I just spent 6 days at home, without Adonis. I haven’t been home that long, with or without Adonis, probably since college summers.

It’s like magic; the remembering, the familiarity enveloping and comforting. The worn corners…the old blended colors of the carpet…the scratched thresholds…the same light switch that is blocked by a wooden bookcase that somehow your hand remembers to navigate around. It’s like magic.

But home is also where the worst demons can show themselves: the same short tempers, routine friction of too small a space accommodating now adults instead of teenagers. The bedsheets are outdated the crooked pictures taken with flawed film instead of the clarity of digital. Everything representing what was, not what is.

my chest aches
then stops
then pierces with
lightning bolts of seering, hot pain
my chest aches again

I pull my shoulders back
Up, roll back, then down-
Keep them there, stiff
Lift through the stomach
Chin raised, eyes up
Posture, posture
Good, lisa, good posture

Decades of hunch over caught up
Top of my shoulders point
northwest or northeast, depending
on where I stand
They don’t just go straight up, like
most bones
They went up and over
Trying to hide
and disguise, averting notice

I have scars, see
Long, ragged pale scars
On my arms, thighs,
Stomach, bum, and breasts

They’re marks showing my body
carries more than I should
My frame upholding unreasonable
requests of weight
They stretch the corners of my body
to where my skin cried, No More
and screamed as they ripped anyway
across my sea, across my body

There is one
starting near my collar bone
Dragging its pale boots across my coffee field
not stopping until nearly my elbow
When extended, its warpath shows
The evidence of battle ensued

The trails over my body flow like small streams
But there is no one bank it rides to or brims from
Each line, each crooked
whispers a why this body could not contain it all
This abbreviated body is too SMALL
Too SHORT, too BROWN, too QUIET, too SILENCED,
Too NICE, too INSANE

My body is speaking-
You cannot silence me, see
I’ll find a way to talk and should that be by
Crowning your thighs with springing wires
or encasing our arms with thin lasting ropes
and marking the tops of your breasts with
dragging ghost fingers
So be it.

I will speak.

I am not apple shaped like your mother said
I did not open my legs for your teacher’s gaze
I did not sit too close to ruin your vision
I cannot carry Mickey’s abuse
And all your friends who were raped and cried agony into my ears
And all the desire to be someone else
The clenched resolve to stay virgin
The vows and promises
Brokenness and shame
Bankruptcy and pity
Hostility and failure
I cannot take your search for Christ who faded into a cross and left you on your red knees,
Novena after novena
Praying for help
For words
For a wagon to carry some of this for you

I will speak.

Put your arms out like you’re crucified
and turn them slowly like a roast
So the peering eyes can fully see-
That you are human and bear
An unfair load, an unjust proportion
An unbalanced share of caring

Stop hunching over and open your shoulders wide
so the skin sags sadly and frowning folds turn with you
Exposing you, liberating you

Let their eyes graze you like an animal
Let their eyes feast on your imperfections
Allow their drifting stare to target your
Slippery vulnerability
Stop fearing those sleeveless days
and pinching your dribbly, marked skin

I told you I’d speak.

I broke your skin from all the brokenness you let in. And fear. And worry.

You locked it so tight into your bones, the healing marrow could not breathe.

Let your marrow breath.
And come home.

If there is one thing I know to be true about my life, I hate commuting to work. Along with the FOR SALE: PET GOAT signs I see, traffic is slow. It is slow because there are trucks that usually slow me down. These trucks are moving large, or fragile, or as these pictures illustrate, unbelievable objects.

There are few things in the world I can’t stand for: systematic injustice, poverty, people who chew with their mouths open, and mobile waste containers. Porter-potties. It nearly ruined my day.

that whenever I see a bookstore, am about to head into a store that screams SALE SALE SALE, of think about the winter holidays, I have to go to the bathroom.

I have learned:

When a person gets excited, the body reacts by producing adrenaline and hormones that start the peristaltic movement of the bowels. In turn, the waste in one’s body is pushed down, thus signaling the need to defecate.

I’ve spent most of my life excited, if that tells you anything.

I love photography. I always have – there is something so direct, addicting, and challenging to photography.

It’s something about looking through a tunnel and choosing what you see as truth. You see truth, you press a button, and it’s preserved forever.

All the pictures on this blog are my own. Why would I post someone else’s perspective on my own blog? You will see My truth, what I see as important to the world, what I see as fundamentals of myself.

Let the Fun Out. Live without Dead Time.
I took this pictures in New York City where I frequently visit family and friends.

Can you actually do those two things? I believe I can. Each day, I wake up and not before long, my Adonis will contort his face into an unfathomable shape and squeal or whisper or yell, “Good morning, my love!” Today, we went to get milkshakes to escape the thick summer humidity and sang Roxette songs together, complete with acting out lyrics (“She’s got the look/What on earth can make a brown eyed girl turn blue/when everything I do I do for you/and she goes na na na na/She’s got the look”) while we’re stuck on traffic on 71N. Let the Fun Out. We then go to Applebees and make slight fun of the host who says, “Our drink specials today are, err, Sobe. You know, Sobe? [we nod like puppets] Uh, yeah…it’s Sobe… and we put alcohol in it.” Sweet, guy. Thanks for that. Very informative.

