Shannon's Essays

Conversation Regret

2011-05-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

I can't read my handwriting when I pray

the words come too fast for my hand

His hand

His hands are bleeding and He smeared them on my prayer,

my paper, blurring the page- running the ink

He smeared them on my face, my neck and chest, stomach, legs

down and in between

He put them in my eyes, down my throat,

in my ears

and said, "Put your ear to the sky and listen my darling, everything whispers I love you"

He told me that in a poem and a song.

I felt safe

and I shared too much

Because I know I don't have to carry these sins any more

Because I know I don't have to burden other people with what I have done in the past

it's in the past

paid for.

transaction complete

making in obsolete to vomit my guilt in heaps

on my friends laps, in my family's hair

So God gave me a beat poem

and He took it and He put His hands on it, all over it

and turned it red

The night of the big moon

2011-03-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

On nights when Orion is out and there is nothing between you and me but the telephone wires, on this night, can you hear me?
Can you hear me now that the air is tonic? I put my words on the effervescent stars bubbling up to the rim of the sky unobstructed.
If I am ever to have a prayer that You hear, it must be on a night like this one.
Standing beneath an arid Autumn tree, out of place in Spring, a modest breeze swirls the parched leaves too stubborn to fall and "Shush-shhhhhhhshush" my worrisome prayers.
Rock a bye baby in the tree tops.
A Mother hushing my fears away.
The moon came out to play tonight too. Too close this time and got caught in the dry branches- and something else, tied to a twig, shining in its' light, a crystal bell! Bouncing as the leaves shush.
Out of no obligation, but simply a Father indulging His daughters frivolous plea, the bell tinkles.
Yes, on nights like this You are near.
But it's not that You can't hear me on other nights, it's just that on other nights I'm usually inside, and that is a difficult place to see Orion's belt, and it's not possible for a dried up old tree to "Shush!" you, and it certainly is no place at all for a crystal bell to ring by itself!

Paper beats Rock

2010-12-30T21:50:00.000-08:00

The boy said he couldn't fight. That he'd go home with a bloody nose every time, until he started using words.

Going nowhere fast

2010-11-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

It's a waterwheel or that thing Astro walks on 50,000 feet in the sky. Escalators are close but not quite, elevators are too claustrophobic and also don't really work. Return to sender mail, boomerangs, cartwheels on a mark, the car in the "Ferris Bueler's Day Off" before it crashes through the window. Jete's. Walking into a room- forgetting what you went in there for- going back to where you were previously. Round-a-bouts, circular doors in New York city, the old "agree to disagree" conversation. M. C. Escher's staircase drawing. The back of shampoo bottles; rinse, lather, repeat. Water molecules

Bus ride contemplations

2010-09-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

I 'm sitting across the aisle from Dick Tracy with Tourette's. He's not dressed like Dick Tracy, He really is Dick Tracy, he's still wearing his name tag on his plaid printed jersey shirt.
I'm thinking about getting an apartment in Freemont
I'm thinking about getting a dog and naming it Fantastic Mr. Fox or maybe just Kevin
I'm thinking about getting a garter tattoo and then I think about getting one around my belly- a dashed line that says Mason Dixen
I think about Colonel Rommel and about the first Yankees to go below the Mason Dixen Line
Dick Tracy just made a sign language gesture for squirrel and then airplane and then mouthed a loud shout
I think about recycling- how when I was the only one doing it I thought "whats the point?" and now that everyone is recycling I think "no one will notice if I don't"
I think about how nice it would be to be 70, retired and close to death
I think about how people keep saying life is short, but to me it seems quite long. very long.

