Mother Crow Tracks

21 Yellow Balloons

He would have been 21, so we had a party.

The hummingbird feeders were filled with too much nectar and the deck shook from his playlist on repeat. Yellow clothing buzzed like bees as we tried to remember him without thinking of the reason we had to. With the smell of salmon on the grill, glasses raised for what he loved most, I imagined him drunk. Since we’d never know, I needed more wine and one of his sweatshirts. There were yellow flowers in the pots. There were yellow flowers in the women’s hair. There was yellow, but Danny wasn’t there and it was too cold for May. 

I stumbled off the deck toward the music. I pushed the doors into his room open with my arms sticking out straight, stern and stiff in front of me. He loved classic rock. The rush of sound coming from his stereo lifted my hands to my forehead like a helmet keeping my memories in place. Why did I go in here? His sweatshirt! I knew exactly the one I wanted, too. My arms fell down. I looked up, and I saw his closet. A dial in my head turned the music down to an emotionally-induced hum. I crossed the room and walked into a white, black, and yellow wardrobe. My eyes glossed over. My feet felt numb. I stood there, cold, before reaching my hands out for two piles of his folded t-shirts. I held the stacks like they were a railing, and I was looking over the edge for something I lost. I needed a hug. I needed that sweatshirt.

When I found it, I stared at it, but I didn’t let go of his t-shirts until I heard my name being called from outside. 

“Sophie!!!!! It’s time for cake,” someone yelled. 

I took the sweatshirt off its hanger and lifted the hood to my nose. It had been washed- twice- so his smell was gone. I situated myself inside the fuzzy lining and zipped the sweatshirt up while looking in the mirror. I frowned. I looked tired. I smiled. We had the same eyes. 

“Sophie!!!!” 

I left his closet. I left his room. I stepped back onto the deck, sat down, and mumbled, “I’m right here.” 

The sound of twenty-one balloons mixed with an overcast wind wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as he would have been. I let this annoy me as I sat huddled in his sweatshirt next to the yellow balloons tied to the deck. We sang Happy Birthday to an ice cream cake, and then it was time to acknowledge where Danny had gone. My sister unknotted the ribbons. My father took out the pens. I stood next to my mother as we wrote our messages onto the yellow rubber. 

I wrote, “I miss you, Asshole. Happy Birthday,” and then we let go of the balloons. 

My balloon took a hard right turn and got stuck in the redwood tree. 

I laughed hysterically.

Danny was there all along.

"A Carnival in Higgs Field" by PhiaMeSo 

On July 4th, 2012, scientists observed the Higgs Boson particle for the first time using The Large Hadron Collider. The Higgs Boson is a giver of mass nicknamed the God particle. Proving its existence was a spectacular and revolutionary milestone in quantum physics and experimentation. "A Carnival in Higgs Field" is my over-the-Big-Top hyperbole inspired by this discovery. The poem depicts the extent of human curiosity in a dramatic display of awe and gore. Would you pay an arm and a leg to learn how life began? 

An Abstract Elephant 

(perhaps the color blue)

is steady;

it is stomping

through mounds of glitter and fumes.

Red clouds protrude

in a pitchy black sky, like fire;

they are smoldering and a touch

too hostile.

Behind it, air stiffens.

The past crackles in the distance.

And the elephant,

in its blood,

trudges through.

Beak Therapy

After my brother died, I went quickly (and excessively) back to work as a nanny because being around children gave me a reason to smile. If I wasn’t at a playground in the morning, school pick-ups in the afternoon, or reading stories at bedtime, my grief would erupt like projectile vomit. I said yes to every opportunity I was offered to babysit because pushing a stroller up a hill enabled me to push my pain down.

At the top of one of these hills was a nature museum and animal rescue site that I took the kids to often. Inside were interactive exhibits, including a petting zoo, puppet show, and simulated tide pool. On one particular visit, I was sitting on a bench next to a large birdcage feeling especially tired after not sleeping the night before. I was in charge of only one child that day. He was busy building with Legos in the engineering lab when I found myself dissociating into a bad day dream.

In my peripheral vision, I caught this big, black bird staring deep inside my soul. As I turned to confirm what I was seeing, the noises of the museum muffled into the background and there was only the Raven and Me. 

With storm-grey eyes clouded over with insight, the bird stood there like a statue, until I asked it, “Do you want to be in there?” 

Stillness broke and feathers ruffled as I watched its rage build. This scarred creature clicked its tongue and violently shook its head. Pacing the length of the chain-link, it answered me with might and main, and yet, I hadn’t felt so calm in so long. 

We spoke the same grief-stricken language, and we were both furious at the cruelty of witnessing utter tragedy only to have it replay in our dreams every night. This decrepit crow preferred to be dead, and there I was- a zombie- praying that I had been the one to die instead. So, I sat and I cried in silence while this angry bird limped back and forth, cutting the air with its beak and protesting its salvation.

