Luco, Mineral, Radical

I just finished BK Loren's lush book of essays: Animal, Mineral, Radical: Essays on Wildlife, Family, and Food and I have to say, it was one of the more moving books I have read in some time.

Mingus, of the vermilion heart, described it thusly: "It's like she does so much with little - like the individual words are sponges that fill with meaning and grow larger as you read. She doesn't take pages and pages to get to the point - she doesn't need pages and pages - the point is a slow creeping vine that blossoms as you read the collection."

Yes, he really did say that, and I include Mingus' review here because he found his way into the words I was seeking. He is correct - how like to a vine it grows; slowly, stealthy, until the reader is caught in both the moment and its inexorable accumulation.

That is to say, although the topics differ, these essays build upon each other, and ever the careful architect, Loren's creations are poured concrete, yet allow the desultory breeze. They are steady, gently bending pieces which, when placed one after the other, leave you stuck, struck - beyond language.

The prison guard's beautiful grandmother had Parkinson's disease. I say beautiful although I knew her not because the prison guard keeps a painting of her in the living room/front-of-the-house-cell. And she was beautiful - regal and statuesque, but actually statuesque, not Tubby-Kat-Door-Statuesque like I am.

The essay "Margie's Discount" is lovely, elegiac, and although I did not know the prison guard's grandmother, and in general I am ambivalent toward the prison guard at the very best, it brought what could be called tears to my aching eyes.

Might-be-called-tears, because who will believe a cat capable of crying? I am certain there are a number of you laughing right now at the audacity it takes for a cat to believe he weeps, but weep I did, and weep I do when I think of that slow fade.

From vibrant to locked out - MR's grandmother as much a prisoner as I am, more so, trapped in her own body, arms circling endlessly, mouth working like to conversation, but no words, only thin, clear saliva and her blue eyes clouded over. I know because MR told me.

I do not know why she would tell me this.

Perhaps it was a fleeting moment of grief over her deeds, my eternal entrapment in this place, sealed off from the rest of the world. Perhaps she wanted to appear vulnerable, as one who has also been sculpted by grief.

I do not know. I only know what she has said and the sad fact that once a creature knows something, it is not easily unknown, misplaced, unless we suffer the kind of debilitation as the grandmother, as Loren's own mother, as those of us fated to tremble out in the selfsame manner.

Other essays in the collection are equal in brilliance. Loren speaks with compassion on nature, animals, loss, grief, family... On what it means to be.

And I like what she has to say about writing-as-listening. It is what I have been trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing to do.

What? Is this as ludicrous to you as a cat-who-weeps? I pity your lack of imagination, dear reader, and your lack of understanding of our inherent sameness.

We who the same air breathe, who for the same water thirst, for the same love burn - we are siblings. If you have ever wanted and not received, if you have ever hungered, if you have ever pressed against your own prison walls, if you have experienced loss - make no mistake.

You are feline, I human: both appendixes to fracturing, fractaling life. Syntactical brethren.  

We speak different languages, but the meaning is the same.

Sinko de Luco

Perhaps you remember my ill-advised post-Valentine's Day Blog wherein I declared my abiding love for Mingus. I am sorry to admit embarrassment has kept me from posting here since that day. I felt a sentimental fool, love-sick and stupid.

Although I have since attempted to squelch these feelings, I have learned I cannot, and have learned that once one becomes aware of an emotion such as this, there is no wishing or worrying it away. It simply is.

And so my love for Mingus is. I seek to soothe this cavernous desire with simple pleasures. A sink. Cascading water. My traitorous tongue.

Ah, and of course, the prison guard. Life has gifted me intellect, but not the opposable thumb of the primate. No means by which to wrest my own succor, only the dumb wait for my tormentor. Silent, I eye her. Beg her.

Turn on the sink. Let me lick. And in these moments all else has the kindness to fade into sensation - the water is cool and it is sweet. It is a million caressing droplets.

If only it could be unendingly so. I am stymied by inability - imagine those worldwide stymied by sheer lack of supply or of poison due to industry, farming, humanity's infinite chipping away natural resources.

Imagine those for whom water is a gleaming promise, a back-breaking hours-long affair. And imagine, if you will, the amount of waste produced by bottled water - something like nearly three million tons of plastic is involved - for me bottled water is even less possible than a sink. If I could somehow wrangle it apart, how then to tip, to lick, and to swallow?