ROY G. BIV

2010-06-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Gay pride parade, sitting on the news stands on pike and 5th. Yelling at the parade to get their swag thrown in my direction. We yell for candy, we yell for beads and coupons. I caught a dollar bill thrown up in the air, a Frisbee, and three 20% off Alaska airline tickets. Leaving the rainbow march, clearly marked by the rainbow- necklaces and stickers and multi-colored pinwheels in my hair. Skittle girls walking through the city get honked at and cat-called.
We catch a bus, #358 to get home, it's packed, hot and stuffy with washed out, dreary people in khaki's, navy's, and whites. I stand in front of a tired women and her son. The sun peeks out from a cloud and hits my necklace and metallic pinwheel, sending thousands of colored sequined reflections on the people and the walls and floor and ceilings of the bus. The boy sees the magic and follows the rainbow spangles up to me and stares. His mother feebly whispers to him in Spanish. But he continues to stare, his podgy little mouth open, too weary to fuss, she holds his plumpish belly next to hers. I pull out the pinwheel and hand it to him. His eyes bulge with excitement but his lips stay in the same open shape. He taps his mother who had just rested her head back and closed her eyes. She whispers sweetly into his ear again and this time he looks at me and mouths the word "thank you". The rest of the ride he watches his new toy in wonderment not knowing what makes it spin or stop. And each time it does one or the other he twitches with joy at how unpredictable it is for him. We come to our stop and as I walk out she touches my hand, she has warm, listless eyes and pink lipstick on, she looks like she works hard. "thank you" she says through a thick accent. I smile and take my rainbows with me off the bus.

This is the Standard

2010-02-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

We were at the top of the Standard downtown, downtown- on the roof. Sharing a triplet of mini cheeseburgers and drinking mint mojitos out of plastic cups. Billy was talking about how i knew too much about weed, more than a good Christian girl should know, and that he thought i was a secret drug lordess- growing a field of it somewhere in Thailand, and we were sitting in the middle of the 5th plague of Egypt.

Those birds swarmed the sky like they were locusts. Millions of black birds, different shapes and sizes but all black. As if every bird in LA came to rally around the columns of business and commerce.

"I think they are lost!" Carissa suggested, "Trapped by the sky scrapers!"

Circling and circling in a giant silver spiral like spawning sardines. Whipping, whirling, and chirping. Our necks started to hurt from the weight of our heads facing the Aves apocalypse. The feathered rapture, it was the inverse of the starry night sky- black on white. It was lovely, bewitching. Carissa said, "you guys, this is a miracle, and we are never going to forget this"

Procrastination

2009-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Procrastination is the art of self entertainment. I made that definition up when I was in college. But it's not always true. In fact, in most cases, procrastination is a passive aggressive way to gain control. At least thats the definition I have right now.

I have always struggled with procrastination, even with myself. Living with myself, I am my own mother, so when I tell myself that I should write, I procrastinate by cleaning my room. And when I tell myself that I should clean my room, I inevitably end up writing instead. If only I could find a way to trick myself, but alas, I am much to clever for that.

So, obviously today, I am cleaning my room.

Skater boy

2009-08-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

I was standing on the corner or Lincoln and Venice, outside the front entrance, or what I thought was the front entrance of a notary public. It turns out the door I was trying to open was sealed shut and on the reverse side, blocked by those green and white Kirkland paper boxes stacked on top of the other .

I was pulling with all my might on the door, and in my defeat I took a step backwards on the sidewalk. At that exact moment, a guy on his skateboard happened by. And, as it was, my foot and his skateboard were indeed star crossed this afternoon, as either lovers of tumbled passion or enemies with intent to destroy.

His skateboard caught by my foot skidded to a halt, and he, thanks to Newton’s 3^rd law “a body in motion tends to stay in motion”, slid on the cracked plates of Venetian sidewalk, ipod skimmed across the asphalt driveway. Disoriented we both stared at each other, he was a lanky, tanned local with maple syrup colored hair and green eyes the kind with the freckles in them, he smelled of essential patchouli and a boy dorm. I could hear the faint voices of rage against the machine coming from his ipod which seemed to contrast with his faded brown Bob Marley shirt he had on.

I think my face had a scowl on it, maybe from shock or maybe from pain, but he jumped up surprisingly fast and grabbed his ipod and board, “Sorry!” he said as he quickly turned around and threw the board down for another go. I wish I could go back and change my frown for a smile, maybe even offer my hand to him. I wonder how that would have changed the memory for him. Because in my mind, he was kind and humble, peaceful. People who say they don’t have any regrets in life are forgetting little moments like these.