For the next year, I returned to that bench any chance I got. It was therapeutic not to pretend I was happy, and the raven gifted me that. I could say anything to that blind bird and it could see the real me. To this day, eleven years later, whenever I see a raven, I think of my surly but favorable friend from San Francisco, and I take a moment to honor my brethren and the solace he brought me. 

~

Trudging along 

under the umbrella redwoods

Dodging slugs 

through thick and petrichor

Animating the womb 

on the precipice of motherhood

~

One Week Past Due: I was anxious to meet my unborn child, so I hiked up a mountain to jumpstart my cervix. Perhaps it did the trick, or maybe I was simply too pregnant to go another day, because the next evening at the stroke of midnight, when I got up to pee for the 11th time, my water broke. Instead of sounding the alarms, I snuck back into bed to quietly contract. I hoped to give my husband as much sleep as possible before he possibly never slept that many hours in a row again. At 4 am, though, I couldn’t mute the imminence of an all-out labor any longer; it was time to go.

I don’t remember loading myself into the car or driving to the hospital, but I do remember sitting in a hospital bed, drinking ice water out of a very large, plastic jug. After stripping down, peeing in a cup, and dressing in my birthing gown, a nurse asked me if I wanted an IV inserted… just in case.

Did I?

I was shaking with adrenaline and I was too scared to answer incorrectly. I planned on pursuing a “natural birth.” If it were up to me, I’d skip the unnecessary IV. But self-doubt led me to freeze-up, so I looked to my husband for an answer.

Just in case.

They inserted the IV, which surprisingly did not phase me.

I sat in my hospital gown smiling like a nervous child, collecting my wristbands as we waited in triage. I had been managing the first phase of labor just fine, and I was gearing up for the more brutal rhythms ahead. I imagined the ring of fire to be like a hot rush of acid surging through my thighs in the last stretch of a marathon. I was hankering for that oxytocin rush at the finish line, but the most I had ever ran before was 12 kilometers. Naturally, I was terrified of how badly it was going to burn to run so much further to finally meet my baby.

At around 6am, the starting pistol fired, and we were escorted into the birthing room. The hospital offered me a volunteer doula, whom I happily accepted the support of, and I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember her name. She came and left in the heights of my labor as a soft and kind presence. However, I am a pathological people-pleaser, and she was a stranger to me. I fell into an old pathos and desperately sought her approval. In all my naked vulnerabilities, I needed to impress her; I didn’t want to let her down. She was there to help me accomplish my dreams of becoming a birth warrior, but as each hour passed, I felt more and more like a birth failure. We tried every technique in every position, from applying ice and heat, to massaging my lower back and spending hours in a shower. Sitting on the toilet brought on the most dreadful of contractions, but it was unacceptable for me to become dehydrated, so I continued sipping from that big, plastic jug of water despite knowing where it would soon seat me.

My back labor was accompanied by aggressive cluster contractions. Even the word excruciating doesn’t give justice to that kind of relentless pain, but I was determined to birth my baby without the help of drugs. My “flexible” birth plan would not allow it. But as my labor grew increasingly unbearable, I developed a secret desire to receive an epidural; shame grew alongside that secret. I fluctuated in and out of feeling like a capable, super mom to feeling weak and pathetic for ever thinking I was strong enough to see this through.

At one particular low point, I paused to witness my husband silently crying, and I knew without a doubt how much he loved and cared for me. He later told me how hard it was for him to see me in such agonizing pain; I received his quiet tears like acknowledgement for enduring it.

I was at the halfway mark- sixteen hours since my water broke- when I finally gave in and asked for a break, “Is it ok if I have an epidural?” I hyperventilated to a nurse, defeated and ashamed.

Next thing I knew, I was lying on my side with an anesthesiologist attempting to insert a needle into my spine. I have a tattoo, though, of a fertility goddess on my lower back, and because of her imperfect symmetry, it took him about thirty minutes to insert and reinsert the needle until it was finally in the right spot to administer the epidural. I withstood this cruel charade during the worst of my contractions while attempting to keep my body as still as possible. After the 35th jab, the needle finally stuck, and within moments, I was starting to feel a euphoric sense of relief. For the first time in twelve hours, I took a pain-free breath. It was so delicious and cozy.

At some point between asking for the epidural and receiving it, the volunteer doula had slipped out, but not before reassuring me that my choice to medicate was a perfectly acceptable one. Then, a woman came in to fiddle about with my cords. She left the room while casually saying that she had just added some fentanyl to my cocktail.

Enjoy!

Fentanyl? Hey, I didn’t ask for that!

But wooooooh, I guess my body did; I was flabbergasted she did that without my consent, but I was also starting to giggle.

My mom and sister cruised in to find me looking droopy-eyed and a bit too calm. My legs felt like a pile of glue, and the chaos of the past twelve hours was like a distant memory. I wasn’t going to be able to participate in the delivery of my baby in this numbed-out condition. Getting some good rest brought with it some fresh perspective. I was there to do one thing, and one thing only: bring my sweet little sunshine into this world.

