This Is A Journal Entry
Morning Pages / Fragments Of Things To Come / Poem
At 6 am I am up and I think I should meditate. Roll out of bed and into the fog. The rain disappearing from the forecast. The 6th gray whale appearing on the shore. Pregnant and dead.
I fall back to sleep, and I tell myself remember this.
Two aunts downstairs in the kitchen. The man in my bed first too old, and then turning into you, seeking refuge.
The whole body ached.
I gave up my scent.
(Synthetic green apple, that followed me through the years, suddenly making my husband sick in our new house, post birth. I threw it out in despair. Went searching for another one. Oil based, the smell of green.)
I made a pile for mending.
I began measuring cloth.
I found myself in the dream - missing a pearl.
Have you ever tried fiction? Someone asked, and then another and another, and another. A patience I did not have.
The cat laying her head up against mine. The jasmine on my wrist turning my stomach.
I do have a story about a woman who discovers she wants a baby on the verge of dying. In the belly of a boat. I keep making notes for it, I keep getting sea sick.
(“What are you on?”
”Nothing.”
”Do you do this often?”
”Only when I am unable to help it.”)
In the mornings my husband takes our daughter so that I can work and then we switch. The clouds today making it seem like the morning was still here. Confusing me when it was time to switch.
I think about all the years I spent drifting, wanting to be an actress, not writing anything. I didn’t want to be rejected, so I didn’t submit. I didn’t practice. Refusing to bind my work in college when Michael asked, like the handsome wonder-boy-poet.
And when my new therapist asks I say I want my movies to be my poems. And she takes a deep breathe and says What a statement.