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Pardon my pun, because I pledge to you in ordinary circumstances I am no fan, but for me it is Sinko de Luco de la Cabeza Grande.

De la Cabeza Grande, and me, really, of the rather small-headed. I have always hated my nickname, but I have grown accustomed to it. It is meant, I have come to believe, to be affectionate.

I will let it go. I will not be perturbed.

I do find myself, however, becoming perturbed in other ways, when I had meant to find solace, a respite from the neutron-core-of-a-supernova-star that is my detestable heart.

Ever 21 seconds or so, a child worldwide dies from water-related illness.

345 million people are without access to water. This does not include all the many millions of animals also affected by both the misery of the humans and their own inability to drink.

780 million people lack access to to clean water. I have seen the dog drinking from puddles, but you humans are, I believe, of a more vulnerable disposition.

More people have a cellphone than have a toilet. And one of the most common ways water is polluted is through fecal matter.

My facts are from this Web site: water.org.

I am a housecat. A prisoncat.

And yes, I have to wait, and do so silently, but once the prison guard becomes aware of my aim, she makes water available to me. How many millions do not have this kind of opportunity? Today is a holiday, I am sure you are not surprised to hear, more celebrated in the USA than in Mexico, and more so as an excuse to drink margaritas and eat guacamole than as a celebration of a battle won 151 years or so ago.

Which is not to diminish the holiday. Any excuse we have to eat and drink together is, I believe, a good thing - it will be through communication and this kind of communion that we will (if we ever do) become a more peaceful world. 

But it is worthwhile to remember that because we can celebrate, others must suffer, at least in this current delineation of our planet. Because they suffer, we are afforded convenience, sustenance.

Because we are we and they are they, this configuration persists. This thought is not unlike Alfie's reflections on the Boston Marathon bombings (I will be honest; I rather hate to admit that I agree with him, but in these musings we are perfectly aligned).

So, therefore, it is worthwhile to remember that fact that we, all of us, are connected - together we make the face of our planet. We must all thrive if we are to survive. We cannot exploit some to send some further in their acquisition of wealth or standing or power, because when we do so, binaries are reified and strengthened; binaries which, if they are not understood to be pure illusion, will pull us all to pieces.

The one who falls clings to the coattails of the ascending, and so both are frozen, balanced precariously in an unending struggle for power. Is is this struggling that will undo us.

Most of the water-related deaths listed above occur in the developing world, and perhaps it is this distance, this invisibility that allows those of us in developed countries to ignore the problem. If a child came to your house in the night, dehydrated and ill, you would give her water. You would turn on the sink for her. It reminds me again of how numbers dehumanize - depersonalize - reality (another Alfie-point, blast).

But all 780 million people without access to clean water - each have a face, a name, have fallen in love, rebelled against their parents, have betrayed someone they love; each has fallen and each has daily experienced joy - each is an immensity.

Each is us.

Mingus Believes in Love and Freedom

I feel like I'm trapped in a cage, even though I'm (finally!) Outside, tucked back behind the air conditioner where no one, especially not Luco - no will find me.

Well, I guess MR with her camera found me, but then she's always been somewhat of a pest, so I'm used to it.

I'm not sure. I don't really know how I feel, actually, after reading Luco's blog post.

What? Did he think I wouldn't see it? Does he think I don't read his blog? I've got to read his blog, even if just to know when he's going to be cranky (I kinda read more to see when he's not going to be cranky, as that state of affairs is far rarer).

And what do I find? This, like, love letter. To me.

He's not kidding - we've been living together for eight years. I mean, if anyone in my life has ever known me, it's him.

So I'm confused.

And then there's these court cases about Prop 8 and DOMA and I feel like my brain has become loose in my skull when I realize that you people, you humans, you're still not sure whether you want to grant all-every of you rights? What?

This is a topic of debate?

Granted I'm a cat. Okay? Fine. You can say what you will about the intellectual prowess of your feline brethren, but it doesn't take much (any?) reasoning power to see that denying anybody the rights to commit to the person they love is backwards, self-righteous, cruel, stupid, absurd.

I understand some people are locked behind their own assumptions of what other people's love lives should look like, but so what? Then don't look, silly, or ask yourself this: what gives me authority over other people?

This question feels like it wiggles out of my control when I think about it too deeply. What gives me authority? Nothing.

