IN April 1997, when a prostitute stole from an army man, a tragic event happened.

3:00 AM - DOWN town, somewhere along Murton street, four sex workers stand in a dark corner, in front of one of the city’s condemned buildings. The condemned building is still a home of the famous Top Bar where several murder plots have been crafted by top city wealthy men and security men. The murder ploy of a military man who died of a very dangerous poison was also made here, people rumoured.

It striked something deep within my soul, it was not intented to dwell on this earth, like so many things, people. It was too innocent, too pure, but yet spoke to the inner being of love, pain, hunger, passion, strength, weakness, things that are not bred from innocence. It did not belong.

It pulled my heart from within my chest. I at once felt at ease with the world but at the same time a sadness that filled me entirely. Why did this music touch me so? When others who would have heard it could have closed their ears, not just their ears but their souls to this sound, this gold, this piece of heaven. How is it that they could not hear the angelic note within the piano?

The air out here was cold, crisp. It shook my being into existance cruelly, I thanked the heavens for it.

The world had become like a foreigner to me, I no longer understood its thoughts, the pulse that constantly flowed from deep within. Had I been gone for so long? When did I forget to look further than the footstep ahead of me.

Nothing could beat the raging storm within as fully as love.

Its power radiating for all the world to see. Those who set their wandering eyes to it felt its flame, and it burnt, burnt into any other knowledge. It killed all that was not loving and caring, for what did it care for the all that was real, for pain. No mercy would it hold for anything lesser.

Where love was, all was well. She loved him so entirely it would not have mattered if the world fell, she was not the world, she was greater. She was not she, she was they... part of two.

Crawling into its warmth to hide, under its pureness away from the winter depths, that was everything. It would save them from themselves and they knew it. Hearts made whole, no hatred could follow here.

I wish I could paint at such times, as I wander through those rippling fields of grass I have come to know so well. My dark hair clutching at my cheeks to protect me from the sharp edge on the wind, warnings of a coming storm. But as I walk onwards towards the greying skies I know it will hold stern for me.

The clouds look down at me with eyes that are never judgemental. I could walk for days totally oblivious. Not that a single soul crosses my path. Only the gentle, four legged pair, waiting inpatiently at the gate to be greeted. The odd white tail disappears into the green beyond and I am home.

Catching lightning bugs is a tricky business.
Sometimes I think loving you is much like this.
You have to blindly lunge into the dark and hope you have grabbed the right piece of air.
You see lots of little blinks in your jar and are delighted at the show.
You may imagine this is affection.
After only a few minutes the blinks cease with a similar consistency.
Doubt creeps in about the worthiness of this endeavor.
You think about shaking the jar, but that really does seem mean-hearted.
Having a captive is a rather guilt ridden proposition.
That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
Occasionally there is a little blink from your jar and it brings no delight.

I may have spent it all too early.
I may have waited too long.

Today I don’t fit my skin correctly,
I used to have better ways of coping with this.
Those ways are long gone.

I love Popeye…he knows the secret…
“I am who I am, and that’s all what I am”

I pray for the acceptance of Popeye.
I pray to know that this intensity isn’t a choice
It’s who I am.
I came here and found that I couldn’t stand it a lot of the time.

I had to cry and cry and cry.
I cried for 6 years, then I suddenly stopped.
I didn’t cry again for another 30 years then I started again.
I don’t cry so much anymore, I write and I wail at this feeling again.

I don’t want to have trendy set up, a situation, a significant other

Take me to the mountains.
Please, take me there.

To a place where there is wind and rain and rocks.
I want to lie down there as close to the sky as I can get
I want to breathe air closer to heaven than here.

I want to erase this place I’m in.
I want this pain to stop

Not only do I want all this, I want you to do it for me.
I want to lie here in repose and weep while I am wist away from the scene of a great tragedy.

Pretty arrogant wouldn’t you say?

I hurt today and it seems so much more than anyone else’s hurt.

In fact it is just the same as everyone else’s hurt.

We open our hearts to each other and become Human once more.
In doing so, we try, but we fail, on some level we all fail each other.
It is our nature to do so.

I have been singing for as long as I can remember. Sang my first solo on stage at the age of 5 and continued through all of school into adulthood. There have been gaps in my singing career here and there, but like most muscles, I’ve been able to get on the imaginary bike and train myself to do it again. This past June, I was back on stage singing more than I had in six years and had a great time. Two months ago, something happened to my voice. I recall it happening after Labor Day weekend and I assumed it was allergies as I spent a wonderful weekend in the country at the home of friends who have a cat. I started noticing my voice going in and out and I went to the doctor who said I just have post nasal drip.

Stirring

Stirring up feelings, awakening
Rising up to you.
Hear my heart call you.
Hear my heart pound for you.
I almost can’t breathe,
Then I do and I smell the ocean.

The salt, the sand, the life, the death…all of it.
All combine in the taste of your shoulder.

Your smooth brown skin tastes of the ocean too.
It smells of the life there.
It is in you because you are full of this life, woman.