wordsfromjosie-blog

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

He Had

no rhythm at all, but I

still sing his eyes like

jazz in my head- an

unstoppable blue- he was

perfectly sky in my

cloudy grey day, he was

sharp as angles, as

sweet as cider and warm

like sunset on brick, he was

cayenne pepper, the

terraced French Quarter,

all voodoo and Miles

rippling through me- jazz

in my head, he was

mine, in my head he was

sharp with those eyes that

cut me wide, open I was,

honest I was, all angles

and sky, he was

unstoppable blue, it was

sharp and unspoken this

bleeding between us this

jazz

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

Quickening

It is time to shake these bones out.

Time to shed these sorrows

that have smothered us

in the thick of Winter.

 It is time for a tea party

in the healing light of Spring.

 If I dust off the china,

you wring out our hearts.

Pour them into milky white cups

and sweeten the pain

with the names of our babies.

 It is not a funeral

if we wear white.

It is not grief

if we talk rattles and

swaddling and heartbeats.

 It is just mothers

sitting cross-legged in the weeds

singing and crying and laughing

on the graves of our stillborn.

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

Why I Write

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.   -Kurt Vonnegut

        E.E. Cummings is one of my favorite poets of all time. He wrote with polished abandon-  no capital letters, sparse punctuation, and a loose hold on the rules of grammar. Every line has meaning, double meaning, symbolism, and to most…..nothing at all.

     It is the nothing that intrigues me. I like writers who make the reader do work; the ones who add layers and make it look easy. They fool us into thinking that there isn’t a madman behind the curtain. But if we are honest,  true writers are mad. True artists are mad. It’s not an observation but a fundamental law.

..it’s no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone.

         One can go to school and learn to write but still not be a writer. Writers and artists are born seeing the world differently. That mysterious creative source within cannot be taught or purchased at a university; it is darkness, it is chaos, it is a divine light and a fixed lens through which creative people are bound. This churning wellspring is often accompanied by the heavier burdens of anxiety, depression, social exclusion, and mental illness. Sylvia Plath spoke of the madness of creation during her last days when she was writing more than she was sleeping. I cannot find the exact quote, but to paraphrase, she wrote something like- Once one looks into the face of God, what is the remedy?

take the matter of being born. what does being born mean to mostpeople? if mostpeople were to be born twice they’d probably call it dying– you and i…we can never be born enough.

         I started writing poems and short little sayings when I was around 6 years old. My mother had an old (modern at the time) typewriter and the sound of the clacks and pings comforted me. By the time I was 8, I was writing short stories. I think I still have several of them tucked away somewhere. Back then we had a blue parakeet named Frosty whose cage was right next to the dining room table. He would make clicking noises right along with me as I sat typing away.

    When I was 10, I sent my first story to a publisher for consideration. I don’t even remember what the story was, but it was quite exciting to get my first rejection letter. I’m pretty sure the publishers knew a 10 year old had written the story but were still kind enough to encourage me to keep writing. I was driven throughout my school years to write short story after short story, submitting to contests, school newspapers, and magazines.

    As I got older, poetry called to me and I immersed myself in everyone and everything. Down I dove into layers upon layers of symbolism, turns of phrase, metaphor. If a person could drown in words, surely I drowned in poetry in my 20s. I was an impatient writer; things didn’t come as easily as I liked. It was no longer about the joy of creation but this manic drive to produce and be prolific.  I had yet to learn that the process cannot be rushed. Creativity cannot be forced. These things need the time and space to grow on their own.

We are human beings for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of growing; the mystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves...    

         As I hit my late 20s and 30s, I took a long break from writing seriously. Life had gotten complicated and desperate. I would scribble thoughts and bits of prose on scrap pieces of paper, book covers, anything that was near. All these little scraps of paper- how could I have known that they were holding me afloat? My father’s death, my son’s death, divorce, bankruptcy, depression, anger, the struggle to survive- all I had keeping me sane were these words and ideas.

