Body series 7

Healing is watching water evaporate from a ten gallon bucket
Healing is twelve hours on the couch with an icepack on my knee
Healing is nails on a chalkboard
Healing is trying to piece together a broken ceramic vase. Spending hour after hour bent over a work bench until your fingers burn and your eyes ache.
Healing is waking up the next morning to find the vase shattered to pieces again.

Body(s) series 8

It's strange that we two dancers much sit together in stillness.
I want nothing more than to sway with you, eyes on your eyes.
I want to own the dance floor with you.
Or the starbucks, or keryoke lounge, or any ground we stand on.
For me, for us, dancing is liberation.
But now we sit in stillness.

Assorted

One half of a famous pair of lovers:

I never asked you to poison yourself
In my toumb. And yet here we are.  And your
Dagger with no place to rest. How tragic.


I live in a world where love means nothing
It's trivial to have nothing to lose.
All words are made up of such stuff of dreams.
So there's not much point in preserving the
Fiction of reality. This is not love.

A brief rant

M,

Perhaps I was unclear about the way in which I was amenable to my speech being changed. I thought that Thursday night, when I talked to you about my speech we both agreed that we wouldn’t change any of the parts of my speech about global climate change. In my speech, I had “Saving the planet is going to be a global effort” and conclude my speech with “we believe that we will be the ones to save the world.” In your edits you write “Taking care of the natural resources that surround us needs to be a global effort” and conclude with “we can help conserve all the natural wonders that surround us.” I know I didn’t get a chance to get back to you before the speech was read but I thought I was pretty clear about not wanting to change those passages and I was wondering why you did.

In anticipation of your reply,

Monya

My paragraph:

And ultimately, that is why I do this job, and why most of us do this job. It’s no secret that our planet is in trouble right now. Saving the planet is going to be a global effort and we’re going to need all hands on deck. And that’s what we’re doing on all of the crews. Because if a single one of those kids from the new camper program decides she wants to protect the woods, I will consider my role in this program a success. Because if a kid who I taught about tiny little insects living in the hudson river becomes interested in conservation somewhere down the line then to me, at least, these ten months will have been worth it. Change, in my short experience, happens from person to person. And we, as members of the Excelsior Corps, are the ones creating meaningful and tangible change. Rock by rock, shovel by shovel, person by person, day by day. We do it because we believe in the SCA and we believe that we will be the ones to save the world.

M’s Edits

And that, is why I do this job, why many of us do this job. Taking care of the natural resources that surround us needs to be a global effort- and we need everyone’s help. That’s what we’re doing on all of the crews. If a single kid from the new camper program decides they want to protect the woods, I will consider my role in this program a success. If any child that my crew has educated or has had an interaction with the other crews while they’re in the field becomes inspired by our work, then these ten months will have been worth it.  Change happens from person to person, and as members of the Excelsior Conservation Corps, we are creating meaningful and tangible change- rock by rock, shovel by shovel, person by person, and day by day. We believe in our work and that we can help conserve all the natural wonders that surround us.

Body series 6

The pain
Is a burning thing. A thing that twists at my insides whenever I move.
Fuck.
FUUUUUCCCK.
Fuck.
It comes in waves.

Eleven ten word stories

It first seemed like a story of boy meets girl.

It’s funny, life doesn’t always play out like a movie.

His improv comedy troupe oozed misogyny so I left him.

It turns out, I’m a lot gayer than he thought.

Friday night at the bar. Dim lighting and spilled beer.

I saw her across the room and my heart stopped.

Her hair was made of summertime, floating like butterfly wings.

Her eyes were why I stayed. But it wasn’t enough.

She was artistic, bold, and sad. She hid it well.

I still can’t eat oranges. They remind me of her.

I get high but I would rather get over her.

Monya does meter (for like the first time ever on this blog)

Petrarchan sonnet:

Follows: abba abba for the first eight lines and then either cdecde or cdccdc

Did you know Emily Lazarus's “Colossus” is a Petrarchan Sonnet? I didn’t. Turns out the entire poem reads:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Anyway. This needs editing but like, so do all of my posts. This is also for A. Turn out A inspires a lot of poetry in me.

a) The shameless ease with which she wears her body

b) Was matched only by her guiltless smile

b) Not naive, but laughing and free of guile

a) She wears gold, paints her lips scarlet, gaudy

a) On anyone else. But she earnestly

b) Embraces herself. Her charm tactile

b) Hanging in pregnant air, prehensile

a) Grabbing my attention, joy embodied.

c) I leave tomorrow, I must always go

c) Never before her, has leaving felt so

d) Bittersweet. Like all my joy has left me.

d) It's hanging off her form. She's sticky

c) Sweet syrup. I am the setting sun low

c) On day. I wish earth’s turning would slow.

