Crescent Dr.

When I was sad, or I couldn’t sleep, no matter the time- my favourite cure was always a drive with you.

We would drive to the top of Laurel canyon, past Sunset and Wonderland Avenue, past rows of hibiscus flowers and stone mansions, past trees that shot out rivers of shadows on a path headed to the heavens, till we reached the pinnacle. At this spot, overlooking the veins of neon expanse, we merged with  the clouds. Miles away from politicians who acted like movie villains, of nuclear war, of poisoned food and polluted air, of a planet on fire. Sometimes we would look out for U.F.O's, amidst the planes landing in LAX. If it was a particularly shit day, I would pretend the planes were U.F.O's. You would play along, which only made me love you more. 

Sometimes we would light a candle and sit on the earth, talk about the miracles we had received and the ones we wanted. Sometimes we would cry. Sometimes we were silent, and that was good, too. 

 Isn’t it strange how the most remote places can become sanctuaries?

Saying Goodbye to Shangri-L.A

Written September of 2017

As my gaze drifted over my almost empty apartment, I felt an unexpected surge of pride. This house certainly felt like the product of a distant spell, its entirety weaved out of my imagination. It’s entrance was guarded by an old, twisted tree that split into two at the roots, pointing its crooked branches at a gate. A two story bungalow, hidden from the harsh concrete glare of LA. A house with a balcony that overlooked a hidden garden path adorned with trees and plants that seemed to whisper responses to the breeze. The interior had high ceilings, dark wooden doors and secret cabinets. And in the corner of my room, a mirrored vanity room that was perfectly suited as my sacred magic space. I wanted to cry,  knowing I was letting it go- but I found a strange emotion run over my body. I silently thanked this home, for providing solitude and a brief place to heal when I needed it most. For reminding me of my magic.

And Los Angeles, my god- the city that spoke about everything, but carried nothing. A loud, beautiful, plastic, empty vessel. My formative cage. L.A was like hot best friend you can never keep up with- the bitch you want to emulate, until you find out that she has the depth of a tablespoon.

I searched deep for the feeling of loss, but it was alarmingly absent. I realized then and there, I would always be able to retain this place in my mind. As long as it could be retained in my memory, it was not lost. Why had I always assume the passage of time made me lose things?

I don’t know where this thought came from-it seemed too wise and foreign to have come from me. I tried to apply it to all the other things I had lost. London. Lindsay. Steve. And now, Los Angeles. Would I be able to visit them, in my imagination, too? Within the confines of my own mind? And if so, what made me believe that because it was in my imagination it wasn’t real? 

Loss has always affected me greatly. I remember returning home in my maroon school uniform in England, only to find four stuffed animals poached on the front step, looking disheveled and forgotten. I stormed in with rage, astonished by my Mom’s excuse.
“You are getting too old for them. You have too many.”

My 9 year old mind had created detailed narratives about these animals, given them personalities, names and character traits. The idea of parting with them was unbearable.  I silently smuggled them back to the safety of my bed, apologizing for my mothers insensitivity.

No one seems to talk about the mourning of growing up.

The older I got, the harder the loss. The loss of baby teeth and innocence rushed away. The loss of friendships that were sworn till death. The loss of moving out of London. The loss of words unsaid, moments taken for granted. Short lived loves that ended in chaos and tears. I bottle up this grief like lightning in a shadowbox, ignoring the prangs on my heart strings. Trying to face the weight of the world with a pokerface and my own lion energy, even though sometimes, there is nothing left to draw from.

The idea that there was a dimension within myself I could visit these places and things was of immeasurable comfort. A forgotten sanctuary of dreams. A place I could climb a wooden bunkbed and find myself sitting on the bright blue sky of my winnie the pooh douvet cover. I could regain the simplistic comfort and curiosity of childhood, skipping home from school and squishing paint in capsules on the floor of my moms studio. I could tell Lindsay I miss her, tell her I still use her trick to get rid of hiccups. I could go to a canyon on wonderland, alligned with a star, and hold Steve’s hand.