    There is a really good book called Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament that explores the idea of where creativity comes from. The same chaotic void that begets depression and other mental illness also seems to be the rich soil from which our most renowned artists get their best ideas.

...you and i wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming.  

         So why do I write? Because out of this darkness grows something beautiful. It is my salvation and my undoing; my soul’s purpose. It is my chance to make the time we have here on earth a little more bearable. There has never really been a choice; it is what I am here to do.

Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles…never to rest and never to have: only to grow. Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

*Excerpts taken from E.E. Cummings’ introduction from New Poems.

*One of my favorite poems by E.E.Cummings is “anyone lived in a pretty how town”. You can read it in its entirety here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22653/anyone-lived-in-a-pretty-how-town

*One of Sylvia Plath’s last poems is entitled “Edge”. You can read it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49009/edge-56d22ab50bbc1

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

Death Smiles on the 26

           It is in certain moments that we witness something simple and beautiful and rare. So it was one summer night on the #26 bus.

           I remember the weather being quite humid for a June evening in Cleveland. The air conditioning on the bus was temperamental at best. It spluttered off and on, forcing most riders to crack the windows for even the faintest amount of breeze. The atmosphere inside the bus was chaotic; music playing, loud conversations, the banging of some mechanical part not quite working correctly, phones ringing. I’ve learned to tune it out, as most people do. You have to create a quiet mental space for yourself when riding public transportation. It feels like this invisible barrier between you and others, making it quite easy to not notice the things around you. Most of the people on the bus that night were in their own headspace and not minding who was getting on or off.

           We turned the corner onto W. 25th and Storer, where the buildings are boarded up and the bus shelters have broken glass. The doors creak open and an older black man steps onto the bus wearing a business suit- white shirt, neatly pressed jacket, black tie, perfectly shined shoes. He has a full Afro, neatly shaped, that fits him like a crown. I see him often on this route even though he never frequents the same stops. He is an older man- more than middle aged but not decrepit- sitting with perfect posture. His back is stiff and straight as if there is a steel rod under his suit. He holds his chin high. I’ve never heard him speak, but I imagine his voice to be deep and rich as a voice reserved for kings and other nobility.

            He sits in a section at the front of the bus, back pressed up to the windows, allowing him a full view of the passengers. I am sitting in the third row from the door and there is a mother and child in the seat in front of me. The woman is young and the child doesn’t look to be more than 2 or 3 years old. The boy’s chubby legs are dangling off the seat, a million miles from the ground. The young mother is entranced by her phone, typing furiously and paying the boy no mind.

             It was in that moment that the boy locked eyes with the older man.

             The man looks back at the boy intensely, wordlessly, and it seems as if they aren’t even breathing. Suddenly the man salutes, a very rigid and proper salute, and holds a wrinkled hand to his brow as if it had always been there.  The little boy salutes back, his pudgy hand incapable of truly mimicking the man, so he raises a little curled fist and places it just off center from his forehead. The man salutes again, this time with a big smile on his face. The little boy salutes back with a tiny smirk. They play this game back and forth, each time the old man smiling broadly with a look of pure joy in his eyes and the child’s grin getting bigger and bigger.

             And no one notices. On a bus ride filled with people arguing, coffee being spilled on seats, children crying, and teenagers trying to scam their way onto the bus without fare, a rare and beautiful moment happened. The mother sitting right next to the little boy didn’t even raise her eyes. Only I noticed, because that’s what I do.

             I like to think that the old man who never talks is Death. With his regal posture and calm demeanor, I imagine he walks among us every day, silently looking at people, observing us, deciding who is next. Despite the dreary position he holds, perhaps every once in a while something really beautiful comes along. A perfect moment. A moment where a little boy looks up and salutes back. I want to think that if even Death can give pause during his day of collecting souls to truly lose himself in the moment and experience pure joy, so can we.

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

The Art of Being Uncomfortable

     This is not what I intended to write. I wanted to write an awe inspiring piece about sacrifice and positive change and making one’s mark on society. It was going to be uplifting and dynamic and after reading it, we were all going to go out and save the world.

