Drink
The elixir of fortune
The coffee of fate
Whiskey of accident
Territory of your story
Drink it now or wait
In wonder
The elixir of fortune
The coffee of fate
Whiskey of accident
Territory of your story
Drink it now or wait
Ordinary breath
Ordinary tears
Ordinary almost everything
Where extraordinary veers
The long road
To acceptance
The symptoms
On the way
It’s what
A life is
Made of
The stuff
Of every day
Use up your luck
Engaging no stress
Surrounded by controversy
Conquer the labels
Be a thing
That hidden pattern
In every part
Of game of life
Of soul of art
When Evolution
Worries
Gets nervous
What calms
Fears and
Her nerves?
The bigger I
May ruminate
On me
The one
The incarnate
Crystalline honey bees
Swarm in me
Buzzing vivid desires
Fierce yellow flies away
In green bright light
To parlay with yellow flowers
Animal quicken
Aware of being
The more complex
The more fun to
The invisible you
When I slur
Your name
Baby
It could mean
Anything
Baby
Hide out
Look around
Feel the earth move
Inner sound
Map my whole world in glitter
It’s days of bright eyes seeing
The rising heat of every heart
Those crashing waves of brains atwitter
Translate this juicy blur
Of pristine seconds
Minutes that somehow were
Gone and here forever
I’m here
So do I squat
In this body?
Or what?
The sound of expectation
Purring in my chest
Thrill beaming out my face
Swish of secret breath
My body feasts on being
Laughter in my step
Lush and lukewarm
A cheap hotel room
Hours shuffle along
A familiar radio song
When the first chill
Of fall cool air
Drys my sweat
I am aware
I am the sky
I am the world
I am everywhere
I’m greedy for intimacy
To see with story eyes
My folly set in funny scenes
I laugh not criticize
Tremble in the chill
For a kiss
At a birth or
Overcome with fear
Hands recognize
Eyes forbid
Feelings consent
Crafting your sighs
The knife of life
Lovingly carves
My hart
Into art
I own
A million overwhelming
Angles in my life
This twisted
That broken
It slightly might
Light up
With all that is
I’m editing my life
For twists
For readability
For clarity
All clean
Without removing
Character and
The dirt I mean
Play with me
In this belonging dream
Were no one’s actually free
Weather you flow or resist
The sweetest meaning ripens
In the plot twist
Ride a lifetime
You designed
Twisted terrifying
Till redefined
Exposure to this thing
The sun the air
We breath
The feeling of baking cookies
Wiff of rotting flesh
Touches this eternity
Seeing beauty
Feeling beauty
May be a skill
To any and all
Circumstances
Assign beauty
At will
When’s your
Invitation
To adventure
Every day?
It’s long
It’s short
You won’t get
Hit by a bus
It’s more
It’s less
Than we
Ever discuss
The wandering unseen
Felt and lived so keen
The thing
Shining in eyes
The moment
You realize
Where do
Life’s capable
And my
Capable
Converge?
Uneven emotions
Crookedly cut
Uneven days
My life has whipped up
The richest
Luster and shine
Down through
The years
Eyeballs polished
With all kinds of
Tears
This infinite story
You choose to dive in
To become a role
And play it again
My specific
Will to be
To feel alive
With dignity
In this ocean
Storm and calm
Afraid to die
Or live to long
The Way
The Tao
The way
To float
With the current
To devote
Peace’ attention
To allow
Trouble and currents
To pass somehow
Tempted
To go too fast
Or not go on
Might go astray
And not get done
Tempted to be
Perhaps to not
I used to care
I used to care
A lot
Crossing this
State to state
State of ego
State of grace
State of confusion
Saving face
To mope
Around
The holidays
Hot cup of
Tea and warm
PJs
Simple ritual
For renewal
Bake some soup
Play the fool
I pillage
My inner world
For gifts to
Give the
The outer
I pillage
My outside world
For gifts to give
My inner
Maybe someday
I’ll get
Commerce
Giving myself
An ovation
Yes yes yes
For deeply
Enjoying these
Holidays in the
Middle of this
Mess
Quiet
Treat
Sweet
Retreat
Every moment tender
Every breath
A bounty
The calm in the middle
The storm all around
I listen and hear
the voice with no sound
Enthusiasm up
Enthusiasm where?