I had to try again. In my mind, it was high time to get this show on the road after what felt like a very long and unsuccessful day. I asked the anesthesiologist to lower my dosage in order to have better control of my muscles along with some more sensation in my legs. Eventually, I could feel my womb contract again, only these contractions were nice and diluted. I could roll over and pull myself up onto my legs, so I hugged the back of the hospital bed in a deep squat. I balanced my weight between the top of the bed and my arm pits as I did everything in my power to hold my body up and bare down.

For two hours, it felt like the baby’s head was crowning! It felt like progress… But when the doctor returned early Sunday morning, she creeped her fingers inside of me and rolled her eyes. “The baby hasn’t budged,” she sighed, seemingly annoyed I was still there from the day before. I felt like I was inconveniencing her with my unproductive labor on her weekend, but I found out years later, after running into her and her toddler at a grocery store, that she had been a couple months pregnant at the time. But after pushing unsuccessfully for two hours, I had embodied her prenatal exhaustion as my own maternal shortcomings, and I fell into a tragic tailspin.

After all that, the baby hadn’t descended; it was no use. I was incapable of getting my baby out. Failure coursed through me as I sat in the hospital bed and bawled. My husband was worried about my mental state, so he left to retrieve my sister from the waiting room. When my sister entered, she attempted to console me, but after what I had just been through, her positivity made me angry. I asked for my husband to return to his spot by my side. I felt deeply bonded to him as he could testify to the tribulations of my labor thus far, and he understood why I felt so demoralized by it all. He knew how much I deserved that dark hour.

The nurses gently reminded us that we had surpassed the 24 hour mark since my water broke, and we needed to expedite the process so as to not risk any infection. Talk of a C-section began, and I was mortified at the prospect of it. When planning this birth, I left no room for epidurals or c-sections, and I had already crossed one of those boundaries. 

Why couldn’t my body do this? It was supposed to be able to do this. My mom had five children, and my grandma had six. Why couldn’t I have one?

I dramatically recoiled from the idea of surgery, so a high risk birth specialist was asked to come in and assess the situation. They referred to him as “the guy they called when things go wrong.”

At 6am, he walked in, calmly introduced himself, inserted his fingers into my cervix and asked me to push. I pushed; he said, “You can do this.” I immediately felt energized and confident, and I agreed with him. I could do this. He explained to me that he was going to use a vacuum to assist me in delivering the baby, but that a gurney was ready in the hallway just in case.

When the next contraction began, so did we.

I pushed while he pulled. He heaved and I roared.

Good. Good.

I was doing good.

Take a break.

I caught my breath and adjusted my upper body for some more traction.

Here we go. Get ready! …and Push.

I grabbed the bedrail to my left and my husband to my right; I inhaled like a violent squall and I exhaled like an animal as the baby's head exited my vagina, taking the first breath---

Only for the vacuum to slip off and for his head to get sucked back in again.

The room erupted with panic. Nurses swarmed in.

The doctor screamed, “PUSH!” as he reached inside of me with both his hands.

In slow motion, I saw my sister in the background, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth in prayer, so I looked in between my legs, and I became the sounds of a bear… right before everything went, POP!

Like a cannonball, my son was born.

According to my husband, he was blue. He describes the next twenty seconds- believing that our newborn was dead- as seeing a “golden, ethereal mist” lingering after the “flotsam and jetsam” of my body settled.

The nurses had immediately whisked our baby away, and I was in an odd state of consciousness, so before I knew it, I heard crying. They placed my baby on my chest to latch, and I wailed, sang, and laughed hysterically in celebration.

We did it!

I was mesmerized.

My husband was pale and visibly petrified.

But I was jubilant!

I swooned and cooed and slurred some lullabies as my baby and I bonded by sweaty skin and oxytocin.

About thirty minutes had passed with me in this blissful state when the doctor looked up from in between my legs and said, “All done.”

I was stunned to learn he was still there!

“All done with what?” I asked.

He paused uncomfortably. “I’ll let the nurses fill you in,” he said as he grimaced with sympathy.

I had sustained a 4th degree tear through my rectal wall; the doctor had been sewing me up through layers of muscle, tissue, and skin. I was oblivious to this surgery as I breastfed and snuggled my blood-splattered newborn. My baby didn’t exit my vagina one shoulder at a time as expected and intended. He was born by the width of his two shoulders, his arm, and a grown man’s two hands. His birth wasn’t gradual; it was explosive, and my perineum became debris in the wake of his entrance.

One of the nurses said it was the worst tear she had seen in all her twenty years of working on the Labor and Delivery ward. It was shocking to hear the news of my torn lower half because I still couldn’t feel much of anything. I reached my hand down to discover unimaginable foreign territory touching my fingertips back. My vagina felt like Frankenstein’s biceps- all swollen and stitched up with a catheter draining fluid from somewhere inside of it.