     And then I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. A small one, mind you, but a breakdown nonetheless. I have had these moments at certain intervals when things become unbearable and I don’t want to keep doing what I’m doing. Things become so uncomfortable that I am forced to change.

     There, I said it. Uncomfortable.

     We are comfort seeking creatures- we like when things are easy. No one wants to feel discomfort- it is stressful and unpleasant. Because it can be painful, we avoid it. We use the word to describe trivial annoyances and we give it less power.

     The same can be said for sacrifice. Do we really know what sacrifice is? The word has been overused to the point of becoming meaningless. Sacrifice is not easy. It is not comfortable. It is noble and life changing. It is the consequence of overextending oneself for the sake of someone or something else. It is the willingness to put the comfort and desires of others before your own. How often do we say it and how often do we really do it?

     When my son was three years old, he had the proverbial ‘ants in his pants’. He was hyper and excited about the world. It seemed like he talked and moved nonstop. I was working full time back then and his daycare did not approve of this behavior. I was told that he would be kicked out if he couldn’t sit at his desk like everyone else. I switched daycares and it happened again. And again.  He was booted from four daycares and denied entry into pre-k unless I put him on Ritalin. It didn’t feel right though. I went to the pediatrician thinking he would say that medication was not the answer, but he was willing to concede to the schools. Family members also pushed for it so that my son could be ‘normal’. My hesitation stemmed from the fact that he wasn’t violent or unhappy. He was just a boy excited about the world and excited to share his love of it with everyone. It felt so wrong to take that away for the sake of being able to sit at a desk all day.

     So, I didn’t.

     I went against everyone’s wishes. I went against my family, the doctor, the daycare facilities, and the school system. Despite being a single parent working full time, I decided to school him myself. I didn’t know that I could successfully do it, but there didn’t seem like any other choice. And it was hard. Really hard. He was with me all day every day, so I couldn’t work a normal job anymore. I ended up working part-time weekend jobs when my family could watch him. I started baking out of my house to try and make ends meet. I quit college just short of a degree. We were questioned- not only by friends and family- but by strangers who thought the notion of not going to a public institution was weird. How would he be socialized? How would he go to college? How was I qualified to teach him anything? How would he be ‘normal’? So many awkward conversations were had during those years.

     As my son got older, he outgrew the hyper phase. He thrived by being with me and learning at his own pace. We found a local homeschooling group to join and he made friends. It wasn’t without struggle though. There were many times when he would fight me about going somewhere or following through on a project. The burden of having no money weighed on me just as heavily as all of the things that needed to get done. My sanity was questioned. I was threatened with having child protective services called. Many nights were spent sitting on the kitchen floor and crying because I just didn’t want to do any of it anymore. I remember saying ‘I can’t’ over and over again.

     The truth is, I could and I did.

     These times of discomfort in our lives eventually build to a point where homeostasis needs to be reached. It is when we are sobbing or raging or thinking that things will never change that we grow. It can be a painful catharsis, but these transformative moments are necessary. We can only be uncomfortable for so long before we take action to balance ourselves again. Nothing lasts forever. All you have to do is keep going through it.

     I have become a master at the art of being uncomfortable. I no longer avoid these situations - I seek them out. Growing from this experience requires one to break down and get back up again. Each time I get up, I am more than I was before- my boundaries have changed, what I can endure has increased, I have more empathy and compassion. I am a stronger version of myself.

      My former mother-in-law (with whom I am still very good friends) recently asked me when I was going to stop overextending myself and start living a more measured and tranquil lifestyle. I laughed and told her that that just isn’t who I am. I am a person who likes to see where the boundaries are and how far to the edge I can get without tumbling over. Sighing, she responded with,“I know.”

      I urge you to go beyond your limits today, beyond your means. Put yourself into an uncomfortable situation. Put someone else’s needs first. Do the thing that is right, not the thing that is easy. You will make it through, I promise. You will be forced to problem solve, to decide what is important. Push yourself to the limits of your comfort, and then push even further past that. Really live the meaning of those words. Uncomfortable. Sacrifice. The reward is not immediate or tangible, but it is priceless.

