I had forgotten

the stomach splitting,

soul severing,

heartbreak of

each goodbye.

And to this I say:

give me heartbreak.

Again.

And again.

©️Rashael Crystal 2019

Aquarius

Oh fickle be

winter’s child—

Rain fills your lungs.

You know the writing

of celestial bodies;

you speak heaven’s tongue

But then you withdraw

—Inside—

a castle of sound.

Too close you fly, far

Into sunlight,

Into lonely, black

mausoleum,

charred remnants,

and only now

are you content.

©️Rashael Crystal 2019

12.13.18

Today, I read of a sea lion on the shores of a stretch of preservation land in Point Reyes. He was seven years old—the sea lion—and was a regular here, swimming between remote stretches of sand and small islands peppered around the Pacific coastline. This was his home. His world. His life.

A foreigner, some passerby, saw the sea lion’s harmless, soft flesh rolling and wriggling lazily across the pebbled beach and sunk six cold bullets into his belly. And then, they walked away, out of the wildlife sanctuary, and into the cities we call civilized.

In fact, the stranger could now be walking behind a stack of menus, smiling and waving a family of four to their dinner table. Or passing you with a nod on a nearby wilderness trail, pitching their tent twenty yards down the lake. They could be clicking away at the keyboard in the cubicle next to yours.

Or they could be the Uber driver chattering about Bay Area rates as they ferry you to the bar downtown. Once the bar stops the music and turns up the lights, they could be the stranger you follow home.

You see, wickedness has no face. We cannot point to the color or form of iniquity, it is simply omnipresent. It slinks at the edges like a shadow stretching alongside light. It is thick, dank scales coiling and tightening around your neck. And it is greedy, colorless hands scratching and clawing for power.

Power is a sink hole. I imagine the rush of adrenaline, the electricity that flashed through that stranger’s veins (lasting only seconds) as the first bullet met its mark. The next five– a transparent display of desperation-chasing some chemical reaction that would not repeat itself. A heart beat already slowing to the sound of waves.

The weight of being Nobody, so heavy upon their back, they seek to snuff out kindness. The darkness of their powerlessness, closing in, swallowing any glint of light gifted to them.

The sea lion is a gift. A reminder of the brilliance and diversity of beings we share this moment in space and sea with. They present an opportunity to chase possibility and to imagine entire worlds, populations, and relationships with no need of us. If embraced, this is as refreshing as a morning dew, a sweet breath between the cool sea and the warm rock below our feet.

Instead, the stranger chose power. And with every bullet, sank deeper into their cage of impotence.

Drought

I remember when October would usher in the rain. The clouds bursting open, shedding weight like overburdened udders dragging through a dry, dusty summer.

Back then I would leap out into the October rain, walking through mirrored lanes marveling at tails of water shooting down beneath the street lamps, (Halley himself is no doubt envious). I’d lift my face to the heavens until my lashes tipped over from the weight of the droplets clinging to their curves. Surrendering indoor only when soaked to the bone or when inspired to put pen to paper, desperately painting the dark, wet autumn scene with stem and serif, so that I may hold it for eternity.

Now, a decade later, the heat swells and blisters well into September. October is brittle and dry from drought. If we are lucky, as we are today, the rains come at the end of November. Entering cautiously and without promise to return, like a stranger newly introduced in a dimly lit bar.

In the ten years that have passed, I have held seven different positions, lived in four different homes, and have kissed more lips than I care to recall. However, as life would have it, I ended up two city blocks from where I danced beneath those rainy October skies.

As rain putters upon my rooftop, here in the now, my spirit is compelled to throw on a raincoat and venture down the road and back into time.

The lights are smaller than I remember. The balcony where my friends and I would sit to listen to the sounds of a shifting season and speak softly about the changing winds in our souls, was dark and empty. I am an intruder; slinking in the shadows along the sidelines in a time and place no longer my own.

Yet, even as I return home, I feel somehow apart. As if time has split me into pieces, glued, but not quite fitting true.

You know the feeling. It scratches at the corners of your socially acceptable veneer. The whispers of displacement as we awake to alarm clocks and look in the mirror tracing ravines etched into the corner of our eyes, unsettled by a face that looks much older than the spirit that resides inside.

The planet feels it too; as it struggles to balance life-giving resources with a populace devoured by greed. Evident by the deep exhalation of rain, two months delayed.

