Fortunately

  ONE.

  Starbucks is bundling their toasty beverages in quotes again. I do not understand this trend. Despite the current tepid trickery, I am sure the cups know it is still July and want to be naked as badly as I do. I am shamelessly ignited by marketing gimmicks such as these. Despite their cheesiness, I inwardly adopt them as some form of prophecy in my steaming pot of spiritual jambalaya. I say:
 "Oh. That's God."
  Because, hey, it might be.

  Fortune cookie.

 Twice this week, the intrusive words of Oprah Winfrey bombarded my monotonous drone (as they have a tendency to do to innocent bystanders who are mentally and emotionally unprepared to deal with such occurrences). I was originally not convinced that the message was actually from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Despite His voice via an ass, I am not sure He would choose the best friend of a couch dancing Scientologist to pour over me my Tuesday morning pick-me-up.

 God is a Republican after all.

 *Crickets*

 "Save me, Tom Cruise."


  In all seriousness, my heavy laden limbs have been dead-weighted by a hot depression. Why, yes. I struggle with seasonal depression. For me this means: I am depressed every fucking season of the year.

  That was almost a joke.
  No, heat gets to me.

 Oklahoma humidity is one thing, but Tennessee is a summertime sauna. And, "I've got that summertime sadness". I do. All this death has put me flat on my back in a bed clothed in suede. I cannot afford to purchase a cooler comforter. Or, perhaps, I am just self-abusing because it is part of the territory. I will get to lighter, less sarcastic things.

  I promise.

 I woke up on Tuesday with a heart so broken I could not hold it. Why? I did not hear my 5:00 a.m. alarm. To everyman this sounds peculiar. However, to someone who understands the throes of creativity, this is a very large deal. There are so many terrible things to digest before 8 a.m., so many bitter pills to swallow. If it is not the: "Is this really my life?" question, it is: "Awesome. I have cellulite all the way down to my knees now." I like to give myself enough time to ease into "The Monday's," the hours prior to the real beginning of my day.

 Half awake, I stumbled into work at the frame shop and on a table to my left was a cup that said:

"Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose."

-Oprah Winfrey

 I contemplated God and said: "Okay. Show me something else."

 TWO. 

                                                                                                                      July 18, 2014

   THIS PSEUDO-FALL SWEEP has persuaded my July body to believe it is time to begin the annual, autumnal, grieving process. Spots of melancholy have already begun fogging up my spectacles. Tennessee weighs heavy on my frizzy ends and all I feel is the fray-the missing. The peculiar thing is I never know who or what I am missing. Part of me thinks if I were actually able to give it a name my romance with sadness would end.

   I do not want to be that lonely. 

   Poetry visits me in August. 

   I am not closing the inn. 

   ON TUESDAY EVENING a gorgeous man from Brooklyn that smelled delectable (of a nice apple cider, christmas, fresh leather bag, grandpa's wool sweater combo) spoke over me that I would write again. 

   "It'll happen,"

    He said.

    Wednesday morning, I woke up and purchased a new journal. 

    Autumn came early. 

    I have been happening. 

   TONIGHT, I took a 8:45 trip to McKay in hopes I would find a sexy Anne Sexton number to drink myself to sleep to. 

   When I was younger, bolder, braver, I used to peruse the poetry aisle weekly. I was enamored by it. I would study the naked succulence of every broken spine; consider the absorption of every writer's words, and wonder why someone had abandoned them. Now, it hurts to wonder that much. It hurts to care. I fell in love to poetry. I lost my family to poetry. I have encountered death through poetry. I have learned about the ruthless tragedy that is Time. But tonight, I craved Anne. 

    Rooted in my garden, I felt the substance of myself being mopped up by an aggressive gravity. 

The earth's core beckoned me to collapse, to dive headlong into the floor, to listen to creation's secrets. In dizziness, and sorrow, and fear, and all the things I knew I would feel when I walked into a memory...I took a seat on the floor. I crossed my legs."Indian Style". I looked straight ahead. On the shelf in front of Sexton, a Starbucks coffee cup sat. It's too-hot-for-summer sweater read:

"Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose."
-Oprah Winfrey

   So, I came home, and I wrote.