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

Carrying Death

           I buried nine kittens last week.

           It was the first pleasant afternoon of spring-like weather after a very long, cold winter. Birds were chirping. There was a fine drizzle of rain. Worms were crawling up from the soil. I’m sure my neighbors wondered why I was crying and gardening at the same time. No one should have to bury kittens in the springtime.

           I am 43 this year, the same age as my father when he died. I think about this often. It has become a milestone in both mine and my sister’s lives. A lot of living can be done in 43 years. It’s a decent amount of life and not enough at the same time.

           When I was in high school, I wanted to become a coroner and was even signed up to attend the Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science. That April, my son died. Three months later, my father died. I never pursued mortuary school.

           Looking back, I’m not entirely sure why my father’s death affected me so deeply. He was an alcoholic. He was absent. He made poor decisions. He has now been dead longer for more years than he was alive during my lifetime. And yet, I still feel his absence like this palpable thing. My father died of an enlarged heart exacerbated by years of drinking. We knew the end was coming when his legs were swelling- he could barely put his boots on. When he didn’t show up for work one morning, his co-workers knew something was wrong. My dad never missed a day of work. Not once. One of his good friends busted into his apartment and found him lying on the couch, feet up, cigarette in hand. We buried him with a few packs of Marlboros, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and his favorite cowboy boots. I was 18.

           That was a hard year for me. With no one to confide in, I internalized my sadness. I processed my grief with tattoos of skulls and demons and dead babies. I would lie in the cool grass of the cemetery next to my son’s gravestone and watch the sky turn colors until the stars came out. I thought that if I could become Death, embody it, I could sublimate this darkness. I tattooed my skin with a necklace of skulls and became Kali, the Hindu goddess of Time and Death- the liberator of souls. I wanted my own soul released from this crushing sorrow. I wanted to feel something besides grief.

           Death is Death with a capital D. We politicize and market it for the masses, but it is not a simple commodity. We think that if we make it into a movie or a song that we have warded off the emptiness of it. Death is a destination, an entity. It is a name we don’t say too loudly for fear it will invite itself to our door. It is our absolute terror of the unknown personified.

           So how does one conquer Death? The short answer is- you don’t. The longer answer is that you carry it with you. In this instant gratification society, we assume the grieving process is finite and immediate. The truth of it is- not all wounds are the same. Some wounds are deeper than others. Some wounds never heal.

           And so it is with my father’s death. I have gone through all the proper channels of grief at various times in my life: anger, sadness, apathy, rage, depression, acceptance, forgiveness. I have said to myself- okay, I have processed this and I am over it. But it isn’t as simple as that. There are times where I can drive past my father’s old apartment and not blink. And then there are times where I will pass a truck from the company he used to work for and I will break down sobbing. It makes no logical sense. One just learns to carry it.

           Death is tangible, it has weight. At times it feels like it will crush the breath out of you. Other times it can be folded into a smaller version of itself and tucked away for a while. I cry more often under the heaviness of these things than people think. But I’ve learned to cry while I’m walking, because once you sit down, it is very hard to get back up.

           The kittens I buried last week were born sick. Their moms came from an animal hoarding situation and had a parasitic infection. The moms are young- both less than a year old -they are kittens themselves. These newborns had a lot of factors stacked against them, so I was theoretically ready for their passing. In reality, I wasn’t ready. I stood guard as they were being born. I saw the struggle of labor for the mommas, and the struggle for them to breathe once they came through. I watched as the mother cats abandoned them, let them get cold. I snipped umbilical cords, warmed them in my hands, tried to bottle feed, prayed over them, cried over them. I watched as one by one they lost weight, stopped feeding, stopped breathing. Several took their last breaths in my hands. Some died hugging their siblings. I buried them in groups so that even in death, they wouldn’t have to be alone.