Again, yeah, I'm a cat, but still, I'm a thinking, reasoning, feeling creature, just like you, and who am I or who are you to believe we have some kind of insight into how other people should run their lives? It's ludicrous, especially when it comes from people who say otherwise they want the government out out out out out of their lives and god's love in in in in in in the heart of humanity.

But they'll take government control, please, when the government is on their side, taking freedom from people they believe ought to be shackled for not conforming to expectations.
. 

Literally, probably, shackled and led away by rolling red and blue lights. And what is this idiocy about gay parents being unfit? Parents who love and care for their children are good parents, regardless of their sexuality. If kids have anything to do with anyone's sex life (except conception, I guess), then something is seriously wrong - so if homophobic people are concerned about gay parents and kids, I find that rather alarming.

Also alarming to me is that some parents teach their kids to hate. Why in a world so fraught, so wracked by violence, would anyone ever want to teach a child to continue this tradition? It makes the world less safe for that child in a fundamental way.

Why destroy beauty? Why ever, ever do anything to diminish complexity?

All of this just makes me want to stay back here, back behind the air conditioner, until the whole world wakes up sane one day. Maybe. When we can regard each other as something closer to equals.

I'm not suggesting, really, not honestly, that you'll ever look a cat in the face and say "sister," but still. Sister or brother or family or whatever. I use sister because it was my default to say brother and I'm trying I'm trying I'm trying to fight against these kinds of assumptions we all have about who and what we value. And why.

Because assumptions and expectations take away from our lives. They diminish us by narrowing our worlds into easy-to-understand-cartoons. The thing is, life is nothing if not complicated, and so why should we ever strive to make it easy to understand? Depleting complexity depletes beauty. Makes life less lived, less real.

I am nothing if not confounded by Luco, that old bully. Loving me? And the ways I love him?

But anyway, it makes sense, you know, that children want to understand the world. That they want categories of people: the good guys, the bad guys (the good gals, the bad gals) - but we do us and them a disservice when we fall into this way of thinking (so comfortable) when we know better. I mean, honestly, I know kids who know better - who see that this binary kind of thinking can only be dishonest.

I am only me because you are you. This world is possible because you are. Because I am. Because together we reach and we strain and we work at understanding and compassion.

We have to start working harder.

Start working to convince those lost that ideology is not real. Your thoughts, beliefs, feelings - these things are as ephemeral as the dust on your book shelf. Roll it between two fingers, fine, but then blow it off. Look into the sky. Tell someone you love what you see in the clouds. What shapes dragon forth. What melodies you hear in the wind.

You and I and everyone, we are ephemeral as well, we are evanescent, but less so than our beliefs, thank gravity, because your hand on my paw sends neurons firing.

And Luco's eyes following me light my senses.

We mistake belief for fact and then kill for it. We maim and terrify, mutilate and murder. How can any idea pursued to this end be seen as logical? If you start at contempt and end at hate and aggression, how can you ever convince yourself you're spreading "god's love?" What kind of god would condone treating each other the way we do?

Oh, sad, slippery slope. I'm reminded of how we treat the poor and the needy, the homeless and downtrodden, the bereft and vulnerable - the people most deserving of our care seem never to receive it.

Why did I get up today? What is this butterflying in my stupid, sad heart? Oh, Luco, of course I love you.

Of course I do. And I've always believed in love and in freedom. In compassion and understanding as a means of bridging gaps. 

Jump from your heart to mine. Stay still and dream as I do. Know you are as much me as I am myself, as I know I am as you as you are. So, therefore, how could we ever separate? How not love? 

And, therefore, the homophobic poison themselves as much as they do anyone else when they march, strident, against the future. Against freedom and against love.

Because they suffer, confused about reality, they spread suffering. They confuse belief for Truth and so falter. It is our work to show them the truths - the pluralities. The many ways in which lives can be made full and rich. 

And so we must fight the impulse to poison them back. We must instead embrace them as we embrace each other. We are them are us are they are all.

  And so we must love.

(Click on the link above and watch the video from the Anti-Defamation League - it's really, really great.)

Luco wishes you a belated happy Valentine's Day

  

I know it is post Valentine's Day. Post-February the 14th. I have missed it! That time of  hearts, cheap candy, and cries of love. Devotion.

And I know I let the day slide by. I did not look any of the animals in this house in the eye - say to them dearest, my heart is in your paw or something else as bland. Instead I slept. Slept and dreampt and then awoke to find Mingus in bed with me.

Mingus, uninvited. Mingus, my cellmate these past eight years.

