291: Insatiable

Insatiable

To dig out and find the inner pieces

To gnaw and break apart what is

To salvage every last bit

And swallow each morsel whole

The remnants each

The pearls of fiery ache

Heated and raw

Glistening

I bleed upon me

Droplet by droplet

Guts and nodules sucked

Marrow disintegrated

Upon tendered flesh

Burst by spidery-spindly fingers

Man’s brimming bounty

Enter, I demand

Like captive to prison

Trapped and chained

As thorn upon finger

Pricked

Each cornerstone

Every last portion

Impregnated in plunder

Every finger tongued

With saliva secreting

Till decimated carcass

Thusly seasoned

Pampered

And evaporated

By jagged teeth and forked tongue

By teat of slurp

By throat of swallow

By reticulum of beast

Be gorged

Menaced by murderous mouth

Drowned in bile and brain

Tethered alongside passing mortality

Outcries for mercy’s reign

As I nurse upon my release

Unyielding pillager of plentitude

Until

With the severing of last limb

Young haughtiness returns

Obliterated-nothingness spawned new

Into fierce inferno blue

A setting sun of satiation

All carrion turned soot

And I

Carved through and vacuumed

Am tar-feathered firm

Made pierced gull without sea

To endlessly roam

In the gaunt hauntings

Of unyielding want

~ Samantha Craft, January 2013

sun trail

279: Golden Phoenix

I am very sad about what happened yesterday with the shooting. I used to be a school teacher, and a close friend lives near the school where the shooting took place. I also have young children. My heart goes out to the parents, families, and the entire community where this tragedy occurred. What I find interesting, with me, is I have so much angst and fret over this shooting that the event has caused me to go into a type of mental hibernation.

I am feeling a loss deeply in my heart and physical body, but at the same time I feel myself distancing myself from the tragedy, as the media upsets me with their need for profit and exploitation of people’s lives and suffering.

Also, there are many other people suffering in the world, and I believe my focus should be on everyone, not just a select group of people.

I find myself confused by my emotions. And I am in essence escaping into a fantasy of love and lust with my muse. This is my place of retreat. I delve into another place, another life, a time where everything is about love and being connected in union.

At first glance I thought I was being heartless, concentrating on my lust and passion, after such a great tragedy, but then I realized I was doing what I know best, what I have always done when the emotions are turned up too high and when reality seems too unfair and unkind to remain a part of: I escape into my own world.

Today, I will likely listen to music, write poetry, avoid the media, and try to refocus on the light in our world.

This darkness has a second-degree of power, how it holds the ability and enticement to pull us all momentarily into the dark and sense of hopelessness and fear. I refuse to go there. For me, this means continuing my life as is, while carrying love for the nation and world in my heart.

I cannot focus on something so terrible. I see no benefit in this. I see benefit in focusing on love and the goodness in our hearts. The vast goodness we have as a collective. It troubles me terribly knowing that so much pain is broadcasted across the screens.

I pray for a time that “bad news” doesn’t sell. I am feeling somewhat lost and disturbed by some people’s reactions and focus.

I felt I had to explain myself, as my poetry seems off topic based on the nation’s current focus. However, I am on topic, in my own way, just trying to escape the heart pain in the best way I know how, without harm to myself, to others, and without further spreading sadness.

May the light of the world outshine the darkness. And may we find comfort in the beauty around us.

