Writing Life
My bestie’s cousin–they call him Sketch
Pad–has a tattoo on his penis
But was too pain-shy to finish
The right half of his left-right
Two word rib tat. He was supposed
To be “Black Sheep.” He ended up
BLACK
SH…
(Ellipsis implied, not actually tatted.)
-M. Ashley
I hope this is the last time my
Tired ass leaves the seat of
This gray vinyl hospital chair
Turned forty-five degrees to
My mother’s gray blanketed
Hospital bed. She’s being
Discharged today to better things
I hope.
Today—leaving day—
Is the first day I noticed there is
Color in this room. I have nothing
Poetry profound to say about
This presence—the coral and blue.
Nothing you can carry in your pocket when
Your mom attempts slow suicide too by
Refusing to eat—to comfort you. To
Reckon the anger. All the anger.
Except to say the color is there.
The color is there, aloof
Of whether you see it or not.
But do see it. See the color.
It’s there.
-M. Ashley
photo taken at Kaiser Ontario Hospital, Ontario, CA
There is a man on a gallows whose tongue lolled out of his mouth even before he was hanged. He is unsympathetic because of his tongue and other oddities, such as walking with a left foot hitch and speaking as if he can’t get that lolling tongue out of his way, which wouldn’t have been so bad—we can have sympathy for a defective—but what he said through his obtrusive tongue was usually lies, so we are not so disturbed that he is getting hanged today. Lied about the wrong person, we assume. Offended the wrong ears. Or maybe it was that one time he told the truth and the one time somebody believed him that got him on the gallows today. In any case, we are glad to be rid of him.
We see he has a note in his pocket. It’s about to fall out as the hangman tightens the noose around his neck. He inclines his head toward it and says something urgently through his tongue. He is terrified, naturally, we give him that, so he’s making even less sense than usual, but we know, and the hangman knows, he wants someone to read that note.
Dead men, or just-about-to-be dead men, deserve one final wish, so long as it’s not an evil wish, so the hangman obliges, grabs the note and reads:
“I am Lucifer in the flesh and God has got my tongue. He pulled it so hard the last time I teased him for losing at checkers that he ripped the muscle and I haven’t been able to draw it back in the whole life I have been trapped in this limping body. I thank the hangman in advance and I thank all of you watching for giving me this dramatic new beginning. Out of this ugly carcass I will be restored a handsome devil with a silver tongue I can keep in my mouth, for heaven’s sake, and I can tease and tattle again as eloquently as I was made to do. You all do me a favor this day and I thank you. Hang me quickly! My tongue is sandpaper dry and I’m dying to be dead!”
The hangman frowns and we see the paper trembling in his hand. We are a superstitious people, we don’t mind telling you. We won’t even have decorative devils on our damper pulls because we worry so much about inviting him into our houses. Though those damper pulls are awfully cute, we can’t risk it! So how can we risk releasing the very devil now? What do we do with him? He’s probably lying, but the devil is the best liar, isn’t he? And this would be the very best lie.
We are a God fearing, fearing people too, and if God trapped that rascal in this body and pulled his tongue out, who are we to kill him and have the undertaker respectfully lay that tongue back in the empty corpse’s mouth?
The hangman looks out over us and we look at each other and back at him, and though we are looking at him and not each other now, we all know we are nodding our heads. Let him go. Let God’s punishment stand. Let the flesh be a prison. Let the tongue go so dry it eventually altogether falls off. Up with God’s will and down with this man off the gallows which, we think, must be the hard way God intended.
The hangman, his name is Collin incidentally, nice fellow, lifts the noose from around Lucifer-in-the-Flesh’s neck and Lucifer jumps down off the gallows, spritely as a schoolboy playing hooky. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I can untie my hands myself.” We hear that perfectly despite his tongue. We also hear perfectly his rattling laugh as he hightails it, long fingers working the knot, off into the desert.
-M. Ashley
(No one would believe it, so I had to take a picture. When I originally wrote this, before editing, it came out to exactly 666 words! All by itself. Ha! Wicked cool!)