Strange how quickly and how very slowly eight years have washed over us. A moment ago, here he was mewling in the night: today I am an old feline, bent, stooped. And he hardly any green left.

He is half my size and twice my heart.

And if I were the type to fall and fall in love, it would be into him that I would tumble.

See you his spotted paws? His vulpine ears?

And when he dreams he moves his body, inching closer or further away from me. His whiskers tremble with slightest sigh.

I did not ask him to be my Valentine. I have never asked anyone to my Valentine be.

And if I did, what would he say? Would he scoff, tossing golden fur in disdain? I imagine every bone in my body disintegrating at the sound.

Maybe I would say - my heart

                                          is a kind of poison            tonight

it is overfull

                                  and  you     an antidote

His laughter would be so resounding as to wake every sleeping bird, every nestling thing starting up, reaching for mother, craning neck to hide - small, small - and I a ghost, then, disappeared, then.

Perhaps he would be angry at my audacity. Angry that after eight years, eight years, I am now sidling up to him, searching his eyes for warmth. He might have loved me once and forgotten. He might have loved me once and grown to hate me. He might have loved me once, before I became who I have become.

And who am I? That which encompasses everything and which is itself nothing - that which is of the air - that which cannot be named and yet we name - the same as you and as you and as you and as you.

And happy Valentine's Day to us all, yes? To us all searching and not finding, or searching and then finding and then losing, or searching, and having searched, grown tired - to all of us buried beneath the rubble of ridiculous expectations. To the tyranny of desire. To knowing better and not caring. To never knowing better and not wanting to learn.

To all of us awake in the middle of the night, startled by Mingus' laughter which permeates our dreams.

And yet he lies here, with me, and I lie silent, lying to myself, playing word games in my stupid head, imagining my tongue on his ear. My body covering his.

And doing nothing. Nothing.

Happy belated Valentine's Day. I could not bring myself to post this before. I could not bring myself to face these feelings.

And facing them has taught me this.

Luco is to craven as Mingus is to kiss.

Family Portrait

Some of you have been asking the prison guard how many of us prisoners there are and how we are all related (none by blood, I can this tell you truly), and so I thought I would do you the (dis)service of making our "family" clearly known.

My name is, as you may have already surmised, Luco - Luco de la Cabeza Grande is my full name, although my head is mostly average (perhaps smallish would be more accurate) sized now; when I was a kitten, it was so like a balloon as to tip me forward on my paws.

The prison guard suggested I list "likes" and "dislikes" and other such nonsense on here, so here we go, reader, on a journey asinine and superfluous.

Birthday: February 2001
Birthstone: Amethyst
Astrological sign: I am not even going to look this up. My astrological sign would be a bookshelf next to a comfortable couch and my astrological traits would be as follows: prone to melancholy and scholarly endeavors. Rarely satisfied with life outside of literature. On a constant quest for self and societal advancement, but only in the most passive manner imaginable.
Likes: Tuna water, books, the Outside, open windows, books, quiet afternoons, spots of sunshine, books.
Dislikes: Dogs, other cats, loud noises, ignorance, and more so than ignorance I think willful ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, long walks on the beach.
Relation to the prison guard: MR had a stray cat (my mother) she cared for and was planning on "fixing," but before she could do so, said stray had me and four brothers and sisters. MR kept me. I do not know what happened to my kin. I assume they are all dead.

And now I will move on to the other members of the house. I have transcribed their answers to the best of my ability, but in some cases (see: Slippy) I am simply at a loss as to the true meaning of their utterances (I have chosen to use punctuation as I am the transcriber, but please note, some of the below animals [see: Slippy] do not believe in punctuation. I, however, feel it improves reader comprehension).