Golden Phoenix

If golden exists as word to behold

Then golden you be

The phoenix feathers of sunlight

Wrapped around my tethered heart

Your blanketing wings

Beckoning the insoluble desire

Voracious in form

Beneath my blood

Dissolve me, not

In the substance of you

But place me

As living testament

In flask upon burner

Fire upon me

With the twist of your mind

Bring fingers to the edges of my glass

And pierce me atop the flame

Of unspoken truth

Watch as I boil

Trembling

A liquid amber

Transformed into the crimson of deepest longing

Watch as I burn

Not within, but without

As captive trapped empty in transparent walls

Transform my yearning through your burning eyes

Delve with a sultry cusp of want

Feed upon me with your lost covenant

Leave me wanting and scorched

Then transpire the dreams beneath the dreams

Find where I stand thin and quaked

Outside of time

Outside the fire

In the smoke rising

In the air breathed

Take me into you, then

As all liquid dissolves and escapes

Take me into you

With lungs embrace

Blanketing babe

Beyond the flesh

Beyond the bone

Move me

As soothing river

To every crevice

Every corner

From the tips of extended fingers

To the edge of grounded heel

Until bursting

This phoenix child

Of Indigo eyes

And Ebony wings

Flies forth

Gasping for home

~~~

By Samantha Craft, Dec. 2012

 

272: To Be Home

It has been said that people who have Aspergers are deep thinkers and poets. I think for me this is a definite truth.

Sometimes I just sit and write whatever pours out of me….well often I do. I see pictures and images, and see a story created in my mind, and I also hear the words. I feel the rhythm of each word and syllable. It is smooth, unless I write the “wrong” word, and then I feel a huge stop, or barrier in the whole of me. This selection I wrote this morning in about fifteen minute, or however long it took to type. It is, to me, the longing for connection, for another, for the missing piece to be filled, for the agape of the creator or completion of the lover, though lover in essence is not completion. It is the heart’s cry to crawl out of the illusion of one and the isolation of desired recognition, the want to be seen and to be unified and brought back to the place of whole. To be blanketed in everlasting love. To be home.

Today I have this monster of angst and unsettled sensation stirring and grumbling inside of me. Like an emptied stomach craving a food it cannot imagine, cannot picture, cannot name. Only he roars nonetheless, told by another unidentified form that he is hungry, though he knows not the essence or meaning of hunger.

Today I have the demon of demise wrapped upon me, sitting on my lap unopened and uncared for, his hauntingly spirit enticing my delight. I long to reach into the unopened and explore, but know too well the finger shall be ripped and torn, and I, left to bleed, will weep for what was touched without end.

Today I snore in silence, my trumpeting sounds of slumber unheard, and thusly unmatched, unconquered and unquenched. I am territory that lays barren, untraveled and unclaimed. I wait, this land I am, for victim to unravel and unfold upon me; so I may, too, unravel and unfold and sleep beside, a spoon to spoon, a treasure to hold and keep; until the sun comes and I am but shadow upon shadow, a vision of myself in the coming light.

Today I spawn and spin, dazzled by your substance, which I cannot touch or breathe, but in your name. And words alone do not fill me, only deplete, so I am hallowed once more, deeper and deeper into self with only your thought. I cannot dance with you; I cannot bend myself into the latitude or longitude of where you stand. Though my desire deceives me, I wish upon the star of you like no other, and long with every scaffold of my lingering heart to climb upon you and feel the ever pounding of your being.

Today you are a vision dressed in the white of memory, unreachable and distinguished, high upon high; so distant that the thought of you still flies with broken wing to find where you begin. I cannot think upon you without being pulled back and hidden behind a barrier. I cannot envision you without seeing the bleakness and black and torrential rain. All about the dancing birds sing, and yet their calls are as the demon’s last meal, broken into bones and crushed in misery of the masses.

Today I scale the mountain of my own desire and stand face-to-face with what I have thusly named you. And how you stare at me through a tunnel within a tunnel, carved out of stone of the Gods. I hear them calling you back to them, and yet I remain screaming, as if my name, my place, my stance could pull you back against the darkness that pulls your thicker and thicker into the spinning weight of now.

Today no name, no wish, no answer is found, because all about you have climaxed and advanced, beyond the space of my imagined time. You are but whisper, hidden ghost between the sheets and layered curtains of nonexistence. You haunt me with your beauty and majestic ways; you entice me time and time again, an ocean rising at the peak of me, my lady parts, and then departing like a serpent eating through my soul. My organs bleed, my skin opens, your darkness enters and feeds again, and I am left less victim than willing participant in the horror that seems home.