Time, with its unapologetic inevitability, has the ability to rid us of everything yet heal so much. An hour is never just an hour,  it is a myriad of emotions and perfumes, sounds, plans, thoughts and atmospheres..Every increment of time is pregnant with possibility, the branches of infinite reality drawn out in front of us, numerically marking each passing breath.

This space I held in my mind, in my inner world, was immune to the comings and goings of circumstance, immune to life and death and most of all, immune to time.

For My Teenage Sister

may you collect things

may you keep them in a box at the foot of your bed

may you collect things like you collected chapsticks and slime

things like love notes, pairs of headphones with broken buds

rips in your clothes,

mismatched socks and crushes’ hugs

blood stained sheets and brave new looks

that you wear out,

as armor

collect them and hide them behind piles of clothes and heaps of textbooks

and only share them,

when you are ready.

may you see what i see,

and not what you are told to see

yes, you are draping limbs and clamoring bones, knocking together like wind chimes

you are doe eyed, with eyes that borrowed from the sea

freckled like glitter and extending up, up, up to the sky

because that is where us girls, are from.

you are cities of dividing cells and

fractals of ever shifting

shimmering

light,

you do not need to pretend to be shy

you do not need to make yourself smaller

you do not need to make yourself less

may you never quiet your voice, your dreams,

your rule breaking, your music

or your hair,

may you learn to ignore your teachers red pen

may you learn to ignore ignorant men

may you hold on to your rage while it is tangible

and slam doors and kick walls

whine and scream into your pillow

scream for the girls,

scream for the women

your rage is your magic

and it will get shit done

may you pass this daunting threshold with ease,

may your dressing table become your altar

may you know that you are both girl and woman,

may you keep your fairy tales and wishes

and choose to believe in your own myth

may you fall in love and fall apart

and fall back in love again

may your room become your castle

may you enjoy the sweetness of your solitude

may you learn that within you is a vault

a crystal cave

of strength and healing power belonging only to you

a stumbled upon superpower

and only to be unlocked by you

as is the same for any woman.

may you still always be covered in a little bit of dirt

may you remain untamed

may you remember through this state of stretching skin and flux

you always have been and always will be

all girl and all woman

Trees are Angels

I am canopied and enveloped by trees, in a canyon that wraps and holds you. A fractal of nature in an otherwise barren cityscape. The stolen desert. The sky swims through shadings of indigo, pink and blue around me. I wait for the stars that wink at me and tell me secrets. I am neighbored by brilliantly magenta poinsettia flowers, bamboo and palm trees,  and I am crying. I am crying because when I have a feeling, when I am hurting, or heartbroken, or brimming with fury, I am transmuted and soothed by nature. I can come outside and hand my feelings to the trees, with their outstretched leafy fingers, and soften. And they are unconditionally giving.The trees don’t care if you texted your ex you weren’t supposed to, or how much money you make, they just give and give and give and in private moments they seem to vibrate and sing at such an angelic pitch and pace, you swear you are with god.

Sometimes I will be resting on a tree and I’ll start wishing I  could merge with it, wishing I could entwine my body with roots and skin with bark and hair with leaves, wishing I could just be an observer instead of playing part in the dramas and chaos of humans. Wanting to climb into the skin of the sea, to descend past and through all the creatures, right into the heart of the earth. There I want to expunge the toxins of the population that lives above.

Put down your phone. Reconvene with your own flesh, revisit the trauma that has made a home in your body and expunge it. Expunge it with the earth and with the fire of all the women who love too much.

Spiritual F**k Boys

I have an irrepressible urge to make everything I live intoxicatingly cinematic, deeply sensory and ferociously comedic.

Sometimes this is at my own expense, and I compromise for characters, all wild and no sense, whom will make for an epic story rather than provide safety or consistency.

