One handed typing

A mother or a pervert? Yes. I'm a one handed typer. I like to envision a woman, mid thirties, with three small children inventing the "smart phone" - a device that actually demands single digit dexterity and that is easily operated while breastfeeding, diapering, and cradling.
My son is my agent, editor, and humorist. Laying across my lap, he looks up, smiles, frowns and directs my virtual pen. Writing stops at his command, inspiration flows from the sleep washing his cheeks, and he suckles to the beat of my imaginary keyboard.
Growth is relentless. He squirms and grunts like the engine of this mother son machine, his eyes fixed to my armpit, pupils tracing the shadows on the wall behind us. I can't put him down or the circus music stops, he screams as though ripped from the story, and I place him quickly to breast again. Yessir. Sorry sir. Writing commences.
Love is what fuels this three legged dog and the one handed typer. I will tell you more as long as my son approves my message.

What is love? Take one.

The man made a great scramble. But after years of pupishly chasing his tail, I was flea bitten. No amount of love was going to make this man love me. Oh, it burned - so powerless I was to his heart's whimsy. He did not mention the hot tobacco on my breath as I passed, rather he acted oblivious to my presence and courted his breakfast like a horny teenager.
I never made it to the table. Hitting send, I propelled my image to a man I barely knew across the country, knowing that I would be thoroughly feasted upon. Perhaps that is all I wanted - to be seen and to captivate someone so intensely that he could barely function through the doldrums of his day. In other words, I was ready to fuck him up the way I had been by this man in my kitchen space.
That is all I wanted and knew of love in my late 20s. Pain and chaos. Maybe digesting all those Bukowski poems resulted in this diagnosis of irritable heart syndrome. But whoever was to blame did not matter now, for finally I had gained control and in my net was the biggest fish the ocean could have churned.
Sean. The towering urbanite from the Twin Cities was calling me. In two weeks the train would bring me to his Midwest doorstep and all my sex would leap into his arms - a pilgrimage of my womanhood back to its molten core. I took the call and compliments as I sipped my coffee. Love was not necessary like it had been in relationships prior and in its playful absence, freedom and joy returned to my smile. I thought I was on to something: Love is need and needs are fucked. Sure. It felt good and I could go about my day lighter than I had been in years. My thoughts were pleasant and no longer consumed by a longing for love.
After two bottles of wine and 40 hours of rolling, I reached Minneapolis wild and beautiful. I scampered to my motel to prepare for my lover's arrival. In the cheap glass of my bathroom, I drew my game face and waited for the ball.

A chapter of birthing

When I found out I was pregnant, my instinct was to fanatically forage for knowledge - for terms, for the language of birthing. And damn, I found everything. Encyclopedias of pregnancy, techniques of childbirth and rearing that reminded me of reading political pamphlets - each school of thought bashing the other as the old way or the risky unproven method while singlehandedly claiming victory.  "Birth with us or else."
Jesus, what if I chose the wrong team? What if I ruined my kid's life by eating that Butterfinger with every horrible coloring and preservative known to man?  What if I can't breastfeed and my kid disowns me and grows a third arm?  I was scared shitless.
What to expect if you're expecting? A staggering spew of information and absolutes disguised in passive aggressive manifestos.
This ain't that. Two gems I have to share with you are as such: shut your brain off and ask your heart, what do I know of love?
This is a story of one woman's determination to understand what the hell love is so that she could fearlessly and passionately be the woman and mother she dared herself to become.
First, we begin where I began in the depths of my 28th year of loving. Standing before you, nude in red cowboy boots, posing with a Marb light lit to lip, and languid on itchy carpet, I snapped a portrait that captured my knowing. I came downstairs to email the flick to my Midwest lover while my boyfriend scrambled eggs.

a happy birth story

The first time it happened, I nervously perched on the love seat in my aunt's house. The baby had a penis, which I sort of made out in the ultrasound photo, and therefore all decor came in powder blue - bears, cars, fucking footballs, tangled up in a haze of our cultures' baby boy. The women were gathered to play the baby shower Super Bowl - the worst was the tootsie roll in the diaper game. Surprise! Luckily there was alcohol for the women like myself, who weren't sure they would ever have kids and were horrified by the women who had. Many looked sexless, as though the birth of their child had caused all sexual inclinations to perish and Winnie the Pooh to set seige on their vaginas.
I set to get drunk quick and that's when the stories began. "Look honey, your boobs will never be the same after you breastfeed this kid. If I don't wear a bra it's like there are two pancakes hanging off my chest." Not to mention, "I was in labor for 36 hours until I screamed to the Doctor to get this thing out of me and he got out the vacuum thingy to suck his huge head through ..."  There wasn't enough alcohol to make this a party and I felt terrible for my cousin, who sat silently on the sideline opening box after box of the same onesie 3 piece outfit ready to burst with child and anguish.
I wondered why. Why would anyone have children if this is what birth and parenting reflected? Why would we celebrate life and womanhood in such a perverted and dogmatic way? Why did having children seem to strip these women of their power? And why wasn't the booze taking away the pain or at least speeding up the show?
It would be several years later that I found myself seeking the answers to these grand wonderments but let me tell you, this is a story about birth that you won't hear at most baby showers and it is one that will leave you in awe of your own beauty, strength, and vagina. So please join me in this happy birthing story - it's about a woman (that's me) who found her truth between contractions and discovered what the hell love really is and isn't through birthing two incredible beings.

Drex

The computer is hard. Bangs wet.

I made a school and died.

Now I write .

Go.

There is a man in the kitchen. The man cooks Mirabelle a perfect pita pizza. He has a daughter that has a mother who is a child. Conflict.

The last time I wrote was when I was writing to a man. Amen.

I can't write in sentences. Repent. I dye.

Damnit. How does a lady write a book when she only knows Haiku? I'm fucked.

Her voice is exilir. Baby. Born. B.

Can a novel be born of exerpts? No.

Black shirts. Laundry. Pack my bags.

You've been to too many bars when her voice is god.

Pizza man. I order mac and cheese. Like the kids in the park. Keep it simple.

I have a story. It is here and there.

Your hair reminds me its time.

If I could fuck your voice I would.

ode to washoe

in wisp of feathery pen,
stoked declaration of self,
motivated by presence, child, and man,
hood lifted, carefully held

woman whispering ode,
fused in fiery brow,
ignited in sagebrush and kinship,
connection indignantly loud

now take it deeply,
to wine, willows, and friends,
dirt's dance across leathery backs,
imbibe in this desert amen.

summer enlightenment

time to meditate.
a pilgrimage to
chinatown.

weathered friends,
scribing pages
of sidewalk sanskrit
welcome.

"hey, how are you?"
"good darling. very well."
"enjoying the sunshine?"
"yes darling. very well."
"what is the meaning of this?"
"darling. you are. listen."

bang. the white wheel on a man's
bicycle pops. he is thrown to
the curb. the bus stops.

"you have a nice ass."
"thank you."
"what did you come for?"
"satori."
"then drink this."

sirens and the man is
placed in an ambulance
discombobulated.

the beer is warm.
we shut our eyes.
silence. inhale.

alone i return to the car.

"wandering mind return to breath."

the key ignites
and i leave
knowing.