Following behind my father
in the deep snow of Prescott, AZ.
Put your feet in my footprints, he said,
And he made them deep and clear.
-M.
1. Being a Horrible Hose Beast to myself doesn’t accomplish anything.
2. Self-Compassion vanquishes the Horrible Hose Beast even if it does look like a big, long-haired sissy.
3. Cold showers are invigorating only in the summer when the “cold” water comes out pool water warm because it’s a million degrees outside.
4. I can wash my hair and my whole body with one stock pot full of stove-heated water. (Did I mention our water heater broke this year?)
5. I can still remember the classical piano pieces I learned last October even though, after I learned them, I didn’t practice again until this October. Muscle memory is righteous.
6. I am capable of injuring myself in my sleep. I am gifted like that and also middle-aged.
7. I can withstand hour long phone calls with narcissistic jerks.
8. Other people can stand hour long phone calls with this narcissistic jerk.
9. If I spot it, man oh man do I got it!
10. Eight million twelve step slogans.
11. That even I give in and say “god” when what I mean is “gods.” Stupid three letter words being easier to type. Stupid western world thinking polytheists are weirdos.
12. With all the progress I’ve made at not being a Horrible Hose Beast, the Horrible Hose Beast is still worried about other people thinking I’m a weirdo. Sissy Self-Compassion doesn’t care, but says it’s OK that Hose Beast cares and wants me to give myself a big hug. What a sissy!
13. Life without corn syrup is possible and even preferable. Who knew?
14. My psychiatrist is kind and conscientious enough not to strangle me.
15. I am capable of watching a three hour concert sitting on a hard wooden bench in the Southern California level freezing cold with a spasming back. I am a middle aged endurance hero.
16. I am capable of talking about myself for 25 straight minutes without being a narcissistic jerk. At least I hope I am. If not, I owe about forty people a big apology.
17. Doing service for others is magical. Like, seriously, pop pop pop! Magical. That’s also a sissy thing to say. No less true though.
18. I can keep commitments… most of the time.
19. Tasing yourself hurts like a son of a monkey. Good news! If I ever need to tase anybody, I want it to hurt like a son of a monkey.
20. Wine and lightning are an excellent way to get and stay in the presence of the gods.
21. Gratitude is a superpower. Legit.
And finally… truly worth of a drumroll…
22. Love is patient. Patience is love.
With Love,
This Long Haired Sissy
In the third grade, waiting for the little bus that, thankfully, came right to my door, I sat in front of the window and sang Silent Night softly to myself. Christmas had been past for a few months, but it was still cold. Fog pushed into the valley obscuring the park across the street. Very few cars passed on the road. It was day and silent night all at once.
My great aunt and uncle’s living room never really made it out of the 60s, which was and is fantastic. They had a cream colored couch with a burnt orange floral and geometric pattern on it. On one wall, next to a curio cabinet holding Lladro figurines was a plush, burnt orange chair. Over the fireplace on the opposite side of the room, a wrought iron “F” for Foltz stood sentinel. In front of the picture window, where I sat, two low, round plush swivel chairs in harvest gold. None of my cousins nor I were allowed to get into those chairs and spin and spin the way we wanted to, but we were allowed to sit there quietly, once in a while, waiting for the school bus mainly, and turn the chair toward the window.
I had my feet tucked under me in the chair—a minor offense. In 1986, stirrup pants were the rage and mine that day were royal purple. With them, I wore a long, white top with puffy paint film rolls and popcorn boxes on it. For eight, I was quite the fashion plate, due more to my mother than myself, but I was happy to take the credit anyway.
As I sang, I heard my great uncle in the kitchen softly ruffling the onion skin pages of his Bible. He woke up every day at 5am and, before he went off to work at the Santa Fe Railroad yard, he spent an hour or more reading the Bible. Over the years, he read the Bible in just about every translation and formation you can think of. He read all the footnotes about all the Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew. He read all the reference books. He read reference books the reference books referenced. He believed organized religion was the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity.
