"What are you doing up?"

My thoughts have ran away with my mind. They have overpopulated my brain till there's nothing I can do but rethink what I already know. What I've already heard. What I've already seen. What I've already relived. My mythical spiders have crawled into my ears and made a home there. Planting egg sacks that transform into more unneeded thoughts. They grow too quickly. Too fast for my mind to process and get rid of this virus. Every time I tell myself to change the subject it just keeps it on replay. Enough times to drive me to insanity.

"I just couldn't quite get to sleep."

Being born with ambition in Portland garunteed me for a diagnosis of anxiety. 

Having an internal drive for success in a town where people work half time in the industry of serving food and drink (but full time at drinking and partying) has lead me to consistently disappointing relationships and remarkably unsatisfying employment experiences. 

I feel like the only person who has some place to be, the only one rushing to meet a deadline, which I had to set for myself purely because I want to accomplish something with my life. 

I've gotta move away before my high strung nature is driven completely insane by this laxidasical town. I already tried once.

A few years ago, I saved up money for six months and livd in NY for three months. I failed to find a job or apartment, and quickly bailed on my dreams, flying comfortably back to my easy west coast life. 

But I hate it here. I crave a struggle. I want to fight for the life I want and I need to impress myself. 

This aching need to return to The City feels like a bad foot cramp that will only go away if I push into it, wearing out the muscles until they finally give up and let go.

The only cure for this poorly located ambition is a few years of hard living. And then, maybe, I will finally be able to stroll aimlessly down the street, no plans ahead of me but a vague commitment to whiskey with friends.

Relaxing.

Energizing.

Beautiful sleep.

The bringer of dreams.

Solver of life's problems.

A brief escape from chaos.

Taken for granted until it is denied to you.

I keep forgetting to remember

which ones deserve my magic

and which use it all up,

moving on with no remorse

And to be wary of casting spells

on the ones I don't mean to ensnare,

who I will fly away from

without knowing I've left them trailing behind.

Hey, how are you?

Okay. I'm doing okay. How about you?

I don't hear your response.

I'm okay. I tell myself

I'm okay. And saying out loud

that I'm okay

makes me wonder

if I am

okay.

Every moment of every day

Is a struggle to feel "okay."

And just when I get caught up in not realizing

I'm not not okay

someone asks me how I'm doing

and I remember

again, each moment is

an assessment

of my body:

Do I feel dizzy?

of my thoughts:

Where am I going?

and to keep my heart from beating out of my chest

I grip my fingers into my things,

inhale sharply

and hold my breath,

widen my eyes and focus

on a distant object while I tell myself

that I am going to be okay.

How about you?

I’m what they call a “City Indian." I don’t have stories about life on the rez, but as a kid I was told we had native relatives somewhere down in California. They were my mother's family, people we were never very connected to.  Until my parent's relationship reached a breaking point. Then she decided to reconnect with these wild half siblings I had heard so little about. 

I remember visiting one of these siblings for the first time, an aunt who lived in Eureka, and feeling the damp, dark, and lonely emotions of an outsider. I was nine, and my mom had piled my three sisters and I in the car for the 7 hour drive. As a treat, we stopped at a little shop in downtown Eureka. I was allowed to purchase this big stick of roll-on glitter that tasted like candy sweet chemicals. I rolled it indiscriminately on my chubby cheeks. 

We arrived at Aunt Sarah's small house after dark. I was sleepy yet restless from the longest car trip I had ever taken.

[Later, in Sam's bedroom]

I sat on a dirty brown carpet and felt the glitter sticky on my cheek. I leaned against the bed, where my cousin taught my older sister a thing or two about life. We stayed up past midnight with no word from our mom about bed time. I watched MTV and saw Missy Elliott's "No Rain" video for the first time. The bright lights, lewd gestures and bizarre imagery of a woman dancing in a trash bag frightened me. I kept watching until I fell asleep, sad and scared, wrapped up in somebody’s jacket. 

When I as in college looking back on this awful night I learned that my aunt and her friends were doing bumps of coke between pulling swigs of cheep beer. That was the first time I heard Gwar. I was a devout little Christian girl until I was thirteen, and that was the first time I knew there was darkness in this world. I wouldn't have understood then that my rural relatives were reacting to that darkness, not creating it. I had it easy growing up in the city.

I wanted my mom to grab me and my three sisters and drive us all the way back to our little home on 82nd avenue, where the fighting of my parents was much more quiet, and no one drank.