This is due to my sneaking suspicion that life is a grand illusion, a massive manifestation of something more, something infinite, hugely illusory and funneled through my own limited experience and personal individuation. I crave experience and am hungry for the ungodly voyeurism of story, of beasts and burlesque and beauty. I believe we are each players, a  compilation of planetary archetypes- and our cosmic makeup will trigger and fire each other up because of what we each represent. The task is to figure out what you symbolize .

In my almost clumsy nonchalance, I seem to casually collect admirers and bore of their flesh and blood -instead seek the creatures from my imagination, which have always had more defined contours.  I do not underestimate the greatness of a single love, as the people I know are as changing as the tides, ever evolving, always capable of immense depth. If I wish to know you, I want to know every part of you, even the mangled, dusty parts, that don’t get taken out for anyone. Most people are not always brave enough for such feats.

On my quest for depth, I moved to a New Age Mecca, a virtual magnet for spiritualists, environmentalists and eccentrics alike.  I resolved to leave the long chapter of juvenile debauchery behind, an era of boys who fell from the clouds and switched companions as fast as their fingers could swipe. I was ready for something lasting and whole. Little did I know, around the corner awaited the most dangerous of all the fuckboys, the shiny archetype of the New Age: Spiritual Fuck Boy.

The player with a messiah complex.

He may be of a “higher vibration” than mere mortal women, but he seems to only frequent locations where he is vastly outnumbered by them, particularly retreats, where he can prey on their inner-seeking.

You’ll be able to identify him by his sacred geometry tattoos, jarring and discombobulating color scheme, glassy stare, and the stench of pot that enters the room before he does (he claims these are pheromones). He seems to know a little about everything, and is probably beautiful.

There will usually be some sort of polarity between blatant drug use (“only medicine, man, only what comes from mother gaia”) and shaming anyone in the general vicinity who drinks coffee or takes an advil. He knows a surprising amount of useless information about the benefits of Millet and Kale. He claims fearlessness in the face of adversity but quakes in his recycled footwear when witchcraft or feminine mystique is mentioned.

He says money is evil (so wastes all of yours), monogomy is unevolved (so recklessly engages in a multitude of skin deep flings) and treats you as if you are a mere pit stop on his extensive spiritual journey. An iridescent accessory- makes a statement, but shouldn’t be worn more than once.

He tells you that you don’t need to wear make-up, that it’s a turn off, unnatural and deceptive, even after you explain you don’t wear it for him.

These types will paraphrase scriptures and Osho quotes and use them as pick up lines, will claim to have a wide knowledge of tantra, lacking any sort of physical embodiment, but following where they feel energetically called (which is undoubtedly, everywhere.) He is, of course, hyper vigilant when it comes to his own fragile ego, which requires more delicate care and tip-toeing than tending to a garden made out of glass.

You will hear him reference his individual, elevated journey or path- which usually is a straight road to his penis- until you have exceeded your use. He has absolutely NO understanding of boundaries. He claims to be using his intuitive capacities, but unless they are located in the sacral region, he doesn’t seem to be very perceptive to any sort of feeling.  
His brand of spirituality is “Competitive Spirituality”, and he holds the idea of a higher power/god that is privatized and only available through him. If you try to discuss your own cosmology, it is questioned, criticized or simply shut down.

His guaranteed exit will be announced in the following format:

“I’ve been called to..(run away from this place,  follow my shamanic calling in Los Angeles, start a permaculture community comprised of ex victoria secret models, begin a quest to grow copious, ungodly amounts of bad marijuana, astral project out of my physical form) and I don’t think this connection serves us anymore. Namaste.”

I want to tether the rope tying me to this story, and leave the days of dancing with the solemn artifice of ‘flings’ in my rear view. It’s getting boring.

Spiritual F**k Boys

I have an irrepressible urge to make everything I live intoxicatingly cinematic, deeply sensory and ferociously comedic.

Sometimes this is at my own expense, and I compromise for characters, all wild and no sense, whom will make for an epic story rather than provide safety or consistency.