I attended physical therapy for the next year because I was completely incontinent. It took me three months to sit without wincing, six months to regain control of my bladder, and a year to teach my rectal muscles how to hold in a bowel movement again. I felt completely obliterated by the experience of becoming a mother. I had strode into that birthing room pregnant and ready to squat, bounce, and sway my way through the ring of fire, but a day later, I rolled out in a wheelchair, incapable of doing any of those things, let alone sit. And the term ring of fire took on a whole new meaning after my first postpartum bowel movement. Now, more than three years later, living with painful sex, rectal spasms, and inflamed scar tissue is a new norm I’ve come to accept.

My son’s birth was injurious for him as well. When the vacuum slipped off his head, it lacerated his skull; and 4 weeks later, I discovered benign tumors growing in his neck. The trauma of being yanked from my birth canal caused him to develop an extremely rare medical condition called bilateral fibromatosis, resulting in a case of torticollis and limited mobility on his left side. He needed several months of physical therapy to help stretch him out. Eventually, the tumors dissipated into his neck muscles, and the only lingering effect is an aversion to climbing at the playground.

My son and I fought his way out of my womb with a nasty case of shoulder dystocia; we were both wounded, but we arrived victorious in the end. As I reflect on his birth story now, I remember the strength it took for me to labor unmedicated for hours upon end, to keep my body still through the contractions in order to receive an epidural, to lift my drugged up lower-half into a reverse squat to push for two hours, to give up entirely only to try again like a beast and both survive the blast. Over the course of my thirty hour labor, a series of snapshots were branded upon my memory- all of them are concentrated, most of them are distressing, and the very last one is perfectly sublime.

~

I wrote “A Birth Story” because it’s only one of so many. Most new mothers strive to celebrate motherhood and their postpartum bodies with pride, confidence, patience, and intuition, but the reality is, birth is synonymous with trauma. Of course, some births are more traumatic than others, but with every birth, some degree of damage is inevitable, and far too many mothers are expected to repair themselves in sacrificial silence.

Re-telling my traumatic birth doesn’t re-traumatize me the way telling other stories might; sharing “A Birth Story” reminds me that I deserve the title, Birth Warrior. Despite giving in to the epidural, despite needing the assistance of a vacuum, and despite opting for a c-section my second time around, I am undoubtedly a birthing champion; I have the children and the scars to prove it, and I will never regret signing up for the fight to become a mother.

~Sophia Elizabeth

Broken Record Epiphanies 

I will be sitting

slump-stumped

inside my stalking-staring eyes

when the doubt-lump dumps

choking back the why-why cries

at the wallows of the weeping-wheel

(swallows of just keeping still)

feeding my past every meal-

and I’m still sitting here.

I’m still sitting here

stuck.

Stop!

I’m a lost mess.

I want to stop this.

The table top is spinning,

and the test is really thinning,

lapsing-lack of really grinning,

mope-esteem, “I’m never winning”

and my knees I see

with my head down.

"Please, can I 

stay down here and hide

without ease?"

I scream, this mess

is getting old,

older, and older.

I have to get over,

be over, jump over

this chewing dissipation

sitting staring

always guessing

never living

always giving

up against the woes,

stepping over every toe

while ignoring what’s real-

this day, tomorrow's gift to feel

to do something new and go beyond the fining dues,

defining that thing new 

outside the red 

wipes my blue’s

crop.

Stop!

I’m a taut mess.

I want to calm this

constant over-whims

singing tarnished hymns,

flip-drip my lazy sins,

and my conscience comes in bins,

and I haze even 

strepping over mazes.

The lines will cross my mind

and I’m going through crazes,

temperature in phases- it phases

cuz now I’m getting cold, colder, and colder.

It’s time to talk slow, slower, and slower

cuz now I’m old and cold, and I’ll only get older

than this shaken, shivered self.

Without much sense, 

she deviates.

Her aura is lost; 

it palpitates.

Her every-eye

insinuates,

Those stealing lies will meet their fate

to which my sorrows congregate

and move my under-rest a bit.

The bullshit gets all of it.

The bullshit gets all of it

to make me head on my new day

as though there’s nothing in my way.

And now it’s time for me to say,

Stop.

I'm a deep mess,

need a deep breath. 

Then my calling calls its calling,

and I feel I might be falling

in love with my past.

The bullshit made me last.

I stand up

on my feet, 

with my head up.

Hear me speak.

"I am abreast

of my mess.

It is me, on

repeat." 

An Exchange of Change

I once met a Greek woman

who asked me calmly and without pressure

(but with the epitome of invasive interrogation)

who I was to become in my cosmic journey.

