yellowtulipfinch:

I came here three months ago.
A little child,
27 times around the Sun
with a backpack full of sorrows that not even the whiskey could swallow
a trail of accomplishments
let go like kites and windblown hats
from the sides of a train.
These last nine months,
I have scattered the letters of my soul
across 7,000 miles
and nineteen States
on the rooftops of Piggly Wiggly’s,
behind the Valero dumpters,
on the couches,
and blow up mattresses
and floor spaces that make up
what I called Home.
I drew a thousand lines
on a hundred maps
that all meant something
but none of them meant anything.
Another name, another place
another soul wandering
just like all of us.

I came to the Forest three months ago.
Stepped on dead oak leaves
that reminded me of my Father
with barefeet
lived in a teepee
and smoked cigarettes.
I woke up everyday
just to watch my eyelids peel open.
To let the Sun come in.
To put Rosemary on my tongue and say prayers to the Great Spirits.
To fall in love with a girl
I still don’t know the name of
who puts a fire in my eyes that
not even tropical storms can put out &
causes my feet to dance
 more like a marionette
and my words to flow easy.
Here,
where every night I am thankful that the Forest Shaman
makes a circle with her hands
and says “be still and listen.”
And everybody,
even the rebel hearts,
 with their rebel yells deep in their guts
the talkers and the chatty kathy’s,
they all listen.

I am thankful we were all born with different ears
to all hear different things.
Some hear the bird calls
 up up above us,
the kitten meow, the cracked branch, the rooster crow,
 the procrastinating screen doors open,
Some hear the fire crackle.
Perhaps because they built it
or because it is building inside of them
the little green center light
or their stomachs rumble as they think on food
 the heartbeat of the hand they are holding.

Some nights I hear
the deep slow sigh of a lover from across circle
or the train call.
It makes my heart race and my bones groan
undearneath me
because I have known the road
and it tastes like iron and glory dust
like
riding suicide on a 53’ and loneliness
with a grin bigger than the Great Turtle
or the Mother Tree has ever worn.

Here,
there are cat men, cowboys, Pepper Kings and ‘comin in from..” brims
that took this small thing called a man
and gave it muscle.
Told me to shut up and sing
or write,
or cock-a-doodle
or put all the hippy soft speak down and let a roar out
when I feel the tempest inside me.

Here it is:

Let me be the Forest Shaman tonight.
Be still and listen.
Please, forget my words
only hear their trembling.

I have seen your eyes - little windows
the ones I call family.
I have seen your drunken behinds
sway like wind-torn ships and sails
on the dive bar dance floors of Brunswick.
I fallen asleep in your box trucks
to the sound of kittens and trees falling
saying “everything will be alright.”
“everything will be alright.”

I fought the rooster and neither of us won
because we have an understanding.
Like brothers on a brawl floor
who show their love
through bruises, sore necks
arms and ripped toenails.
Now everytime I pass him
I puff out my chest and our windows look into each other.
We both know the sacred songs that the Grandfather Roosters
used to crow
the ones that come from our bellies,
Mine
just below the tattoo of a bird she hates
and loves simultaneously

I gave up riding rails for riding trees
all the way down.
I bit the snake back that bit me
because I believe we are equals
and he taught me to crawl on the ground
no fear
to watch the mycelium running.
And like unfolding maps and atlases
the fables you have taught me
led to careful placed steps
fox walking
making sure I observe all the creases.
That I hold the Space.

I’m a bit bigger now.
Wings clipped once
but grew back.
Tomorrow gone,
but never leaving,
with a lover and two cats
to scatter the Great Drum beat
across this country and all the others
to tell my stories
of feather covered darlings
delicious food every night that kept my belly full
and me
howling open mouthed terror love filled
at the full moon breeze
and stars - all kinds - and their constellations.

I have become the palm fran,
the bull frog,
the red headed woodpecker
that shares half my last name.
I stand tall now
though my bones are still brittle.
I breathe deep now,
it fills up all of me.
I gave up the clock, the dollar,
the roof, the bed, the carlo rosi jugs
to find myself here.

I do not cry in front of people.
Then the storm came
and these last three days have been spent
crying
watching a cowboy with blue toed shoes
Who, if he stood next to my twin,
I could not tell the difference between how my heart feels towards them.
I cry at the cat man who was sent here to teach spirals
cover his body in coal and protect the underworld.
I cry at the Lasagna and the pizzas and the pots and pans and
drunken pantry laughter of the soul of the soul kitchen manager.
I cry at the boy, more a man than I have yet to be,
who takes our deposits to a field and plays Taylor Swift
in the evening. Who has dreams of becoming everything.
I cry for the One who was brought here
not by accident
to break rules that I broke and
found great love by just as much of an accident.
I cry into a forest fairy’s eyes and soul
 without words
and she cries back.
I cry when my lady bird darling
leads a dance that everyone dances to
and we all become G-d long enough to know what it feels like
or prepares my last egg lunch
from these chickens that I have grown to love as much as future children.
At a every baby rooster cock-a-doodle -
little necks stretched out to touch the sky,
and lonely Oscar, Little Luna, Neurotic Wanda
and the crazy coo coo of Cob Hen.

Tomorrow I will not cry anymore.  
It came with this storm,
just like we all did.

Now the Wood Buzzard is leaving.

I came to the Forest three months ago.
Tomorrow,
I am taking her with me.
And, in the thankful circles that follow,
please listen closely,
because on nights when the wind
and the calm and the all of it
 is just right
you will hear my cock-a-doodle do from the miles between us
and the corners of your mouth might turn up
 towards those same stars from which we all came from.
I love you all very much.

Aho.

My childhood was pretty much spent in New York. Up until I was about 8 years old. Growing up though, I grew up with my cousins, it was great. I used to live in a 2 story house with a bunch of family. Grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, mom, dad, sister, cousin.. and down the street lived everyone else. Growing up I watched Kid Songs and Barney like it was the only thing that existed. I played with worms, wrote with chalk on the sidewalk, played hide and seek with all the kids on the block, made a lemonade stand. My cousin and I even tried doing a stand with our toys to see if we could see them for money to get ice cream. lol. Good times. I had endless legos that I would build pyramids out of, barbies and play houses galore. I played with all of that until I was like… 13. When we moved to Florida, behind my grandmothers house there were a few small hills. We used to wrap ourselves completely in our sweaters and roll down them. We would laugh so much and so hard, I couldn’t tell you how many times we would piss on ourselves. We made up this game called “Crazy Chicken” where one person would be blindfolded and the rest of us would run around like crazy chickens until the blindfolded person caught everyone. It sounds silly, but it used to be one of our favorite games. Growing up I was never the type of girl that wanted to wear my mothers heels or play with make up (well sometimes I did, but it was only when we played a game where we would have to do some ones make up blindfolded, LMAO.) I was in Girl Scouts until my Sophomore year of high school. 

I spent some good times being a kid. Im so blessed to have parents that always encouraged it. I can’t say that I grew up to fast because I think everything has happened at the right times.