Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I am so freaking happy. Oh my freaking God. I am so freaking happy. Oh my freaking God.

Repeat 10,000 times.

Why?

Oh my freaking God. I cannot even explain.

I won the lottery. I love my cat still. I have new flowers in my apartment. The walls are covered in black smudged poetry. I'm living in a parallel universe. I have everything I could ever want, ever dream of. I should have been aware before that love starts within, that the moment I decide to BE love, I would experience love. The moment I decided that love was within me, that I was the source itself, then I could live a life full of this.

And what else is there? Really? To life, I mean, what else is there?

Awwwww it's like I am perpetually being snuggled by an invisible kitten all day long!

Psycho mono, psycho jealo

I see walking hand in hand

Pscyho's what they'll call ya

the day you give a damn

Like every dom has a sub

the posse has the ownee

The point is: look into ya

if you really wanna know me!

Heart space <3

Rat race !!!

Keep my pace - - -

Or leave this place....

See my face +++

Never erase @@@

I thought I told ya, babe

Love without a trace ***

Nothing

This life was lived in a

short while

It came out in many variables

Too many sentences

starting with "I"

never made room for "you"

But who are you?

It doesn't matter

because tomorrow the dinosaurs

will roam all over again.

These words will turn to dust,

this pen and paper will crumble

under the weight of tomorrow

and become nothing

How does "something"

become "nothing"?

I wonder if this is the place of God

I am God,

or was it you?

We are neither

because this ignorance is

overwhelming

until

it is all-knowing

This language is the mouth

of centuries--nothing.

This sound in the throat

is the music of

thousands of sunsets--nothing.

This body is a vacuum

sucking on electric current.

Is there God in the current?

Then I am God,

or are you?

Tomorrow is like today in that

it will be--inevitably--yesterday

And yesterday

is gone

always here

never was

always will be

I dare say "I"

all over again

I am completely washed in this

and still have the mouth, throat,

body to relate this electric current

that may be God right into you--nothing.

Getting Fired Now?

I might get fired, not sure. Well, would they fire a teacher for what I did?

I completely and totally flipped out on one of my kids. I actually lost it, went to the very limits of my self-control and stopped so close to crossing all my boundaries (yet it would have never happened) that I could feel the breeze on the bottoms of my toes as they hung over the ledge of that cliff.

Am I "on edge" lately, or did this kid just hit the wrong nerve?

I go for the latter, and I am prepared for judgement now, if it comes to that. They can take my job.

What happened? Well, I asked the kids to tell me about their holidays, what they did during the break. And one kid started to brag about the cat he had punched and started laughing. I perked up, but didn't go crazy yet. I asked him if he was serious. He said yes. I asked him why, and he said because he hates cats, and he likes to kill them.

Snap.

By the time I was done chewing into him, I was trembling and about to cry. I think I might have actually levitated as I flew at him. I cannot even remember everything that came out of my mouth, but the most volatile of sorts were, "Oh, how big is a cat? This big maybe?" I showed with my hands. "Okay, so you can punch something smaller than you?" At this point, I lifted my fist and charged at him, got within inches of the kid, "Alright, so you are smaller than me. Are you scared? Do you think I should hit you? You are smaller than me, just like that cat was smaller than you!" The child looked like he was going to pee his pants, seriously. He was fighting not to cry. Then I whirled around and addressed the whole class, told them that they are MY STUDENTS and I don't care what the rest of Turkey does, I don't care what the Kuran says, and I don't care what their parents say, or about Turkish culture. MY STUDENTS will NEVER hurt animals. The whole class was frozen silent. WELL! I was shaking, furious, FUCKING FURIOUS.

The worst example of an educator ever. Or maybe the best. I'm not sure. I think it depends on where your morals lie. If you're an animal lover, you're cheering me on, aren't you? Otherwise, you're about to get the number of the school and send the ward after me.

Then, I threw out the whole lesson plan for the day. Nope, not gonna study this little boy whose grandmother brought him a seashell from the ocean. NOPE. Because TODAY we are going to learn how to respect animals.

I pulled an entire lesson out on the spot. I told them the history of Turks, how they migrated from Central Asia and that before Islam, they were Shaman, and that the Shaman respected animals. I told them that they all had the blood of Shaman in them, that each of them had magic powers, but they could never use them unless they learned how to be true Shaman by respecting, loving, and protecting animals.

Then I invented the Animal Protector Angel and told them that I had touched each of them individually over the course of the year, and that I had Native American blood in me, so therefore I was a very powerful Shaman, that I came from a long line of magic workers who could do anything if they had a pure and loving heart. I told them that I was casting a spell on the whole class, and that the Animal Protector Angel, who was my personal friend, would now follow them for the rest of their lives and watch them to see if they are ever mean to animals. I told them that even though I cannot see them always, the Angel would watch them, and if they ever hurt an animal again, she will bring Justice to them. We all looked up the word Justice and talked about what this meant. I told them it didn't mean the Angel would hurt them in any way, but that she would teach them a lesson, and that this lesson might be painful or hard to learn if they were stubborn as she was teaching them. I told them that the lesson might come immediately, or the lesson might come years later, even in their next life!