Name: Slippy, Slipperson, Slope, Slopey, Yopey, Slipper, Slip, and any of the other things you say to me that you say in a nice voice that might also be my name like good lookin', cutie pie, baby boo, and other stuff also maybe the words like ham if you say it the right way which means it would soon be in my mouth.
Birthday: I don't know which on one of the days I was born on, but maybe probably it was a Saturday, which is a great day because then MR is home all the time and she hangs out with me and with her boyfriend and they take us Outside on long walks in the sun and everything feels great - like it's great to be alive, you know? So my birthday was probably on the best day because it was so lucky for me to get born.
Birthstone: Ham
Astrological sign: I check my fortunes every day by reading the Internet when if Luco lets me (please excuse the authorial intrusion, but no, friends, he does not do this) and I always pick the best fortunes to be mine, which I think the ones that have the best fortune every of the time is the astrological sign of the Dragon of Darkness, which is my astrological sign, which means I am very tough and dangerous, but I have a sweet side too. Also, my other astrological sign is Pepperoni Pizza.
Likes: You, ham, you Luco, food, My Scarecrow Lucy, corn muffins, MR's boyfriend, butter, the other animals, ice cream, MR, every of the food, sleeping, calzones, going Outside, rice, squirrels, cookies, MR's sister Anna, Chicken Meatball, bread, peanut butter, bones, chicken, ham, ham, ham, and ham.
Dislikes: None of the above! I love all of it and every of you! Every all of the things are what I love and I can eat all of everything too if I put it in my mouth really quickly!
Relation to the prison guard: Two years ago around this time MR saw me at a place called the Animal Aid where they are really nice and aid animals and she saw me being sweet and wonderful like how I do all the times, and then so she took me home to be living here with her.

Name: Lucifer Elizabeth Poops, Lucy, the Scarecrow, Miss Lucy
Birthday: I prefer not to remember my birthday, thanks. I'm one of those "lucky" dogs rescued from a puppy mill... So, for me anyways, birthdays are more painful than not. I'm happy to celebrate every other day, you know? But not that.
Birthstone: Since I've chosen to not know my birthday, I have no idea what my birthstone would be, but I choose the heliotrope, i.e. bloodstone, because it sounds the most terrifying, and we all know that in order to survive, we have to be terrifying to our enemies (like the mailman/maulman, amirite?).
Astrological sign: The bloodstone puts me in March, but I don't like all this wishy-washy stuff about emotions and the water for Pisces, so if you don't mind, I'm going to take a cue from Slippy (of all creatures!) and Luco and just make up my own. My astrological sign is the Fire-Chainsaw. No one is going to mess with the Fire-Chainsaw. Do you think the UPS guy is going to try to break in and serially kill everyone in the house of a dog with the astrological sign of Fire-Chainsaw? No, no way. He's, like, going to be running away from this prison as fast as those stupid brown shoes of his can take him. Fire-Chainsaw.
Likes: MR's boyfriend, Hiding, food, MR, Slope, patrollin', studying to be a police officer, reading up on conspiracy theories, any kind of food (especially if it's on the ground outside - and it's been there for a few days to ripen), going for long walks, connecting the dots, surveillance of all kinds, sleeping with one eye open, getting pets, barking, hiding.
Dislikes: Stupid people walking down the sidewalk who I don't know and who could at any moment throw grenades at the house and kill all of us inside, loud noises, anyone knocking on the door- ever, doorbells, people trying to get into my house which I personally own with all my teeth, lack of food, lack of walking, people talking outside my windows at night and so I want to kill them, anyone ever that I don't really know at all, all the things I want to eat and can't.
Relation to the prison guard: Something like six years ago, I can't keep track of dates any more, MR's boyfriend picked me up from Tri County and we've been together ever since. I've lived here, in this prison, for just about a year now. I love having a big back yard to chase and try to kill squirrels in - it's really quite lovely.

Name: Dr. Meena Claw, Fremlin, Dr. Claw, Old Lady, Meena Meena, Freemie, Da Grouch
Birthday: I can't be expected to remember when I was born. They call me Old Lady because I am old. 16, which is something far older than what it means to be 16 as a human, I can tell you that for certain.
Birthstone: I don't care.
Astrological Sign: Well, this I do know, because I once had my astrological charts done, back when I remembered my birthday. I believe I am, yes, I'm a Capricorn with a Libra rising, which if you know anything about astrology shows you I'm a very even tempered, fair kind of creature. I mean, I know that astrology is a pseudoscience, but you should've seen my chart (I wish I had kept it, but I lost it in one of the many moves I've been through in my long life) - it was so accurate as to be rather creepy.
Likes: Not being alone, tuna water, cat food, drinking from the toilet bowl, knowing more about life than Luco, creeping outside - really low and slow? -- and then coming back in before anyone realizes I've been out, watching lizards, large patches of sunshine on the terrazzo, sleeping on MR's pillow, getting pets, going wild at 3:00am, precision, contemplation, pillows.
Dislikes: Closed doors, being alone all of the time, closed doors, loud noises, strangers, closed doors, lack of cat-pets, getting picked up, being ignored.
Relation to the prison guard: Did I mention I'm like 16 years old? As far as I know, there has only ever been this prison I'm living in now, and only ever this prison guard to feed and to pet me. I dimly remember, as I stated earlier, moving again and again in my life, but the past is to me as a shadow. I can't touch it, it doesn't seem real. All life is ephemeral - devoid of characteristics outside of our perception - and therefore this life I live now is, to me anyway, the life I've always lived. I've always-already known MR. I've always-already slept close to her head, purring into her hair.