Sometimes it’s all
Beautiful
Sometimes I don’t
care
For the tune or
Fortune
Being alive
Is music
Moody Sometimes
Days can be
Is it Life in the mood
Or is it we?
Folly to one
Sweetness to another
Beauty
The eye
Of the beholder
This time
Bespoke
For inner silence
Feeling the deeper
River of peace
I flee the world
Into your silence
A place
A home
Inside somewhere
Outside everywhere
Total reliance
Mystica forces
Gently engaged
Mystical waves
Lived unexplained
Mystical Moments
Secretly known
Mystical days
May always unfold
In the knowing
That life
Though it’s flowing
Moves for everything
Flows for you
In you
When I don’t remember
How life is a treasure
What do I do?
What’s my way back
To Awe and to wonder?
I protest this life
I asked for
In my longing dreams
Life knows more
About my life
Than me
It seems
Once a martyr
Once for a long long time
Before
No more
No more
No more
When youth and dreams
All vanish
What is the substance
Of joyfulness
That takes their place?
Is there a
Squishy
Difference
Between
Sacred
And
Prophane?
I construct a reality
Mine
Perhaps it fits with
Yours
If they don’t
Fit
How do we
Connect?
Echo
Of an unborn
Future
Singing of a living
Past
All stewed in
This moment
The flavor
In my mind
Pungent sweet
Divine
The invisible places
In between
The liminal moments
Felt
Rarely seen
Where magic
Lurks
Hunger satisfied
Lust for an instant sated
Fleeting moments
I didn’t live between
Instead I’d waited
What Self sees beyond
Chaotic fate
Breathing in life now
Every sigh
A clean slate
The
Expectation of good
Trusting Life to deliver
More than just food
Joy in a shiver
What elicits what
Where is the pull
Soul reaches for body
Or body emerges from soul?
A whiff
Of old leather
Takes me there
Free travel by
smell
Heart burned black
Mind scorched
To ash
It sometimes happens
While spirit
And soul relax
Taste?
Or?
Ostentatious?
The whimsical
The mystical
The exceptional
Me
Take turns living
Life with the other
Three
Filthy rich
Filthy poor
Filthy mind
Filthy floor
Filthy wonderful
Filthy muddy shoes
Every filthy little heart
Full of filthy good
Too
The heat of time
Ingredients of experience
Percolates
The water of a soul
Into something
Flavorful
Tart
Salty
Sweet
Soft sunshine
Cool water
Sand on your feet
My lofty aims
Fall through the sky
I collect them burned
Should I retry?
Friendly vegetal Life
Gives life
In the language
Of health
Wispers peace
Flavor and beauty
Feeding the
Soul
Is Life alive?
Does she smile
Is Life in the air
Coming to life
In breath
Primping
In sunshine
While being
The sun
This giant
Word
So small small
Small
A flicker
There
Enlightens all
For
This funk
To pass
For life
to spring
For worlds
To mass
*
Sudden
Urgent
Unfurl
Wrapped
Twisted
Round
My mind
Pole
Flickering
Fragile
Warm
Magical
My being
Her
Burning
Candle
Clumsy grace
First toddler steps
Humans
Trundling along
So sweet
The angels wept
Generous sky
Wind
Water
Sunshine
A place
To dream
To fly
Between the streets
Accross tracks
Specially when magic
Stairs are invol-voked
Taken Takem
In life
natura morta (Photo credit: Circolo d’Arti)Become immortal
Drink it
Tried that last time
Oops I died
Game over
Re-group
Re-design
My Earth-Game-Plan
Gather more supplies
Wait for the team
Return
Start over
Damn
My character falls
For it
Hoping like hell
I won’t have fell
This time
Messing up my glorious
Virtual-reality-
Multi-player-adventure-game
Again
Still mortal?
Yes!
Onward!
Fun
To
Quest Complete!
“You’ve imbibed a special potion that makes you immortal.
Now that you’ve got forever, what changes will you make in your life?
How will you live life differently, knowing you’ll always be around to be accountable for your actions?”
Daily Prompt: No Longer A Mere Mortal
“I can’t believe I still have to stand here and hold this sign!” Woman supporting filibuster outside Texas Capital.
So I can take a pill to take back my period.
“Being gay is not a choice, but being a bigot is.” I instantly re-tweeted from God@thetweetofgod. It’s funny, not true.