Alongside my singing-a-song-maybe-following-through, hope-to-carry-out and into the day I do 

what I keep on saying I will say and do,

she took my shifty claims into a tingling parade 

to keep me from playing a tune 

of frivolous frowning, flip-flopping

against the broad beliefs of my mouth. 

She mutilated my doubt, 

blending our words into concise grit and grout,

holding my tiles in place with her spear,

her questions welded my ears,

as though happenstance and present glance

couldn’t be any more near 

than all this change 

I keep talking about 

-her prophetic spindles 

piercing my skin  

with inner rehabilitation,

generously jilting 

the dawning of masks-

Only to return home with more bread.

“An Exchange of Change” was written in the years that followed my brother’s death~ sometime between 2011 and 2012~ when I lived in San Francisco as a nanny by day and a spoken word artist by night. I processed my grief by writing, painting, and performing a slew of confusing but impactful poetry in local tea shops and warehouses. What remains of this distinctly artistic phase is a flimsy, faux leather briefcase stuffed with a hundred or so poems and a small collection of paintings.

“An Exchange of Change” was written the moment I returned home from a taxi ride after the driver altered my emotional trajectory between the Mission District and my Inner Richmond neighborhood. She was blatantly and proudly Greek, and at the click of my seatbelt, she zeroed in on my soul and drew me out of the back seat.

I hugged my purse against my hip and fingered a loaf of bread while she asked me what my purpose was, why I was breathing, and where I was going.

Initially, I fumbled in my answers, alluding to my grief like an overarching excuse,

but she was as patient as a doula,

and by the time her car turned onto 11th avenue,

I knew there was more to my madness

than being angry and sad.

So I thanked her with praise,

feeling full and ready

to pursue my life

instead.

~

I’ve included the poem, “An Exchange of Change,” in the Birth Stories issue of Mother Crow because it signifies how uncertain but hungry I was to feel my own pulse in the years that followed my brother’s death. I was nauseated by my own voice, and completely clueless to how it had been conceived, but I knew I wanted something more than my self-loathing, self-harming habits. I lapped up any insight available to me- from therapists and shamans to bench dwellers and taxi drivers. I felt incessantly fragile as I traversed the city looking for myself, writing and performing poetry in my frantic and child-like language. Poetry was my attempt to unearth the true me from beneath the rubble of my grief and crises.

I imagine you feel slightly confused, a little skewed, and possibly horrified as you stumble out of The Fun House and into the light.

The majority of poems featured in this issue were written in the witching hours of my early twenties- a time when my words swerved past traditional semantics.

Once in a purple moon, insomnia would push me to the brink of insanity, barely functioning with the use of masks by day and then spiraling into a disheveled pile of panic by night. In retrospect, I can see how well my art captured my immature and dissociative psyche; how freely I could express myself through the nonsensical and the sensational; and how I spoke in a secret language to protect myself from reality.

But no one wants to stay overnight in a fun house. It isn’t fun. It’s chaotic and loud and emotional and disorienting and scary, and it does not resemble a homey abode in the slightest. The bedrooms are hard and restless with flashing, fluorescent lights, and the only utensils in the kitchen are a whisk and a butcher knife. After three consecutive nights, I would cascade into a waterfall of self-pity, or self-loathing, or skin-crawling. I would search for myself in the mirror only to find my brother, or my mother, or a blurry face staring back at me. After the fifth night, I would see spiders in my lashes or hear people calling my name. By the seventh night, I would finally collapse into a deep sleep with the help of a loved one and an Ativan.

~

Poetry and painting have been spectacular outlets for me in managing my mental illness, heartbreak, and grief. I metaphored my way through a carnival of anger, shame, purpose, and flames while I developed an identity in inverted, supplemental pieces. It took me ten years to solve the Hall of Mirrors, to accept the obstacles in front of me in order to exit the maze, and to balance myself upon a shifty ground before I could ever leave the Fun House. I could have never done it alone either. I have held several loving, helpful, and therapeutic hands along the way, giving me the strength, support, and tools I needed to escape my lunacy with confidence, order, and a solid understanding of why I was there in the first place.

Although I still feel a little dizzy from all the spinning around it took to finally find my way out, the sleepless nights of my troubled past are far different than the sleepless nights of today. Overflowing with breastmilk, teething woes, wet sheets, and stuffy noses, I sleep better now as a young mom than I ever did as a young adult. I now have what one therapist referred to as an “heirloom seed” of understanding myself: I can return to The Fun House anytime, but I know where the light switch is, and I have stolen back the key to the control panel.

A call to arms against a stranger, my reflection deflects my skin. Unsavor,

I see

He and She, but not I,

the maddening monsters within.

His Death Is.

If I could depict what it feels like to lose a walking angel, a man who held a family together, a fatherly brother and a brotherly son, an unearthly child, the golden one, I would paint a chasm in my chest of horror and grace.

If there were any answers as to why my brother died when he was so vibrantly young and alive, it would be that death and life are one in the same, and that death can birth, nurture, and discover as much as it can erupt, consume, and dismantle everything in its way. 