My Imaginary Thirty-Six Self

By Rashael Crystal

I spent my thirty-sixth birthday in my birthday suit.

It wasn’t planned this way. I dutifully packed two black swimming suits in a floral patterned backpack and set out to soak my aging bones in California’s Orr Hot Springs. The signs read “clothing optional” and I imagined one or two old birds walking around bare with paper-thin skin, proud beaks, and time-earned attitudes of “I don’t give a fuckery.” Or, I thought perhaps there would be two or three young sprites who drove up from the city to strip down, flit about in mountain spring waters, and collect selfies for their instagram stories. What I didn’t expect was that clothing optional should have read: “clothing, not really a thing here.”

Barefooted bodies with slacken faces bend over to scrub old cast iron clawfoot tubs, while others in flip flops (towels draped across their shoulders like accessories) walk to their bath of preferred water temperature.

There is only a single body in a bathing suit, her face pinched into a frown of apprehension and prudence. I stand frozen in my maxi skirt with a shirt boldly proclaiming “more love” in the midst of a crisis of conscience.

You see, I was raised with religion. Meaning, I was taught at a very young age that god hated nakedness. Perhaps more specifically, that Eve–a woman–had used her feminine powers of suggestion to manipulate her male counterpart into sin, wickedness, and god’s hatred of the naked body.

It smacks of shame. This laid a solid foundation of concrete body-image insecurities. Then, a lifetime of being fifteen to forty pounds overweight built a fortress. I’m not really comfortable being naked alone, let alone with ten to twenty strangers roaming about.

In a moment of courage, I decide that the thirty-six year old self of my imagination is a woman of confidence and freedom (and nothing like the pinch-faced woman with her brows holding onto tension that 106 degree mineral waters couldn’t loosen). Right then and there, I resolved to shed a layer of shame.

I pull and twist off my clothes beneath a grey and white striped turkish bath towel (a skill I proudly learned as an early teen to avoid being seen naked in front of the cool girls in gym class). I stand terrified, coiled inside the safety of my towel and watching as the clawfoot tub takes an eternity to fill with steaming blue water. The distinct aroma of boiled eggs and mustard fill the air.

Out of the corners of my eyes (being careful not to be caught staring) I watch the shapes of people walk by–unadorned, unabashed, and unapologetic. Lanky bodies with thick dreads down to their knees. Curvy caramel bodies with stretch marks on their rears and gold chains around their waists (reminiscent of a rap music video). Grey dimpled bodies sagging under the weight of age and gravity. Round, swaying fleshy bodies. Shaved bodies. Savage bodies.

I’ve been wearing this particular body for forty minus four years. This body has never had abs (despite thousands of crunches and decades of prayer). Delightfully, this body has seduced a few men, but heartbreakingly, has convinced far fewer to stay. This body hasn’t born children, but still bears red and white stretch marks, a full belly, and thighs that refuse to be away from the other. This body has climbed the Himalayas, the High Tatras, the Dolomites and crossed the grand canyon, and yet, it continues to lose the battle against refined sugar and simple carbohydrates. This body has been a singular blessing while simultaneously my greatest nemesis. A ticking time bomb, this body. A daily reminder of my limitations, lost potential, and many missteps.

I step into the filling tub, the warm water lapping my calves and threatening to soak the edge of my towel. With a deep breath I imagine the carefree, bold woman I want to be. Then I toss my towel across the wooden deck and sink into the milky mineral water. I recline bare breasted to a blue afternoon sky, stretch my unshaven legs long and poke my toes just out of reach from the hot water. And with a nervous shrug, I say to myself, “Well, it’s a start.”

Wild woman in red,

who carries a storm

of rage and love

in her breast:

her full lips

flushed pink in sex.

Ancient scriptures call her

Jezebel. Harlot.

Babylon the great.

She serves

holy heads On platters

and cuts down

Samson’s strength.

The old faith prays

Kali. Cāmundā.

Her neck adorned in bones,

leopard hide

and crimson robes.

She drinks wine—

goblets of blood.

She is hunger:

Death feeding on life.

Life feeding on death.

We call her witch.

We call her Eve.

By any name,

I answer.

©2017 Rashael Crystal

The Freshness

When it’s cold and raining

you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me

even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,

you are the freshness, and I am with you now.

I can’t explain the goings,

or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.

Inside the majesty.

-Rumi