The kid who had been bragging about killing cats transformed before my eyes. He started asking me if eating meat would make the Angel upset. I told him no, because he needs the food to live, but that he could thank the animal before he eats it if he wants to please the Angel. He asked me what to do if an animal attacks him, and I taught the class about body language and how to respond to aggressive animals to avoid making them afraid. I told him that if a dog bites him or attacks him, it means someone else hurt that animal in the past, and so it is afraid of all people now. I told him that the Angel forgives him and will forget the past, but now she will be with him forever, and so the future is the most important now.

It turned out to be the best lesson I've ever taught, because every single student was leaping out of their seat eager to speak, ask questions, share stories. They were mesmerized to learn that they came from the respectable Shaman.

I then gave the icing on the cake and told them that if they love, honor, and respect animals, then the animals will protect them all their lives. I told them that when I walk alone in Istanbul (and this is true) the dogs will walk with me, surround me, because they know that I love them. I pointed out that no one could hurt me, because I was surrounded by dogs who would protect me. I explained that if they protect animals, then the Animal Protector Angel will send animals to protect them as well.

The lesson was an ongoing state of trance for every person in the room. The words on the board said it all:

SHAMAN

Magic

Animal Protector Angel

White Magic Only

If you ever hurt an animal, the Animal Protector Angel will bring you JUSTICE.

It was the best lesson I've ever had, but first I almost made the kid pee his pants. Really, you should have seen how scared he was. Of course, I would have never touched him. My other rule is to never hurt children.

Isn't this what it really means to teach, though?

some stuff you don't understand cause you're not

inside of my body, and you cannot feel this fully,

the walls that cage me within this shell, a shield

and everyone sees first my casing before knowing

what or who I am, and I'm already judged by then,

labelled: white woman tall blonde messed up teeth

in here I find a home and a prison, my eyes the

windows to a tattered house that I systematically

abuse and caress in intervals with the pulsing tide

the urge to make you understand overwhelms all

and inside is a woman screaming....bring you here

where the barriers become irrelevant and unreal

criminal circumstance perverts the purity struggling

with the essence of you as I force myself to see

beyond your carefully designed projection of light

concealed within this dying creature surrounding me

is the immortal breathing, beating, crying truth

that innocently hopes to God you will have mercy

Shhhhh

Now, I've gone and done it, loose cannon

snapped went haywire went nuts went fire

and blew the compressed suppressed repressed

love fear desire hope truth dream devotion

right where I shouldn't have, right at

nothing

the abyss so patiently waits for me to

forget my name again, forget that NEVER

is my name

and that LOVE is the question asked upon my birth

as my mother uttered the word NEVER

airborne cycle of heat turns sour and black

a dense recollection that we never get away

we stretch and run and pull apart at the seams

but always we find ourselves back where

we started

in the womb and nameless, waiting to be told

how life will occur, how it will taste and feel

what dreams will suffer and what nightmares

will flourish

this is the woman who would cut off her own

hand if it hurt you, her own eyes if they betrayed you,

her own tongue if it lied to you, and yet

you are my hands and eyes and tongue

it occurs to me as usual that to love you

is to love me, but to love me is to fight forever

this war

with at least two sides, each hegemonic in girth

but battling for the angle of world domination

I find that loving you as usual means to

reject my own name

to remove my face and become a blanket of white

expressionless

ready to accept that I'm blind, mute, dumb

my concept of reality and dreams already too jaded

too insufficient to know anything

to have any idea how to be what you need

how to touch you without

scratching

"gentle" would be the word

but NEVER is my name

so I can only tell you one thing now:

if I could erase all of that

name, face, history, beliefs

and retrace back to the fundamental origin

of universal naivety

and grace

for you

I would

music

i gently twirled my littlest finger

around a single string of his heart

then plucked it like a violin

sure enough

music

like an old classic stashed away

backstage at an art house all these years

he says no sound comes

from that silly thing

sure

of course

but did I ever mention, in all my ramblings,

how I’d always wanted to be

a musician of all arts

more than any

because there is all this time in composition

but then only a single moment

when the keys or strings

and the fingers and the feet

and body and eyes and mind

the movements so intentional

let go and work together

for just this moment to be

music

does any of it mean anything?

is any of it real?

his mind expands, my god,

a surreal maze of paths twist into

intricacies and grace with just a glance,

without calculation, just escape,

like a fire burning that made its way

over the highway, into the brush

then took off in every direction

devouring the landscape

as though the masterpiece for

symphonies and orchestras

that will never make a sound

my fingers trail along the words

in secrecy

through the terrain of volumes,

an encyclopedic tongue speaking in rhymths

swelling like an ocean of syllables, but

my god, my god, my god

don’t you see in this dictum there is

the hieroglyphics of

music!