Songs From the Cage

Blue sky

Sparkling dew

A fresh path

My feet crunch

As usual

An open door

Cement halls

I enter into

Goosebump flesh

The shadows, cold

At right

Another portal

I stand at threshold

I look inside

Four walls

Crouching body

Hair ragged

Face in hands

Sun beaming

Through steel bars

No response

She is crying

I step inside

I ask for permission

I can tell she needs

But shakes her buried head

I stand fast, respecting

I tell her I love her

Guitar in hand

I want to make her a song

One eye peeps over

And then returns to cave

I tell her I want to know

I tell her I want to hear

I tell her

I want to make her a song

Why don’t you leave this cell?

I ask

The door is open

Why don’t you stretch your legs?

Warm your face, in the noonday sun?

I tell her I don’t want to shame her

I tell her

I want to understand

Murmuring, only muffled voices return

But I’ve skills of translation

I lean in, I listen

Through the tattered, spit-soaked cloth

Through the greasy, matted hair

I hear her say

I am forgotten

I hear her say

I am forgotten

I hear her say

I am forgotten

I strum the metal strings

And I repeat to her

I am forgotten

She looks up, shyly

No sound

But her lips form the words

No vision

I strum the metal strings

And repeat

No vision

This time, her head remains uncovered

She’s watching my fingers

She’s watching my voice

I strum the metal strings

I repeat

I am forgotten

No vision

She croaks, in a whisper

Why fight?

I look at her, nodding

I strum the metal strings

I sing

I am forgotten

No vision

Why fight?

Now her head is back in between

Those knees and she is rocking

Now she is singing, softly

I am forgotten

No vision

Why fight?

And then, in between rocking

I can see her shoulders heaving

She softly murmurs

Am I going crazy?

I am wandering, wandering

I cannot get out

Help me

Help me…

No one can ever

Help me

I strum the metal strings

Wishing I could sing

Into her hollow jaded eyes

And I repeat

I am forgotten

No vision

Why fight

Am I going crazy?

Going

CRAZY?

Wandering

Help me

No one…

A few strums, voice silent

I am rocking now, too

Watching her little body

Huddled in the sunrays

Weeping, weeping

I start to hum

And I add my own line, to her

I simply say

I know

Again, her eye emerges

Out of that dark cave she’s been trapped in so long

I can see the tears, glistening

I can tell she has received

I know

I continue humming

I know

And I keep strumming

And I hold her

In this coldness

Distance between us

But some great tremble in the air

Humming, our song

And I know

The Fullness, Again

The candle is lit

The murmured pleading prayers, spoken

After so many shaved, hollowed dreams

And countless, starved ritual

The Fullness, is here

Again

It rises, serpentine into throat

It pulses, leaden in core

It reminds, of so much so long ago

It holds

The unspoken

Tasked at receiving

Despite its presence

My hands are shaking

And everything is crumbling

I wish I had a voice for this essence

I wish I had a way to describe why

I don’t, they do, and still I must keep going

Allowing this creamy reminder

Past all of my cage’s bars

What will become of me?

If I keep this drawbridge lowered

If I allow what for so long could not enter

Over beast-laden moats, poison tipped arrow assaults

What will become of me

If I just let the Fullness

Take over?

Just a tiny little feeling

Like a dream for some, forgotten and moved past quickly

For me, whole decades have been planned

Strategic and decimating

Towards its avoidance

It rises, serpentine in throat

It pulses, leaden in core

Challenging me

To turn back

Or to feel it

Again

This Fullness

To feel it and not run

To feel it and keep going

To feel it and let everything I’ve ever known

Crumble aimlessly to ashes

To feel it and let the violating dreams come

To feel it and let the throbbing pain come

To feel it and let the pacing

The ordering

The counting

The containing

The weighing

The Tower…

To let it

all

fall

down

Who am I

At the base of this rubble

Feeling this Fullness

Without guard, without claw

Feeling this unnamable terror

Feeling this that may never end

Feeling this that may never be spoken

Who am I

If I keep going

Letting it all in past what once were thick, steel bars

No ritual to contain or banish

Who am I

Who am I?

Who

I am sitting here

The candle, lit

The murmured pleading prayers, spoken

I am letting it all in

I am shaking

I am feeling the Fullness

And the hot, creamy liquid cascading down my throat

Adding to what has once come before

I am

Not sure of what may come

Or if blankness or passion or madness may arise

Who am I?

Who

Without this

I am

I am?

