every time i
return to the body i
reach for my camera
set up the tripod
and take self portraits

self portraiture is a ritual
in which i commune with
mind, body & soul

sometimes life feels as if
i am a passenger drifting upward
through a spiral of departures and arrivals
when i look outward through the eyes of this body
there is a sensation of spinning, endlessly

close up
this life
is a carousel of pixels
frantic bursts of bright dots
of light & color
with waves of emotion
electric shockwaves that pulse
through this living flesh

i am a reflection
of the life i have lived
fractured shards of memory spliced together
facets formed into a named identity
and by miracle this name, this identity
animates this body
feral, earthy, raw
vulnerable
a self, alive in its own right

how can the experience of being alive ever be explained in a way that makes any sense at all?

why the body?
why the pain?
why the ecstasy?
why the fucking rain?

i am tired
of explanations
and ready
to lose my self
into expression

every time i
return to the body i
reach for my camera
& every time i
photography myself i
return to the body

Wild once came to me in one great gulping breath, and convinced me to run down the stairs in plastic rhinestoned stripper heels, convinced me to run barefoot in the snow around our great big house as many times as I could until I collapsed in the cold, convinced me to run with eyes closed in a dark hallway in the shape of an L and gave me a scar down my forehead when I missed the turn.

Wild visited and contorted my back to an arch, turned my voice to a hiss and took away my words.  Wild made my hands into claws and picked a fight with my lover, scratching tender skin, breaking dishes, and pouring beer all over the bed.  Wild pulled all the wallpaper from the walls, cut my favorite blanket into tiny shreds, burned holes in the photographs I wanted to keep, threw boxes and boxes of childhood memories away, and then brushed off her hands and sat there by the dumpster smoking a cigarette.

Wild filled my mind with sparkling rainbow colored wonder that grew until it began pouring from my hands onto canvases of ink and paint.  Wild burst from the top of my head and turned me into a beacon of fire.  Wild was a river of color and light and beauty that I captured in a photograph that was so powerful it could change the heart of anyone whose eyes rested upon it.

Wild grew within me for months, undetectable underneath a cloak of dark days and only revealed itself for nights at a time in sobbing fits the size of an ocean.  Wild spoke to me as I lay broken on the floor and said "You are not worthy of this life if you can't get up and change it."  Wild said "Get your fire back or die trying".

Wild tells me that I have a unicorn heart.  That the scar on my forehead is not a coincidence.  That my skin is magic and my breath is life and my heart is royal.  Wild wants to search the woods and the world and to stand on a stage and draw a crowd with my voice, asking "Have you seen any others like me in the world?" "Am I the only one left of my kind?"  "Are there others out there looking for me and are they lonely like I am?"

Magic is real, but it's a practice.  It is found only by searching.  By holding still in the moments and really BEING there.  

Magic is

A breath caught in the throat

The shattered heart

A leaf falling gently to the earth

Frigid air that bites the skin

The last rose on the vine before winter

A screaming child reaching for his mother

Spiked heels stomping away from the boots of a lover

Golden light shining through a champagne glass as the bubbles float to the top and burst into the atmosphere

Someone crying in the rain

Magic is choosing to live with your heart outside of your body.  It's seeing all of the moments and honoring them before they pass.

One day as a teenager, I skipped school and instead drove north to my grandmother's ranch in rural Washington.  It's hours from any city and when I got there I was alone.  It was May and summer was just about to begin.  I stepped out of the car and wandered into the forest and laid down under a birch tree in the middle of the pines for hours.  I thought, "I am the only person who will ever see this tree from this angle, in this season, in this light, with the wind just so.  I wonder if I sit here long enough if I will always remember it."

The tree felt like a gift from God to me.  I don't believe in God anymore.  The sacred memory of the tree was a gift from me.  I don't know where life came from, but I know that I am here.  That other life is here.  I just want to stay open and remember.

it is not the words but the way the words

escape your throat; the awkward pause, the silence

how the space between us shrinks and we are frozen in each other’s eyes;

breath caught as time drips slowly by

it is not your eyes but the look in your eyes, 

suddenly wide and focused too closely on the details of my face

as when meeting a wild animal in the woods,

there is a primal understanding, an instant recognition;

the eyes flash, the pupils quiver

it is not your neck but the vein in your neck

the visible display of blood circulating through the animal body

heart pumping madly to make sense of the words that have just escaped your lips

the body primed to chase or leap or run and yet you breathe one sharp breath

and do not move

it is not your mouth but the way your mouth

stops moving except to gape, except to tremble,

except to express naked vulnerability with set of your jaw

in the inch between your parted lips sits everything you do not say