Is it rollercoaster, bungee jumping, boldly fun? No. Would I want to be anywhere else or doing anything else than singing off-note to my Adonis? No. Fun is doing, being in the place you want most in life and suddenly realizing you don’t want to move an inch.

Live Without Dead Time.

What in the hell does that mean? I suppose that it is suggesting to get off one’s ass and utter the proverbial Carpe Diem yelp of life.

There is, for me, no such thing as Dead Time. The world – life- is far too funny and mysterious to spend in Dead Time. With a camera, I get to preserve glimpses of it, too.

When I write, I have to change the font on the computer. I have to be sure it looks different than a typical book or magazine font. For some reason, it helps me believe that what I am writing is different than what’s been said before. For an even odder reason, it helps me believe in myself and in my words.

I am 27 years old and in many ways, I am successful. I am myself to the world and in my relationships, believe and am committed to a higher being that guides me through despair and joy, and attempt to my best efforts to channel love, knowledge, and forgiveness in my life and body.

The never ending question I harbor, “Is there more?”

I don’t like “more.” It carries that pejorative of greed, insatiable and the “more” is not action oriented. Society has yet to convince me that more action, increased production equals greater satisfaction. When I say or ask for more, I mean deeper. Grammatically, however, I just cannot ask “Is there deeper?”

Oh, to hell with it.
Is there deeper?

I have found that just by asking myself the question, I am convinced there clearly is. There must be. There must be. “Not should be, or could be, or hope so, or has to be…” (-Fr. Himes) There must be more.

I am distinctly, unusually aware. I become even more attuned when I am alone, doing a thoughtless, mundane task of life. At twilight, if I am walking or driving, and the world is just beginning to dim and I hear a thousand lamps turn on in homes and calls for the end of the day, I breathe deeply and sometimes, just sometimes, I feel a dull, circular falling sensation near my lungs. Out of nowhere, a soft, rising throbbing will ascend and then descend in my body. At times, a piercing but not painful emptiness is felt, and I draw in a short breath through my mouth. The only comparison is that second, that millisecond before you unexpectedly cry without any warning. A welling of unforeseen emotion, a slightly uncontrollable force that uses your physicality, in this case, the tear ducts that lubricate the eyes, to convey its power. A non-linguist peace goes through me, and then a jumble of reason-pleaing words to identify what is happening. It makes sense only when it is happening and the pale translating words that come are: OPEN, COLOR, VOID, CONCAVE, TRUST.

At times, it is so powerful that I want to cry, but not from discomfort or even sadness. It’s a shifting emotion that feels like I must immediately, urgently genuflect because of all the beauty and sorrow in the world. I cannot contain it. I am moved with awe, joy, and despair all at once. And just like that, it’s gone. What is it? What is that feeling? There is no word.

Oh, to hell with it.
Let’s call it Bumag.

[BOOM-`AHG]
Noun. Def: Emotional sensation of falling. An unwarranted disposition of a moving wave felt in the physical body for no anatomical reason. E.g.Without warning, a sudden feeling of bumag filled his being as he walked to his desk. From the Filipino/Tagalog root: BUMAGSAK//: to fall.

There. Now I have to a word to describe it.

The funny and awesome thing about language is that I could move Webster out of business and create a phonics into existence and, still, it would not capture the restless question of, What else is there?

Granted, there are many different forms of reflection. There are milestone reflections that come with rites of passage, sacraments, anniversaries, birthdays, award recognition, birth, death, and retreats. Most people would say that the feeling, Bumag, and the inevitable question of Deepening is spurred by occupational dissatisfaction or relationship trouble or quarter-life or mid-life crisis. But this is not reflection. This is the antecedent of any formed thought. It is an unnamed reminder that, indeed, there is more, but there are no arrows pointing to any direction to find it. It simply appears, making its existence known, and exits.

After it passes, I become as panicked that it happened as I hope it will return; humbled by its passing as I feel cursed that I have no tools to analyze what has no name; convinced that something divine is lingering in me as much as I fret that no one will have experienced it or understand what I mean. Before long, I smile small and realize I have forgotten what I was originally doing. Not good when this happens behind the wheel.

On my way to work, I pass a landfill. It’s called Rumpke (pronounced, RUMP-KEE).

I call it Rumpke Dumpke Field. During Christmas season, it displays a huge SEASON’S GREETINGS at the top of the heap. During football season, WHO-DEY adorns the zenith of the trashpit.

It is absolutely, positively the worst thing to see on daily basis…that and the sign off of 27N that reads, “FOR SALE: PET GOAT.”

I figured, with my eleven month contract and having worked at my job for two years, I have passed the landfill and the Pet Goat sign approximately 968 times.

Almost a thousand times I have whizzed by and wondered what in the hell I have done to contribute to this monstrosity. Averaging 4.5 lbs of waste each day, the common American can do much more to slow the fill of our landfills. For the love of all things holy! People- reuse your jars, bring your own canvas bag to the grocery store, stop bying useless gadgets that get thrown out, and recycle.

Imagine with me for just one moment: a clean world with fresh air and where no pet goats are left behind.

“So, uh, when ya’ll were dating…did, like, race, you know, uh…ever come up?”

“Mhmm, I don’t know. Does a bear shit in the woods?”