1. Pain and Shock
I lay in bed this week
fevered and in pain
energy drained
throat on fire
tired and sick
while screens around me
surface a young white face
with stone dead eye sockets
murderer, 9 times over
lily white terrorist
with a Dorothy Hamill haircut
imagined into killer
wounder of our heart, lovely Charleston
from bed
in my fevered state
I see a zombie
Am I alone in this?
the walking dead
those eyes
God, those eyes
night of the living dead
2. Facing It
Home Grown Delusion
My People Are Terrorists
These are my headlines.
I write them crying.
Won’t move past them alone.
I called myself sick before but I’m not sick.
I am ill: unwell for now.
I’m drinking juice, resting, sniffling, reflecting
talking with friends and family here and afar
creating something new
I will recover: alive and beyond lucky.
Sick—I notice in his eyes through my tears—is something else.
Sick is stuck.
Unable to move through delusion to see clearly again.
Unable to show up and allow yourself to become something new together.
Sick allows fear to take you so completely that your eyes become stones in sockets.
Ears can’t recognize the voice of humanity.
Sick is a community state. A sludge individuals get stuck in.
Community vomit.
A white community
white words, websites
draped in sludge
locked in terror of the other
separated from wider reality
lacking access to more alive humanity
they misplace their own souls
We, not they, Lori.
We have so much sludge here.
Into it we sacrifice too many gentle white boys
raising zombies from pools of vomit instead:
bringers of horror and death
Sick political community, media community, corporate community:
pouring forth zombie pundits
reporters
politicians
zombie captains of industry believing humans have no innate right to water
“leaders”
wind-up dolls with fake spray-on expressions
pretending at grownup-ness
succeeding only at meanness
Imagining evil with unlaughing faces and unweeping eyes
Not facing their own truths. Let alone Our truths.
Autopilot Words
Doctrine Zombies
Blind Flag Wavers in the face of suffering
These are my people. My people.
This is me. Good God.
3.Three Deep Breaths
4. An Acceptance Prayer
This is us. This is me.
blind flawed clueless biased still learning
Good God, whatever I am
however blind flawed clueless biased and still learning I am
please God don’t let that be me.
Let me not be a zombie.
Let me not be on autopilot.
Let me not separate the suffering of others from my own.
Let me put no symbol, fabric flag, beloved idea, heritage, book, or property
above tender, living breathing beings.
Let me not be a terrorist.
Let me simply value the living and the breathing and the being here together.
Let me allow my judgments to be a step backward into my soul on the way to greater insight.
Let me then trust the words that bubble up within me:
allowing them to wait to come forth, when they want to, and to spill forth hard and fast when they must.
Let me stay soft and weeping and human, even in my hardest moments.
While I am breathing, let me never stop crying and laughing.
5. The Enough Moment
I just sat outside on the ground for an hour by myself.
The ground is healing, have you noticed?
It’s no wonder why people want no part of our big old systems.
Not nearly enough sitting on the earth.
Sick systems. Stuck on repeat. Trapped in delusion.
Human hearts ache for more.
Instead of admitting that we don’t know what to do,
asking for help, forgiveness,
or even just stopping and resting and reflecting,
we keep pumping out zombies.
Enough
Sit on the earth. Feel it. Breathe it.
This is the world. Soft breezes, rain, sunshine. My world. Us. This.
I have had enough of the zombie machine.
Enough
6. The Words of a Living Being in the USA
The idea that handguns be required in sacred space is untenable.
Beyond nonsense. Delusional leaps to mind.
Not you. Not wonderful, lovely you.
The idea.
I see that the idea makes sense to those standing in hell.
But I am so very weary of joining you in hell.
I am so weary of dead children and pastors and mothers and brothers.
So weary of blame.
Would you consider joining me here on earth?
Just for a minute?
I propose that we allow handguns and automatic weapons
to be required of us only in unsacred space: aka, hell
This is earth. We are hers.
She is beautiful and life giving and, yes, scarily unpredictable.
But this is not hell.
I am so sorry for your pain. I feel it. Weep with you.
And I can no longer imagine earth into hell with you.
I am done allowing myself to take any part in reimagining her into hell.
I am woman.
I am earth.
This is our home. This is us.
We can imagine better together.
It’s time to live a new story about our full power.
7. A Farewell to the Old Me
Self, if you are saying the same thing right now that you always say,
hearing what you always hear, I’m sorry,
that is not quite wellness or growth or wholeness or love or healing
that is not quite living, and worse
That is not you.
You are far more creative than that.
You may walk into a space with hatred in your heart
but you breathe more slowly then
listen more deeply then
feel something new, think something new,
then let yourself go into new possibility then
awestruck and humbled
you drop the weapon from your human hand
weep, apologize
are embraced, welcomed home
you are fed
Nothing better than potluck and forgiveness.
The potential power of our collective heart is limitless.
That is the power that persists in the black American community this week: freer of hearts.
And in the LGBT community this week: freer of brighter, sassier (no, I-won’t-stop-dancing-bitches) souls.
An individual heart can be fooled.
An individual mind can be steeped in delusion too:
faster and far longer than collective hearts can be.
What am I doing right now to tap into the collective heart?
Can I feel it beating within us?
Yes, I can.
Goodbye old us, old me.
Thank you for getting us here.
8. New Questions
How many more zombie generations am I willing to see us raise?
How many more years am I willing to ask black and LGBT American families to stand weeping
on courthouse steps
being the shining examples of human love, forgiveness, and generosity
that I myself ought to be?
Can I face all our fears, pain, history, and dreams?
name them? surface them? feel them? hold them?
be held by them?
Can we wake up from old delusions changed, together, with hearts alive?
Can I allow my mind to be uncertain and open:
completely lost and oddly comforted
to find myself in yet another new place
with even more people who feel like home?
8. This is What Being Well Feels Like
rising
stretching
becoming human again
stumbling
uncertainty
sorrow
despair
weeping
being foolish
laughing
mouth-dropping wonder
being held
learning
holding space
pure delight
rising to become human again
Looking out with eyes that weep and shine and get frustrated and sparkle together, not zombie eyes
Laughing then crying then laughing at ourselves together.
Rag tag. Imperfect.
We look like chaos and we feel like home.
Remembering our past, living our now, is the same thing
always creating
always in mourning
always helping each other
always experimenting and making mistakes
always starting again
together and alone, more certain this time…
9. Imagining What Being Even More Well Could Look Like
More rainbows
More people feeling loved, welcome, home
More dreams
Fewer early-death- and walking-dead-bringing
delusions
Crying publicly encouraged
When fallen or failed within one community,
individuals move fluidly into others
to find their people, their healing, elsewhere
bravely, like
children, musicians, artists, poets
bearing our most precious instruments:
hearts that cannot be fashioned into weapons
A generation of humans saying:
“Mine was the last generation willing to gun ourselves down”
10. My Country, Poetry
In my country, poetry
we value creativity
cherish weird and levity
true-to-self natures
diving all in
safe, supporting, silly, sensitive
— all the best Ss
In my country, poetry
we are compass
bad ass
bullshit cutlass
impolite, uncouth
fragile and fiercely open
embracing sorrow and pain publicly
letting go of self repeatedly
wild rose responsible
wild horse free
Here we grow more trusting and trusted with age.
Here we play at being rainbows.
see each other through God’s eyes
hold each other with Goddess hands
weep as humans
part as friends
In my country, poetry
monsters are pulled forth around campfires
reminding us of our past, then
taking off our zombie masks
we join the living in a dance
muddy feet soon find the beat
beneath these now more-spacious skies