, make a place for them.

Only a fool presses on without rest.

And you may not be wise but if you’re praying for a marathon and

look over your shoulder to respect the distance…

that is a testament to your strength

and not a sign of weakness.

You can look back at how far you’ve come

without losing sight of where God is leading you.

You can bounce on this bumpy road with eyes closed, because even without sight

you do not have to lose vision.

When bridges are for burning, this does not mean you stop loving.
You develop a deeper understanding of love when you have to love from a distance

in order to save yourself.

So watch the embers crackle until the ashes succumb to the call of the wind

to their new beginning.

Smear the soot on your face in holy communion and wear it proudly.

You cannot honor where you stand now without looking back, so how can they suggest that?

How would you ever have learned how to heal without a scar?

What they should say is, “Don’t look back while standing on a burning bridge.”

...That wouldn’t be the best time for reflection.

When the soles of your feet are smoldering and the taste of smoky flesh tickles your tongue,

this is not the time to wonder how you got here.

This is when you RUN, love.

Let the suitcases drop and chase steady ground without a moment’s thought.

Any time spent bemoaning mistakes and revising guilt is kerosene.

They’re right only then: Don’t look back.

Sprint until you are flight and when you land safely…

forgive.

Source: http://3nter.com/dont/dont-burn-bridges-quotes.html

Just Float, Darling

New Year Poetry Challenge, Prompt #10*

"Write a poem about COMFORT ZONES -- your particular comfort zone, jumping out of a comfort zone, a literal comfort zone, our metaphorical comfort zones, a specific event, or the general essence of comfort zones."

Just Float, Darling

I know a girl with the most remarkable skill.
Her radar eyes spot any imperfection,
see wrinkle before smile.
She can remember every wrong answer, move, mistake
without fail.
She's stands inside a swirling vortex
of depression yet 
she is a pillar of positivity.
She feels too much, I think.
Can't help but soak in the beauty around her
keeping in mind its impermanence.
"Why can't you just enjoy it, love?"
Every day she feels the rope burn, hears the steady hum,
tries to live and make decisions while this drastic polarity inside of her body
swarms.
She has a knack for assuming the worst,
has a talent for trying to destroy every thing that's ever been
any good for her.
She's always felt undeserving of anything beautiful, like love,
so the awkward proclamations of self-love she samples on her tongue
seem contrived some days.
No matter how far she comes, something inexplicable seems to
swallow her up.
There are times she doesn't feel strong enough to stomp out the lies
she tells herself.
"You're crumbling, sweetheart."
It's as if she's programmed to fail before she even tries,
why she stays in her comfort zones, no matter how uncomfortable
they become.
She feels neglected easily, like when the sun goes down.
"It has to go down sometimes, darling."
Like the moon ain't supposed to have its season too.
She must be the greenest grass
in the meanest winter.
Skilled, I tell you, to aim for impossible perfections.

She's so busy living ahead, planning for disaster,

that she can watch herself fall under the surface from a distance.
"Don't just stand there staring. You're flailing, dear.

You'll only drown, which is silly.
Who cares if you can't swim?
You sure enough know how to float."
She seems a glutton, at times, for her own
suffering.

12.22.14 es

IG: @daydreamifications

*Prompt courtesy of MoSt Poetry (Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center).

Blurred Lines

New Year Poetry Challenge, Prompt #8*
"Consider a box of crayons: the colors, the smell, the weight of it in your hands, that little sharpener in the back on the 64 crayon box, the excitement or intimidation of a new box, the way you miss the retired colors, the way the newer colors never seem quite right (wait...that might just be me). Write a poem inspired by a box of crayons."


Blurred Lines

Artists are blurry.
   They kick up dirt in dance
   and paint gritty portraits
   where the dust settles.
Their songs are often poems
that married melody
sometimes by love, sometimes by force.
   They are foggy harbors
   and sun-kissed waves
   all in one moment of longing.
Lines cross religiously
on every blank page
of possibility.
   They are an unopened box of crayons,
   a fresh scent of youth,
   yet still the wisdom of a discarded wrapper.
An artist is an untouched Burnt Sienna
highlighting the edges of an oak tree doodle
and a broken, flattened Cerulean
filling space with the illusion of sky.
   Artists are blurry.