Took me a while to figure out how it’s not true, but like art which is not true, it points to truth. Like the Pietà, Michelangelo’s sculpture that shows Mary the mother of Jesus strong and tall while her crucified son is like a child in her arms. Not necessarily true proportions, just true about a mother’s heart.
I don’t believe being a bigot is a choice. It’s not a permanent state of being, either. Gay is permanent, judging from my straight perspective, though I might be off. But bigot is like pregnant. It’s a state. It may or may not be a choice. It can and will, usually, end. It’s story and outcome are what epic is made of. Plenty of bigotry ends in abortion. Other bigotry ends with new life. Bigotry, yes, is human. Mine and yours. It’s a place on a journey, a grade in school, an incomplete quest. What we do with it may become art.
High school kid calls fifth-grader stupid.
Well, she don’t know The Grapes of Wrath isn’t fruit!
Art doesn’t make sense, it helps me make sense-of people.
This “Yes-we-are-allowed-to-end-a-relationship-before-it-bigins-filibuster is pregnant.
Art is being made here. Bigotry is a shiny material.
Inspired history feels like community committed art. HIstory is being made here.
Could making history be making art?

My passion she –
She chose her Way
My now
My choice
How to
Not
Or feel
Today
***
My baby might not live she whispers; hollow calm lands on my stunned disbelief.
I’m staring at nothing, holding my breath mind goes blank. It’s about the phone. How did I get a call here?
This is a clinic. I’m at a clinic for my pre-natal. No one is that interested in my baby or my check up. It’s just us now. Who would call here for me or care how my check up went? When I walked out of the exam room, The nurse blankly informs me I have a phone call. Before I can protest, some confusion, she qualifies.
You are Jessica LeBaron right?
I nod.
She leads me to the front desk. Confused shock has me when the receptionist staring at the file cabinet hands me the phone.
I’m bewildered.
I didn’t give anyone this number.
Shock didn’t know which to choose, Eva’s unexpected voice and those words. What do they mean? How did I get any call at a midwives’ office.
Eva knows I would be at a clinic on Ben White. That’s it. She is seeing her doctor today too. We were going to talk about our maternity checkups when we got home. Our random appointments ended up being on the same day. This serendipity delights us. Not as much as finding our we are due within the same two weeks though. We thought of riding together to our appointments, but it hadn’t worked out. Our appointments were at almost the same time like our babies, at opposite ends of town.
We were room mates after I got separated, till she got married. We are best friends. We are having babies together. We are excited. We both laugh a lot-till now.
I lose control of my jaw.
Did you hear what I said: My baby isn’t going to live.
She is quiet till I grasp and gasp.
Oh, Eva! I whisper into the receiver.
My baby is not going to live, she repeats with stunned emotion.
Oh. All I can do is sigh.
I’m calling you first because I know you would understand. Would you come over?
Yes, I’ll be right over. I’ll be right there.
Okay, then.
We hang up.
I turn around and rush back to the midwife.
Please help me! My throat clenches tears in my eyes. My friend. She just found out her baby may not live. What do I do? How do I help her?
I don’t feel like I can do her any good.
They tell me how to just be there, to listen and allow her to grieve. I can help then, I figure.
We were going to meet at my apartment. But I go to hers, now. She is on the couch wrapped up in her arms staring into space. She turns and stares at me. Just stares. We stare at each other. The emotional territory was to expansive and explosive to enter. Everything is numb and blank and hurt.
I’m going to a specialist for another sonogram. The doctor is sure of what he sees, or doesn’t see, but he sent me to a specialist. I can’t believe he knows what he is talking about.
I need to calm down. I need to call mom and dad. I still have to tell Jon. How do I tell Jon? I can’t tell Jon!
Jon is out-of-town for another few weeks on in-between job training for the new one. Eva’s parents live in Arizona. She asked me to come. We go to the second appointment together. It’s scheduled around my classes. It was the quickest appointment she could get. Either way I was going.
Five happy moms smile contented almost cooing rubbing their bellies or reading baby magazines in the comfortable deep cushions of the waiting room. I try to do none of those things. We only glance at each other, hoping not to convey despair to the blessed. We don’t talk or leaf through baby magazines or act blessed however. We fidget till we are called back into the brightly lit sonogram room.