I AM

Qualify

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Do I

Qualify?

Tomorrow

I will sit before a face

A face who has seen the times

A face who has seen the terrors

She will ask me questions

Questions I don’t even know how to answer

She will be listening

For all the tell-tale signs

All the tell-tale signs

That make an insurance company required to attend

All the tell-tale signs

That make a patient worth it

I already know what’s not on that list

((I’ve been on both sides, you see))

A deep yearning for a better quality of life

A desire to stop measuring everything that enters reality

A hunger to feel true desires

To tend to an age-old grief, these unspeakable embeddings in flesh

A thirst to escape

The Cage

No, these do not qualify

But what does,

I do know

This hair, falling

This blood, anemic

These bones, porous and in danger

This confusion, panic attack, overwhelm

I want to change but I don’t know how

I want to change but I am scared

I want to eat normally, but I can’t face the fullness

I want to stop restricting, but I can’t figure out

How to be with the terror

Of that introjected hate

Of that semen forced

I tried to change but I couldn’t

I told myself that I would not do this again

But here I am

I don’t feel like I can really ever change, get well

why

keep

trying

I could stop fasting, but then what?

My whole life is arranged, like a house of cards

Around this constant schedule of control

If I let go, who am I

If I let go, what do I do with myself

If I let go, how do I sit with

These overwhelming feelings of confusion

Disgust

Purposelessness

Meaninglessness

Drowning

Choking

I want to nourish myself

See my actions create healing, strength

But each time I try

I hit this wall, old and impervious

It brings me to my knees

Do I qualify

To get help to let go of a lifetime’s illusion

I don’t hate myself

I’m not dying (yet)

And I can smile and put on the routine

My blood pressure is stable

My weight is minimal but ok

My intake is spartan but not emergent

Fact is

I look like the perfect example of what society wants

People laugh at me at thinking something’s wrong

Slim, in control, and witty

If they only knew

My little girl is dying inside

This body is not failing (yet)

And I can put on one damn good show

But am I still worth it?

This misery, this child, this ancient trauma

Calling?

Will you help me?

Is healing possible?

Will I even be able to release

What all the ones before me could not?

Do I give up now and prevent the disappointment?

Do I

Qualify?

Solutio

She’s dissolving,

Again

Flesh evaporating like steam,

Again

Waking…empty, confused

Again

A hunger so deep

A terror so vast

They are battling,

Again

The cycle, repeating

Again

The same damn excuses,

Again

The doors not opening,

Again

Body rejecting nutrients,

Again

But something’s different

This time

She’s angry

And wailing

Unlike the passive defeat

Many

Times

Before

This time

She’s angry

This time

She showed up

Screaming, and yelling

And yearning, and slobbering

And wanting

Wanting

Much

To change

This time

She pounded

Fist to your pine-laden floor

Growling, bursting

Demanding

This has to end!

She howled

Over and over again

She howled

This has to end!

And you

In what may be the fiercest love

Just circled her

Holding gently

And letting her dissolve

Into particle tears

Absorbing

And rocking

And letting this old, old way

Have voice, and volume and fear

So that all of the creatures of the forest

Flee

You held her

Dissolving

And let the awful silence

Of her disappearing

And the next steps,

Not knowing

And the horrid, horrid

Wanting

You let it

Connection

No words, she said

I like the dreams, she said

Get some crayons, she said

Spending time in the basement

She’s finally talking to me

Reaching Back

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Suddenly, somehow

There is a Request

One domino leads to another and

I am reaching back

Into the files, credits, teachings

Into the litany of practitioners

Into the words of Hetfield, my brother

Into the dreams, showing that night I couldn’t remember

Into the accomplishments I left behind

Into the white halls,

The numbed heart,

The locked doors

Suddenly, somehow

I am reaching back

I am remembering

The pain is so bad it is coming out of my eyeballs

I try to put on my mask, plug up the outflow

But around its edges, through its cracks

Spurts vicious rivers, uncontrollable

Coming, it just keeps coming

Pummeling through my waking days

Startling from deep in dream

Demanding, demanding

That I reach back

Somehow, suddenly

I find myself breathing

Breathing with a rock close to my heart

Breathing her pain in, deep deep into my center

Holding it, transforming it, sending it back

To her as Love

To her as peace

To her, hoping that at some point

She will be free from suffering

Free from pain

Somehow, suddenly

The crashing, sloshing waves

They keep coming

And I am on the phone

Getting evaluated

Answering the questions

Reaching back

Suddenly, somehow

I wonder

I keep wondering

With this rock by my heart

Breathing

Breathing from her, into her

I wonder if this pain

And all this wetness

Is her

Reaching out to me

Incapacitating me

Limiting me, all my lofty flight plans

And distractive mental menageries

Ripping me, from all my avoidance cords

Spiraling me, back into

Her

Is this all her?

