i didn't even send the letter

 a lot has happened since i wrote it tho

penny wise the girl's matching mommy dress

bodes ill for a wedding on the beach. a lot 

could happen or nothing. sister on the mend,

sister holding steady at her wheel. 

actually nothing

has happened. the grands discuss.

the children insist on their demands, 

i remain persona non. as expected. still

unexpectedly, faced with unknown crimes

i'm unsure how to counter. if possibility even 

exists. which i kinda don't give a shit since i 

am not gramma to the chile in question. 

i am outside. and a bitch. because i have

an opinion that is not wanted, despite 

its need. k then 

it's still a bad look baby girl.

parental alienation, kidnapping.

it's not a good look in court

when your sister has her shit 

together enough to be given

that boy . by law.  all 

your blowhard fantasies come

to an end. alienated everyone

now your new life can begin.

dreams to house the unspoken

 it's august hot melting

all my plans for this covacayid

wasps bounce against the screens, inside.

a crow flies before the heavy clouds

that may rain down on us, may not.

i've been watching fb live. they got some

stars on there, just talking about their lives.

spittin like they on stage. what a quaint 

li'l thing i am, bless my heart, still 

writing it down as if reading were a thing.

still, that last letter freed me 

even though there's no way in hell 

it will be sent. i read it outloud

to the breeze. i hope it finds its way home

without me.

the crow calls behind me

i face east, begging.

this loss of purpose, this not 

having to work leads to not

doing anything, though the kitchen

in cleaned. the floor is unmopped

and i wonder how much a hell hole this 

home really is. i'm comfortable in it,

crumbling tiles, cat scratched walls.

the leaking bathtub disemboweled

awaiting a promise's fulfillment.

i don't know how much hope

i've fed to the gods, but it's almost

over now. settled in. complacently

awaiting the next shitshow to be served

hoping i don't have to care.

not so much suicide

 for a while i have felt irrelevant

and i'm realizing that i have dreams

only work related. i mean like actual 

fucking job things that invade 

  my sleep.

so i think i maybe better off

catching the covid tho a lightening strike

would be quicker and i feel i deserve

a quick death. it's not so much

an ideation as acknowledgement

of demise. an apoptostic examination.

the organism must lose its shit somehow.

why do i deserve a quick death? are there

some who would disagree, some that would 

have me suffer for sins unto them?

i know i've been rascally at times

impatient and violent. i am, after all,

animal and therefore limited. but  mostly i think

i have been innocuous. or some other kind of meme

existent at the time. i am the woman who you saw

wrestling a teen at the side of the road on the way

to work. you didn't stop. why would you? you didn't

know how i was living with a man ahem just 4 years

her senior, mentally unstable , trying to turn

a princess into an everyday frog. wake up

sleeping beauty, ,your daddy is gone, no more kings.

*

but the thing is, i have suffered life with 

the images of this burnt-retinaed deep

into spaces i can only explore 

when allowed to dive. for if not

these tantrums would supukari me far past.

and others of shame dwell in those waters

in which i do not wish to bathe alone.

i suffer in life, why not my death be quick?

***8

i will tell you a secret

i am the lightning sprite

being hunted. and that's fine

with me. zap me out, turned head.

shit. now it'll never happen.

****8

dear r,

it stings that i'm disinvited

based on your view of me as mother

and person. it is true that i was an addict

to a street drug called quaaludes. that was

long before my children were born. let me give  

you a chance to call me a murderer as well

since i have had 4 aborttions..  i was, sadly,

both ultra horny and ultra fertile. btw, relief, each time.

i'm thinking that's neither here nor there but since

you bring up the past instead of what i apparently said

about  you that has you so angry at me, i guess it's relevant.

as for beating my children, i will say that i'm ashamed

of each time becausee not only am i against corporal punishment

they were, each time, done in a fit of rage. no one stopped me

in my fit of rage. my husband did nothing and i will say 

that on at least one occasion it was him drove me to it. 

butt i am not blaming anyone for my failure to control my own rage. 

and there is no excuse, just a reason, a rationale.  but i 

am truly sorry. i hope i would not do it today. 

i know what i said to my daughter, and i never said

anything against your parenting of him. i have applauded

your care and constancy with him, your volunteering 

time and emotion into making sure this child is safe,

feels secure. i once agreed with your effort to gain

temporary custody while ay was psychotic. i understand

why you are fearful it will happen again. she is not

psychotic any more, but she is not stable, and you 

would like to see proof stability before exposing 

s  to his mother again.  or so you proclaim. but you have not

tried to meet with her and let her see a document 

that would, as far as she knows, give up custody to you

solely and until you decide it's ok to let her have him again.

read that again.  from what you've told me and second hand

info from your dad and your auntie and while i was on it your

facebook that document says only you hold any cards. i mean 

what? you do know that she wants him back, right?

so in the eyes of the  law, she will get him. she could go

to his school and pick him up one day and disappear

and you could not do one thing about it. she's his mom.

she has his docs or can get them. then your only hope

is that she does something stupid. which she may, i mean,

she does have a mental illness.  so why would you do that?

it is your job as his temporary custodian to help reunite him

with his mother. you are failing that and i have to wonder why.

to play armchair therapist let's get to the root of this petty vindictiveness

 let's get the bottom of the need for revenge.