Our new lives began when his life ended. 

We are a family raised by death’s chaos and wisdom. 

To his mother- the one 

who carried his life 

into creation-

his death is 

the opposite

in its irrevocable destruction. 

To his father, 

his death is 

a concrete demolition,

but the rubble that remains 

can be collected 

for restoration. 

To his sisters, 

his death is 

a bridge,

guilty and suspended,

where the roles 

left behind 

are to recreate and mend it. 

To his brother, 

his death is 

a reenactment 

on a stage 

with cloudy mirrors and a hole 

to shovel out the rage. 

And to the baby, 

his death is 

an upbringing

made-up 

like a bed-

timed story  

about colors and numbers and the name

of his family’s past glory. 

His death is

the reason 

his mother is partial and sad, 

his father rebuilds from ash, 

his sisters are juggling,

his brother is flipping,

and the baby has grown up too fast.  

~

Gnosis is KNOWLEDGE.

Knowledge is BLISS.

~

Plato knew knowledge

- like the sun-

has the power to obliterate

silhouettes of perception.

~

The Importance of Shattered Innocence

As the protagonist in a story comes of age, their innocence will undoubtedly be lost, betrayed, shamed, maimed, or corrupted along the way. The story’s resolution is then defined by that character’s development, or how they choose to evoke their evolution from ignorance to enlightenment in future chapters of their life journey. This recurring theme reflects a universal narrative as we all navigate our own coming of age stories across obstacles of immaturity, insecurity, adversity, and post-traumatic stress.

Growing pains are a lot like maternity pains- no emotion goes unfelt and everything hurts as we expand into unknown territory and face a new phase of our existence. Fortunately, growth goes hand in hand with newfound perspective, and the knowledge gained in the process helps to make the tribulations of change worthwhile, acceptable, and even sought after.

I posit that self-awareness produces more bliss than ignorance… albeit a bit more brutal and honest in its methods. Knowledge has the power to obliterate our current sense of self, essentially demolishing one reality and replacing it with a more profound point of view. If we can survive the blast and absorb new information rather than deny it, stability, peace, and happiness can sprout from the wreckage as we become more evolved versions of ourselves in a healthier society.

It Took You Dying For Me

My brother, 

this poem, as you already know, 

is like the time I always cried, 

and you'd say, 

"Hey. Stop it. You're fine. 

Just shut up and take it on like your right."

because my knees were being weakened by lies, 

and I was

(I am)

an emotional pile.

You taught me to just chin up and go,

sprint through the obstacles,

work hard,

and invent fun with an expressive blow. 

It makes me feel guilty to know

that I feel stronger now than I ever did before

with you as my angel protecting me,

whether you're a cosmic entity 

soaring in your soul

or just in every tree,

it took you dying for me to find me. 

You represent honesty 

with fearless strength 

and supercilious command

hammering the fear out of me. 

I was crippling my mind

and you said, 

"Get over it and smile.

You are beautiful-worthwhile .

Our bodies are strong

and we were built to carry on.

Stop wilting this gift. 

Don't deny it."

and it took you dying for me to hear it.

Knowing Forward

I had 

a family, 

and then I knew divorce. 

I had 

a childhood, 

and then I knew hormones. 

I had 

some friends, 

and then I knew their spells.

I had 

some lovers, 

and then I knew betrayal. 

I had 

a brother, 

and then I knew his death.

I had 

a crisis

and knew my train had wrecked.

I had

loneliness.

I knew not where to go.

I found 

a partner

who knew me through my hell. 

We made

our babies, 

and I knew a mother's kiss.

We are

a family, 

and I know this to be my bliss.

Look to the Angels

I was walking amongst leaves that had fallen down  

to goeth forth and find a place to sit and wait quietly to hear their own furious, crumpled sounds.

That’s when I saw a glistening crown with its listening bow. 

It strained the stress from my wrapped up limbs, and it beamed bright light into my strangled sins, striving to be let in. It's a temporary given 

when you're given the gift to give in to the dancing, distancing now 

where his yellow, 

this light, 

the Sun’s energetic fight, 

allowed my eyes to hear the color and the paint within my ears 

to switch their imaginations by swapping anger with tears.   

This flooding took place and filled my cup to just right. 

It was a weight for my scale  

that generally tipped towards fright, 

or the flight, 

or the plight, 

but my bitter, broken sight balanced for a moment screwed tight 

by this outspoken truth turned soul, body, and shine. 

I had been veiled by the moon looming (taking cover under the gloom swooning)

when my angel boy threw me this loop. 

Sun rays started swarming as he ripped up my chin with his fist, thumb, and grin, 

and he leaned in to say with the breath of his death and the strife of his life, 

his beauty to my moody melting my frigid ice,

“Look always up and out. 

Watch change pacing from the clouds in the air. 

