The sun is setting on our eyelids, so listen to the cadence above my ribcage

something wicked lies here. dormant.

beating the shit out of my insides just to remind me that it’s there.

I am a werewolf.

I walk into the daylight with scratches that came from the darkness of my pores

but I swear, I never wanted to die.

I was 14 years old, barely breasted this thin wrist kiss to kitchen knife on my yellow bedspread with white flowers, no red flowers, no blood,

because it was just a kitchen knife

and I was just seeing how thick the stubborn skin was.

the second was a lady’s razor

the third was an exacto-knife

the fourth was a box cutter, which to this day I still have- it is rusted.

Like ofelia I am attracted to water,

blue handle, red blade,

I have thrown it away twice.

Sent its demons to slice its shadows

waiting until I missed it –the rip- I missed it.

Most people see box cutters and think airplanes, think failed security, think rectangles and pentagons.

Me? I just see red lines like lipstick.

more addictive than cocaine; This is dependence.

Stripped of pipes and filters I am captivated by straight strokes and sharp edges.

My father has been dry for fourteen years, and he tells me,

“An alcoholic is always an alcoholic, and sober is just another word for thirsty.”

my hands are too thirsty to admit on paper the last time I etched regret into my leg because the blade is still in me, this sickness is still in me,

and everyday it calls to me to open up and let it breathe.

I have felt it dancing like the devil in the belt felt metal kissing tissue

howled temptation into my scars when the moon was blackened out

carved “I am better than this” on the inside of my thighs and in the morning the scars just read “Weakness.”

My own fingers are abusive.

So shoot me with a silver bullet,

hold my hands away from their victim.

I do not have layers of eyeliner and teen angst.

I am not a little girl just looking to get looked at.

I do not walk down the street, or across it. I just live there.

This is like breathing in pine pitch.

It’s like the shower water is gasoline and you’re playing with matches.

It’s like looking through a stack of needles for a piece of daylight.

It’s like saying it’s a rusty nail, saying it’s barbed wire, saying it’s a cat scratch-

it’s telling your mother it was an accident.

It’s not doing the one thing you want to when you know it only hurts yourself, so why the hell not?

When all you want to do is break like bones, and go into the drawer that isn’t ever opened anymore.

I am not looking for pity. I have baskets full.

A am not looking for attention, there is a reason you don’t see any scars.

I think it’s sick that this remedy requires something to be broken

veins enclosed with red fencing.

I do not believe the band-aids are healing.

They are just another layer.

This is just another way of feeling.”

Here is zombie Kris

 

 

 

it’s two a.m.
the emergency room psychiatrist looks up from his clipboard
with eyes paid to care
and asks me if I see people who aren’t really there
I say, “I see people…
how the hell am I supposed to know
if they’re real or not?”
he doesn’t laugh
neither do i
the math’s not on my side
ten stitches and one lie..
i swear i wasn’t trying to die
i just wanted to see what my pulse looked like from the
inside

fast forward one year
i’m standing in an auditorium behind a microphone
reading a poem to four hundred latino high school kids
who live with the breath of the INS
crawling up their mother’s backbones
and i am frantically hiding my scars
cause the last thing i want these kids to know
is that i ever thought that my life was too hard

i’ve never seen a bomb drop

i’ve never felt hunger …

i’ve also never seen lightning strike
but we’ve all heard thunder
and it doesn’t take a genius to tell something’s burning
the smoke rises between us
forming walls so high
they split the sky like slit wrists
and then the stars fall like blood
we’re all left with nothing but a death wish

he said, “call me by my true name
i am the child in uganda all skin and bone”
do you remember the rest?
how about this one…
jesus wept
america, jesus wept
but look at your eyes
dry as the desert sand
dusting the edges of your soldier’s wedding bands
look at your soul playing dead
because your ribcage is abu ghraib
is san quintin
is guantanamo bay
and your heart had beaten them so many times
they bleed the moon

do you know children in palestine fly kites
to prove that they’re still free?
can you imagine how that string
must feel between their fingers
as they kneel in the cinders of our missile heads
you can count the dead by the colors in the sky

the bough is breaking
the cradle is falling
right now a six-year old girl is crutched in a ditch in Lebanon
wishing on falling bombs
right now our government is recording the test scores
of black and Latino 4th graders
to see how many prison beds will be needed in the year 2015

right now there’s a man on the street outside my door
with outstretched hands full of heart beats no one can hear
he has cheeks like torn sheet music
every tear broken crescendo falling on deaf ears

can you see God’s face from here
eyes so full of despair they
cry hurricanes and fifty food tsunamis
doctor, our insanity is not that we see people who aren’t there
it’s that we ignore the ones who are
till we find ourselves scarred and ashamed
walking into emergency rooms at two a.m.
flooded with a pain we cannot name or explain
bleeding from the outside in
our skin is not impervious
culture’s build on greed and destruction
do not pick and choose who they kill
we all fill the graves

do we really believe our need for Prozac
has nothing to do with Baghdad,
with Kabul, with the Mexican border
with the thousands of US school kids
bleeding through budget cuts that will never heal
to fuel war tanks?
thank god for denial
thank god we can afford the makeup
to pile upon the pretty world
look at all the smiling people
and the sky with a missile between her teeth
and a steeple through her heart
and not a single star left to hold her

and the voices of a thousand broken nations saying
“wake me, wake me, when the American dream is over”

This is a must read series! This series just gets better and better with each book.

The Mercedes Thompson Series is a series of urban fantasy novels written by Patricia Briggs that follow the adventures of Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson, a Native American shapeshifter who was raised by Werewolves. The series is set in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state in a world in which Werewolves and certain types of the fae have been forced to reveal themselves to the public. The series follows Mercy, a VW mechanic by trade, as she learns her true nature and is caught up in the affairs of the local werewolf pack, led by Adam, the Alpha who lives next door, and the local vampire seethe, a member of which she has befriended.

Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson/Hauptman, the daughter of a Blackfeet Indian and a white teenage mother. Mercy is a mechanic and a “walker”—a Native American shapeshifter who transforms into a coyote, sees the spirits of the dead, and has an inborn resistance to most magic (vampire or otherwise). She bought her moderately-successful and beloved auto repair shop from Zee, a member of the fae who is glamoured to appear as an old man, who was forced to reveal himself to the public.

Adam Hauptman, the Alpha of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack. He lives next door to Mercy, and at the opening of the series, they have a playfully antagonistic relationship. Adam operates a well-known security firm and is divorced with one child; a teenage daughter named Jesse. It’s eventually revealed that, in order for Mercy to live in the Tri-Cities without danger from the local pack, Adam claimed her as his mate in name only prior to the beginning of the series, though his feelings had always been more than friendly… apparently even during his unsuccessful marriage. Adam is a dominant wolf, and fourth in line for the title of the Marrok. He is described as having an aura of power and sophistication, as well as being “hot”.

Jesse Hauptman, Adam’s teenage daughter. She, at the beginning of the series, divides her time equally between Adam’s ex-wife, and Adam, though by the end of the fourth novel, “Bone Crossed”, she becomes a permanent resident. Jesse is a very outgoing and optimistic girl with a tendency to dye her hair unusual shades to receive a reaction from her father.

Stefan Uccello, a vampire who is also Mercy’s friend. He owns a VW bus decorated like the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo (despite the canonical Mystery Machine being a Chevy van). Stefan was alive during Renaissance Italy and is known as the “Soldier” amongst other vampires. Stefan remains the only vampire searching for an alternative food source to human blood. His feelings for Mercy are a point of conflict in the series, though he shows great affection to her at various points in the series.

Samuel Cornick, Son of the Marrok, who knew Mercy while she was growing up and tried to marry her when she was only sixteen. He comes to live with her, but their on-again, off-again romantic relationship is one of the early core elements of the series. He has graduated from medical school various times and works at Kennewick General Hospital.

Bran Cornick, The Marrok, is the Alpha werewolf of all the werewolf packs in North America. He took Mercy in when she was a toddler and helped raise her. It is because of him and Mercy’s foster parents that she knows more about werewolves than she has to.

Zee, aka Siebold Adelbertsmiter (Adelbertkrieger), is the fae who previously owned the garage Mercy runs. He is a Metallzauber (though he calls himself a “Gremlin”), a fae with an affinity for metals. He moved to the United States from Germany long before the term “gremlin” came into being.

Darryl, a werewolf who is Adam’s second in the pack and mated to a werewolf named Aurielle. He is a mixture African American and Chinese bloodlines, and a lead scientist at a research center.

Warren, a homosexual werewolf (who is dating Kyle, a well-known divorce attorney) and one of Mercy’s closest friends. He is also Adam’s third in the pack.

Ben, a werewolf exiled from London for being a suspect in a series of brutal rapes that placed unwanted and unneeded attention on the London pack. Adam accepted him into his pack, and he was soon initiated as an official member of the Tri-Cities pack. Ben is described briefly in “Moon Called” and “Blood Bound” as being a sexist character. It was only later in the series that we discover that he was abused as a child, which could possibly be the cause of his prejudice against women. By the end of the third novel, “Iron Kissed”, Ben proves to be a different person than he portrays, and confides in Adam about how he wants to be friends with Mercy, but doesn’t know how to, as she is female.

Kyle Brooks, a human and the best divorce attorney in North America. Kyle is one of Mercy’s closest friends as well as Warren’s boyfriend.

The books are:
1 Moon Called (2006)
2 Blood Bound (2007)
3 Iron Kissed (2008)
4 Bone Crossed (2009)
5 Silver Borne (2010)
6 River Marked (2011)

Number 7, which is not yet titled it coming out 2013

 

Do you Celebrate Halloween or Samhain?  If you do celebrate, what do you do?

 

I found this video and it works.

I was not able to do it using FireFox browser but was able to using google chrome.

 

How to get gender neutral pronouns on Facebook using Google Chrome on Mac OS X

 

I got a new hair cut today. Here are pictures to show you what it looks like