**

in short, this is not an apology 

at all. not to you for calling you

as best i can remember this is the worst

i said a vindictive 2 faced cunt. 

because although that may not be

first impressions you're more a victim

you certainly entertain that aspect

of your personality. i saw it when you took

that guys pc, the one who owed you 

money,broke into the email and changed

all the passwords. you did the same

to your sister. the first was pure revenge

the second, a righteous vigilante

keep the kid safe violations of her rights. 

if she ever figures it out, what betrayal of hers

matches? boom, you're even. 

you champion mental health rights

yet when faced with it from one of your own

actively work to deny her access to treatment.

because believe it or not, some aspect of her sanity

is served by being S's mom.  and maybe it's 

got to do with pregnancy hormones and maybe

it's got to do with seeing his sweet li'l face that she

brought into this world and kept safe for so long, so

longing for him, and he for her-despite his lack

of questioning after 4 months-even while believing

that she will never come back. that's what you're doing

by denying her even facetiming with him, even talking

on the god damn phone. so, what the vengenance, R?

why the hold out? something to do with daddy always 

or you're just like mom? get over the past. 

your parents are animals. a is an animal, i am

an animal, s is an animal. learn the lesson

and move foward. we are stronger together

than apart. that's what i thought you were doing.

instead you've divided the village, and you're 

looking an awful lot like cruella de ville.

i'm sorry for calling you a two faced vengeful cunt.

that other was so much more constructive /s /nr /?

Update 1500

It always takes weed , the stone. Agape love forgives and remembers. 

there's a heart with a crack in lipstick on the mirror. it's crying in red. but it's still in one piece.

narrative 180

 omg the republican national convention

patriotism, fear mongering, nationalism

and it could work. now i understand...it's

the cognitive dissonance narrative. welcome to

the continuing american nitemare.none wear masks.

the vp's wife's name's karen.

the radical right, with their tanks n their guns

freedumb for all.

negative with caveat

 k

so i got tested just 2 days after my last contact with the ronie.

it was aerosol so more potent, however, not sure

if that was friday or monday. let's call it monday. girl says

good news you're negative, but

and reminds me of the up to 14 days of  symptom onset

and i'm like, oh yeah. but it seems they're pushing

don't come back unless you got a fever can't smell type

of illness. insurance won't cover the instant test twice

without reason. even tho exposure is sposed to be a reason

oh well. so what shall i do with this suspension of pattern

for the next week? all the little things we said

we'd do if we had the time? shit, it took me hours

to get over the medical excursion. people take

a lot out of me. cnn played on the tv in the waiting room

riots in wisconson, vigilantes shooting people 

on the streets and the cops just drive on by

cuz black lives still don't matter. k. 

interspersed with evacuations from the hurricane

that spared florida, straight into texas so that part

i tuned out and the couple in the waiting room

said something about you see? that's what melania

was talking about last nite in her speech, unironicly 

us v them. i felt so them but hid it because

after all they were not talking to me

and i don't wanna be someone who eavesdrops

and tells. too many busybodies running round

these days. some of them with guns. ready to shoot.

____  

so this unplanned covacayid

is gonna include a remake 

of my garden, in late august

monsoon season. i need to move

2 hibiscus over to the side of the shed

because they've been there 2 years

and die every spring. no water. at least 

the shed has runoff. then i'ma take

my trailer trash semi fence

comprised of shephard's hook 

garden stands, plastic 5 X3 trellis

pieces repurposed from my drive

and ty wraps to give me some privacy

from the road and the trailerclose

neighbors. not allowed to fence

but yard trash is acceptable

so i will also put out gnomes

at the edges so management knows

this is garden art, which is allowed. 

there is a norfolk pine left by my friend who died

on 420 last year. it needed repotting then, 

all this last year, since

my daughter took it home for christmas,

 its branches wither and brown.

 i think it needs to go

 in the ground. if i had her ashes i would 

mix some in. 

*

another thing i'd like to do is

refinish my gramma's hope

chest, though i suppose that by now

twenty years on, it is finally mine. 

*

the sky comes up dark by patches. 

pieces of glacier melt, the runoff from greenland.

the mirror is behind me.  

i see my glorious hair

tied up in an aged bun

permanent lines the typewriter has left

scattered across  my face, like mars. 