The Staring Contest

2009-07-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

We're sitting in silence. A stalemate. I ask you a question and you sit there with your hands tied to your throne. The hairs on the edge of your nostrils slowly swaying back and forth as you inhale. And exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I keep waiting for you to answer me, one way or another, but you stay still. Stoic. The Never Changing One, the Eternal One. The one who stands on the outside of Time. But I am inside it. I am Times desperate prisoner- making a spectacle of myself the more you ignore me. I want to jump on your lap and pound on your chest with my fists. I am at peace with tantrums, they come easy to me. They are logical.

But it has no affect, and I'm exhausted. So I am watching you breath now. I am sitting at your feet while you are silent, unchanging, unmoving. Breathing on me, all over me.

How i feel sometimes

2009-05-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel this overpowering sense of love for people- like my insides, all of my organs and entrails turn into this warm dry light that pushes against my skin. It spills from my eyes and sprays out from my neck and chest and hands. My skin becomes a sieve and the love streams out in little square and cube shaped rays.
And sometimes it feels like the warm light condenses into bouncing, vibrating, little metallic balls the size of gumballs. All jumping and thrashing about behind the walls of skin. Sometimes they get so furious and frantic, I'm afraid this thin barrier of epidermis will shatter into tiny pieces at the force of it and all my love will come flying out at them with such speed, like shrapnel, only when it hits them, it will be like jello melting on an iron skillet.
When I feel this way, with too much love to fit inside my body, this is what I think it might feel like to be God.

Hello, my name is Shannon, and I'm an Addict

2009-04-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

I blame my mother. For my addiction. I would never have been able to get my fix with out her. She was, as they say, my enabler.
My reading addiction started out slow, like most dependencies. I would sneak into my parents bedroom, open the second drawer of my dads night stand and read his "Popular Mechanics" and "Popular Science" periodicals he had stashed away. Just a sumptuous article here and there was enough in the beginning. I would put them away exactly as I found them so that no one suspected anything. I remember reading about regenerating bio plastics, anti-entropied mechanical parts and other concepts I couldn't quite grasp. But they were words. Intoxicating, exotic words, strung together like a jasmine lei into a seductive sentence that rolled off the pages like the blossoms onto the floor from a snapped string.
It felt obscene. I knew what I was doing was wrong. My sister had made that abundantly clear. Only nerds liked to read. Reading was not an acceptable pastime, infact reading was never acceptable. You had a book report due, you watch the movie, maybe the Cliffs notes. And that's stretching it. No one liked to read and no one liked people who did it. I was filthy, tarnished, foul and engrossed with my smut. But I just couldnt help myself. So it became my dirty secret. Hidden in the dark away from others, away from the enpending shame I could induldge in my gluttony.
The addiction soon grew to where it upset my daily routine. At school I started skipping recess (lunch would have been too obvious to my class mates) to go the library. In class we would sometimes read a book that I had just finished and I would do my best to hide my joy and just roll my eyes with the rest of the class. I started bringing home classical plays and Greek Mythology. Soon that wasn't enough and I got into the harder stuff. Historical Fiction. Then that wasn't enough and was completely reliant on biographies and autobiographies of historical political figures. It was when I became reckless and sloppy that I got caught.
I had brought home a book, I was overconfident and I thought I could stop at anytime. I thought I was in control of my addiction. But my denial only led to arrogant carelessness, and I stopped being diligant about return dates. I was in the backyard pretending to listen to headphones when my mom confronted me. I pushed "The Early Trials of Susan B. Anthony" under the blanket in vain, I knew my internvention had arrived.
I'll never forget the look on her face. There was no surprise, no repulsion or fear. She wasn't even angry with me. It was a placid, calm and kind face. Yes, the ol' "kill 'em with kindness" thing then eh? Reverse psychology. I knew it well. She calmly stated that the library had called and that a book was overdue. She may as well have told me the Feds were on their way, that she enjoyed having me as a daughter, that she'd visit my cell on my birthday, maybe a Christmas or two. My heart started doing that really loud and annoying double beat that anyone within a five foot radius can hear. I awaited my punishment. She took the book from me and I flinched knowing she was going to strike me with it. But instead, she concealed it in her purse and asked if I would like the sequel.

one spring morning

2009-01-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

A quiet sea of ravens. Bushel after bushel anchored on a green lawn. Rolling and bobbing, picking at fleas and spiders in the grass. Feathers undulately rock and ripple like wind on water. I drop my school books and run into the center. I am five years old again parting the black ocean. I am Moses. I provoke them into a storm of swirling madness. A swarm of black birds circling upwards as I sink down into a whirlpool of beating iridescent scales.

