Notes from the Virgin Suicides

your job is merely to create the noise that 

excites me

fascinates me

distracts me

i’m a woman in disguise

i understand love and death

both come with this womb

i know everything about you 

and you cannot fathom me at all

the imprisonment of being a girl

makes you learn what colors go together

makes you live a million dreams inside out

makes you a stranger each new moon

your job is merely to create the noise 

 

devolving

the beautiful are found at the edge of a room

crumpled into spiders and needles and silence

and they are crying like plants whose roots are cut.

each dead child coiled, a white serpent.

the young today are born prisoners

perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.

men are made mean, by fear, and a system of grab.

and the best won’t breed, though they don’t know why.

how suddenly the soul in a man begins to die.

*above image by street artist SWOON

break up never make up

the aching aftermath of our breakup is not these random tears that help me learn to lose you, but this final letter you sent. silly words cheapening our experience, desperate for a memory that will reverse the painful end. these words sit crumpled like wayward insect legs in the corner, pieces of something long dead. it’s over and these skeletons reach to revisit moments that no longer exist. your image of me is delusion now, and the pedestal i placed you on is illusion always. 

you do the killing my love

i’ll do the digging my love

everybody else can tell:

we’re a match that’s made in hell

i’m fire.

you’re magic.

we might have lost some battles

bruised and torn and battered

but we’re gonna fight until we win

because love is war…

see how i leave

throw your soul through every open door

count your blessings to find what you look for

turn your sorrow into treasured gold

domestication

who learns to cook anymore? who has time for that? i’ve been busy making dollars. who has time to give birth anymore? i’m busy breaking hearts. who cleans the toilet? not me, i’m busy.

 

Mauna Kea

3 am. 13,000 feet.  As the full moon lit our path as brightly as the sun could have, I focused on breathing and the purpose of my sleep deprived hike to the summit of Mauna Kea…

“Remember the mood tonight is love. The prayer tonight is sshhhh…listen. We are not going to the summit to speak, we are going there to listen.”

Addressing the people who have gathered at his home in Hilo on this night, December 21, 2010, for the winter solstice, Uncle Paul Neves, ali‘i ‘aimoku (high chief) of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I and Kumu Hula, speaks about the protocol for the evening and what winter solstice is about.

As some finish making ho‘okupu (offerings/embodiments) for us to take and offer during prayers, his words travel through the air barely loud enough over singing koki frogs. His words really serve as etiquette for everyday life: “It’s about raising the standards of aloha always,” he says. “It’s about how we love this land and how it responds. It’s about love always, because if cannot, what else are we doing here?”

This is the second time in a month I’ve been asked to climb the summit of Mauna Kea. The first time, I came on assignment for an in-flight magazine, driving alone to the top in a four-wheel drive vehicle on a beautiful day. My mission was simply to experience a trek to the top. This second time, I had been invited by KAHEA: The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, to document their celebration of the winter solstice during the full moon in December…

Tony Robbins is ILLLLLLLLLLL

Why we love + cheat

What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for?
And what is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same.
Only love.

everyone is free [to wear sunscreen]

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy.  Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.  The race is 
long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Enjoy your body: use it every way you can.  Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it; it’s the 
greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

LEARNING THE DIRT

Technically, we are in the middle of nowhere.  Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. And the only black man I’ve seen since living in Brooklyn is dedicating a song to me while I navigate my awkward shovel through the rusty-red hardpan.

Dead Prez starts in…

Knowing self defense is a strategy of WAR

Soldiers try to link with other soldiers THAT’S WAR

Revolutionaries gotta know the art of WAR

I’m in the middle of a small farm, learning about what moon phases are best for planting certain crops, the science of good soil, how to water plants, and now my teacher has his fist in the air, smiling at me.

We are here in this dirt because we have declared war.

We are here in this dirt, talking to plants, seeking a secret life.

We are unplugging from the matrix, getting connected to the dirt that we came from and will go back to, feeding ourselves from the fingertips of the moon and the roots of the earth, and damning the fucking man.