Buried memories surface, writing my new novel.  It’s complicated, exploring the caverns of my emotions and then moving through the rest of my day upright on top of the earth.  I just bought a firm mattress.  Well, the word firm is a misnomer.  I sleep on a slate of rock coils covered with skinny smooth fabric, much like hard crushed stone in the desert, dusted in sand.  I can stretch and move all night.  My back no longer hurts.  In my study, my writing chair is filled with plump pillows, thick and soft.  Two worlds.  Two different comforts.    

I am sick.  Sick at heart.  Sick at my stomach.  I feel like I’m running on a treadmill, facing backward.  Another school shooting, just a bigger death toll, and the same pundits make political hay while the death sun shines.  Haven’t we done this before?  After Columbine?  (The Amish confused the American media with their forgiveness so that story didn’t last long.)  Grown men and women call each other names, get puffy and prideful around who they hate and why.  How do they keep it straight?  Do they crawl in bed at night with their hate?  Do they memorize the first letter of the names they call each other — the n word, the c word, and then they forget — the f word becomes faggot.  We’re in a war of words, a war in Iraq, a war period, a war begets a war begets a war.  America is the best and brightest experimental democratic star in the history of the world.  After 230+ years, will we allow ourselves to self-destruct around hatred and killing?  We have wireless communication skills that would baffle the founders of our great land into speechlessness.  Why are we using those skills to berate and divide when we could be using them to exalt and unite?  I want the answer to that question and I bet the founders do too. 

If this is going to become a nation of herded sheep then count me out. If we are going down the path that I have seen coming since the selection of President Bush in 2000, then so be it. Is everyone too damn scared to talk about politics? If citizens of my country want to listen to hate talk 24/7, go for it. Learn to hate, all over again. I’m only 52 and I remember white and colored drinking fountains in the south where I grew up. If white and black people want to go back to that, fine. I’ll drink my water at home. I’ve marched and written and marched and raised hell behind my beliefs for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been energized from the debates. But I’m worn out. We haven’t had a leader with a vision in so long that an entire generation will not understand what that is. All they will understand is don’t get caught. If you don’t get caught, you’re not guilty. And if you get caught, just build lie upon lie. Folks will get tired and give up. I love America. But I don’t love the thought of it self-imploding, without a whimper, without a cry.

Vote for me!

Outside my window on the sidewalk, a young girl is having a tap dance lesson with her mother.  I used to tap dance when I was her age.  I may buy some tap shoes and join her. 

I found the cowgirl

yesterday

after all these years

her voice buckled my knees

We birthed our passions together

no one shared that

but the cowgirl and me

Now I’ll get to hear

“more mud, dude”

again.

I don’t have to watch myself age
in old movies

I don’t have to watch
my man friends
who would be my age
age with me
they died when we were in our twenties

What are you crying about
the voice in my head asks

Those men were writers and painters
dancers and actors
poets
some were my lovers

We planned
to make our mark

Then the dying started
all at the same time

Hospital vigils
suicide chats
drugs hoarded
in case

Have I lived a life
without them
they would understand

Have I kept
our dreams
intact

Would they recognize me
now
they died so fast
so young

I’m turning 52

do they
know