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

Hi there, awful to meet you, my name is No One. You might have heard about me from some of your friends, or we've met before and I just don't remember. I wouldn't, because it's you and why would I want to remember you. Oh, that was a rhetorical question, please don't answer that...or do, go ahead and embarrass yourself again. You are good at it, and we all have to be good at something.

Anywho, I just popped in to make sure that you weren't getting too full of yourself...wouldn't want you to develop a sense of self-worth or something like that. I see that you are still just as scared and anxious as always, though, so yay for me. Listen, don't listen to this Eleanor person. She seems a little full of herself and we know what they say about self-assured women. I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with "hitch."

Okay, gotta go now! Off to do more important things than you, ta ta!

Postscript by Yours Truly:

Sometimes acknowledging that I feel inferior allows me to get past the feeling of inferiority. And sometimes if I pretend I was unaffected by someone's words or actions that feeling just sits in my gut and grows into something more beastly. People hurt my feeling sometimes and that's ok, because I am human. However, the people who hurt my feelings or made me feel less than won't always be willing to help me heal from that, so I have to do the hard work of overcoming that feeling so that I can become wiser and kinder and more resilient. Anyway, have a beautiful weekend and overcome, overcome, overcome!

Scent of calamine

eats up night air

Heat

that swallows the cat

and out there a dog

barks and a coyote

answers

The house shrinking with

each breath while the

sagebrush goes on

forever

There is an entire bus seat where this man could be sitting, so why he is sitting right next to me and invading my bubble with his knee and his hot breath is a mystery to me. Okay, so it isn’t a mystery, but maybe if I just stare blankly at the opposite window the guy will get bored of being a creep and not get off at the same stop as me and ask those same old questions about my age and where I live. My whole body is folding into my stomach with disgust. I want to punch him in the nuts so bad, but I try to remain calm. “If you punch him in the nuts,” I tell myself internally, “Then the whole situation will escalate, and you really just want to get home.”

Everyone else seems to be minding their own business, heaven forbid they ask the teenage girl if she would like assistance with the creep breathing into her ear canal. No one wants to get involved in a mess; they just want to go home and melt into their mattresses before they are forced to do it all again. Understandable, but still shitty.

I can see the man’s reflection in the window and, yeah, he is pretty fucking high. He looks like one of my dad’s friends, maybe he is, I don’t know. My sister would have just asked him already, “Do you know Frank?” Then she would have told him that if he kept looking at her, she would stick a fork through his eyeballs or something. I’m not my sister. Don’t get me wrong, I would stick a fork through his eyeballs, but I would try to avoid the confrontation if possible.

The creepy old man slides something my way. I see a little, blue box out of the corner of my eye, but I pretend not to. Persistent, he pushes the box into my thigh. I snap, “What‽” and then sigh and lower my voice, “Yes? Can I help you?” Pointing, he whispers, “Open it.” I don’t particularly like it, but I shrug and comply. The box contains a tiny wooden ship. “For you,” he says. His smile is almost endearing. Lifting the ship, I notice writing on the side: “The Time Traveler.”

When I look up again the man is gone. I mean really gone; I cannot see him anywhere. “Excuse me,” I say to the woman sitting a few feet away “Excuse me, but the old man…the one who was sitting here?” She looks confused, “What old man?” she asks, seemingly perplexed. “The one…” my words drift off as I notice the time flash in little red letters on the display at the front of the bus. The time says 6:00, but that’s impossible…then I look out the window and see that the part of town we are in is one we passed thirty minutes ago. I look back down at the tiny ship in my hands, “Time Traveler.”

I took my first breath in the backseat of a Mercury Marauder. My birth certificate, therefore, has, "Hospital Parking Lot" written as place of birth. I switched schools often as a child and the first share day at a new school was always a no-brainer; passing around my birth certificate made me star of the moment without having to do anything. Now that I am an adult having the parking lot story in my back pocket is great for those dreaded staff-meeting icebreaker activities.