Now remove your still stare 

and take yourself anywhere that is there.”

Memory Drops 

I hope it's just my fear

because I guess you are better up there 

but I see your face 

and I have heaviness 

sink 

in

and I cry 

because you are not here 

and you are the only person I know who lived

right in the right here, right now.

Now

you are gone.

The body is gone. 

Thee Body

is gone.

A holy angel who rocked 

and rolled every breath 

is gone

before he was ever 20.

A baby

was denied greatness,

seethed and suffered, 

was purified speechless

with no way out of his own gutter.

He refute,

put the boot in 

his fate

and jumped off so he could run.

So, I keep to my thoughts

changing pace with every memory drop.

The tears fall into and past the fog,

and I'll know for that moment

all has to be good

while half is bad.

It's just karma

and Danny's not dead.

For all we know

death is life,

and we are all much bigger.

We just have to learn how to be small first.

Metacog-Nascence

Puberty delivered a guttural urge to have children.

It was complex, military, and fueled by trauma.

I wanted to glue my family back together with my own materials, from my own design, and in my own voice, but my voice had been buried like an unwatered seed, and I battled the soil and sun,

until the day

I was reborn

a mom.

Midnight Messengers

Ravens, along with the other corvids in the Corvidae family (including crows, jays, and nutcrackers) are wise, resourceful, and loud. 

Their coats are the colors of char-broiled rainbows, and like an oily puddle in a parking lot, their feathers scintillate in the sun. When the sky cracks, or the bushes rustle, these spiritual mediums unsettle from their branches and wires and fence posts and fly onward like murder being silenced with a crack of lightning. 

These birds are the beakpieces between the dead and the living, and while the dead lack breath, the living lack clarity, and despite how thin the veil between these two realms may be, we remain ignorant to the afterlife that they know so well. We would be remiss not to seek their wisdom to guide us through loss into fortitude. They carve our human form into the midnight sky- illuminating our constants and curves- predicting our demise as though it were molting in the shadows. 

Living creatures were born to die, making our mortality as much a part of life as the blood that circulates it. Death may lurk like the grim silhouette of a worst nightmare, but a raven’s rawness in expressing and accepting that fate makes them exceptional grief counselors. They welcome our morbidity, downfall, and despair as inevitable rights of life, and they are keen to converse on the most harrowing of topics because we were all meant to die. 

Moon Message Under a Shroom Canopy

She follows the sound of a wet winged fancy.

He gives in to the no-reply.

Behind all masked faith

(in beat, in dark eyes)

he saw the world sitting on her shoulder,

and therefore,

couldn’t hold her. 

He steals the wheel steering her night

while she dances to the shadows of his fury.

With stale beauty stirring,

temperament fluttering

temporarily, 

hungrily

tearing away

as a mental case to be observed. 

So she sips a new magic

to alter Habit’s habit,

and The Moon arises to say,

larger than sight,  

“You Have Been Bruised 

By Only A Small Sum Of Your Journey.

You Reflect Yourself As A Storm-Struck Kite,

Busted. 

And That’s Not the Mirror’s Fault. 

It’s A Self-Loathing, Self-Assault.

You Siphon Air In A Rush, Worrying.

You Hunt Yourself Down;

It’s Time To Turn Around, Slow Yout Hurry.

DANCE YOUR OWN DANCE OR BE BURIED.”

greasy 

plumes

dirty

iridescence

murmurations

slice the sky 

like spirits 

air narrows

between the dead

and the living

don’t see it

exposed 

shadows

spread 

abreast

cause 

curvature

weather

the dying bird’s 

raw nest

“The obvious hooey of it all really/ could never just be/ the idea of it all being/ nothing/ which is the same as everything.”

Oily Eyes on Ice 

I was not sleeping, with my cheek

pecking kisses

on the slabs of a bench

when I watched you walk by. 

I was not close to you.

Your eyes emanated from the middle of your head

when you looked up

a pale and sickly sight

most others turn from

your glance,

even dread.

It was oil and ice spilling from your oily eyes

saturating mine

wide open.

You said

without saying, 

“Don’t listen with your ears, but your heart.

Don’t see with your eyes, but your ears.

Think with a head that could never be dead,

And be weary of what you digest in fear.”

I shed a few layers and sat up to watch you go 

walk away 

into the trees...

When I first heard about dissociative identity disorder, around four years ago, I was already deep in the process of ordering the disordered side of things. It could have been alarming for me to hear that I had what is more commonly known as multiple personality disorder, but my therapist introduced it to me as a more appropriate diagnosis than bipolar disorder with care, tact, and two year’s time.

Neither he nor I believe I have multiple personalities.

I have ONE massively, multi-dimensional personality.

I can, however, identify with and confuse others’ emotions as my own, especially if my nervous system is in a hypervigilant state, such as when I am sleep-deprived, flushed with cortisol, socially overstimulated, or triggered by an unhealthy ego. 