           Nine kittens is a lot of death, but it is not the end. As of this writing, there is still one survivor. I have to think that these other little ones didn’t die in vain- that their passing gave this last one the ability to survive; that their passing allowed the mommas to get healthy enough to survive themselves. I have to side with hope or go mad with the weight of Death. If ever there is hope, it is in the springtime. And I am still walking.

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

The Little Red Hen Dreams

 When the Little Red Hen dreams,

she doesn’t pound wheat.

She knows how

but doesn’t have to.

  And when she sleeps,

phantom hands pat her feathery head;

voices cluck-

Silly bird…..

There’s work to be done--

And with winter coming on! Imagine!

 When the Little Red Hen dreams,

she is not satisfied with

picking here and there

for scraps and leftovers.

 Her nights are fractured

with fitful scenes-

yellow wallpaper

children curled like serpents

sugar cane and dirty laundry

the moon dressed in black.

 She will open her eyes

to the darkness of the henhouse

where the only comfort is knowing

that her dreams are her own.

 When the Little Red Hen dreams,

she presses her head to the chicken wire;

imagines herself emancipated-

free to run wild among the cool, dark pines.

 When the Little Red Hen dreams,

she no longer has to choose

between pounding wheat

and ruling the world.

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

Listen

            Let me tell you about this weird, traumatic thing that happened to me.

            When I was 18, I was pregnant. It was an awkward time- no real friends, broke up with my boyfriend, and relations with my family were strained. Regardless, I was really excited about having a baby.

            In April, about 6 months into the pregnancy, I started bleeding. It wasn’t a lot, but I was nervous, so I went to the emergency room. The ER nurses were very sympathetic and told me not to worry as they called my doctors. Not sure if OBGYNs still do this, but my doctors were actually a rotating team of 6. I wouldn’t always see the same one. The doctors I saw for my checkups were usually different, but I clearly remember the one who treated me at the hospital. She was a tiny Latina woman with a soft voice and short, black hair. I remember her last name, (which I will gracefully not disclose here) and that she wore a tiny gold cross around her neck. 

            The hospital admitted me and wheeled me into a private room. Several doctors poked and prodded. I had an incompetent cervix and it was past the point of being able to hold the baby. By then my family had shown up. It made for an extremely uncomfortable situation. I was lying flat on my back, tilted at an angle, in hopes that gravity would keep the baby in. This was the best plan the doctors could come up with, but seeing as I had 14 more weeks to go, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. I had a job, bills to pay, rent. I couldn’t just lie upside down for 3 months. My father sat silently and held my hand. 

            I think a decision was made to deliver the baby. I don’t really remember this clearly, but I do remember being administered Pitocin to encourage contractions. After about half an hour I felt some really strong contractions and called for a nurse. The nurse came in, saw what was happening and left to grab the doctor. In the meantime, the pain was getting worse and I ended up delivering with no one in the room. The doctor rushed in a few minutes later with a worried look on her face. She whisked the baby away. The nurse stayed to help me deliver the afterbirth. 

            Although this was traumatic, none of this is the weird part. The weirdness started when the doctor came back in and told me that the baby had been born alive and had lived for a few minutes. He was malformed- not healthy- probably from the incompetent cervix, she said. She asked if I wanted to hold the baby. I said I’d prefer not to. 

           I have this thing about death. I prefer to not look it in the eye. I’ve been to several funerals as a child, and seeing the dead bodies of people I knew skewed the way I thought of them. Even for my own father’s funeral, I refused to look at him in the casket. I have a long memory, a sharp memory, and I didn’t want to remember my father as lifeless. 

            So it was with this baby. Holding a dead baby in my arms seemed so wrong at the time. I wanted to remember this baby as the one kicking inside me, the one that I looked forward to having. The one that held promise.

            I’m going to assume the doctor saw my refusal as the carelessness of youth. If she had only listened- not only to what I said but to the silence in between- things might not have transpired as they did. She left and came back half an hour later with papers to sign. She also told me that she and the nurse had named and christened the baby. They had dressed him up in very small christening clothes and took several pictures- the intent being that someday I would treasure these things.

