very unwell right now. JB's moving out of me reluctant and jagged like mud through a sieve. his restlessness keeps me up late even as his gruff insistence on prayer grounds me, locks me to my altar and reminds me to sit, breathe, cleanse, speak out loud a few things I'm grateful for about the day. it's taken him a good week to slide this far out of my body, after one of the biggest channellings I've ever done. I can tell he doesn't mean to make it worse for me – his concern comes through, I can still feel him close enough to take my hands gently, I trust him as well as I can someone I've just met – but it's a lot, to share my body in this heat. I feel sick. I move slow. my chest compressed by iron. every part of me a sticky ache while the city coughs and growls heat.
oh, it's so fucking intimate to call someone in like this. when we were through with the big working he called me daughter, and I cried and laughed beneath the maple tree who sighed and held me through the relief and shaking wonder. I can feel myself, abruptly bereft the person I've been giddy in love with these past few months, holding JB's hand tight despite myself. don't go. of course you have to go. I'm not you and you're not mine. now you know you can call me. a touch to my sternum. I don't belong to you but I am of you. you know where I live. right there, I'm holding too tight. the woman who put needles in me for the second time in my life, a few days ago, commented on it rubbing the spot. you don't see too many people hold tension here. she moved the needle into my muscles and hummed low when I breathed.
outside, the city's like an oven curled in on itself with electric-fire stomach cramps. last night the train tracks one neighbourhood up burst into flames and bloated dead fish litter the ponds' banks. it's almost too much to look at my own garden, yellowing and straining for breath. I tried smoking a joint the other night after the sun went down and dug panic out of my chest, so intense I had to go rinse myself down with the hose: I couldn't move my lungs. it's like my body's struggling to play catch-up after two weeks away, wrestling with the reckoning we can all feel coming, that's already here. you had better – all you people – prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it.
the sooner you are prepared, the better. I curl up in the blacked-out inside and wait, read, sleep. slow your roll. my tomatoes are getting big, my sunflowers shooting up. I've made three healthcare appointments, including finally registering with a doctor in my city again after nearly three years' putting it off. I've ordered two books to make sure I do some homework. on Thursday, there's a chance it might rain. I can feel JB's got something for me before he goes, til the next time we call him. let's see. there's still a little time left.
