Invisible Sun

Steven Gelberg

My humanity’s skin

Fits me.

I am its strengths

Its weaknesses.

From a childhood

Of secrets,

Being good,

Invisible, the good girl-

Comes this ability-

To see and hear,

To not be seen,

To be the observer.

Yet, in the hidden

Corners lies danger.

The soul risks slow submersion

When hidden in the dark.

When the good girl

Becomes the grounding,

The listener, the receiver,

Obscured from the light,

Death begins its

Slow creep.

Innocuously, like

Mitosis, splitting

The self from

Self, light, and air.

It is insidious and

It is death.

She becomes a secret.

She becomes the lie.

She becomes others lies.

She becomes invisible.

Turning towards the

Dungeon’s door,

The tearing of tectonic

Magnitude, she walks away,

Into the light.

kimsmith

Dancing in the Sunshine

Manolis Tsantakis

Exhaling

 

So ugly,

You were beautiful

In your elegant stubbornness;

Your life gift

 

Sitting on the porch

I rocked you in my arms;

The prairie house

Held us in the

Big sky.

 

The cornfield,

Harvested, stubbled,

Enchanted as the

Ladybugs swarmed

 

The only moment

Of distress, the prick

Of the needle-

Irritated you.

 

So, I told

You stories of

Being a baby

About shots myself.

 

I told you love.

I told you goodbye.

I told you, it is okay.

And, you knew.

 

So, we rocked

 

As we

 

Exhaled

In

Love.

 

kimsmith

Irkedness or Not on My Watch Please or When Will I be in Charge of the Universe?

The Rape

Elly Simmons

 

Search Engines Terms: How did you find me? What was your search?

I am fucking pissed.

If I see one more search phrase stating child erotica I am going to go hunting.

The photos I post of children are of how I see myself, of all children who deserve safety and wellness. They are my memories. They are why we need art, they show us ourselves. Artists are crucial for this. They tell our stories.

I am not here to tell any damn stories for injured relational sexuality.

I am here to say that I am not in control of the universe.

I was not in control of my friend Amanda’s bi-polar, existential, alcoholic, survivor pain or her death. I was not in control of my friend Leah’s childhood where her twin sister experienced her life as she did, a life ending with a swan dive. She took the bridge path. Yea, she is dead too.

So, this is all morbid or is it? Death is another stage. I am good with groovy godliness.

I post photos of children for the beauty of each and every one of our children, internally and externally.

My favorite is by Steven Gelberg. I see myself in her eyes and hiding behind that big leaf. I see my cave child self, now and then.

I do not want fucking trapped in the darkness of soul injured compulsion finding my blog by searching such words. Words that have never been posted here until now which means somewhere in the universe someone found Steven’s souful child photo and showed me that I am not in control of the freakin’ universe.

And, please, do not get me wrong. This is not hate, this is anger which is pain. Pain for those who are bound in some dark place where only such a search gives them what they seek. I am not hateful, I am pissed. And, sad. And, empowered. And hurt by the hurt. No one hurt me, no one did this to me, it just is.

John Running

Uncle Brian

 

 

Brian Korshak

 

Uncle Brian died.

He died in the kitchen he shared with Aunt Miriam for 49 years. He passed through reading the Sunday paper with his cat nearby. He died quickly.

When I was 15, in 1975, Uncle Brian was ahead of it all: He was onto aerobic exercise. He ate well, lived joyfully, and exercised. I believe his life was full from within. I know I felt this from him and live that way myself now. He is inside of me.

He was my soul uncle, the prince of my developmental years, a man who fathered me (one can never have too many parents), and who taught me something that has saved my life many times.

He was Jewish yet did not practice in any overt way that I could ever fathom. He found bliss in opera, Broadway musicals, creating, and his cats.

I moved away from Uncle Brian and Aunt Miriam when I was 12. I left something so unique that I could only recognize  with age.

I now live with 4 cats. My mother told me she wants to come back in another life as one of my cats. Uncle Brian loved his cats, all cats.

I went back to Houston, TX for the summer when I was 15 and worked in a photography lab. Uncle Brian drove me to work in his Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, sometimes with the top down. He taught me about driving as we drove to work with opera wafting through the breeze. He told me to always focus on the white line on the side of the road at night, which would keep me safe. He was right. I have an eye condition where pigment adjustment is an ordeal at best, he has saved my life in blizzards, fogs, when high beams bore into my iris, and when the rain was so hard, and there was nowhere to pull over, a shovel for windshield wipers was the need of the moment.

Along with my father, he taught me photography by being a photographer.

It took me until my 30’s to discover opera. I did it well: San Francisco Opera House, first balcony, second row, read about the opera before I went, listened to it even.

I was mesmerized. Until then, I did not truly know opera.

 

 

Twirl

Amar Khoday

 

He was an intelligent man, intellectually and emotionally.

Several years ago he emailed me this sentence: “It only gets better.”

Because of who he is and was, because he taught me something so fundamental, he is with me in presence. It is not just memory I have with him; it is a living.

I never told him.

I experienced the closest thing to regret I have ever felt. Not quite regret, I am too human to judge things anymore. I want him to know. So, I am releasing this to him now. I do not know all the mysteries, all the answers, how it all works.

I only know that I love him and always will.

Kim

 

 

The Endless Journey-Finding the Light at the End of the Desert

Amar Khoday

 

PS. Aunt Miriam is an entire story unto herself. And, I am sure she knows this. This is what she taught me.