16:4

2009-01-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

You were preaching on Ezekiel one night in the basement. You asked for comments on the verse you read. I said it sounded like God wanted to be our lovers, like He intensely loved us with a passion, a romantic passion. Almost sensual. Fiery, epicurean. I was embarrassed when I shared that, vulnerable. But my heart like an crazed bird was bashing at the boned cage of ribs for me to scream out the truth it knew . I had never thought about God that way until those words passed through my lips. And it would have been better if I had taken a needle and thread to my mouth and cinched them shut before they did. Because you laughed. Kindly. But you laughed. You blushed. I blushed. At my vulgar interpretation.
"I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood...I said to you "Live!" I made you grow like a plant of the field...you became the most beautiful of jewels, your breasts were formed and your hair grew...I saw that you were old enough for love, I spread my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and you became mine."

Family, not rulers or bottles

2008-12-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

or...
I drank from my sister's teat.

I arrived at my parents house, ready to celebrate Christmas 2006. But really more ready to die. I had gone on a hike a few days before and ended up covered in poison oak rashes. Oozing, pussing, terminally itchy rashes. Merry Christmas to me.
The whole family gathered around the family room table where we were playing Mexican dominoes. My cousin Brian thoughtfully offered to get me some eggnog (if I didn't move, I itched less).
My sisters wanted some too so they followed him to the kitchen. He pulled out a container of my sisters breast milk. He laughed and said it looked just like egg nog.
They came back to the table and he handed me my glass. I noticed suspiciously that all three watched me as I drank the deliciously thick and creamy, perfectly off-white nog. I asked him if he put something in my cup. He looked earnestly at me and said he didn't. I was weary but I believed him. I tasted the egg nog--it was a teensy bit off. I stole peripheral glances at my sisters, they didn't bat an eye. If something was in my cup, there was no way my 13 year old sister could keep her composure. Plus, I could always tell when Brian was lying, and he wasn't.
Still, every once in awhile (in between annihilating everyone in Mexican dominoes) I would comment on how it tasted different. I laid my last domino down and in show of victory I chugged the rest of my eggnog and slammed the glass down in triumph.
laughter erupted from my cousin and sisters.
"You just drank breast milk!"
I think I gagged involuntarily first. Then I stuck my finger down my throat. I didn't want to believe them, but I knew this time they were telling the truth. I knew I had just drank a glass full of my sisters breast milk. I was horrified, mad, disgusted. It seemed a bizaare combination of cannibalism, incest, homosexuality, and child molestation. And yet, through all of that, I could see the genius of the joke. If it wasn't played on me, it would have been brilliant. So skillfully and patiently executed.
I tried unsuccessfully to burp myself so that I could 'spit-up'. It seemed so easy 25 years ago, to vomit sweet white chunks like tiny tapioca balls on the shoulder of my mother, the only woman whose breast milk I should have ingested.
I didn't fully recover from the hideous barbarity that took place the previous night until the next morning. I realized I had slept through the night without waking up every 15 minutes to scratch the weeping and spreading rash. I looked at my hands and lifted my shirt up. My poison oak was gone. My sisters breast milk was a magic elixir of instant healing.
She always called it liquid gold and I thought she could be right.... I could farm her! It'd be simple! I'd make millions selling little bottle of it. I bet it cures all sorts of diseases! It works for opiate addicts. I'll hook her up to a machine two times a day, feed her nice whole grains, organic food, lots of water, pillows, I mean I wouldn't be running a sweatshop or anything. Boob farm. Once people realized what this breast elixir could do for adult nutrition and health, there would be no stopping the farming and exploitaion of nursing mothers.
Who would have thought an industry would ever be trail blazed by the heroine addicts? Nice work junkies. Nice work.