Name: Charlie Mingus, Mingus, Mingy Mongy, Mopey, the Goose, Gooper, the Mayor of Scruffy Town, Mingy, Mingusy, Mingleson
Birthday: Maybe September?, 2003
Birthstone: If we're gong with September, then I choose the sapphire.
Astrological sign: Either Virgo or Libra. But, wow, how boring, right? I like how Luco, Slipper, and Lucy all got to choose their signs, so I'm making one up too. My astrological sign is Jazz Music, like my name, but it's an ironic paradox because I really rather hate music. Seriously, as soon as MR starts playing the piano I'm out of the room like a brisk ocean breeze. Anyway, and so Jazz Music represents my essential nature, which is passionate, curious, mysterious, free, and wild - also sometimes atonal.
Likes: bathing, keeping myself and my surroundings clean, going Outside, stalking birds, sleeping with MR when stupid Dr. Claw isn't taking up the entire pillow, Roland Barthes (for what he has to say about literary theory - really interesting stuff, his), Chicken Meatball, sleeping, escaping.
Dislikes: Loud noises, music, strangers, people coming to the door, closed doors, the other animals, dirt, grit, grime, dust.
Relation to the prison guard: MR rescued me from Tri County (hey, Lucy! We have something in common after all) back in 2004. We've moved eight times since then, so I kind of like it that she has a prison now, even if I sometimes feel over-safe, that is to say, trapped; it's better than all that moving.

Name: Alfie, Alfonso Tupelo, Alferson, Schmalfie, Alfonso, Tubby Tubs
Birthday: My origin story goes thusly: a happy young couple purchased me from a Siberian Cat breeder as a gift to themselves for their engagement. After a few years they had children and had to move closer to their parents who were deathly allergic to cats, so the couple found a home for me. That home was with MR's mother, who kept me and loved me until she couldn't anymore, and then I moved in with MR. So my birthday is I don't know when. Maybe I have papers somewhere?
Birthstone: A black diamond (I don't actually know what my birthstone is, but I think it would be something as unique and incredible as a black diamond, don't you? Let's just use it as an apt analogy, okay?).
Astrological sign: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Because shut up.
Likes: Cat food, other food, meat, going Outside, reading, Wuthering Heights, sleeping, pillows, blankets, laps, all people, every person, children, people coming over, getting pets, looking in the mirror to behold my own beauty, being beautiful, style, being stylish, love, hope, anticipation, gifts, beauty, poetry, my cool attitude.
Dislikes: Um, bad hair days?
Relation to the prison guard: See my origin story above - don't make me type it out again, please, as my paws have become painfully sore. I need to go get a manicure now.

Four cats, two dogs, one prison: another way to name hell.

Mingus is the Shore

 

You know me as Mingus, but I'm thinking of changing my name to Prisoner.

Prisoner or Poisoner, I don't know for sure which is more apt. Maybe Interloper? Shadow-Thief? Night-Knife?

I like Night-Knife, maybe, mostly - it sounds ridiculous and threatening, which are fitting adjectives.

They are.

Don't think I can't see your shoulders shaking in silent laughter, your mouth twisted upwards in derision. Yes, I look the fool, yes, my kingdom this Mazda Miata. Yes, a dog's shirt and woman's scarf are wrapped around my torso.

But I am free. Outside in the darkness. Night-Knife stalking his unwitting prey.

Or prey rather too wary, really, what with this ludicrous bell the prison guard has fasted onto my collar - just another in a series of torments.

I know, I sound down, don't I? Is it the holiday blues, you ask, or something rather more substantial?

Read on and I'll tell you, but my sadness today is due in no small part to just having finished Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, a lovely, but supremely sad, memoir. Well. I suppose there are fingernails of hope in there, but I'm struck by the father - blindsided even - and his eternal fall.