The sonogram technician had a softness about her gentle way. Eva lies on the table. I sit in the chair next to her. After she introduces herself and settles Eva she squeezes warmed gel into Eva’s hand then waits for her to rub it around her belly with hopeful stokes. Eva wanted to apply it herself. She places the ultra sound device on Eva’s belly. We all turn to the screen.
First we hear it. A familiar heartbeat. Everything good and normal so far! Eva sighs, fights back tears, stays calm.
We follow the image watching intently as the tech labels and describes the sonogram in a matter of fact way.
The amniotic fluid is very low. There is almost none.
This is the heart here. It’s located on the right side.
Here are the lungs. They under-developed.
Kidneys should be here. Pause.
All of this could be good or at least okay or remedial, we are hoping. We look at each other with another flashing spark of hope. Get some synthetic amniotic fluid inject it, no problem, or something like that.
So what is the problem then? So everything is really okay?!
Well, kidneys are not visible.
What does that mean?
I assume she will just keep on looking till she finds them.
I am not finding kidneys.
What does that mean?
Kidneys manufacture and filter the amniotic fluid. The amniotic fluid gets breathed into the lungs. It is how lungs develop. There is not enough amniotic fluid to develop the lungs. Kidneys are not producing it. There is only one and it is small.
Can that be fixed? Can one be added or something? I could give one.
Even if we could fix that. This shows that the heart is on the right side instead of the left.
Lungs this small won’t catch up in time to breathe at birth, or ever.
Eva whimpers and hides her face.
This small kidney here. Too small to filter enough blood. No kidney visible here…
Stop stop! Stop it! Please stop telling me wrong things about my baby! Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me anymore. She breaks down sobbing shaking, just contained urgent wailing trapped in her not catching her breath.
Tech leans forward pats her and lets her cry.
I understand how hard this is for you. I am sorry.
When she recovers her voice after a while, the tech asked if we were ready to see what the doctor had to say. She Tech led us to the waiting doctor.
His gentleness let her fall apart, again.
She wept then cried out: Why? Why did this happen?
There is no reason. No cause that we know of.
So this just happened to my baby for no reason? She demands.
I’m sorry there is nothing I can do to make this easier, but yes. It’s sad that someone like you who really wants a baby doesn’t get one when I’ve seen babies survive a whole bottle of Drain-O, just fine.
We look at each other horrified.. How could someone not want a baby?
We know the stories, yet we are incredulous. Unfairness is deep.
When you are ready, we can talk about what you want to do next. Come back as soon as you are ready to consider what course of action you want to take.
This is a great loss for you. You and your husband must have been very excited about the arrival of your first child. Take a day. Come back in a day or two. After you talk to your husband, to discuss what you want to do. Be back within two days, I’ll see you whenever you come. He soft smiled warm reassurance then he got up and left.
Like what? What we can do, didn’t hit us till we got home.
Next appointment is about risks and options.
Should I go full term or terminate and start the healing process?
The child can’t breath. It will never breath. It won’t ever function or live. It will suffocate as soon as it’s born, if it doesn’t die during the stress of birth or even before then. It could die at any time.
You could decide to carry to term. If you decide to go full term you need to be seen every week in case the fetus expires and labor doesn’t start. That could lead to blood poisoning, a risk. Otherwise, you can go into labor at any time. There is no way to predict an outcome.
Then in the middle of bewildered not, letting go while not wanting to hold on, or prolong anguish, and wondering, he drops another bomb:
If you are going to choose to end it, he pauses with a sigh of frustration, you have three days to decide. In three days third trimester, anti-abortion laws come into effect. If you don’t choose to terminate in the next three days, after the three days, we can no longer assist you in termination. You must either go into labor, or your life be in danger for the pregnancy to be terminated.
I have to decide now?
You must decide, if you want to take action, yes, within three days. After that there is nothing we can do. Our hands are tied. The law is clear. No exceptions. No third trimester procedures. Third trimester starts in three days.
We sit on her couch staring into space and crying. Her crying makes me cry. I feel the loss of my son all over, plus her loss. By heart about bursts. It has been five years, but when I found out in the middle of getting divorced that I was pregnant, I considered not going through with it, just to be responsible to myself.