almost road-kill

2008-12-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

I was driving down Sunset blvd in a brand new car pretending I was rich. It was a brand new Lincoln Navigator so I use the term "car" loosely. I guess it was more closely related to a shiny army tank. It was an environmental nightmare, but I was wearing my "think green!" T-shirt so I thought it cancelled each other out.
I was bulldozing down Sunset blvd in a brand new tank pretending I was rich. But actually I was taking the kids I tutor to tennis lessons. Turning onto Sepulveda following the parking lot of smoggy cars along the 405 with my "think green!" T-shirt slowly burning its scarlet logo into my guilty chest, I came up with a rhyming game to distract us. I would say a word and we would go around in a circle rhyming with it, no proper nouns, and no repeats. Peter was five years old so he was given a five made-up words allowance. Although Jeff hated this rule.
We were on round 4, rhyming with "cake" when I turned off of Sepulveda towards the tennis courts. Peter had just run out of his fifth made-up word so they were arguing over the word "shlake" when an enormous deer bolted out from the side of the road right in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes not knowing if this lumbering tank of a car could stop in time. It seemed to take forever to slow down. I kept thinking "I'm going to kill a deer in L.A. I am going to hit a deer in the streets of Los Angeles". The cars behind me were screeching and squealing, wrenching their cars left and right to avoid a pile up. Finally our tank halted and we slammed into the backs of our seats as this immense creature stopped right in front of the windshield. He turned his massive, handsome head. His nostrils flared, he lifted his antlers, four tiers high, gloatingly. We sat frozen, in awe of his beauty and power. This majestic beast from some mythical forest had entered our dirty, traffic ridden city and he seemed to stop time with his serene aristocracy.
He blinked once and ran straight up the hill disappearing in seconds. We rode the rest of the way in silence.

Surrendering

2008-12-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

There is a beautiful worship song that goes, "I surrender all..." C-sharp, D-sharp, A minor... and it sounds beautiful. And I like singing it because it makes me feel like a good sacrificial Christian. It lets me believe that giving your free will and everything you have worked for in your life over to a God you can't see seem easy, nice and peaceful. Almost a calming experience. But I think that the actual act of surrender is far less joyful.
When you surrender, its the last option. Its the only thing left to do after a long and difficult battle that you are losing. Its when you are in the middle of a battle, and you take inventory and you discover that you are clearly losing, with no hope and the best option, the BEST option is to give up. To give yourself up completely to the mercy of -not just an arbitrary person- but the very thing you were fighting. To wholeheartedly throw your arms up and collapse in a wet heap at the feet of your adversary and let him now become your benefactor.
To surrender all. And maybe some people can sing it gaily through bright shining faces, and good for them. But I think it's most genuinely said through gritted teeth.
I surrender. fine. I lost. I can't do this anymore. I give up. you won. I am defeated. I surrender.

God is a yellow lion

2008-10-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

God is a yellow lion and he speaks in fortune cookies.

i see him in those electric billboards- the ones with burnt out bulbs on 17% of its mass. i guess he's on the regular ones too but it doesn't seem so wizard of Oz-ish that way.

and every so often i hear him in a pirate punks or a lucero song.

But more often than not it's walking up those grassy hills when he pounces out of nowhere with blood on his claws and teeth. bright shining yellow like playdough and chick fuz. radiant and stiff. and his amazon paws that knock my breath out as he jumps on my chest, the tips of his nails leaving marks on my skin. and i'm left, facing skyward with whitenoise and static. slipping in and out and still, all this time, not breathing. with a blow to my face that cracks and pops in my ear i gasp and lay limp and soiled in the grass. not afraid anymore but worn and used and broken and damaged and torn and ripped. and ripe for love. and ripe for hope.

a beach comb

2008-10-13T19:45:00.002-07:00

The tractor spits and rattles forward. Yoked and chained with replaceable subway grids. Santa Monica's single attempt to "recycle, reuse, reduce". With slow stoutheartedness it smooths the stubborn cowlicks of sand. The beach, once defiantly tousled and windblown now resembles more a boy, with a short-sleeved collard shirt and a belt. Hair tightly greased and slicked over to one side, sitting courteously beside his sister in the car, hands folded in his lap on the way to Sunday School.

