la luna llena, la luna loca

i am haunted tonight in my own town under the almost-full moon.

i took a drive through the east end of town up toward the mountains, where there were tiny streams of clouds across the pale and thick july sky. as the sun was setting, the air was heavy on my skin with the windows down and i headed out toward the old skating rink. i was thinking i'd do a photo shoot there later this week, but as i came around the bend of newtown road, past the crumbling cottages and an old boarded up blue motel, the skating rink was gone. i know it was right around the bend. i remember church parties there, i remember crushes on boys and being nerdy and 13. and i even remember it last year, an abandoned building i went to explore but couldn't find a way in.

now it's gone.

town was deserted. a sunday night, worn out from work maybe one gypsy girl should never do. i drive with my left arm out and hot nightwind on my face and some soothing country voiced gal on the stereo.  i feel like everyone is in onto something. i feel like i don't know anyone and that there are twin couples just like us around town that are shadowing us. i have creepy thoughts like i'm tripping out and then i worry that everyone else is tripping out on some big psychedelic binge and i am the one that is supposed to be clear headed and it's not working.

(my great great grandmother josefa)

i am not clear headed.

my mind goes fuzzy and pale and my own sun sets. i think of bloodflow, of wildness in the night, of the way that towns crumble and change so rapidly in time they are nothing really, not even river stone. i am a ghost in the nighttime grocery store, down empty aisles i glimpse people i think i know; i know no one. a man next to me is buying two bottles of wine and a box of pomegranate popsicles and a loaf of sourdough. some of my favorite groceries. i can't look at him. i feel like he is trying to get to me, by purchasing cute groceries and being alone at the grocery store at nine at night. maybe he is stalking me. i hurry out into the night, throw my bags into the backseat and go. then i feel bad about the lonely man that maybe wanted to strike up a conversation and i worry that waitressing is turning me cynical. i never cry; i cry all the time.

(artist amy sol)

here is what i bought: two boxes of popsices. catfood. plums, peaches, lettuce. ice cream. pirate's booty. half-n-half.

when i work too much and i'm very tired, i buy myself treats and i drink beer. this is one of the reasons why i am the kind of person who can't "work" too much, at least not that kind of work. also my mind races but i don't understand anything. i slide sheerly around town like a ripple, slippery, not thinking but feeling the unknowable darkness and the way that nothing is quenched. i am not a 5:30 in the morning kind of person. i turn into a ghost. and i'm grumpy with my dad who is trying to help me fix my pool. i am sorry dad.

(artist dan ah kim)

i have lived in this town so long i have memories almost everywhere. the locos and hobos and drunkards know my face. physically and geographically, things change and i can't keep up. on almost-full-moon nights when everyone else is elsewhere, my heart dips low and i think a wild witch woman is watching me, waiting for me in the forest. waiting to catch my dark heart in a loose net, and send it flying to the cloudy moon. the air close and soft enough to hold it and to send me on my way.

tomorrow night is gypsy night. i will take this strange haunted energy and bring something to fruition. and dance by moonlight with my sister girls and tell tales and hula hoop.

because this is what we do with blue, we make it bright by moonlight.
 tiny lanterns light our summer nights.

(at the river yesterday)