Calling me back home?

Calling me to review?

Calling me to pay attention to the only thing that matters

This soul

Finding me, her begging me to find

That which will help her, me, smile, feel safe

And free and real again?

Suddenly, somehow

There is a Request

One domino leads to another

And I am reaching back

I am remembering

Soggy and writhing

Hoping, hoping, praying

That this isn’t just a meaningless chamber I will have to endure

Hoping, hoping, praying

It is her

Her

It is her

In this throbbing torment

Calling me home

Healing

Healing

What is healing?

Is it a before and after

A whiz through steps A-Z

A miraculous tale of ‘complete recovery’

A proclamation to ‘never return’

Now carried in wallet,

To show all my new friends?

What is healing?

When the symptoms do not go away

When the pain lingers, or returns

When the scab never fully covers over

When the cause is invisible

When the trajectory

Doesn’t follow the plan?

How then

Do we measure

Healing?

Personally

Healing feels like a spiral

An in and out, a closer and further

A labyrinth, a dance

A journey from victim to initiate

A waking from the spell

That something

Is wrong

Healing might be

A realization of why the symptom has come

And still, why it may remain

An understanding of its sacred reason

And the possibility of the body’s wisdom

A peace, a presence

A relationship

Rather than a war

Unable to slay the dragons

Defeated in attempts to conquer demons

I have somehow found a way to listen

I have somehow found a way to understand

I have sometimes witnessed transformation

Where old, outdated needs

Fall away for the new

But mostly

I have found a way to be here, and now

In this body

With all that is happening

Even if what is happening

Is terrifying

Or brilliant

Or painful

Or sensuous

Even if it looks weird

Even if it seems wrong

Especially when it all seems wrong

This ability to meet it

To meet all of it

To honor it

To listen

For what it really means

To heal

This

When the symptoms do not go away

When the pain lingers, or returns

When the scab never fully covers over

When the source is invisible

When the trajectory

Doesn’t follow the plan

This, possibly

This…listening

This…being

This…asking for and allowing in care, finally

This…re-membering

Of all that is sacred

About a life

In these wise, miraculous bodies

And the journey they force us to take

This

May quite possibly, actually

Healing

Fingers

These fingers

Trailing down the curve of your face

Holding

Gazing

Continuing along the delicate skin

On your neckline

And tracing the

Shallow gulley along the center

Of your chest

Tickling across the rough edges

Of your beltline

And breathing

Breathing

With you

These fingers

Will they ever find you again

Will they feel the sweat along skin

Will they pull you closer

Heart to heart

Fire to fire

Panting, animal

Once more in a lifetime?

Veil of haze, lifted

She shudders now, even at a distance

Something threatened, pulsating

Like the woody thorns

And stinging spray

A toxic warning protecting…

You

Can’t even get near

She watches, saddened but surrendered

These subterranean fears always overlooked

Now gaining full glory

She’s allowing them to scream

Dreams, they keep coming

Reminding her of the buried bodies

Deep, deep

All the ones she drowned away

She was hungry

And so were you

Blasting past the terrors

Telling the shivering children to be quiet

It was the best

Anyone could hope for

With ghosts like these

But, now

Isolated in her healing bubble

With room to reject

And power reinstalled

She can hardly remember

What these fingers felt

An echo, memory, all that’s left

The need is gone

Veil lifted; pain ignited

The effort too great

But still, she wonders

In the darkness of night

Looking at her own skin, moon-lit

Will these fingers

These fingers

Will they ever find you again

Will they feel the sweat along skin

Will they pull you closer

Heart to heart

Fire to fire

Panting

Animal

Once more

In a lifetime?

It’s impossible to imagine

So she breathes in

And trusts the moment

And feels

The wind

5150, pt. 3

The screaming

Has turned to sobbing

Rattlings of various life-saving objects

Dangle in the mix

Exhausted I fall into silence

Shock freezing

The rumblings of freeway buckles

Shuddering through core

Eonic

No sense of time

Nor of destination

Shivering

The vehicle slows

And comes to a stop

I can hear the EMT’s laughter

And slamming doors

As they come to retrieve me

I am terrified

I am frozen

What awaits on the other side of these doors

Keep them closed

Take me back

This isn’t happening

I don’t want this to be happening

Bright beams interrogate my existence

As the back splays open

There are hands extending to me

There are eyes, wondering

Am I one of “those” they deliver here

On the daily?

