carrying the honey in my tummy need to build a home, need to lace a comb race against time finding the sweetness to survive
in this time of salt

yes, what a thrill to be assaulted by your true desires
and yes, to feel. it is beautiful to feel.

and to move from such a life monastic and of doing without
having sacrificed,, the clutter, the confusion, even the glamor, the gold
to bare bones practicality
the structure to keep you walking
please, no frilly thing to distract.
time spent teasing out the knots, tedious and trying
to find those special dew drops
those soft white magnolias
that curl in your palm
to reawaken the grace of your imagination
the beauty of style
and the importance of things called your own

on the occasion of winter solstice

Pain Thinks of Addressing the Body

As you tear down the frozen
stalks, as you rake over the garden,

as you drain the fountain,
and at night, listening for the small

shapes of animals lunging
through snow--

you are not thinking of paradise.
Like you, I endure

as the season you love endures,
radiant and frozen.

- from "the fork without hunger" by laurie lamon

gotta say it gotta say it

oh this song -- "loose lips" by kimya dawson

[so if you wanna burn yourself remember that i love you
and if you wanna cut yourself remember that i love you
and if you wanna kill yourself remember that i love you

call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead
send me an IM, i'll be your friend]

i have been sitting with the recent suicide of my friend, this beautiful beautiful 18-year old boy i knew who wore funny sweaters and had just alit into flight, hitchhiking across the country from one portland to another to a punk show where he danced hard hard hard and shouted "i need a place to live!" and he went to the library every day and was a feminist and queer ally and hadn't really fallen in love yet and i wanted to kiss him one day when he was a little bit older. i don't have that much to say about it right now. except the realization that of course of all the people i know and love there are probably at least a bunch who walk a line of wanting to fall off the other side and maybe i don't tell people enough that they are hella important and their voices are needed in the world and i love them and i would miss them. so this is the stupidest way to do it perhaps but it's real right now for me.

i just want to begin this crypt by saying that it was a bon-a-fide pleasure seeing many of you just recently in oakland! really really
it fills my heart
having the honor of such sparkly, strange, lovely creatures.
everyone's invited to portland!
until we meet again,
((sooner than we think))
i'm glad we have this touchstone,
love,
fox

~~~~<<*@
AND in our next chapter
WE ADD BINDING TO OUR BOOK.
no more reckless writing
of unhinged desperation
pages we scribbled out of
LUST and LOVE and the
CRAVING FOR MADNESS
ripped and tossed onto the shore.

I TAKE WHAT you've given me NOW
and i can keep it..
not with the frightment of doctrine or scripture,
but just the ENCHANTMENT OF LORE.
---~-~-~~;,..*

the deep dark well is frightening
the deep dark well i chose

from here, i hear my voice
with rich vibrations
the resonance holds me tight

from here, i see the sweetest
s t a r s
they swell into the night

and outside these stone walls
wait my family,
all lovers, all friends
a birthday party without end

the deep dark well is long and lovely
the deep dark well is home.

nailed

and being the last to leave this time, after sacrificing leaving to the great fire at samhain.

that has meant: sticking around to see what happens, fighting my desire to leave prematurely, to make casual exits and smoke a cigarette on the way home, admitting when things feel really good, maybe trading rhizomes or roots or budding fungal networks for beloved light burdens and roadsnaxxx.

right here right now

soon headed to the bay

trading newfound comfort challenge falling-into for pilgrimages in the name of family

to return and to be returned to

and the integration of all selves isn't always comfortable

but i'm convinced there's something important in it.

yesterday i found a cabin in the woods and tried to get in through the chicken coop.

i have admitted that the moon is important.

i have told the sun that i miss it when it's not around.

i have come to remember cold fingers and cold toes and the pleasure of layers.

i am ready for something.

maybe that's all,

the mirrors in my life are shrouded for the moment

i trust that i am doing okay.

i repeat: our community is strong and resilient.

i repeat my prayer for strength and clarity.

i repeat: you are loved and needed

cause what i put out keeps on coming back

so i will collect my things, pull them out of boxes and cracks in the sidewalks

and put a shim in my heart to keep it cracked open

cause that's how the light gets in

And i'll take all the world's poems

and undress them

to their

blush

(no more metaphor, no more simile!)

give me the truth

show me your eyes

----------------------their ancient strain for the love of god

And for this i'll cry.