12.17.14 es

IG: @daydreamifications

*Prompt courtesy of MoSt Poetry (Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center).

Accessus

New Year Poetry Challenge, Prompt #6*
"Write a poem about ACCESSORIES. Kitchen accessories? Truck accessories? Bed and Bath accessories? Jewelry? Fishing? Holiday? Camping?

Accessories? Accessorizing? Accessorization? Accessorial? Access?"

Accessus

My arrival
   to complete understanding
   and acceptance
frightens me.
If this does arrive--
   this knowledge,
this truth,
what else will there be to
   search for?

We live our lives in want
   of excess and
access to an ultimate...
great.
That we will arrive at something
   so great that it will make
   every little thing that ever
stung
or roared
or throbbed
   worth something.
What is all of this if it isn't
   worth something?

Problem is we live our lives
   in excess, wanting to be worth
   the wrong kind of something.
What do you accessorize your life with
   to become accessible for?
Is tomorrow another step
   closer
   or further away?

This is my arrival
   taking
      another
         step.

12.14.14 es

IG: @daydreamifications

*Prompt courtesy of MoSt Poetry (Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center).

Forgiveness

New Year Poetry Challenge, Prompt #1*
"Think of an object you were fascinated by as a child, or perhaps one you are fascinated by right now. Write a seven-line poem about it. No line can be more than seven words and so your poem should not be longer than 49 words."

Forgiveness

She handed me a crystal
knowing it was home with me.
Smoothing each side with my fingertips,
I was at peace with my grief.
Don't know if it was vulnerability
or consequence,
but with each stroke I forgave God.

12.9.14 es

IG: @daydreamifications

*Prompt courtesy of MoSt Poetry (Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center).

Hands

Working on a puzzle with Ana today.

Lying on my belly beside her,

I watch her nine-year-old fingers manipulate the pieces.

They are growing, her hands.

I can still see the three-year-old twirl in them,

the alphabet refrigerator magnets and bouncy curls,

but they are almost young woman hands now.

I want to remember them just as they are,

so I stare at the curves of her fingernails and the texture of her skin.

I admire her round cheeks, her bright eyes, her little chin.

I can still hold that chin between my thumb and pointer finger

like I used to.

She is growing

sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow.

But as I lie here closely watching her

hands

there is no such thing as time.

IG: @daydreamifications

Broken

The poet said, “No one deserves to love something broken.”

Are we born fragment? solid beam of perfection?

or do we come splinter, splintered

searching for scraps to make us whole?

If so, catch me missing in distant places,

a part of a larger puzzle found.

Column coming together, re-bar making home,

drywall relationships, soft as bricks.

We make love instinctively 
to put the pieces back together.

We feel whole when we are so much 
more than just ourselves.

Connected is all we were ever meant to be.

Before our first breath birthed us ego, flooded us wants,

all we ever needed

was connection.

A dancer’s fingertip reaches out to an unknown something,

the second it coils back, snaps back to the middle—

we are that space in between.

We are the dancer’s reach to the heavens

and bent knee for mercy,

unable to do either without hip and spine and…

balance.

Place hands on womb, feel centered.

How nature intended—a delicately intricate web.

So effective, so beautiful in the sunlight, 
so resilient in the dark.

Meant to be as dirty as connections almost always are.

Never perfect, might bend with emotion or blur into the distance,

but will still always be…

here.

We so often measure pros and cons

tipping either side of the scale forgetting

we are the pillar holding the scales in place.

We are never truly barren until we give up on our connections

to others and to ourselves.
And if love were connection,

no shatter, no quake could break us no way.

I used to believe there was emptiness in being still,

but it has only been in stillness that have I learned to encompass

all things,

and there’s nothing empty about that.