           I am not a Christian. I do not believe in christening. And even if this is something you yourself believe in, ask yourself if you would be okay with someone naming your baby for you. What about performing a religious rite on him that was not aligned with your own beliefs? My lack of a voice in this situation allowed others to make the decisions. I had no one to step in and speak for me. I felt powerless and betrayed by this doctor who was supposed to have my best interests at heart.

           Much of my childhood and young adulthood was spent fruitlessly trying to establish my voice. I wanted family and friends to respect my ideas and wishes- to not decide for me or tell me how my life should be lived. I wanted someone to listen- I wanted someone to say I hear you. For this reason, I try very hard to not discount the ideas and opinions of young people. So many of the things I believed in my youth are the same things I believe today. Inexperience does not necessarily equate to ignorance. The older I get, the easier it is to discount the ideas of people younger than me. It’s a dangerous pedestal to stand upon.

           When people did start listening, it came as a surprise to me. In a world in which everyone is shouting to be heard, who is listening? Visit any social media site and you’ll see people commenting on anything and everything just to be heard. I’ve seen people comment on ads for certain products and their comment has nothing to do with the ad. It is usually something about their daily life that they feel needs affirmation and attention.  It’s about their home life or how they feel about their body or what they lack and hope to acquire. It’s why we compete with each other, why we announce what we’re eating, and why we try to stage the ‘perfect’ vacation pic or selfie. What we are really saying is- Look at me. Acknowledge me. Hear me. Give me a voice.

           Listening will not diminish you. I promise. There are things in the words of others that feed us. Listening will allow others to become whole so that we might become whole. Listening and learning from what we hear can heal us. And then why would we ever need to shout again?

           There is an old cemetery on a large hill in Kirtland. That is where my son is buried. His gravestone bears the name my doctor gave him all those years ago. I used to visit that cemetery often. I would lie in the grass and stare at the clouds and cry; not only for him but for me. I would imagine myself underground, still and quiet, silent as a ghost.

            It has been a long time since I’ve been there. Time has moved on and so have I. It took a long while, but I found my voice over the years. I also became a good listener, because others deserve the chance to be heard and acknowledged no matter what age they are. And I still have those pictures- the polaroids of a tiny baby dressed in christening clothes. I saved them so that I don’t ever forget what it feels like to not have that voice.  

[wordsfromjosie-blog]

The Joy of Changing One’s Name

Remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. – Dale Carnegie in “How to Win Friends and Influence People”

           I’m not who I was.

           When my parents were expecting, they were pretty sure I was going to be a boy. They even had a name picked out: Jack. Imagine their surprise when I was born a girl (despite my unnatural love of flannels). They were totally unprepared to name me, so they looked to one of the most popular names in the mid 70s: Jennifer Ann.

           Growing up, I never felt like my name fit me. When people said it, I thought they were talking to someone else. There’s just no way to describe the strange disconnect I’ve had for my given name. When I was 7, I would call myself Genevieve (pronounced as the French zhahn-vee-EV) and answer to nothing else. Perhaps I was channeling a former life as a Parisian socialite.

           When I married, I changed my last name. When I divorced, I decided that I wasn’t the same person as when I had been single, so why go back to that name? At the time of my divorce, I was taking a college astronomy class. In studying the planets, I discovered that Neptune has a moon named Triton that orbits contrary to the rotation of its planet. It is the only moon in the solar system that does this. So, I took Triton as my surname to represent a lifetime of contrary movement.

           When I visited Australia, I met an Aboriginal man who was busking in Darwin. He was playing the delta blues on guitar and selling CDs. I couldn’t pronounce his name, so I asked him to say it and he told me that it meant “little blue joey born beside a spring in the Dreamtime”. It made me really think about names and how they are symbols. American culture doesn’t place much importance on names, but I think it should. Names should mean something to us. We should feel them. They should vibrate with us. Has someone ever said your name and it made you feel a certain emotion? Try having your family call you by your middle name. It’s a whole different feeling. Names are more than words. They are as much a part of us as our skin is a part of us.