Many times, he told me about a dream he had when he was a younger man of himself on a crowded ship. The ship troughed so low sometimes, the waves seemed as if they would come crashing down from above. The sky stormed and blustered. The heavy, black clouds obscured even a hint of sky. He told me then, in the midst of the storm, he saw the hand of Christ reach down and beckon him with love. He never forgot it. He carried this in his heart as he studied the Bible each morning. This love he carried in his heart always.
I continued to sing softly. I didn’t want to disturb him.
On my third or fourth round, I heard him get up and pad softly across the living room carpet. I looked up startled and more than a little sheepish. I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bother you.”
A gentle patriarch, he reached his hand out and patted my head and said, “You singing would never bother me.” He smiled. He turned and walked to the back of the house to get ready for work.
Whenever I sing, I carry that touch with me. I try to carry that love in my heart always.
-M. Ashley
“Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
-Rumi
I imagine us bound together by barrel
Rings. Maybe we could go into the lovers’
Protection program under the name
Cooper and you could kiss my clever
Mouth with your clever mouth almost
Out in the open. Only the gods and the
Government would know we were never
Supposed to end up barrel bound to
Each other.
Your people think you married down.
Fuck your people. I married you and
You’re a criminal—with lots of money so…
Is that up or sideways? With you
It’s almost always sideways.
A barrel on its side rolls wobbly.
-M. Ashley
Anger wakes me up at night. I have stuffed it. I have eaten it. I have forced myself to sleep through it. My dreams bring it out of me no matter how hard I fight against it.
I scream at my sister. I scream and shake my fists at my brother-in-law. I break up with my best friend. I cry out of frustration. I pound my fists on my ex. Sometimes I pound my fists on my god.
I wake up and my heart is beating fast. I sweat. I breathe hard. Sometimes I cry. I am a cliche. The sadness stays with me throughout the day.
I am angry and I am sad that I’m angry.
I’m a nice girl. I’m well-behaved and, despite the odd mood, I’m laid back and easy to get along with. Nice, pleasant girls don’t feel rage.
I’ve heard men say they don’t get angry. They say they get annoyed or irritated, but not angry. They, I think, have nothing to get angry about. Not all men—the abusers who have smiled at us pleasant girls and said they don’t get angry. Even while they beat us well behaved girls, they say, they don’t ever get angry. Not really.
-N. Ashley
My first Christmas in my first apartment alone, trying to be a big time grownup, I made French onion soup for Christmas dinner. I called home to California earlier in the day. I had read a scripture, I told my mom, something about getting my house in order, and I felt I needed to do that, which involved me staying in Nashville for Christmas, again, alone. She wasn’t convinced, but because she couldn’t fly out and physically drag me back home, she accepted it.
I was trying to be so adult. I was trying to prove something, though, looking back, I can’t imagine what. Was I trying to prove that I could withstand severe holiday depression? Was I trying to prove that no matter how badly I wanted to off myself that season, I didn’t need my family to help me not become a statistic?
I called my Hungarian violin teacher after I called my family. He was a big part of my life then as music was a big part of my life and also because I adored his stories of escaping communism and how the communists used to make the Hungarians eat diseased cow meat and chocolate made from blood. Zsolt was also disappointed I wasn’t coming home. He seemed put off by my choice of Christmas dinner. He said, “Well, maybe you could float an ornament in it and make it more Christmasy that way.” I laughed and felt lonelier by the minute.
God I was miserable then—a miserable sort of miserable that radiated in waves across the country from Nashville to my little burg in California called “Berdoo.”
I was new to keeping my own appliances then, just as I was new to keeping my own household in general. For example, while I had used a garbage disposal many times as a kid growing up, I somehow never learned that putting onion skins down one is not such a great idea. By the time I had all the onions in the Christmas soup pot sautéing with butter, beginning to oddly smell like apples the closer they came to caramelizing, my garbage disposal was filled to brimming with onion skins.
