Aurora-Borealis Flickering, Dancing Amoeba in the Sunlight

Dear beautiful reader,

Happy February! I am feeling a bit more reclusive this month after baring it all last month. (If you know, you know lol.) So please excuse if this introduction letter is rather sparse… but instead of taking the month off, I did get to writing! I think that energy manifests in my writing as well, as this month’s poetry is a bit more aphoristic than my typical confessional.

I turn 32 on the eleventh. When it comes to aging, especially as a young woman, I’m sort of like: Damn, what’s all the hoopla for? Turning 30 seemed so daunting from a societal perspective, but now that that’s under my belt, I think to myself: wow we were so dramatic for no reason at all.

Personally, I think aging suits me. Having had to be so young and “mature” with “my shit all together” in my twenties (as I was often called) was a symptom of trauma and— totally exhausting and frigid. Don’t get me wrong, 32 is still extremely young, but being the eccentric, chill, spunky old lady with crazy ass lore and fountains of wisdom? Not to mention, wrinkles on her face (yes, I’m going botox-free for life, baby), now that sounds more my speed. The future is looking auspicious.

Also, I think everyone knows where I stand, I’m out on these streets of LA, but: chinga la migra.

I hope your Aquarius season is full of celestial breakthroughs, dismantling the system, and letting your freak flag fly.

After all, it’s what we do best.

All my love,
Amy

Ode to Swimming

Aurora-borealis flickering, dancing amoeba in the sunlight
just half past noon
They are happy to see me on this lovely January day
Legs together, feet aligned on the wall, head down and push
It is the closest thing to flying, 
At least here on Earth.
Back into the womb, we go, navy blue-and-white tiled titillation.
Weightless like all my grief
When did I ever think of dying? Silly me.
Breathing is a luxury, here I am reminded
Stroke, stroke, breath, stroke—
Finally I can hear myself, or sometimes, nothing at all.
Which is the same and not at all.
Mom, please don’t make me come out!
That’s how it feels, most of the time,
Though my body has been here nearly thirty-two years.
And what is there to fear, tell me,
When my body knows how to tread deep water?
On the iciest days, however, I dive under and sit at the bottom,
nine feet under, curl my knees into my chest and look up.
Like a mermaid who never asked to be human in the first place,
I think—only a few more seconds—and sigh, I have to go back up.

I Know, I Know

And I have been good at handling the destruction.
I smile, whilst casually smearing a tear, and shout at the sky:
I know, I know!
It’s your way of slash-and-burn agriculture!
But that wisdom in me knows
it does not extinguish all the blisters I’ve acquired
in letting go the hot metal-rod friendships.
I know she had to go.
I know they couldn’t come with me.
They would’ve only soiled all of my hard work.
But as I stand at the singed pastures,
breathing in the toasty sentimental air,
I know I’m supposed to say—
“In their absence, what will now grow?”
But what if I’m too tired?
What if I can only lie down and sleep?
What if my soul is wrung from being so wise?

Catch Me If You Can!

The art of joy is the art of grief.
The mastery of pain, to catch and release.
To stand in the mirror, and stay— with softness.
As you can only run for so long
before you have tripped and fallen,
and then chipped a tooth, or sliced a finger,
or your back eventually gives out.
Onto the wood grain, there you bleed and bleed.
Then, worst of all, you dare to howl:
“Why me, God?!”

As if you’re the only person in the world
who has chipped a tooth.

Truth

Truth doesn’t require choreography.
It doesn’t require rehearsal after rehearsal.
It doesn’t even require a polishing.
It doesn’t even require for your breath to smell good.
It only asks you to sit in silence

and inhale.

How Many?

There is a young woman out there with my name in her mouth
The vile little harlot, she says, that chains herself to the tracks
in the shape of my husband’s body!
She swears that I’m the reason her storybook marriage—
once a bright yellow yearning— drifts in a sewer stasis.
As I paint my nails in my bedroom, and hum to my favorite song,
she smugly decrees for the eleventh time,
Good-for-nothing charlatan! A decade of intrusion!
As she hunches over to read everything I have ever written.
But I dance in my underwear without even a thought.
How many beguiled wives out there hollering at a smoke figure
for the ashes he won’t contain? 
How many fawns out there spitting venom because of 
an artificially-scented stench he won’t wash off? 
How many?
How many?

I guess I will keep on humming.
None of it concerns me anyway.

Sunsets

I am learning—
Longevity does not make meaning.
And meaning does not make quantity.

It does not have to be forever—
for it to be beautiful.

So how about we soak in this sunset together?
No rush.
Besides, your chip-toothed laughter is equally as aureate.

Scared of Mayo

I donated my scale
and started eating cheese again.

And to the shock of
the media, my mother
and my ever-growing hips—

The world didn’t end.

Who would have thought?