I think of this concept like an ingrown hair. At first,
It is completely hidden. Secreted away in the body
No trouble to anyone.
But as it grows,
It starts to push the skin
Reddening it
Making it tender
Making everyone wonder what’s beneath.
Soon, a spot of darkness
Begins to show
It becomes painful
But still there is nothing to be done really
Until it gets close enough to the surface to poke at and pluck from the body,
Healing by exposure.

Sometimes these lines line up
Exactly with my life.
Today my soul is fidgeting restlessly restlessly in this chair.
It’s straining at the multitude of restraints
That seem to hem it in.
It wants to fly out and wreck havoc
It wants to destroy –
It understands the goddess Kali now
Or any of the gods of destruction and chaos. Today, we are not attracted to the gods
Of chaotic mischief
Not the Lokis or the coyotes for me today. No, today my soul sits at the feet of the gods who will consume all before them
Who throw thunderbolts
And send floods.
There is one within here who wants to spin
And spin until she becomes a tornado
That will roll through everything around me
Upend the structures, the houses, the schedules
The way things are
Until only bits and pieces lie scattered on the fields.
I see, though, that tomorrow
I would regret those bodies strewn in my soul’s aftermath –
I would not be grateful to spend the next few years picking up those pieces
So I try to find a way to calm the raging waters til that storm has passed.

So many characters from these plays
Long for night.
I can’t think of a character that longs for day.
They usually curse it
For coming so soon.
I think especially of Juliet Capulet
Needing to put off daylight as Romeo prepares to go,
While the night before
She longed for night
She longed for night in the most palpably physical way.
“Come night, come night –”
Suing to the night for its arrival
To bring Romeo to her.
This wishing for night here in Hamlet
Is a little more subdued –
A little more of suspense
Of twitchy fingers and killing time
To watch for what has been set in motion.
What do you do between the revelation
That the ghost of your father has appeared
And the opportunity to see that ghost?

This is one of those instances where the word
Means the opposite of what we think it means, isn’t it?
When he says “Doubt” he means “suspect,” I suspect
because why would he doubt
Something that has yet to be raised.
If I had a scholar’s note in front of me
I might find this alternate look at the word “doubt”
With all the instances in which it was used
As its opposite
But I always get contrary
With these contrary meanings
And wonder if I couldn’t play the word as it reads now –
If Hamlet, for example, were to both raise and dismiss the idea of foul play
In an instant.
That would be awfully interesting.

I’ll say.
I woke up with swelling that felt like a softball at the back of my throat this morning.
I fought my way to the surface of wakefulness
Only to find myself discouraged by the state of my art.
I dreamed I was in a play
For which I’d forgotten to read the 2nd half of the script,
In which I played a character named “Sharon.”
I waded my way through the performance
Script in hand
Lights too dim to read it.
But despite the misery and shame of all the mistakes –
What I remember most was that laugh that the audience rewarded me with
When I reached out to them.
In the midst of what was a standard Actor’s Nightmare.
I left with the peace of having been with an audience –
Having connected.
I woke up, though, and found that I have no rehearsal to go to,
No lines to go over
No performance about to put me before the audience
And I don’t know what process could ever have me there again.
I can’t say they didn’t warn me when I chose this path
Oh so many years ago. They very strenuously did.
But there was no choice then
As there is none now
Even though this path seems to lead in circles
I must keep putting one foot in front of the other
Because this circle is my circle
No matter how unwell it is.

They call weapons and shields and armor arms.
We had that arms race and it wasn’t
To see whose arm could reach the cookie faster.
It seems a mighty disservice to the arms
Of our bodies – to be in those arms
Is to be held, to be caressed, encircled,
A soft and steady comfort.
There is so much more to be done with arms
More dancing more waving
More reaching more tickling
More propping oneself up while reading.
Weapons have such singularity of purpose
Arms can hold everything
Even weapons.

Sometimes it’s hard to see.
Growing up
Moving away
Losing daily contact with it
But when the fog of all that lifts
When the veil of the past gets pulled aside
And the curtain rises
On who he really is –
I can see my father’s spirit
Within him.
It makes its way to the surface
In acts of kindness
In moments of wondering
In expressions of love and concern.
Seeing the spirit within the man
While he lives
While I can still hug the man
That houses the spirit
Reminds me that I should do just that
As often as I can
Because it’s a spirit to cherish.