They see

I am not

They see

Just a scared, scared girl

Pathetic really,

Crying softly now

Willing

Feeling betrayed and devastated

Head hung low

I accept my fate

And take their lead

We pass under the disheveled neon glow

It screams RICHMOND PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY

As I duck below and into what lies beyond

I am taken to a room

Everything is metal

Painted thickly in creams and avocados

Chairs, espresso pleather cracking

I sit

I wait

There is no one here

But the door is locked

I sit

I wait

I can hear the lock jiggling

And as it is sometime deep in the night

A surly exhausted nurse

Is the one to greet me

Her clothes, slightly wrinkled

Stained

She stares at me

As if to say

what are you doing here?

I am shaking

And she is asking me questions

I am answering but do not know how

The words are somehow spilling

And I

Am doing what I’m supposed to do

I hear her warbling voice

Telling me I have been transferred

No longer qualified to be kept in voluntary

And, quite frankly, over the age limit

That the

Warm

Safe

Structured

Children’s hospital can allow

I fucked it all up

Her eyes say

Silly girl

They repeat

You’ll learn

I think I hear them say

And then we are walking down a flickering tunnel

A hallway to somewhere forbidden

And my feet, they are moving

Without a walker

Am not really here

Anymore

But still, my nose

Is filled with urine, and rubbing alcohol

And stale black coffee

And I feel like prey

Then

We are stopped before them

Great, thick, impenetrable doors

And she is hovering a card

And there is a bolt unlocking

And her hand pushes me into the unknown

It is dark inside

I hear screaming, moaning

I hear shuffling, snickering

I feel stagnant, hopeless air against my cheek

I am frozen

And

The nurse places

A blanket

A towel

And a pillow

Into my empty hands

My back is towards the ward

I do not want to see

Somehow this surly uncaring human

Is the lesser of two fears

And my eyes stay fixed upon her

She says I can take any bed

She places her hands on my shoulders, roughly

She turns me around

She lightly catapults me

Into the gaping space

She slips out the door

And I turn back,

My eyes desperate for her through the window

She doesn’t even look back

As she walks away

Gripping the starchy objects

I watch my pathetic, heaving breath

Form clouds on the windowpane

I am shivering

I am terrified

I am here and not here

But I know what I must do

As my heartless guide

Dissolves into the distance

I must turn

I must be strong

I must put on my battle gear

And face

What I have become

Featured

Trauma

Born in the jaws of the unsuccessful predator

It seeds itself into pulsing flesh of prey

Alive, feeling its purpose

It rushes through, hoping for the release

Propelled across expanses in flee for survival

The quivering host finds soft burrow

And heaves a great sigh

The aliveness activates all flesh into shaking

Shaking, shaking, like a terrible force rippling through the land

Trauma’s mission coming to climax, shouting yes! finally! release!

Where its beingness transforms to, we cannot see

The creature, exhausted

Is resting

Clear and free of the electricity that has bolted through her

She’s woozy

She falls into a deep, healing sleep

And when she wakes

She can remember

The sharp slobbered clench against her thigh

But wiser, she is not frozen

And she can, quite simply

Trust instinct

And begin

Again

It is said that trauma

Seeks to complete itself

To live out its short but powerful existence

And when allowed

There is only peace

Understanding, even

A vast perspective

Broken open from the initiatic blow

Yet so often this temporary lifeform must beg

Beg its host, pleading

Through successive patterns

Through aggressive and harrowing symptoms

Begging for witness, begging to find burrow

Begging to be held by soft earth

While its purpose rips through

Yearning to complete itself

To clear

The way

Years, it takes

This half-life of being buried

Of being judged and only seen in the shadows of others

Wishing only to be given space

And to become what it came to be

This electricity, born so quickly,

Waits in the flesh, simmering

It may be buried

But it is not meek

It will pound harder

It will demand louder

Until, kneeling, its host has no option

No option but to listen

But to feel

But to hold

But to see

Or perhaps die

What might occur

Were the creature to allow

This pulsation, of the power, of this sacred trauma

To live,

To be valued.

To shake,

To breathe.

To be truly, truly seen…

And to finally

Fly

Free