I ran the water which began to fill the sink and turned the thing on. It growled like a demon but the water didn’t go down. It began to spit up chopped onion skins in great belches making of the sink water a slimy, stinky soup of its own. I stopped the thing. “That was not bright,” I told myself.
I grudgingly lugged my plunger into the kitchen from the bathroom. In retrospect, it is amazing I had a plunger given that, when I first moved it, I somehow hadn’t realized until I was in dire need that toilet paper doesn’t grow on the roll.
I stuck the plunger to the drain and plunged for dear life. More and more onion skins belched forth from the disposal along with other unspeakable things most likely from tenants past. I sucked everything out of there I could, then turned the thing on, having thought there was something stuck and I had by the sweat of my plunging arm dislodged it.
The water didn’t go down. The chopped up onion skin and unnamable goop mocked me as it danced its spiral dance around the sink.
I ended up having to strain all that onion skin and other detritus out of the sink with my bare hand, letting the water slip through, but retaining the chunks that clung to my fingers. I pulled the trash can up next to me and went to town. I think a year might have gone by.
The sink came clean, the water went down, and the garbage disposal growled happily, its gut no longer sick.
I washed by hands at least three times. I washed the plunger. I raised the plunger over my head and made He-Man muscles.
“I am the Garbage Disposal Master of the Universe!” I proclaimed to my empty apartment. The high ceiling echoed back at me.
“I am the Garbage Disposal Master of the Universe!” I shouted again. The ceiling repeated it.
I lowered my plunger and shrugged my shoulders. Shoving the onion skins down the disposal was not the only terrible mistake I made that lonely Christmas. Not by a long shot.
-m. Ashley
At this time in 1990, I knew my elementary experience was over. I knew I was headed off into 7th grade and the dreaded changing of periods, seven classes a day, grown up stuff.
I knew I would no longer see some of my classmates. Some went off to starrier climbs, as it were. Some went off to Richardson where you had to win a lottery to get in because it was oh-so. The other was Golden Valley where all the white kids went. It was equally as snobby as Richardson, only without the academic record to back it up.
The school I went to from the fourth grade on, the school I’d continue to go to through the seventh and eighth grades, was a certified ghetto school, a magnet school, a school it shocked my mother’s Mormon friends that she let me go to.
At my school we really did have the academics to back up any snobbery, and we were absolute snot-heads about our school, but under the radar. Mostly people thought riots and, I don’t know, chain fights a la West Side Story went on there every day. No such thing ever happened.
Fast forward a couple of years to the LA riots re: Rodney King. They were in April. A bunch of us hung out in Mr. Espinoza’s room for lunch. It was shady in there and quieter. And it wasn’t just nerds, which was weird. We talked a little about the rioters and what we heard they did and did not burn down in our town.
Eating pizza the night of the riots at my aunt and uncle’s house, my friend Elizabeth and I watched it all on the news. I don’t know how we got this intel, but we heard “they” had burned down the FedCo. That was a huge disappointment. FedCo had the best popcorn and Icees and it was a privilege to go there because your parent had to be some kind of state or federal employee to get a membership card.
My sister breezed in and told me her boyfriend’s dad had taken up residence sitting on his roof with a shotgun lest anyone get close to his house. My sister was kind of a racist and a liar, so we took that with a grain of salt.
We speculated if they would come to the north side of town.
My friend spent the night that night. She lived in the poorest part of town which was adjacent to the black section of town, (incidentally, we still have a black section of town and it’s almost 23 years into the new millennium). We weren’t sure if she would be safe. We called her mom. Her mom said to stay put where we were.
Interesting thing about it is how many odd OLD references there are from both the 90s and the 60s LA riots, like the self-segregated neighborhoods and us watching the destruction on a black and white television with rabbit ears. People who don’t know history didn’t apply. A thirty year curse maybe. A vortex.
A lot of wicked shit put up with for way too long.
-M.
M. N. Ashley 