An e-mail

My dearest H,

How are you? I’m doing well. My Americorps program ends on the 17th and it’s been pretty great. I just spent two days in the Adirondacks and it didn’t get above 20 degrees F, the whole time but we got to stay in an actual cabin so that was good. I’m missing my program graduation day to have ACL surgery (did I mention I tore my ACL? My right ACL, which is the opposite ACL to the left ACL which I tore in high school. It’s pretty common that when a person tears one ACL, they tear the other one. So anyway, I’m missing my program graduation but I’m glad I’m having the surgery I need. I’m still dating that boy T (remember him?) and I don’t know if I told you about the three way we had at Labor Day Dawn Dance but I had a three way at Labor day dawn dance with this lovely young lady named A. So A and I have been dating T and a throuple for two months and it’s been great. Lots of sex and three ways. And we had . . . an orgy, I guess? I mean, there were five of us, three of us being me, T, and A. And then T’s friends S and C kind of just invited the three of us to have sex with the two of them, and like the three of us are poly and just fuck whoever we want to (time permitting, there are only so many hours in a day) but they only fuck each other and other people with each other. So, like, for them, it was swinging and like, for us it was an orgy. I guess. It was fun though. And A and I went to this queer dance camp weekend in Western Massachusetts and it was pretty epic and there was a sweatlodge and then we went skinny dipping in the lake and the music was awesome and the dancing was awesome and I kind of . . . met myself? Like, there was this super queer masc-presenting dancer named Nate and he was super similar to me and then we had sex. . . which is something I always thought would happen if I ever met myself. It was pretty good, but he like, wasn’t that good at communication and also thought that because I hooked up with him, that meant he was like, then in a relationship with me and A, which is, obviously not how any of the poly thing that we’re doing works but, it resolved fine so I’m fine. After the program I’ll be home in Albany for a while while I recover. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing after my surgery but I have a few things lined up. I’m not really ready to go back to school but I applied to Hampshire College in Amherst for spring semester. I’m looking at a job with the SCA as an environmental educator down in NYC (which would be pretty fucking awesome!) and there’s actually a job opening at Five Rivers (you know, the Five Rivers down the road in Delmar) that I would really like. So, that might be a thing. Please write me back, even if it’s just a simple “hello”. You definately don’t need to return the essay. I miss you and I hope you’re on track to graduate and I think you’re a badass multi-talented lady. Let me know how your love life is, how you’re social life is, how your academic and professional life is. Or not. Just say hi. I’d love to talk sometime next week. Also, are you coming to Albany for thanksgiving. I’ll be on the couch on pain meds, so if that sounds like your idea of a good time, I’d love to see you. I miss you dearly and often think fondly of you.

Best regards,

Monya

A List

A list of things that bring me joy:

1. Any poetry by Walt Whitman, Ashe Vernon, or Maya Angelou. Also, “The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock”
2. Lesbians.
3. I ran a half marathon once
4. Horses. That video of the baby horse getting excited and falling over a ball
5. Firefly, Grace and Frankie, or Parks and Rec
6. Strong female friendship
7. Queer, intersectional feminist, or poly media, specifically the “Pansy” series and the “Body” series of the Heart radio
8. I’ve driven myself cross country
9. I worked on a dairy, in Vermont at a cool farm in Michigan, and at a cool farm in Tucson
10. That day we spent in Tucson on the citrus orchard
11. I rock at telling stories and shaggy dog stories
12. President Obama once went on “A Prairie Home Companion” and talked about how important stories are
13. The solar panel is technology that spread comparably fast to the cell phone
14. When a baby panda is born it’s small enough to fit into the palm of a human hand
15. Dark chocolate is good for you in small doses
16. That time I was farming in Kentucky and got snowed in and it was beautiful and that dog, Boxer, I think, would come on runs with me
17. The movies: The Princess Bride, Moonrise Kingdom, The Addams Family, and Moena (not necessarily in that order)
18. I once biked up mount Whiteface
19. My bare breasts scared off a bear
20. I fight the patriarchy every day by existing
21. Self care is a radical, political act
22. I am valid and my opinion is valid and deserved to be acknowledged
23. I am young and I have so much time to figure my shit out
24. I am going to be wildly successful
25. I am loved, and charming, and beautiful and funny
26. I deserve to be love
27. I am imperfect and make mistakes and I deserve forgiveness
28. More to come. . .

To A

To A

I could compare you to the sunrise
Or sunset
Or some other empty metaphor
I could weave the two of you a gossamer thing,
Verbose and glimm'ring

I know you would take it in your hands
Your powerful, competent hands
Hands that can reduce me to shuddering flesh
And treasure this

Because you treasure me.

I don't want empty words for you
I want to build you something out of brick and mortar
I want to build you something that won't tear or snap
Something you can wrap up and toss and into your backpack
And tote around Europe

I want to make you something to keep you safe
In a narrow alleyway in Prague
I want to make you something to keep you warm
On the snowy damp days in London
I want to make you something to keep you full
On the hungry days in Madrid

Instead I'll just spin my gossamer words
And hope that maybe I can keep you company.
Because I know you're strong enough, and smart enough, and capable enough
To build all those things for yourself.