California.

Where the grass is greener on the other side

(in Oregon)

'cause we don't get rain

unless sprinklers count.

Where we've got four seasons

winter, spring, summer, and

fire.

Autumn isn't when the leaves turn gold and yellow

but when the sky glows a similar orange hue and signals, what?

world destruction?

no...

just a normal day in September in California!

Global warming hits us harder every day

but our natural beauty is tough to compete with

gotta enjoy it while it lasts, right?

we're sinking faster than the Titanic and

our twenty lifeboats?

They left a long time ago.

Come to Cali!

Stunning views to spare!

We've got

droughts

wildfires

earthquakes

& more!

Enter if you dare...

I come from a place where fairies are real

Where the grass is as green as an emerald

And when the wind blows it’s always at your back

Guiding you on your way

I come from a place where everyone speaks in song

Where the sea is as wild as the land it crashes upon

And when you have too much sorrow to bear

There’s a pint and a friend waiting to share it

I come from a place where the air smells like home

Where the peat burns as hot as our pride

And when you look up to a sky painted with stars

You realize that magic is real

I come from a place called Ireland.

I am from kitchen fights

From being told to go to my room

From hearing

Be strong

Be better

I am from I didn't raise you like this

you're the tough one

From that's life

From get over it and move on

I am from work harder

Don't be like Al

From you're okay

not are you okay

From talk to you later

not meet me I'm worried about you

I am from depression

but suppressing

From it's life

you'll be okay

I come from Iowa

where the tall corn grows

giving everyone a sense of the seasonality of life

a time for planting

a time for growing

a time for harvesting

a time of dormancy death

there is a sensibility

that comes from always knowing

your winter is coming.

I live now in Florida

where Hibiscus bloom year round

and it is always green

and everyone is from somewhere else

seeking nirvana

to die where winter never comes

bundling up when the temperatures fall to 60º

When it becomes 60º in Iowa

people dance naked on their lawns.

I miss that.

Welcome to Arizona,

where it's summer year round.

Welcome to Arizona,

where the cactus are the prettiest things

in sight,

(not counting the girls in crop tops

and very short shorts)

Welcome to Arizona

where it's so hot

you stick to leather car seats

and burn your hands

on just about everything.

Welcome to Arizona,

where we have a magnificent canyon

that attracts rude tourists.

I wonder who named it

The Grand Canyon...

a rather lame name

for such a beautiful place.

Welcome to Arizona,

where triple digit temperatures

are normal;

where we laugh when someone tells us

how hot 70° and under is.

I come from a nation of red desert sands,

Where the visceral Mother Earth chokes.

From beneath the foul place where the blowfly wing fans

The fresh sweat off the brows of the blokes.

But I come from a land more down-under than that.

From the rainforest island beyond...

Where devils are cute little things who grow fat

In the twilight-screened shade of fern-frond.

I’ll always be homesick for those rolling hills

Full of sheep, pademelons and hope.

For that mountainous cradle, and platypus bills

Peeking up from the creek down the slope.

My lungs mourn the loss of that fresh island air,

Of the blue gums and bottle brush plants...

But,

’Least part of my being will always be there,

In the bellies of leeches and ants.

Where do I come from?

Do you really want to know?

The truth?

The real truth?

I come from Privilege.

Never been there?

Never seen it?

Let me depict for you this land of my birth. In my homeland there is want but never need. There is abundance, yet little satisfaction. Yes, there is pain and suffering, sorrow even, of a kind, a strange kind, a misery only self-imposed. The ultimate virtue is striving. charity or compassion, falls fourth or fifth. Hard work is valued above all. Work hard and anything can be yours. Everyone should work as hard as you do. If they did, they would do well too.

In Privilege, everyone can succeed.

Maybe you come from Privilege too.

Have you ever felt the deep pangs of an empty stomach? Do you know how food consumes the thoughts of the hungry? Can you describe for me how it feels when the rains come pouring down, or the night wind blows frigidly cold, and you have no home, no place of shelter? Have you ever held the hand of sick/starving/freezing child, and what them suffer, knowing there was nothing you could do to help?

Do you worry about needs before caring about rights?

Can you answer yes, to any of these questions?

I came from a womb or

the stillness after a long fight

confused with peace

or lust

or love

and when I was born

it was surprising as though nine months

is not enough time to fall in and

out of affection and in again

And as for place I have sixteen

each with their own chapbook

my aunt used to say

though

that I was born in a flower

and I like that best of all

so if anyone asks my name is Thumbelina, but I won't marry a mole,

nor almost die for a prince

I am a child of corn.

There was corn everywhere where I grew up - like just wild corn, growing alongside the highway. I asked once who grew it. It just grew there. Go fig. Monsatan constantly suing farmers for using their genetically developed superseeds and here's some rando wild corn, just growing alongside the highway. Huh.

Anywhere I go I respect a culture more if they like corn. Show me your cuisine and chances are yes, I'll love it, I'm a bottomless pit of a stomach (actually I hate fish / sushi - but soba noodles are a good workaround) / however, if you suddenly reveal your cuisine includes corn? Boom. Friend for life.

Random side note: The Japanese put corn on top of pizza. I used to think it was weird, now I feel like I've been culturally seen somehow and I am very, very impressed.

She looked into the sky

It felt like it had been years since she last greeted the expanse of air

with more than a grimace and half mooned eyes.

She supposed that living inside her own cage of a body

was what she had condemned herself to

for the rest of her life.

When she was younger

less jaded, less hard.

She would tell her friend

that she sometimes felt

things so deeply

they sang in her veins.

Molding to the words she spoke,

to then float away,

to be released from the body.

Then,

for a good while,

there was a storm

that drowned out the music.

Her words stopped trying to find their release.

She had no way to escape the feelings.

So close now,

trapped music with no audience to be found,

just loud turbulence.

Where she could barely hear the words leaving her mouth

trying to escape the tin of her thoughts.

They became angry, harsh and scared

as if her own soul turned itself against her.

She became a woman

who was only as deep as her lead tongue allowed.

I am still unsure,

how she was able to find her way back.

I still cannot believe it when I look at her now.

She speaks to her soul regularly

and she gives pieces of herself,

but only so much that she can bear.

To continue to give in the day to come.

And the day after.

I think you know this woman.

I think we all do,

In one way or another.

You see,

I was her.

And thank God I was.

Because now,

I get to be her and me.

Finally me.

Thank God,

I found me.