Winded

There is a word in Taiwanese that literally means “winded.” It refers to that feeling you get when you’ve been playing hard, and you get so speedy that your senses go off line. You cannot think properly or respond properly. You are “winded.” You will scream and shout, or jump off furniture, or grab things with a blankness in your eyes… I always had this at the end of a play date. But, I also have it now sometimes, and so does my mother.

Why Cats

Starting in October, I noticed a more than usual number of cats lurking around. There was the cat who started roosting in our driveway, the cat who sat on our porch at night, the cat who hovered over the storm drain on our curb (hunting, I suppose). I thought, it must be the energies of Fall. 

Yet lately, it’s gotten much worse. Last week two separate cats darted towards and past me repeatedly as I made my way down a familiar block. Finally, one of the cats disappeared as the other hid under a car watching as I crossed the street. Yesterday with my sister, a cat rushed down his lawn to rub against my leg as we were coming home from lunch. On new years, my sister suddenly yalped while slamming the front door shut –jolted that she had opened the door to a sturdy cat sitting outside already staring at her. Last night, a bushy whitish cat sat on the ledge by our front door, peering in from the side as I left home with a friend, and waiting there on the curb as I got home. 

Why?

Where is my friend?

Certain he was handsome enough tonight, he waited…

Wrathful

Love is not pink, not soft like you think, it’s not cute, not sweet, not some lucky treat. Real love is fierce, like sharp teeth than can pierce

through your notions of normal and the habits you think noble. Love is wise, it has eyes, it recognizes lies, it sees your core, maybe more, it will fight to show you –you are more.

Love is not cute, not pink –it’s brute. It shakes and wakes you to what you are. You are deep, you are feeling, you are not sleeping. You are fearless to feel what others are hoping. You are brave, and can save others from dying. You are real, you have ears, you can feel peoples’ fears, and still be here.

It strikes with the wrath of a demon, with the roar of a lion, with the sword of war and the torch of reason, you are finally awake when you can attack your own stake in life and see the world. That all beings share the same feelings, the same hurts, the same dreamings, and realize that love – is the way home.

Love is not pink, not soft, not mute… it’s the warlike cry for change from the roots, it is the weapon for slicing our self-obsessed delusions. Love is blood, it is tears, is it colors, it sees everything and then gives shelter. Safety never felt so real, so tough, so bound to creation. Love is wrath, it is refuge, it is liberation.

Toaster’s Rights

Toaster’s Bill of Rights

I have the right to ding before I’m ready. 

I have the right to stay cool even when you set me to max.

I have the right to stay closed, and to creak loudly when you open my door.

I have the right to darkness so you cannot stare at my insides while I work.

I have the right disregard the numbers on my dial settings.

I have the right to blacken the food I cook for you.

I have the right to be dirty, to be clean, to be myself.

I have the right to buzz at you when you are wrong.

I have the right to refuse you, or to break.

I have the right to be treated like a unique toaster, not just like the old one before me.

I have the right to blow your breakers because of your own carelessness.

I have the right to rubberized feet.

I have the right to live in places outside the kitchen. I might look like a fire hazard, but I don’t think I would catch on fire if I’m happy.

I have the right to be a toaster. 

Fatten Off

Hatted man, laughs in shuffrings down the walk,

Breasted with foasties and hellgrills from chalk.

Tothren, sways a metric dradging the teds,

Thumping with the belldrums of men below my bed.

I shout, “who is there?,” and there whispered back,

Some trouncy sound of metal against slack -

The drawl of a dreg, a drey, a droose,

A voice rumbles, “I own this place, I built it for mysoof.”

So when you hear the prinks, the scrapes, the facts,

Beware the world where your presence lacks,

The place where men traw weights in chalk,

And drawl their fattries until they fatten you off.

Man’s Spreadsheet

Jacob Fannon stared his spreadsheet down on the oak desk, both him and the sheet of paper just a little shiny under the lamp light. 

“I hate you, too,” the spreadsheet answered bluntly to Jacob, whose eyes squinted in response, breathing in a quick pain under his chest.

     Spreadsheet 106B: The Next 20 Years

Underneath the title, was a table and graph of seven variables: school, career, recreation, personal (–which was once “love & romances,” but re-titled), income, location, and status. Each line was a different solid color, each line was erratic and lacked the logical clarity that Jacob had hoped for when he started. Yellow was simply the wrong color for something like location, it might be better graphed as a dotted line, which more closely resembles footsteps or travel. Jacob’s mind began plotting how to improve this graph –off his mind went like a busy supermarket.

“I said, I hate you, too, Jacob.” The spreadsheet flapped on the desk. Jacob stamped his fist down on the corner of the sheet. The voices of his supermarket went on uninterrupted.

“I HATE YOU, Jacob.” The spreadsheet was direct. “You…are…a….” The words “Spreadsheet 106B” morphed gracefully into the word, PHONY.

Jacob nervously turned off the desk lamp, and the spreadsheet turned from white to black as the darkness hit. No colors, no lines, no accusations. Only Jacob’s mind was turned on now, the voices of a supermarket rolling through behind his eyes, barking out ways to kill uncertainty. But he couldn’t quite understand them, they were too loud and many; he could only feel the fury behind the voices, and he drank that in to his chest. 

Not knowing, not knowing… hate and hate… searching… wishing something can be done… 

Jacob awoke the next day, he had killed himself. He ran out of things to do, and the only thing left was to die. Had he only known, he need only wait and be uncertain, and the spreadsheet would have died first. But he awoke the next day, dead, finding death was no change at all.

A little prayer

My sister and I saw a worm drying on the sidewalk. We found a leaf, and cupped it out of the sun onto the dirt under our birds of paradise. We rushed inside for a bottle of water, and came back out to douse the worm with fresh moisture. We were hopeful.

Later that afternoon, I returned to the birds of paradise. Underneath the stalks, the worm was bloated white in our puddle of water. It was covered with criss crossing ants, preying.

May all beings be free of suffering. May all be beings be given more wisdom.

She Doesn’t Love You

The male duck is extremely aggressive, and is known to rape female ducks in large numbers. The female duck has since evolved to have several dead-end vaginal passages to divert the male’s penis. The one real vaginal passage has become spiral in shape so that she may clench off the area to unsuitable ducks, and also prevent pregnancy.

In response, male ducks are now reported to have spiral-shaped penises.

Enter.

This is my first official blog… Greetings, hyperspace.