I’m in the middle of school with two kids to keep and figure out how to support without a partner. I’m still not able to describe what is going on, but the idea of losing a baby on accident or on purpose both add up the same in my feelings. The idea of adopting my baby out to someone else is unthinkable. We may have no stable future, but in the world I exist in now, I have no other choice. In about a week I love the baby as I knew I would. It would be stupid for me to put my heart up for adoption, or to end the relationship. Even if it’s not responsible to have a child without support, I surrender to being a single mother and feeling happy with Eva.
Now this.
Her parents arrive. I go back to school grieving indignant, and remembering.
While I volunteered for Campus Crusade for Christ and attended the meetings that rallied Christians and got Bush elected in the early nineties I was into the anti-abortion campaign, especially no third trimester abortions. Now something is happening. It’s not black and white anymore.
I can’t just not be pregnant anymore just like that Eva steady wails! The kids at school…the other teachers..the girls they pat my tummy lined up on the way out of class.
If someone asks me if it’s a boy or a girl when I get back I don’t know what I’ll do. Everyone will ask.
Have you got a name yet Miss?
How are you Miss?
How is that baby?
I couldn’t keep explaining there is no baby, her voice cracks, for another three months…but it will be right here…
For three more months. I couldn’t work this way. I couldn’t explain it either. I will just bust out crying, for the next three months. I couldn’t work this way. I’d just be knowing the baby is not going to live or already dead. I don’t know what to do!
I could stay home and be with the baby. It’s to soon to make this choice. I wish Jon could come back and be here. He can’t take off till the end of the week. We have till tomorrow to decide.
Now, I’m in this government class writing a paper about laws. I have allot to say about how stupid this anti-abortion law is. It’s taking Eva to a whole new level of misery, like insult on injury.
My government teacher read only my outrage essays to the class while I skipped it. I went to the hospital with Eva to celebrate the sacred death and birth of her son. Jon couldn’t get back in time. The law couldn’t wait.
We were into our babies.
If she had not been into her baby there would be noting to cry about.
Abortion is like a break up with the baby when this relationship just isn’t working both ways, before you marry…When I’m just not into you.
A shaman woman I know, went into a sacred meditation to talk to the child when she discovered their relationship. She talked to it and listened. She acknowledged their relationship.
I’m thankful you like me she told him. It was a boy. You chose me to be your mother. So I am. Yet, it’s not a good time for me to be in this relationship. Would you try again later?
She got a “sure”.
Next day she started bleeding and thanked her child for honoring her choice.
Wonderful woman I know made their choices to not be mothers when they were not ready. That choice did not include being an oven to bake a child for nine months then give it to someone else.
The adoption choice works good for some people, which is cool.
Pregnancy in the 26th week. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Me? No way is my body gonna be forced to make a lonely baby whom I’m not attached to. No way would I choose to be sick for months, throw up constantly, gain forty lbs, go through labor delivery blood spouting major surgery that takes weeks to recover from, while everyone is wondering, family asking as I’m to wiped out to take care of myself, with no support just to give some one a baby for free.
Pretty dumb all around, if you ask me.
There is nothing wrong with adopting out. I’m personally not into it-at all.
It’s defiantly not the only valid response to birth-control malfunctions. There are as innumerable appropriate valid responses to unplanned pregnancy. As many as there are woman and situations.
The relationship between mother and child is what it is to me. I am in or I’m not. Just like any other relationship.
I can break up. A possible child need not force me.
Babies don’t force me to become their mother. Nor does a baby need to endure a horrible non-wanted toxic environment. It’s a crappy co-dependent relationship that way.
I choose if I want to invite a spirit into a body with my body, into my life. I choose if I want to help someone else by baking a baby for them. I am a free woman. I have lots of choices! Perhaps unborn spirits have choices we don’t know about.
Wouldn’t put it past them. I bet, babies would choose to be happy and mom be happy, too.
Or maybe babies are the selfish assholes?
Baby (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Terrified
Swatting at 1986 killer bees
Today
Agreed upon sanity
Scarce Sweetness
Called sane
Madness’ taste of fairy honey
Holding on breath
The way of our bodies
Whimsically true
Parallel planes entwined
***
Weekly Writing Challenge:
Playing With Space
Interesting:
Imperfection’s part of love
Wabi sabi‘s story of
Frayed edges of insane
Being ecstasy and bane
Cracked heart chipped cup
Shattered then not giving up
Hero and villan of our tale
We’re all the same
Be real
cherished
Evolving imperfection
Daily Prompt:
Imperfection: