One Day Off...

When all chance of hope has gone beyond reach and all chance for valor is lost- when hours of midnight turn round and round the pulse of wounds long healed- what then? When idle comes the day, and yet your spirit never rests, through thought, or pain, or hardship, through times of sleep and the false distance played of living out time in a mortal world- When there is nothing left of strength to keep going- What then?
Not to fall back into a comfortable cage, where the weary rest and feed while interested visitors observe and comment in simian tongue. Not to bow head and beg, nor whisper twisted prayers of appeasement and apology.
Not even to show a flicker of pain on the skin- no- never.
What then?
In the last minutes, when ever they come, how ever many times they come, whatever dance of repetition and dominion they cast over shuttered eyes- When staggered is what was once the steady beat of strength-
There is laughter. What lies before, behind, above and beneath becomes nothing, an ant, a gnat.
"Small chance of success, almost certain death- what are we waiting for?"
And here is where lies the difference between those we walk with and those we walk among.
We walk among those who shutter their hearts and hustle through, into a world of their own making, into comfort, into a dance of days without the beat of the aerie. We walk with those who always hear with their hearts the other beats- the beat of the war drums, the last thunder of the hearts of the dead, the space between the seconds- where all things truly lay....
All beginnings are endings, all endings beginnings, and everything that lies between is an illusion.
When idle thought stills the heart, and no more do the trees and sky sing the heralds- then, do we lay still? Fail? Fall?
How many times must we fall and rise, on bloody hands to stand straight- to look the enemy in the eye and smile, teeth shuttered in red, eyes shuttered in steel…
What then?
What then!
Let the hour of midnight come round once more, it is our time. Let us stand before the dawn hours among out own kind. In this place of no honor let us scream our names out for lord and land, for kin and tribe, for blood and honor, for one last time let us raise our blades above our heads and scream!
And then?
What then?
When the dust clears, and the smell of blood settles. When the song of steel lays quiet ion the air and tree song, bird song, breath song returns, we look around at each other and see who stands.
And again, even though we have laughed and expected death, have laughed at our chances, even then- we count ourselves still living, still standing, still having shield and sword.
In our hearts we know as long as we breath, there will be valor, there will be honor, there will still be a world just our of sight and reach of this one where we are welcomed home- where we will go in the some days of our endings on this world.
Across the void brothers and sisters I call to you to answer- to lord and land, come.
To lord and tribe! Come! To stand beside the valorous, to stand beside the last hero, the last king, the last warlord…. To each of these and thou, to be called to come and stand.
Come and stand!
In our voices raise, let there be thunder, let there be glory, let there be valor. Let our throats scream blood raw with joy and rage, with pain and ecstasy, and let we raise our fists sheltering steel to a sky we will never understand…
And then, only then….



I do not know if I can describe the world I live in- but it is not yours. I know, when I see you, I think of what I need to do to make you see me as one of your own, so that you will pass me by. Then, if I am lucky, I will be able to remain hidden, and return to my own place, my own world. When I see you, I watch you, to see if you are watching me close enough to catch the thought behind the face. The nice smile, does it disarm you? Make you think I am engaged with you? Maybe I am and maybe I am not- it all depends on how I assess your threat level, your social position, the power place you see yourself in. I have learned to mimic your gestures of affection, of submission, of surprise, pleasure, sorrow, pain. I have learned to mimic you as well as something can that is not you. In my world, we rub our heads against each other, press our faces against hair, to signal affection. We smell the air, to tell if we are safe. In my world, to hug, is to capture. To kiss, is to come too close to the face, threatening to bite. In my world, to meet someone’s eyes when you are speaking to them, and insist that they meet your is to demand they freeze in fight/flight/freezing panic, helpless to react by leaving, backing away or otherwise maintaining the right distance. From my world, standing in your world, to be touched by one of you is to instill instant confusion. In my world no one touches or is touched without invitation and permission. When you touch me I freeze, knowing that if I react as my nature tells me- to jerk away, to snarl and return the threat- I will be punished in some form, either by social ostracism, or verbal reprimand. So I submit to the torture of your hand, freezing, knowing I must neither run nor fight back, but paralyzed to do anything except hope you pull your hand away before I break.
I do not know if I can describe the world I live in, but it is not yours. In my world, one never touches another, unless the hand is seen, unless the touch is offered and accepted first. “May I touch you?” your kind never asks. My kind would rarely need to, my kind would know- you do not touch us, not unless you are our most trusted lover, or closest friend who knows the hidden language of our flesh. Our flesh speak is not your flesh speak. To be polite, as well as safe, we will never look at you when you are gripped by emotions that confuse your responses and thoughts. We will let you be. But you will not let us be. You demand we smile and speak and move our eyes the right way, greet those who are hostile to us, demure to those who have the power to harm us. You demand we stay where we are not safe, where we are watched, where we know we are in the hunters scope, surrounded by peasants with torches. You demand we stay!
Would you demand a tiger stay? Would you demand it pull it’s own teeth, it’s own claws, erase it’s stripes and learn to squint it’s eyes and smile while it wagged it’s tail, exactly like a domestic dog.
That is exactly what you ask of me when you demand I talk in your language. The language of your face, your body, your gossip, your small talk, your ‘social niceties’.
Is it no wonder that we flee from you, and you seek to punish us by ostracism, entrapment, and eviction from our safe places.
I can describe the world you demand I live in. It is a fake world. One of gossip, bickering, deceit, harm, hatefulness, lies and manipulation. Sometimes there are brief moment of cross over, where one of you looks at one of us and sees the wild one, with the blazing heart and mind. We always are looking at you. To look is to learn, to learn is to learn how to act, to act is to pass. To pass? Then you miss us.
We have many names. Weird. Eccentric. Unbalanced. Anti-social. Offensive. Rude. Other....
Many more names. I have many names, many identities. Mythic names....
You have names to us too. Cruel. Hateful. Mean. Herd animals. Talking monkeys.
And yet, it is demanded of us, we who know we are not of the same language as you, that we adapt and become like you, so as not to bother you. We are medicated, trained, harassed into changing who we are, so as not to bother you.
We do not bother you. We simply are not you, and you have chosen a society in which all who are not like you, are not different, no, they are against you.
How hateful.
Is it any wonder we would rather run with the animals? Is it any wonder the cats I live with speak my speak, the dogs I know speak my speak, the birds, the fish, the trees the lizards- they all speak my speak?
Did you forget you came from the ape and monkey tribes? Did you forget the mountain gorilla, mandrills, the greater and lesser apes? And before them, did you forget the bears? The mammals, the reptiles, the fish the protozoa?
All of them talk in scent, in gesture, in my language.
I can not describe my world but I can tell you, it is not yours. I can not find my way into your world, but I can tell you, I do not want it. I can not take you to my world, but I can tell you, I am not alone in it.
There are many of us. In alley ways, on street corners, in small, inoffensive jobs, hiding from your fists of medication and ‘communication skills training’, and lists of other such words that mean one thing- we are a threat to you. Our world is a threat to the structure of your own.
We know we are no threat. We want to be left to live in peace, to find each other, at most, to be permitted to walk freely in your world. We were born into it exactly the same as you. We are as smart, as capable. We can do many things, be many things. All we want is to be allowed to live out our lives as who we are, without your condemnation, your medication and your judgments.
Somewhere there is a field, lit with sun. The air is fresh. The trees are green, and the shadows deep. There is spring water, stone, caves, fruit, food. The people of my tribe gather there, to live out their days in peace and harmony, rubbing faces with loved ones, tasting the skins of friends, smelling the imprints of self. We run in the hills, sleep under the stars, and look to your cities with puzzled eyes, our mouths red with blood we innocently take. As you look towards our tribes with your puzzled eyes.



I am “weird”.

I live in my own world. I do not know if I can describe the world I live in, but it is not yours. Neither can I tell you of my language, except that it is not yours.

I do speak English, and was born and raised in California, in an English speaking home, so I can not say that English is my second language.

Human is.

I don’t speak human at all.

Which leads me to other questions that I asked people. “When you talk to others, are you acting? Do you really care? Are you genuinely interested in small talk?”

I don’t care much about other people. I’ll qualify that. I care about my own. I learn to care about my own, more or less.

I don’t think I care as much as others do. I don’t think I feel as much towards humans in general as others do. I can have a sense of tragedy, and with it, compassion, but there’s a huge part of me that is watching, thinking.



As a kid, I liked to play by myself. I was a dragon, a fish, a snake, a wolf, a vampire, a horse, a bug, a virus…. Not a princess, or mom, or nurse. And I will clarify, I didn’t pretend to be a dragon, I was one. I became one, I felt scales, claws, I thought in dragon speak, I saw others as ‘not dragon’.
Kids did not like to play with me much, which was pretty much fine. I liked to play what I liked, they played other stuff. House, bad guy good guy, stuff like that. I wasn’t ‘stuck up’ I just liked to play alone. I liked to talk to grown ups because I thought they were really interested in what I wanted to talk about. I thought their attention was genuine, when I wanted to talk about c-sections (I’d watched an early morning educational program that detailed surgeries), blood components, the life cycle of butterflies, Luna moths, planets, and so on. Whatever I was currently absorbed in. I realize now most of them probably thought I was entertaining with my being a little ‘know it all’ who couldn’t pronounce the big words right, but I really did know my subject. Anything that captivated me I would read to death, and think to death then think on it some more. “Pagurus”, Hermit Crabs. I learned the life cycle and Latin names, and checked the book on them out of the library so many times my name filled up the whole library card taped inside it.
While all of this was going on, my neighborhood kids/friends were riding biked, playing house and generally doing things that bored me to distraction.

In school I either held onto the yard duty and hid behind her, or got lost in the field catching grasshoppers and picking up rocks. I found fossils. I learned about fossils, and sedimentary rocks. I could tell you every type of grasshopper in that school field, each wing color variant, as well as they life cycle and what marked the change from nymph to adult. I could tell male and female grasshoppers as well, and was able to tell the difference between the locust types and grasshopper types, as well as crickets and katydids. I mimicked their sound when they flew, and spent hours lost watching and stalking them.
While everyone else played on the monkey bars and with big rubber balls. While the talking monkeys played, the strange one hid.

I didn’t meant to seem ‘stuck up’. I didn’t mean to speak in big words and talk forever on a subject. I didn’t know I was being teased when someone wanted me to ‘perform’. I didn't know that beings like me are a 'joke'.

I was graceful, fast and sleek. I sought the shadows even s a child, and lived for moonrise. I learned deadly grace later in life. It was intentionally ‘deadly’. I learned to fence. I learned to know when it was time to stand, and time to flee...and I learned most of all...

how to hide.

So here I am, out of the closet as a 'lesbian' or if you know me well enough to see through that shit- a ‘gender queer/gender variant’, as a member of the s-m/leather community (although I am not very active these days) as a 'Goth', as 'other'.... and yet beneath these skins there is the real savage other, who longs for companions who speak the same language, and hunt in the night........

For honor, and the steel of swords... and the steel of electric guitar strings taunt in the night