Two homeless men lay sprawled, passed out from last nights quenching of hard earned looting. Unconcerned of the world, of the beady eyed orange-ish monster looming on, fixed in his path. A freight train with steady endurance, committed to his abstruse track of broken down rocks and glass. As it approaches, whumping, clanging, cracking, the two men lay recklessly indifferent. Heedless to the unquestionable misfortune.

The tractor swerves last second and continues.
A perfectly groomed sandy beach except for two homeless men---two rocks in a zen garden.

Easter at the Crystal Cathedral

2008-10-13T19:45:00.001-07:00

This sunday with my aunt and uncle in from florida, my family decided we should try out a new "easter experience". We drove down the I5 and pulled into a parking lot where men in pastel shirts ushered us into parking spots with the giant orange light sticks that are used when airplanes taxi. Once out of the car, we hurried to get a good place in line. My dad forgot to pick up a ticket for me, I was a little nervous that they wouldnt let me in without one, but it turns out there was no need to fret, my aunt had an extra one. The hot sun beat down on us from every angle and off of the reflections from the newly washed and mylared walls of the cathedral that we wrapped around. As the doors opened, my aunt grabbed my hand and raced to the front.

Horrified I looked to the ceiling, it was glass, the walls, glass. We were in a giant crystal ball. I mean, it made sense, it was called the Crystal Catherdral, but honestly!? No relief from the sun? This was torture for a fair skinned vampire like myself. I kept my sunglasses on and just decided to not look at the pulpit, (there was a glare there). There was a pyramid of flowers from the center of the room to the top of the stage with a beautiful flower cross hung from cables above. There were flowers upon flowers, piled up to the balcony. on the ridges, turets, banisters, everywhere there was space, there were flowers, pink, white yellow and palm trees. The cathedral was filled with the scent of lilys and hydrengas and roses. And as the pipe organ played, you could feel the vibrations all around you and at the songs climax part of the walls split open magnificently to display dancing fountains and the wind swept in and swirled the scents around. And Christ has risen. Amen. It was beautiful and I almost teared up except for the camera men on cranes that voyeristically caught every emotion on the audiences face. And then I would snap out of the moment and think, I wonder if grandma will recognize me on TV? A man who resembeld a hedgehog brought out the orchestra. He didnt look like a hedgehog in a bad way, just a hard working, driven by duty, self important looking man. A sense of purpose and perhaps a tuxedo just a smidgen too tight.

The orchestra was huge and glorious, but on the third song right in the middle, the wind swept in again, and I felt its magic, but some of the pots of flowers toppled down from the balcony, luckily not hitting anyone. There were a few "Uhhs!" from the audience but everyone turned their attention back on the music. Another gust blew in and more flowers and trees this time fell over and crashed down onto the first level. The wind was not done yet. The third time , the wind howled in, the easter liliys came crashing down onto the tympony and drum kit below the microphones waivered and tipped over, the palm trees toppled one after the other onto the pulit. The gerbes and gyeranieum petals dissapating in the air. The cross hanging from the wires swung precariously back and forth, over the congregation threatening certain death for and extra bad sinner. The music from the cellos and piano flew from the stands and danced across the stage. Some of the music got caught on the violinist bows or flew over heads, and messed up the womens hair. We were half way through the song and now no one had their music in front of them, how will they go on!? The man playing the bass drum and cymols was the last to lose his music and when he did, a spritely smile fleeted briefly across his face and he picked up the cymbols and just started banging them together like an ancient alarm system. "Catastrophe! Catasterophe! All hells broke loose! Pick a note and just play it like its the last thing you'll do!" The little hedgehog man became frantic and ran around in a panic threw his arms up "Close the doors! Close the doors!" but with the cymbols blasting and the piano clanking and clashing and the strings and brass blaring, pots smashing to the floor, the wind still bursting forth and still that heavenly smell and light from every angle...it was the stones shouting out. Jesus Christ has risen today.

i hate everything right now

2008-10-07T18:21:00.001-07:00

i hate comming home from vacations.
i hate feeling obligated to complete strangers.
i hate car salesmen.
acutally, i hate most salesmen.
i hate debt accrued on vacation.
i hate not seeing my dog.
i hate not seeing someone i love very much.