The poet said, “No one deserves to love something broken.”

She led me to discover that when we feel
b - r - o - k - e - n
it is because we are loved to pieces.

We are loved.

IG: @daydreamifications

Life Is for the Living

Life is for the living.

Inside creaky shouts

I cannot claim to know

a despair so great

that my heart should remain

quiet enough to hear

death’s leathery whisper.

Haunts some,

coaxes others.

For others still, relief.

Thought I once felt

an inexplicable grief

to be alive; it is a mystery.

Could’ve fallen beneath the surface,

stayed afloat and drowned

instead the rumor

death once told me.

Life is for the living.

IG: @daydreamifications

Unsolicited Advice for Novice Poets

1. No one wants to hear another breakup poem. Tear stains on your pillow, you have been left shattered, and something about dandelions and ribcages—we get it. Please write them; they’re beneficial to your healing process, but unless you have a new, interesting twist on heartbreak, leave those bad boys at home. (Example of an interesting twist on heartbreak.)

2. Do not judge a person who is reading a breakup poem. (Unless you’re a judge at a slam.) Speaking words in front of strangers can be simultaneously terrifying and therapeutic. Do not be an asshole.

3. Truly listen to the other poets, and be respectful. Even a bad poem can carry a great line. And even if you don’t find inspiration in others, you can at least leave knowing that you’re a nice, thoughtful person, you motherfucker.

4. If you only came to listen to yourself speak, go home. Just keep in mind that mirrors might listen well but they can’t help you grow.

5. If the intro to the poem is longer than the actual poem, it’s probably not a very good poem. Unless you’re the feature, no one cares about the layup, just dunk the damn thing.

6. Let your poems speak for themselves.

7. Poet-voice is okay when it is genuine. People can tell the difference between a persona and heart-speak. Always choose the latter.

8. Refrain from stating the obvious. We already know you’re nervous, and we don’t care that it’s been forever since you’ve read or that you’ve been writing since you were eleven. (Unless it's your first time EVER. Let us know so you can get extra love for being so brave.)

9. If you get nervous, don’t imagine the audience in their underwear, imagine them taking a shit. Remember that we’re all just human beings, and even the person you admire most has to take shits.

10. A journal entry is not necessarily a poem.

11. A journal entry is not necessarily a poem.

12. There’s a sweet spot between not giving a fuck about what other people think and giving a fuck about other people. When you find it, you’ve won at life. Find it and you’ll peek into your core self. You’ll become true to your art and will give the best of who you are.

Irreplaceable

Plastic people will

try to find a substitute

for disposable.

Out of fear they build

to last that which is meant to

be temporary.

The true splendor of

all natural life is in

its impermanence.

What lasts forever

cannot be replaced. We are

irreplaceable.

IG: @daydreamifications

Reminders

The poem came on the blue heron's breast,
through the breeze in the blackberry bushes
and gushed her stanzas along the creek.

We embraced warmly and it felt good

to look into her eyes again,

but I couldn’t hear a word she said.

I wanted to listen, but

with my fidgety hands behind my back,

I walked through the park like a charlatan monk.

Said hello to a spider and ripple after ripple.

A woman said a yellow-jacket had put on a show. (The cute little guy.)
She said, with a smile that all creation could love,

that she wasn't compassionate enough towards herself.

I wanted to hug her.

Laid in the grass in thought as I watched

dozens of tiny birds in the branches above me. I’m like them

living a countdown life; busy flitting from here to there.

On cue, a baby acorn landed on the middle of my forehead.

A peculiarly precise place to fall as if to respond, “Pay attention.

Inside each tick and tock is the pause of now.”

I pressed pause.

When was the last time I shut up for long enough

to watch the clouds roll by?

To remember I am more than just a body?

I used to labor poems to existence, carried the weight of them

until they collapsed onto the page, but on this day

she tapped me on the shoulder

and reminded me who I was.

IG: @daydreamifications