• My Brain On Crack

    Bright

    The second Claire woke up, she knew something was different. It wasn’t the constant steady beeping of the machines next to her bed, tubes snaking to her nose and wrist. It wasn’t the smell of disinfectant and coffee from the hallway outside the door (coffee? was there really coffee here?). And it wasn’t the starched feel of the sheets that lay loosely over her legs, not that she could feel them. No, Claire expected all of those. What she didn’t expect was the light. How Claire knew to look at the light that streamed through open institution-green curtains at the broad windows spanning one wall of the little white room,…

  • Magical,  My Brain On Crack

    Back From the Dead

    I died and I came back. I couldn’t breathe and that fist-sized muscle in my chest pounded a hole through my thoughts and I beat my fist on the wall because I could no longer form words and the ambulance came and the lights were so bright and there I was, walking serenely in a land made of gold where everyone smiled like rainbows and there was nothing that was not made of wonder and goodness but I stepped back through the shimmering curtain to tell my beloved I chose to stay. Sometimes I regret that choice. I wish I remembered more. I still see that nurse in a blue…

  • Ho, Earthling!,  My Brain On Crack

    The Circle Game

    And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look Behind from where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game — Joni Mitchell This is what reading my archives does to me. Inspires me, that’s what. Thoughts that go through my head: 1. She’s a damn good writer. Why doesn’t she write more? Where’s that fucking book she promised? (oh hey, I did write this one) 2. Seriously, where is the damn book? The other book? 3. Aha! A Category titled Rants. I shall…

  • Ho, Earthling!,  My Brain On Crack

    100 And Counting…

    There are so many ways to die. She knew this. Daily she plotted her death. Little ways. A sheaf of papers could grow edges and slice knifelike across her white soft throat. The cord of his headset, sprawled oh so innocently across her bed, could stretch and wrap itself like a hungry boa around her neck. The closet door could slam so satisfyingly, crushing her skull into the jamb. Kitchen knives could grow wings. Heavy pots with heavy lids could crash like cymbals into the grapefruit of her head. Cars could swerve and leap over sidewalks. So many ways. There’s no point to being here if Here just means pain.…

  • Poetry Slam

    Circuitous

      In the far, far places where mermaids sing and fishes cry for their mothers there are no sounds only the soft slapping of waves   Your heart stills and your breath sighs raggedly but your feet keep moving, moving pushing your warm soft pliant body of stitched-together skin stretched over tangled red-blue pulsing cords and hard-breathing whitened bone to find the spot where sky meets earth   You sit and wait for a sign, a sob, a sweetness but the roar inside silently deafens and drowns your fears and ambitions, grinding past-present-future into a bright purple Now   In the far, far places where mothers sing softly and ancient…

  • Ho, Earthling!,  My Brain On Crack

    Why I Have Cancer

    I figured it out. It should have been a no-brainer. Why I never suspected that years of self loathing would lead to cancer, I don’t know. But it clearly did. I hate myself. I tried to wipe me away by changing my name two years ago, but like a bad penny and a lost puppy, I came back. And all I can do now is imagine I’m jabbing an ice pick into the side of my now-irradiated head because the pain of being me is unforgivable. Please make it go away. The pain. I would do anything not to feel this anymore. I shouldn’t be here. I can’t be here…

  • Ho, Earthling!,  My Brain On Crack

    I’m A Bitch, I’m A Lover

    Something has turned me into a total raving bitch. Does cancer do that? Although I would like to blame [everything] it on cancer, sadly, I believe this is my doing. Last week one of the people I love most in the world came to visit. And that was right about the time that TB (Total Bitch) showed up. All her fears and anxieties and need to control came out while this awesome person was visiting. I hate that. I hate that my son, this amazing young man, saw me being a bitch, saw me in my fears, saw me struggling to walk across the room because my body is so…

  • Love,  Magical

    Kahuna + Akua = a Grand Love Story

    About a year ago, my soulmate and I made special love names for each other. We actually did research on this. We looked at sites filled with love nicknames. We looked at sites filled with names from other countries and other traditions. Finally we found the right names. Akua = spirit, goddess. Kahuna = wise man or shaman. I think we are still claiming the full power of our names. But I look at my soulmate and I see Kahuna, even if he does not see it fully himself. This is what happened. I got cancer. I thought it healed. It didn’t and came back. Far, far worse. Terminal. And…

  • Rants

    Terminal

    True story. This just happened. Me: Hi Dad, the doctors say I have less than a year to live. Dad: I don’t know what to say so I’m sending you a card that says it. It isn’t very downstream of me to dwell on this stuff, but really? A fucking CARD? Way to phone it in. Hi, I’m Talyaa and I have Stage 4 cancer that’s not treatable by western medicine. Yay. Yes, this will change my life (ba dum BUM).  I am writing about it here. And my beloved soulmate is writing about it here. Follow me. Write to me. Hire me. This is your story too. It’s about loving…