&

unexplored possibilities collapse

in the sealed lab.the obserrver, looking

for negatives, a 50% spin down appears. because

that's what the machine does.  up spin happened as well.

you just didn't catch it this time. 

inevitably

 they call you into production where you stand

in the doorway, away from the clusters of unmasked

workers. other maskers keep their distance

but all have to stand close  enough to hear

 what they say, standing on a portable ladder

at the edge of an increasingly machine filled floor. 

there's been renovations here, during the pandemic

moving people around, closer, further, crossing

paths all which way so now 

inevitably they tell you someone here, well

a couple of people have the ronies. only they don't

(at last) make fun of it, they don't 

call it ronies they call it covid. 

so we're going to close down today

and sanitize with this product that's supposed to be good for ninety days

and ya'll come back on tuesday week  and get ready 

to work hard to ship the 1/3 of monthly shipments

we're going to miss during this unfortunate

(and inevitable i mumble into my mask) event. 

but this time, they say,wearing of masks is 

mandatory. any questions? and there's not a one

about how come we gotta wear masks now

not one whiner bout how i can't breathe when 

i have it on, not a peep of protest from 

the unmasked masses

staring intently at the dasher of their delusion,

 speaking to the gathered  unmasked

as every other day, sop at the factory

 who until this very minute 

upheld everyone's

 freedom of choice to infect each other 

or not. and now they gotta live with that.

don't come back if you have symptoms they say

don't come back till you're better. 

should you test. meh, it's up to you.

&&&&&

so i drive home, wash the rona off.

let my honey know that maybe we been

exposed. make an appoitment for the test. 

i hope it's a quick turnaround, results wise.

exposure has always been inevitable

given the vices of living.

i think briefly of getting in touch

with a funeral home and lawyer

and i will. just 

not today.

nostalgia for last decade

 was it really so short a time ago that people

like jill biden seemed plausible? as i watched her

middle class karen (after all, aren't all white

middle to old age women that batshit crazy anti

vaxxer, flat earth mother bitch?)accomplishments 

her oh so precious love for her family, her belief in

the goodness of people,

 the sensibility of muricans for goddsake

it left me crying for what the times could 

could become if we don't blow this thing again.

i mean, it could, couldn't it? kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

i preached tweedle dum tweedle dee all my life

but honestly what lives in the white house now

is some transmuation of a dee love child, 

birthed from no zeusian head, no, 

this one was shot out of their combined ass.  i

mean how different do you want?

joe believes in climate change don't he joe wants

to have medicare for all don't he, joe is woke now

ain't he, ain't he woke

now?

 joe biden's career splashes across the screen.

the man who worked across the table with his

fellow pols during regean's banana republic 

awakening of  the usa conversion

to the nascent dystopian nightmare-in-orange

currently dismantling

only the good things that came from morning

in america. that guy in the senate

that democrat that pussied on oliver north

air traffic controllers, iraq and afghanistan

and so many other sleazy dealings through

four, prolly 5 administrations,

 that man who understands

that confederate statues can't be torn down overnight

 that courage and morals have a learning curve and 

the internet goes way back(let me sniff your 

 innocent hair, dear one day voter) 

yeah, that guy, that joe

can unite what has been overpoured

into a fragile mold, can catalyze

the swarm into something solid

 and unbreakable

and make us whole again

like we never were. 

***(***

 i mean i cried bc

it was more like a lifetime movie

that i want to desperately believe 

is representative of who we are

than a convention. i wondered how much

they paid the writers.

 has it always been this way?

*

i cried because the very people jill should speak to-

my sister, her husband, my ex coworker friend , the devout christians

at my  work(and there's alot of em), some fb relics of the past

a covey of karens my age-the ones that neeed her most

will not even see this message for the choir. my only hope

is that the choir is vast, heaven's mormon tabernacle choir, 

the choir watches from  infinite zoom boxes

all across this country   i just can't see them 

because my pixel resolution is too low and the choir

is gonna sing in november. a joyful noise unto the world

Bastille

We pretend that we're okay. Strike that. You pretend that we are okay. I am grey grey packing rocking. I'm not really packing. I'm trying to unpack. This Epiphany I had last night? It's related to love. You tell me that you love me but it's differently than how you love your daughter. This in response to me telling you that why I've been so upset, angry, this past week is because I have seen now how you treat someone you truly love. You have not been treating me this way. I am jealous. But you don't think you should love me the same way as you love your daughter. I guess you think the only way you should love me is in Eros. But that is just I don't know, 2 restricted. It's not enough. I want a love that is agape and Eros combined and I know that's what I have been trying to give you.

But you couldn't talk about it anymore. You asked me to stop talking about it. So I have. But I did not want to talk about anything else, so I basically am not talking to you. Although we did discuss Portland, how when the foreign powers left, protests were peaceful. Amazing what can happen if you don't go into something offensively. How defense can look like offense. How defense becomes offense when the power is greater and used against you. I frankly don't know if I'm using my love against you or you're using my love against me. That's how fucked I am.

I'm an addict. I guess I'm Addicted To Love. Maybe addicted to you as the object of that love. But I'm trying to imagine life without you, tears come to my eyes. I don't let them fall. Maybe because you haven't really left yet. You are still here physically, but mentally I just really am not sure. However I suspect you are gone. And I'm not real sure I want the kind of love that you provide. Still unpacking.