Changes

How do I know

what I cannot change

until I try?

How do I know

what I cannot change

until I try?

How do I know

what I cannot change

until I try? 

I want truth,

not serenity.

I want growth,

not security.

I want challenge,

not stagnancy. 

How do I know

what I cannot change

until I try? 

I want purpose,

not comfort.

I want more,

not less.

I can no longer accept

or expect less for or from myself.

How do I know

what I cannot change

until I try? 

I will not take "no" until I

think about "how" or "why."

There will be changes and

they will be mine.

Unheroic Interlude 2

 (First see Unheroic Interlude 1)

Did I introduce myself? No, I started

my saga in media res--

so, here's how I got myself 

in my current mess, I guess.

If I could, I would give you my name

but I left it in another life

in my other pants, to my shame,

in a moment of strife.

I was raised in the shadow of Olympus

a cast-off twig of the family tree--

no titan, no goddess, just a mutt,

if you need any description of me.

She Arises

 In her new skin

flows the underground waters--

the same that flows

in the veins of her father,

an ancestral flood

of history

and also renewal;

the back-and-forth mystery of time,

like the winding of serpents

in her blood.

It all comes back: 

the cloak of invulnerability

made of her weaknesses;

the shining armor

of her raw, sparkling nerve;

the girdle of confidence

made of scars;

the jewels that have 

a thousand glittering flaws;

the sword of discernment

forged in the fire of mistakes;

the words of power

that are uncomfortable truths--

all and always contained

under her skin.

The wasteland is no longer

a land of the dead--

it is a teeming womb of the living,

and she is reborn.

Her love is with her

wherever she goes.

Unheroic Interlude

 The nine sisters won't play with me

so I'm counting on you, gray-eyed 

and far-seeing, to remember me.

Where I left my heroine, she was

cooling her heels in the Land of the Dead.

She'll live (you knew that) 

because Immortals do.

It's what they were fated to.

And as for me, I guess I'll live, too,

if I can figure out my way.

We are skipping from the Middle East to

the Mediterranean, (I've been--have you?

I've seen the rock and the hard place where my 

epic crimson forbear found himself adrift.)

And here's where you find me.

Crafty one, send an owl. Whisper in my ear.

Get my stupid ass out of here. 

Here I am: not in the dark of the Underworld,

but in the bright light of day, 

chained to a mountain of bullshit,

vultures gnawing at my ever-renewing 

last living fuck.  

The mountain is my own bullshit,

the vultures exist in my mind,

and the chains are those I forged in life,

whatever the Dickens that means. 

And I am not sure how to stop torturing me.

She Maintains

 She hangs by her ankles,

iron hook run in.

She hangs by the bones of her ankles,

feet above head.

The dry heat of the land

where the sun doesn't shine

and the rain doesn't fall

bakes her skull

and her soul is thirsting.

And here she is, bereft:

no cloak of invulnerability,

no shining armor,

no girdle of confidence,

gone are her jewels,

her sword of discerning,

her words of power--

even her skin is gone.

The shadow of her tongue longs

for wine.

The shadow of her tongue yearns

for water.

But she can taste:

blood of a soldier

tears of a lover

sweat of a laborer.

And new skin forms over

 the dry chalk of her form.