My dad says that when I was transported from the car to the infant ward my mother demanded that he follow me all the way in. It has been a favorite joke of his that he lost the nurse halfway so I might not be the same person my mother gave birth to. As a child this was welcome news. I created a whole other set of parents in my head: kind, understanding people who told me they would love me no matter what. Oh, and they had a pool, obviously.

I was my dad's fourth child and my mother's third. After me they would bring three other children into the world, and in their unique way my parents loved all of us. It was just the sort of love that fucks you up a little bit, perhaps you know the kind.

The worst thing about abuse is how much brain space that trauma occupies. My friend once read my writing and said something along the lines of the way you write is lovely, but I want you to be able to write your own story, separate from them. And the thing is, me too...it's just that it's always there. They are always there. And giving them to my writing is just me acknowledging and making sense of all the chaos in my brain.

Anyway, today is Mother's Day and there are plenty of wonderful people out there— women, men, non-binary people—who are filling the role quite splendidly. Thank you to those people for doing the hard work. And to my own mother thank you as well. Thank you for bringing me into this world, for teaching me all the days of the month, for making me finger sandwiches, showing me how to clean up a stain, and for all the ponytails you tied for me until I learned to do it on my own. I love you endlessly; I loved you even as I walked away for the last time so that I could learn to love myself.

The me-before-yesterday baked cinnamon rolls and this morning today-me warmed one up and enjoyed the delicous pastry with some delicious coffee.

And even though I have had too much pain the past year, I have also had too much joy: morning cuddles with the kitties and my partner, watching butterflies on early morning hikes, and taking all of the extra time given to me by Chaos to write more often.

Everyday I am thankful for the three companions—one human and two felines—I share my life with.

For all the pain this year and before I can only be thankful that it made me funnier.

Five is just a lovely number and I have an odd feeling of joy when it bleeds out from my pen. Write a five right now and maybe you will see what I mean.

Six years ago I went to the movies and held someone's hand and I haven't let go since, except to shit, shower, and shave, of course.

I have seven niblings and they are all pretty cute.

Yesterday I saw my mother-in-law for an early Mother's Day Celebration and we ate pizza and chicken wings and laughed together for the first time in a year.

Nine years ago I was alone and scared and high and this morning I am typing away on my Macbook with a cat quietly purring next to me. And now, when I am scared, I am not alone.

Sardines come in little tin cans so that you can stack them neatly on top of each other. They also have fun, little tops that roll back. Did I mention the flavors? They come in so many flavors and no matter what my partner says I love them all.

somewhere in the world

night has fallen

the rain is pouring down

and someone has drifted to sleep

without setting up buckets

so the morning will come

and with it...

some regret

The air smells of wet wool and apple-scented Dawn. Yesterday, I made little beads out of cat fur. Yes, I felted cat fur. No, I'm not sorry. Today, though, I am attempting to create a flower—not with cat fur, there isn't enough of it—with strands of pink and black wool fibers in wispy layers.

If you didn't know, felting is when you use water, soap, and friction to mat the fuck out of some hair...basically. It smells and it's really messy. If you are not me and you are good at it, then you can shape your felt into some pretty neat stuff. I hear you can even make hats and stuff; this seems like a dream to me, but who knows what the future holds.

Regardless of whether or not I ever get to make a hat I will still pursue my strange hobbies because they are fun. And if you are reading this and thinking, "I'd really like to try out X, Y, or Z, but I really don't want to look like a weirdo..." Well, I encourage you to try being a weirdo for once, as long as your strange hobbies aren't hurting other people. Pursuing weird things can make your days a little more amusing and we deserve to be amused by our disgusting art projects, etc. since our time here is so short. And when I die I hope someone felts little flowers out of cat hair and sticks them on my grave, that way everyone who passes by can feel a little uncomfortable and a little more alive through that feeling.

purple cat

purring cool colors

living

in forgotten places

thriving

for a short,

beautiful time

like lilacs

in Spring