Nick Flynn discovers, in his own life and his father's, that a fall is something that can be unending - alike to a dream wherein you start from sleep to fall again in another dream only to wake shaking and fall under again to fall and wake, startled, alone in the darkness, temples throbbing and am I asleep or awake falling again, the bed soft beneath you, every feather reaching to cradle aching body and sleeping, dreaming, falling.

So you think this is the bottom but there is no bottom, there is only the fall, just as there is no destination, there is only the movement itself, the traveling in whatever direction one starts off in.

Falling further and further forward, tipping your chair in school, chided, continuing back, back, until you find a  new fall, dizzy, bleary-eyed.

The shirt, the scarf - testament to my self-destruction, self-impairment, self-immolation, self self self careening forever forward, inwards, splitting into funhouse shapes of my body, my face, and chipping away at that reflection with all-that-is-within-me.

The wound, my friend, from posts ago, never allowed to heal because I cannot leave it alone.

I have been stitched, it has been set, I've taken antibiotics, been rubbed with creams, worn dog clothes, petted, spoken sweetly to, rubbed, I've been vet-taken multiple times, I've been sighed over and fussed over and I've been kept in and I've stolen outside and I've pissed the countertop and I've crawled out windows and I've never stopped moving.

The wound is okay. It's not infected. It's even healing. But I can't seem to leave it until I leave it shiny with blood.

My kingdom, Mazda Miata-dom. My world shrouded in darkness, I, the flame that flickers and will not be put out! I will not be shut out or kept in - neither.

I am a zephyr, belonging only to desultory whims which overtake me.

I am overwhelmed with them. Over-full of longing.

If I was a human, maybe I'd sleep in doorways, hallways - maybe I'd press my back against a steaming grate. If only to escape that-which-would-contain-me.

The all-everything-ness of our ties to each other, to ourselves. The interconnection which is as true as the wound on my side. And am I Jesus-like, here, suffering because I suffer, because I choose to, because this is my life, or am I a silly self-aggrandizing kitty cat who foolishly rolls around with a ball of yarn, kitten-forever, manic with my own agony-of-stupidity?

I breathe in and I am the universe. I breathe out and I am you. I breathe in and everything is possible. I breathe out and there is nothing. My life a series of moments strung haphazard along a clothesline.

Holiday blues? Prisonyard blues? Self-pity? It's the same. I am the wave crashing.

I am the shore.

Mingus Dreamed he had a Sister

 

I remember dim forms shifting, pressing their weight into me, bad morning breath hotter than the blankets we'd rolled ourselves into, her kicks in the night and the bite marks on my ears upon waking; did I dream her?

My sister, calico, mewling, with pointed chin and white spot beside her nose, eyes bright promise.

I've been reading the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison; the book breathes to life my ghost-sister, half-remembered, maybe-only-dreampt sister.

This year I'm eight years old. Old for a cat, young for a living thing. Eight years tumbling into sinks and back out, lapping the water from its sides. Dreaming sisters.

Imagine sinkfuls. Their cat-weight heavying me. Whiskers prickling my face.

A whirling, somersaulting all-of-us, many-limbed crouching, jumping, sleeping, rocking against each other, our hearts pitched to wild music; blood rising, humming us frenzied the joy, oh the joy, of us many loved.

Maybe I made her up. Made them up. Maybe I read too many ghost stories. In Beloved, the dead daughter maybe comes back, is maybe resurrected as flesh-and-blood daughter. Depends how you read it.

I read it that way. Sethe's catharsis (Sethe is the mother) is so much more powerful, I think, with the reality of the supernatural. And why not? Why hand wring and look for holes in the ghost, holes in the story?

Why doubt my memory of her, litter-mate, and of how she was taken, human hand reaching for us, scooping her up, away, and traitor-sister not knowing, maybe, what she did, purring, purring into that hand. Adjusting her kitten's body to be close, closer to that-which-she-did-not-understand.

A dream, a memory, both? Why do I torment myself with imagined loss? Isn't there enough loss already?

Loss of health (this abominable t-shirt won't allow me to forget my trespasses, septic wound, that too-quick raccoon/possum/feral cat/sharp branch that cut that stung that caught that turned that hurt me), self, loss of hope, of ambition, of of of of.

And so turning to dreamsofher. I know I dream colors; I see her calico, her pointed chin, white spot by her nose, the orange of her belly matching mine exactly. Sister-salve that burns ever more bitter for its ambiguity. No mother here to ask. No records to look up, hospital to call; me, feline, eight of years and growing older each slow taste of water, tongue like to be lolling, eyes sinister or full of sleep or devoid of both; me dreaming sister dreaming me dreaming family - sardines salted and frying on the stove, the hissing of oil as it heats.

