Sometimes we fall heavy off the wagon.
 
The wagon of sobriety,
the wagon of self sabotage, 
and we open all the doors to our house and invite all the ghosts back in. 

Some ghosts return, and some stay out.
And I stand in the living room watching them trash the place.
But it's okay,
because for a moment I'm not alone. 

I am reminded how these are my only true friends because madness understands madness and doesn't judge. 
I give myself one more night of "freedom" before returning to the world. 

There are those who swear up and down that I am loved wholeheartedly but the reality is I'm way to difficult to love. 

I don't see my own potential and this makes other's mad. 
I make the same mistake over and over,
hoping for a different outcome.
I dial numbers I shouldn't,
and drink whole bottles of wine.

I forget the night's I've spent in stranger's arms because "here's hoping they'll over look all the flaws."
But again,
only I have loving and understanding arms. 

So I give myself one more night.
Knocking back whiskey,
mask undone. 
 

It had been a very long time since a dream burned me up like that. 
The thought of his strong hands on my bare skin. 
Of the sunlight peeking through the corner window of a loft. 
Forgive me for these thoughts lord, 
forgive me because it’s a pattern. 

It’s chaos, 
it’s the devil, 
it’s my pussy. 

But that dream,
the deepness of his eyes,
the need and hunger in his kiss. 
How can unsaid thoughts be so clearly understood in a dream?
And then the thoughts returned to sadness. 

Bob haunts me in every new friendship.
But this is different. 
I can feel his skin close to mine. 
I can feel how small my body is. 

The golden sunlight on my breast as my dress drops open on that counter. 
I can feel you entering me.
Kissing me,
Eyes piercing my soul.
The fur of your forearms grazing my sides.
The smallness of my hands on your broad shoulders.

You bring me flowers when you visit. 
White flowers,
Always white flowers.
You place them at my feet before I drop my robe.
You whisk me away and take from me the knowledge,
the magic,
needed for your own pen. 

There is such a vividness to this dream, this memory. 
It is unlike a love ever seen. 
I am hungry.
I want his laughter,
I crave it.
I want to make him a home. 
There in that loft,
Here in my womb,
I want to hold him close and bring him peace.
And this is what makes my love a vagrant. 

///////////////

She always comes oh so close to my skin right before I awake. 
She caresses my cheeks, 
tracing the lines around my mouth with her thin finger tips.
She whispers lines that haunt me all day.

“I have placed 6 gold coins in your fountain.” as she vows and walks away.
She adores me. 
She loves me.
She offers me the world.
And yet I fear.

I’m afraid to reach out because I know how I love.
I know I am forgetful and distant.
I doubt she’d understand,
that I fear what I’m becoming.

I fear the softness of her breast,
Her eagerness to be adored.
And still,
We bring each other flowers.

And when I finally cradle her softly,
When I finally kiss the hem of her skirt,
I will pray,
Like I did for all the others,
that she will never leave.   

Write what you know.
What I know? 
What do I know?
I know nothing.
I don’t even know myself.
Constantly shifting, changing, adapting. And then I wonder if there is even real power in truly knowing anything. I mean, the moment we stop learning we die. So, do I want to know everything? Do I wish to die knowing everything, or do I want to die with childlike wonderment?
I sit at the desk pulling cards and guessing what each picture means.
Swords: I believe that they are piercing. There’s some secret holding you back. 
Pentacles, 3 of them to be exact: there is something that is being contemplated, lots of planning out. 
Justice: fate is the seer of everything. She keeps a watchful eye and soon the gavel will drop. 
Lovers: oh the lovers, this is a pleasant card. 
Loving, prosperous, a union but doesn’t necessarily mean romantic love.
Two of Pentacles: all your worries exist in your head.
I shuffle and shuffle telling myself stories. And the questions in my head shuffle just the same. The laptop shuts off on its own and I can see my rattled appearance in the reflection of the screen.
Write what you know.
What do I know?
I stare up at the ceiling.
I could write about the trains. Or about the books I’ve read.
But no one will really care because all those stories redirect themselves back to men. 
That’s what I know.
I know men.
Well, sort of.
I know sex and lies and accusations. I understand drunken arguments and heavy breathing. I understand smiles and disappearances. 
While all the while wondering what I did wrong. 
What I continue doing wrong, without once placing the blame on them. 
It’s easier to blame myself. 
To learn from my own mistakes. 
But the page is still blank and I begin replaying all the broken scenarios.
I think of Gabriel and Paul and Bob and Douglas and Angel and the countless men that have entered and exited stage left from my chaotic life. I think of my vows and the incoherent expectations I placed on marriage. I think of my teenage years and the culmination into my 20’s. The drunken graduation from whiskey to cocaine. 
And I realize that is what I know. 
I know chaos. 
I know voices in the dark. Whispers between vulnerable laughter. 
I know tears. 
I understand confusion. 
I understand self destructive tendencies that make me feel alive. 
Douglas said “write what you know.” And coffee has never tasted the same.
Bob said “you can write but you have to be disciplined at it.” And then he handed me a pocket version of Rilke.
Paul knew nothing. He didn’t know how I cried. He didn’t know how I laid in bed contemplating death. But he knew the curve of my ass. He knew how to tie my hair in a ponytail. He knew how many lines of coke I enjoyed but not how many it took for me to lose control. 

I know nothing of men but I know what to write.

It seems my heart has no cure.
It seems that L.A. has provided a bed for out of town ingenues but has forgotten of the children it grew in its concrete like crops.

Do you write in hope of something?
I write to understand my thoughts.
My emotions.
I write down a sentence and from there unravel the ball of yarn.

In the discovery of my being I understood why Los Angeles was the core.
Why the city coursed through my veins like dirty motor oil.
How without it I withered because only the desert knew my curves, my harshness,
but in it my fire extinguished because I never really belonged.
As always, like unlearned lessons, it took time to understand the importance of L.A.
There is a beauty in the grittiness of Los Angeles.
True Los Angeles.
Raw Los Angeles.
The piss stained alleys, where torn down couches take the places of bushes.
And liquor stores outnumber gas stations. Where potholes only get filled up during those off chances we get rain. And the anger of drivers rises with the heat.
Los Angeles with its ability to hold so many worlds but only be recognized for the one,
Hollywood.

City of flowers and sunshine, with its alluring scents of hopes and sunscreen.
Where ideas and dreams get torn into pieces and rot away like leaves in a gutter.
Lotusland! One bite of her and you’ll forget everyone back home.
And yes, my view of Los Angeles might seem grey and cold and bleak to an outsider but I was born here.
Birthed on the floor between surgeries and the morgue.
Brought home to a small room in a house shared by many.
How can it be anything else when I have seen past the neon lights and into the soul of a pregnant woman overdosing on Skid Row?
If I can still see the red of my blood on Melrose and Orlando from the night I snorted too much coke and drank too much whiskey and fell flat on my face? Its green splendor reflected on my night stand, $200 just for me, payment for acrobatic maneuvers and sloppy kisses while on my knees .

Los Angeles,
City of Angels,
full of ingenues and drunken prey.
Los Angeles help me put on my red light and dance the blues away.

The sun lures lost souls towards the coast.
All these stories stem from wounded directions. 
Wounded hearts, 
wounded lands. 


In the west, 
love is born from dust, 
sweat 
and tears. 
I was born here.
​Our love was born here.