Today I beseech you king of mastery, the pillar of my mind that falls as domino sweetly planned, the steep and valley set upon a table for child’s play. Knock me down, one by one, a mountain crumbled upon itself, the pieces separate but together, clanging and tumbling in a makeshift play created by the creator. Watch as the stumbling begins, as the one upon the next beats down to the final destiny of end.

For Today, at the end point you shall find me. The last to be fallen. The last alone. The singular hitting stone, when all else hit each other. Oh to be the starting point, the first, the beginning touched by your grazing hand. Though slapped, and forgotten and used for your design only, to still be shaken by your very hand, least the last dying domino in a line of soldiers forgotten.

Today, I bid you farewell, buried beneath the whole of me, siphoned and forgotten; and with each goodbye that comes and goes, resurfaces like the endless tides, I bid again, in dying breath; my last words the echo of my discernment wept and lost, my judgment buried, that which rests beneath shadow of hope, the darkened space forgotten where dreams die in the dungeon of invisible.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A short poem written before the previous selection, this morning; my first attempt to remove the angst inside. This is about confusion of emotions, of the confusion of being, of the not wanting to be seen and shaped by others as something I am not. It is about physical and mental pain. Before today, I didn’t say what my writing is supposed to be about. I think it is beneficial for the reader to take what they want from words and leave the rest. But for some reason, I needed to explain today. I don’t know why. I just do. Perhaps to make this life seem more real, and you more connected to me. I haven’t edited any part of this or changed it. It is a poem of thoughts and processing.

I’m on my couch, laptop in lap, a redundancy

I’m on the couch, hands hurting, as they do, with the onset of any suspicion

The body is up to something, some little bug or minor fixing

And thusly I am made captive to the lingering pain

Not right, not on, not balanced, and my frail substance bleeds

Calling out for the memory of form

The memory of childhood wholeness

I’m on the couch, and the clock ticks, his neighbor black fridge hums

A scent carries from somewhere and everywhere

Something stale, something clean, something cooked

Scraping of my bones matches the pale scraping of my eyes

As the lashes clash and sting, their delight in the dancing dust

I am a vision to behold onto myself

When all about the world spins and I am left as prisoner freed

On tiny island

Where river no longer rushes through, but salt of air tears in between the blue

Feed me your sanity

Feed my your joy

Pour the essence of what is right and just into the soul of me

I cry out to the universal prose

The poet that hides inside the caverns of my hallowed grave of sorrow

Chase me down to the corners where I weep

Come find me, lost and barren

The babe of my youth sucked out with the tentacles of divine crucified

By hungry mouths that feed off of pain and badgered sorrow

I am but child fed upon by the worldly ways

Nibbled piece by piece

Dissected and set out to dry in chunks of unsettled misery

And you, are victim doubled

Your shattered dreams set upon the wind

As if the substance of nothing will blow back to you

In the absence of time

For there is nothing good

Nothing real

But the vision of the love I carry

And too, you needle this out of me

Siphon upon serpent siphon

And sting me once again

With the wicked ways of me

Tear down your mirror

Tear down this reflection you pounce upon me

Chisel me whole again

Excavate my ruins

Bring me out of the hidden mass

And revere, behold, befuddled me

Make me into the man I am

Before turning me into the demon you demand

——–

Samantha Craft, December 2012

Day 154: Forbidden Quake

Forbidden Quake

You are my cherished blanket from the youth of yesterdays

Soft and angelic, crushed in scent of celestial echoes

As stripped cherub, I curl placidly into the grooves of your cotton kisses

Locked in silence between the touch of poetic eyes

Yours and mine, blended in cradled rapid whirling angst

Able to touch only within the dreams of treasured midnight hours

Draped as wild virgin surging beneath your ocean mantle

Opal-aqua, evergreen, woodland thick and meadow wide

Water to water, shore to shore, oak roots to trickling gumdrops of soil’s moisture

Beneath me you rest, shadowed by this caller, sprawled out in innocence

Pillowed between bedazzled hunger and the starched sheets of reality

This gift made perfect for the beholder, a birthday suit tailored for one

And stretched through the fading image of fear into fountain tingles

Splashing, nibbles of magenta magic, intermingle with berry coated cake

Wear me, this mangled dress of charm, dancing beneath your cherry light

Wear me, upon your heart’s lips, a sensual memory of glossy bright

Your forbidden treat, the cream in the drink of life swirled round you

Taste what is before you, before the bell awakes, and the layers are worn thin

And waxy remnants scorch the naked bed where flamed burned through

Come hither, pulsing knight of mystery, I bid you unravel your threads

So you may weave again your rainbow colors into this quaking mettle of desire

Day 126: Strawberry Eruption