           I changed my middle name at the same time as my surname. I am definitely not an Ann. I wanted my middle name to reflect this new me. Baby naming books became my best friends. I ended up choosing Vivienne because it means ‘full of life’, and that’s what I wanted to be. Vivienne is also the name of The Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legend. She was Merlin’s mistress and gave King Arthur his sword, Excalibur. It’s a story I’ve always loved, so Vivienne seemed like the perfect middle name.

           Finding a suitable first name took a while. I tried on quite a few, but they felt awkward. Therese. Margeaux. Madeline. (Why all the French names?) Friends and coworkers looked at me like I had an extra arm growing out of my body. Why would you want to change your first name?

           I was listening to the radio one morning, and a song came on in which I thought the singer was saying Josie. Turns out the word was actually jealousy, but no matter, Josie was stuck in my head. Josie felt right. Josie felt like me. Josie felt strong and no nonsense. She was someone who got things done. She was Rosie the Riveter’s equally empowered cousin. I was a Josie.

           It is surprisingly easy to change one’s name: file with the court, pay the fee, walk out a new person. It can make for strange conversation when having to present a birth certificate or file legal documents. But I’ve found that most people will accept this new you. People who love you will call you whatever you want to be called. They understand that this is who you are, and that this change is necessary. Everyone should experience changing their name at least once.

           There is an interesting theory circulating that our names shape our personalities; that the sounds of letters have different effects on our psyche. Some studies go so far as to imply that certain names create more ‘successful’ people. I can testify that changing your name will change you. You start to think of yourself differently. You make unexpected associations. You start to see yourself through other people’s eyes in the way they say your new name. You become more than you were. And your friends eventually forget what name they used to call you. 

           That’s not to say that Jennifer is dead. Jennifer started this story and is sleeping the enchanted sleep reserved for fairy tale princesses. She is in there somewhere, beneath the bramble and thickets, hidden deep in the woods of Arthurian legend. She is a part of me without defining me. Josephine is now the heroine of this story and she is not who I was- she is someone much better. 

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Mural on Detroit Road in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. Cleveland, Ohio.

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Art on a garage in Tremont, Ohio.

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Brother

we were slow fire burning, not

sparks or flames, we

clicked in snow-blown

parking lots; I

called you

brother

years younger but

so much older, you

kept me safe in

warm, strong arms; I

smile just thinking you

brother

all lip rings and blonde

pierced eyebrows , black

sarcasm, bar bets and

chinese dinner

brother

I, we, me and you,

we were doomsday

astrology and

end of the world, quiet

coffee and chai, talking

Cayce and God; I

loved you

brother

I loved you pure as

Capricorn skies; you

left me drunk and

warm, eyes smiling,  I’m

always with you my

brother.

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Dreaming the Apocalypse

There is an antichrist somewhere

tired of all this ash.

He has stolen my dreams-

roses and starlight and soft grass;

replaced them with prophecies-

sirens and hot wind,

chaos and blood,

uneasy tears.

I give them back now

wrapped in a stiff, black bow.

This is a present for Death, not me.

Still, I can’t blame him

for wanting just one night

of beautiful sleep.

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Dreaming the Doberman

I dreamt the Doberman

5 years ago-

married and pregnant,

cleaning toilets

for 6 bucks an hour.

I dreamt that monster

every night-

his head in my lap,

jaws wide, poised

on the thin edge of rage,

eyes bulging and white.

I dreamt the Doberman

after the divorce,

the abortion-

lonely and hurting,

working 50 hour weeks;

I cried me to sleep.

That dog stood

at the top of the stairs,

ripped into me,

tore my soul

like a dirty rag doll

every time

I opened the door.

  I dreamt the Doberman

last night-

it was a steel cloud day

when he ran at me

full force, legs thick,

jaws wide and drooling;

but I stood still

and caught that demon

when he sprang-

caught him by the throat,

pulled him down,

and closed that snapping jaw

forever.

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Cleveland sunrise on the Autumnal Equinox