Sometimes, my thoughts race so rapidly, the world around me slows down to an underwater crawl, and I float through it instead. 

Sometimes, my space, face, voice, and point of view slips out of reach while the need to be exactly right for someone else directs my compass askew. 

Sometimes, my body is blurry in a crowded space while the tones, expressions, gestures, and subtext of others has me consumed. 

Sometimes, my senses are just too fucking amplified.

Sometimes, I skirt by 

wide-eyed and terrified. 

Sometimes, I hide out

because I can’t figure out, 

“Who am I?”

~

I have also split into “alternate versions” of myself, either becoming small like a child, or ferociously controlling and wild, or foaming at the mouth, self-loathing and vile, or androgenous or depersonalized or…

Veronica, a super confident, uninhibited alter who has done things I never would. 

My memory is highly concentrated and intense but also quite spotty and sparse, like a damaged film strip. Most of my memories are more emotional than substantial due to the number of years I’ve spent dissociating from them.

For fifteen years, I was told that I had bipolar disorder (without ever feeling bipolar.) It had been rationalized that I was experiencing multiple episodes per day, or something called ultradian rapid cycling, when in fact, I was traumatized and desperate for the right lexicon to define the complexity of my psychology. It could be argued that acquiring the correct knowledge about myself mixed with particularly acute metacognition, or an awareness of one’s own thoughts and actions, cured me of my disordered state.

Despite how brutal it can be to learn hard-to-swallow truths- whether it’s about family, friends, your partner, or yourself- I believe a better version lies on the other side of ignorance. As my therapist once reassured me, an identity that can dissociate from a place of awareness can also transform the original catalyst for disorder into a healthy and productive tool for empathy, boundaries, and artistic expression. This is something I call, Dissociative Identity Order.

The key to this post-traumatic transformation was in meeting my motherhood and understanding where it evolved from. 

Laying bare the refurbished art of my immature past is the next step in healing my soul from the years I’ve spent living my life unbeknown.

Welcome to the show.

Pitter Backtracking

She’s a paranoia stricken, type-A squirrel.

Her temperature is dropping in a wise dome’s whirl.

She heats the freeze, and at the same time, spins

hot thoughts into a web of ice 

cold wind. 

Sir Topham Hat 

whistles at

the flies walking by,

surging in a saunter 'round a rotting mind’s eye

like a lost train’s engine

seeking extra wheels,

she sighs,

     traction.

Her spokes creak and leak,

tires peel

                       track

backwards

                     to the darkest corners of her head.

and if time has told a story,

she will just say 

what she once said.

Welcome to The Fun House

Inside

you will find

mystery and metaphor,

mania and rhyme, 

twisted up

memories

conjured

in the middle 

of the night

Enter and insomniac's waking dream...

As I scour through my old poetry and reflect on my past, it is clear that I’ve already declared ownership of my voice and reclaimed my identity…

10 years ago, as PhiaMeSo, just as I’m doing now as Mother Crow.

This Time Around, Though

The difference is

I’m not stuck 

in between myself

inverted and backwards. 

I’m a loud bird 

oversharing my message 

clenched tightly 

between my talons.

Untitled 

i see me in a mirror as though I’m new every time.  

she never knows I am her

ultimate sight

awaiting

all my forms

jumping into a new life,

a new home.

Habitat-tat-tat,

grow old,

flap flap, 

wrap up your sap and sing hotter than that. 

Cuz we are birds 

from all the dino scat.

Ashes mate with mud and horns;

our spirit animals masturbate 

between life and death

cycling

birth with each new success,

damned to pass the test 

to be free 

in our minds

restricted 

by bodies 

intertwined.

Everything becomes

Me 

You

We

All 

always one but also 

two, three, or a hundred and some.

We dance together and unite units

(the ones that drive us)

with our bodies to survive us

before we go 

POOF! 

Waste Pasted Porn Pies 

You rubbed my jelly to keep it warm,

saying all that you could to 

blind me like a newborn. 

Now the stooge

spirals inside of me;

I can’t seem to forget their old fling and every god damn thing 

they did.

I am hidden 

beneath the bedding,

where the wise old crows who sing at me, sing:

Holding you back,

We are 

holding you back.

Taking you back,

We are 

taking you back

to the bakery of those frosted days

where their lies were decorated

sweetened with a fantasy glaze.

The stooge became my booby trap.

Center stage started to crack, 

quiver, 

fumble, 

then 

collapse.

Ruminations 

consumed. 

“Fuck you, sleep!"

I am

but beneath

the doom. 

A Wide-eyed Explanation

The words were never the point. 

I didn't write them to make sense to anyone other than me.

They are the burdens of my mind,

of my adolescence,

of the affairs that threw me down 

rabbit holes of despair,

of my social demise;

of my gibberish,  

written to reimagine myself 

as a wise old owl 

inside a cracked nut 

or a rose

in a no-wonder land.