Maui 2012
Blessings

This song says it all. I’ve been living inside the melody and words. And for those of you who say this was before your time, I stick my tongue out at you!

I have at least eight people I would consider very close friends, and two powerful friendships that are just forming. Some close friends I have known for decades and others a couple of years. My close friends, I can honestly say, feel the same about me, as I do for them. I’m not “blessed” with friendship. I worked darn hard to have my friendships—I studied relationships through books, movies, and even took courses. I learned how to be a good friend; more importantly, I learned how to be ME!

I found out a few years back that I’d rather have one true friend, to be in a relationship in which I am entirely authentic, than to have hundreds of superficial relationships. Years back, when I had a major crisis in my life, I found out who my true friends were, and learned the hard way, through emotional agony, that just because someone attends your social gatherings and chats you up in public, does not mean they truly care about you as a person. I am pleased to say, I have a circle of loved ones that care about me for me. And I, too, love them for them. Once I have a friend, there is pretty much nothing that friend could do to pull me away, or make me stop loving them. My friendship just keeps growing; unless, the relationship is unhealthy and deemed non-beneficial in my eyes; then of course, it is time for me to say goodbye, and be thankful for the bond we had.

Maui
2012

This post is not about ends, though. This post is about the beginnings of friendship.

I know now, through much trial and error, that ultimately, if I am not true to me, and walking a path of authenticity that I am ultimately being accepted for someone I am not and be rejected by ME. I know my light. I know my beauty. I see this reflected in the mirrors of my friendships. And in this beauty I have extreme confidence that I am a worthy person, loving, and actually pretty darn cool to have around. Of course, I am highly aware of my quirks and intensity. My eyes are wide open as far as my personhood and spirithood is considered. I understand, too, that only some are able to be my friend, those with the capacity to cup in their hands my true, very bright light. I used to adjust my light to fit the person. I’d dim as to not be so bright—in essence self-implode and crawl into the darkness to appease. I don’t do that anymore. If anything, I turn my light up higher when I enjoy someone. I have learned that I would rather face a million rejections than to be loved for someone I am not. For ultimately, if someone loves me for a shadow of myself, they love only the air beyond the light. I want to be loved for me. Amazingly, I found out, this attribute of shining my true colors is a quality many people appreciate. Don’t get me wrong, I still get hurt. I still get rejected. But the beauty of being me makes up for the passing ache and pain of loss or misunderstanding. I long to be me. I am me. And I adore me.

However, being the light that I am…sigh…sometimes the feelings I have for someone are so very intense that I know not what to do with myself. Usually the intensity is brought on by a definite knowing and soul-connection. Sometimes the other person feels the same, which generally leads to an easy and wonderful relationship. Other times, a person does not understand the heart of me, doesn’t see me for me, and then the experience is less easy. It is then I feel somewhat isolated in my experience, like I’m a two-man act standing alone or perhaps dragging my friend along the yellow-brick road when she would much rather be at home.

Lately, my feelings are on overdrive. I don’t know what has been happening to me at a soul-level, precisely. I can feel what is happening, but I can’t describe the sensation with accuracy. It’s akin to trying to describe the feeling of giving birth to a child, that feeling when I first saw my child’s face. I can’t describe the experience, except to say I feel like I am staring into a part of me, a beautiful part of me.

Maui
2012

I wrote this last night. It sums up how I’m feeling somewhat:

“I am turned on by love. I can’t help it. Everytime someone says the word or writes the words love, I get this erotic sensation all over! It’s crazy making, in a good way. I am turned on by love songs. I am actually eating the songs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have no want or desire for food! I’m only eating to keep healthy and fit. Not for pleasure. I long to write poetry and prose all day, to take photos of nature and people, especially older people with stories etched across their face. I long to be a part of the water, to be in the water, to paddle across and feel myself move on the ripples. I long for connection. I want to read people’s stories, to hear their truth, to comfort, to connect, to love.

What have I missed all these years with my eyes and heart closed; some slave to fear—some scared cat clawing at her own fur before another could attack? I’ve missed thirty years. Not completely, but entirely; in the sense that my heart has been encased in some large trap with large teeth and large angry eyes. Made prisoner for decades; three to be exact. Never before until today, did I know what it felt like to sit by the water and just be. To be one with nature. To watch the birds, to understand why people watch birds! Even the lake water sang out to me—the ripples an erotic symphony of sensual pleasure. The trees are greener. The air fresher. I am breathing for real. Taking in air and filling my lungs with the sensation.