This is due to my sneaking suspicion that life is a grand illusion, a massive manifestation of something more, something infinite, hugely illusory and funneled through my own limited experience and personal individuation. I crave experience and am hungry for the ungodly voyeurism of story, of beasts and burlesque and beauty. I believe we are each players, a  compilation of planetary archetypes- and our cosmic makeup will trigger and fire each other up because of what we each represent. The task is to figure out what you symbolize .

In my almost clumsy nonchalance, I seem to casually collect admirers and bore of their flesh and blood, instead seek the creatures from my imagination, which have always had more lasting and defined contours.  I do not underestimate the greatness of a single love, as the people I know are as changing as the tides, ever evolving, always capable of immense depth. If I wish to know you, I want to know every part of you, even the mangled, dusty parts, that don’t get taken out for anyone. Most people are not always brave enough for such feats.

On my quest for depth, I moved to a New Age Mecca, the disneyland of ecovillages, and a virtual magnet for spiritualists, environmentalists and eccentrics alike.  I resolved to leave the long chapter of juvenile debauchery behind, an era of boys who fell from the clouds and switched companions as fast as their fingers could swipe. I was ready for something lasting and whole. Little did I know, around the corner awaited the most dangerous of all the fuckboys, the shiny archetype of the New Age: Spiritual Fuck Boy.

The player with a messiah complex.

He may be of a “higher vibration” than mere mortal women, but he seems to only frequent locations where he is vastly outnumbered by them, particularly retreats, where he can prey on their inner-seeking.

You’ll be able to identify him by his sacred geometry tattoos, jarring and discombobulating color scheme, glassy stare, and the stench of pot that enters the room before he does (he claims these are pheromones). He seems to know a little about everything, and is probably beautiful.

There will usually be some sort of polarity between blatant drug use (“only medicine, man, only what comes from mother gaia”) and shaming anyone in the general vicinity who drinks coffee or takes an advil. He knows a surprising amount of useless information about the benefits of Millet and Kale. He claims fearlessness in the face of adversity but quakes in his recycled footwear when witchcraft or feminine mystique is mentioned.

He says money is evil (so wastes all of yours), monogamy is unevolved (so recklessly engages in a multitude of skin deep flings) and treats you as if you are a mere pit stop on his extensive spiritual journey. An iridescent accessory- makes a statement, but shouldn’t be worn more than once.

He tells you that you don’t need to wear make-up, that it’s a turn off, unnatural and deceptive, even after you explain you don’t wear it for him.

These types will paraphrase scriptures and Osho quotes and use them as pick up lines, will claim to have a wide knowledge of tantra, lacking any sort of physical embodiment, but following where they feel energetically called (which is undoubtedly, everywhere.) He is, of course, hyper vigilant when it comes to his own fragile ego, which requires more delicate care and tip-toeing than tending to a garden made out of glass.

You will hear him reference his individual, elevated journey or path- which usually is a straight road to his penis.- until you have exceeded your use. He has absolutely NO understanding of boundaries. He claims to be using his intuitive capacities, but unless they are located in the sacral region, he doesn’t seem to be very perceptive to any sort of feeling.  
His brand of spirituality is “Competitive Spirituality”, and he holds the idea of a higher power/god that is privatized and only available through him. If you try to discuss your own cosmology, it is questioned, criticized or simply shut down.

His guaranteed exit will be announced in the following format:

“I’ve been called to..(run away from this place,  follow my shamanic calling in Los Angeles, start a permaculture community comprised of ex victoria secret models, begin a quest to grow copious, ungodly amounts of bad marijuana, astral project out of my physical form) and I don’t think this connection serves us anymore. Namaste.”

I want to tether the rope tying me to this story, and leave the days of dancing with the solemn artifice of ‘flings’ in my rear view. It’s getting boring.

Airport Thoughts

Into the mechanical artifice of a airport,

sterile, fluorescent and bleak

where my only entertainment

comes in flushes of daydreams

about falling in love with strangers

assigning stories and monumental meaning to the slightest of gestures

a quivering hand

a glance a second too long

and I dissect and observe and invent

till I have exhausted my story telling.