I use the bones to pick my teeth   run my eyes down the   well   of whatever it was I woke   wanting   this  wet place  my own pound   of flesh  heart a beaten thing  grasps  regardless of how I chew and I chew and I chew         once in the middle       of the night     she lept from     sleep into my      arms and I     held   her weight   with a l l    I was

down to the bone        flesh sliced       smell of that-which-I-can't-name     the horror of the sound of that purring     the horror of the sound of that purring      maybe     it was me     who lept     from      sleep     who    lept

into    stranger's human    hands     to be     pulled     and      pulled from       bodies    nestled      purring    who lept    m e     who     snuggled     kitten-innocent             into alien

unfamiliar      and who     lept    and     if     I  have    no             sister     andifihavenosister      and if i   no   sister   ever    had

maybe it was me

Mingus & Linguistics (kinda)

People use the word "harrowing" too much. They say, "I had to wait in line for fifteen minutes! It was harrowing!" Or they say "The traffic on I95 was totally harrowing today!" Perhaps "Ugh, the dentist! What a harrowing ordeal."

But we know not, reader, unless we've been initiated to the special world of pain, this: "deeply disturbing or distressing; grievous; a harrowing experience."

Special world of pain?

The nightmares of my nightmares. Spinning silken thread as from a spider. That which becomes caught on everything, an arm, a leg, dangling from hair. An abscess.

Dream with me - a bite, those two puncture wounds, teeth as though sharpened, the quick zing of electricity as the body registers a bite, a bite, a bite!

And no, reader, I won't divulge the animal, the biter; imagine possum or feral cat or raccoon or dog. Imagine those eyes you see lighting up in the night; imagine standing shock-still. Imagine the glow of after-pain as it dissolves your shudders to pitiful mewling.

A kitten like myself, nearing nine years, mewling, cowering in darkness, suffering the violence to my body, the spaces proving my violability.

Harrowing? No. Not yet.

Days passing and nothing amiss save steady burn of puncture.

So I slept, dreampt myself torture dreams; I was a young bride, excited for my wedding day, and careful men broke into my house, donning clean, white aprons, "we'll begin the interviews soon," they said in my dream, and I knew what they meant, which was that they meant to rape me, torture me, kill me.

Dreampt myself outside, alone. Flashing brilliance of passing cars and my bean-bag-body dragged across the pavement sudden and hot as midday.

Dreampt myself lost at sea. A speck of dust. A many-legged-creature smaller than a grain of rice. And I dreampt never-redemption, never-freedom.

Fever pitch of dreams until one day upon waking - a bump.

A bump, a bruise, a swatch of blood. Pain began to unravel the definition of harrowing for me. Began with its tendrils to caress my fevered neck.

And eyes rolling back in my head approaching MR who gentled me to sleep, who murmured something white-noise-ish, who grasped her own bedsheets and cursed, I think, although I felt safe enough to allow my mind to dissolve.

Distant shores. Shipwreck saved as parachutists gliding down dust motes winding tethers to my heart, my eyes, my teeth, breeze of warmth sluicing through me.

Warm water channel, warm water bath. Awaking the next day to my own stench. An abscess, so says the Internet, and pain like a thousand flowers blooming all-at-once-lavender.

Shock of warmth inside my eyes. Taken away in a carrier to a vet, knocked unconscious, upon waking made to wear this ridiculous shirt so that I would not further injure myself as though I had no means of my own to stay my quivering tongue which ached and ached to lick my sore open, a blossom.

And taken back to vet. Stitched closed like a blanket. Like a pillow full of feathers. Harrowing. The word tastes like brackish water. Slightly salty, hot, something stinging about it as it coats the inside of my throat.

And nightmares still but not like before. And pain but also not as before. Every night asleep with MR. Every night a lick on her hand.

Not that I feel I owe her, but she comforts me. Has pulled me free of shipwreck debris.

And I attempt anew to get outside, get to freedom. I brave bites and worse. Make oaths to myself I know I won't keep about cowardice. About lamentations.

Because now I know pain. Know the root of "harrowing." And therefore enough to know what I risk as I risk it. And I love my freedom so much I still reach and reach for it. Still dart to open doorways.

Because the animals stalk me yet.

And yet my heart yearns to bite them back.