What miraculous and grand alterations have transpired. What journey I traveled to get where I now stand. Not one regret, for the journey was worth every step to lead me to such ecstasy of life. I am vibrating with a wonderful energy, some forty-something mom, transporting in time back to the era of love-child. Everything and everyone is beautiful. Everything on earth a miracle. And I’m drug-free. This isn’t some hallucination or even a high. The feelings are all over the board. I have intense joy and bliss coupled with a deep empathy and love for all my surroundings. I am dancing inside poetry and music. Dancing inside every song I hear. I am understanding lyrics for the first time—the intensity of the longings, the heart-break, the unquenched desires. I am understanding, too, the limitless depths of the human experience, and how much fear feeds as a blanket to the beauty of life.

My hands are vibrating all day long with a gentle and uplifting tingle. My eyes and skin continue to glow. I look younger. I feel younger. My physical pain has decreased. I am attracting beautiful souls from all over the world. I am so thankful! When I try to worry, for the most part, I can’t. There is some sort of mental block. To even say I am trying to worry, seems so ridiculous! But I actually cannot think about what could be considered common-day problems. They all seem so insignificant. All I want is love.

I must be radiating because strangers are starting conversation with me, smiling, waving, even turning heads. I can’t stop smiling. It finally feels easier to smile than frown. I can’t stop thinking about life and how wonderful life can feel when fear is released.

I don’t know how I got to this state. This feeling has been gradually building since the beginning of May. The salty waters of Maui intensified the feeling, and returning to the healing green of Washington put me up another notch. I am submerged in joy. Excited about life. There is so much I want to do. And so many people I want to embrace. I am wondering where to begin, but then not really wondering at all. It is more of a feeling of excitement and newness, like a child being let out of a cage for the first time.”

I am naming the sensation described above: The Strawberry Eruption. For at the center of me is an erupting fruit.  Maybe it’s that whole second chakra thing I scribe about on day 124. Or maybe it’s something entirely different. I really don’t know. I’m just riding the wave—this little bursting berry.

During this wave riding, I’ve connected with two online friends. My first online friends, ever. That I’ve met them both at the same time is powerful and balancing. Each offers unmistakable gifts. This letter is for them, and for everyone really, for at some level, I feel this unyielding love for every being, a desire to embrace the world, and all the loveliness found within each spirit.

Maui
2012

Dear Friend,

I love you. I am so glad we found one another. I am happy. I am at peace with our friendship. I adore you something terrible. That’s the only way I know how to love—to adore. My love for you doesn’t come in shapes and sizes that differ. My love is just one gigantic bubble of joy and glee. I long to skip in the sunshine with you, to swing on the swings, to climb trees, to run barefoot through the sand, to collect seashells and then listen to the sound of the ocean within, to giggle, to dive in the water, and come up with the whole of the universe upon our smiles.

I remember you from long ago, perhaps a dream, perhaps a memory of what I planted in my mind. Perhaps you are from another place and time with another me, or perhaps, too, I have met you a thousand times a thousand times before. I know not where or why you are here, but your face I remember, and especially your eyes, whether from dream, fantasy, or distant time, is no matter. Only now matters.

But I do have concern. I am concerned that my intensity of soul and my engorged heart shall frighten you away. And like the little bird I long to touch that sits upon the tree outside the river’s edge, that you will fly away the closer I approach, that you will fly higher and higher into the sky of blue, until you are only a droplet in my memory. And then I shall weep deeply, mourning with every part of me the loss of precious you.

You see, I know not how to love, but deeply. I know not how to breathe, but with all of me. Every part is filled by your light. And in seeing your light I cannot help but be drawn to you again and again. I do not long for recognition, not even companionship, I long to continually look into the beauty that is you to be reminded of how glorious my own light shines, to see the mirror before me of truth and awakening, and to delve inside the image of pure loveliness: for I am you and you are me.

Dear, dear friend you are a passageway to my soul, to eternity, to my dreams and to my desires. You are the greatest gift. And I ask that you try to understand me, try to know me, and see that my intentions are none but to love you for everything you are. For you are the promise I have waited for.

Your forever friend,

Sam