Jill

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a dolphin. I’d watch them swimming in perfect unison. Like they were the same dolphin. I saw the ocean become them And I’d become the ocean.I learned to swim before my 2nd birthday. My daddy was a fisherman. He wasn’t happy unless he was in his boat. I wasn’t happy unless I was with him. This is what I was made for. I guess I was a dolphin.When I was ten I lost the ocean. My daddy disappeared into it Like a dolphin But he was drunk and the ocean mirror broke.The shards and slivers flew into the stars and whispered their way into everything. The sparkles were so shiny that I sucked in my fins, and grew wings.All over the world I sought out the shiny I gathered each piece and set in deep in my skull. Sometimes the tiny shining bits moved so fast that it felt like I was chasing lightning. I flew after them anyway. High.I came to the stars in the darkness. I touched them. I licked them. I knew them.Then I looked down.I found a needle in the stack of shards and stars. The needled was hollow. I dove into my body through the tiny shiny hole.I felt, for the first time, my blood in my veins. It beat hard and red. Full and hot.I saw the stars locked inside my bones. Filthy skin holding back my flight and dissolving my wings I cried for the loss of my freedom. For my realization of self My brain prison Keeping me out of the stars Locked in the tiny shiny hollow needle.Without wings I walked. I walked into the dark places Where the shadows are slimy and hateful. Where the predator waits, invisible, seeking out fear and weakness.I hated my body. It wanted too much. It needs this perfection, but it isn’t mine. It isn’t me.I want to go home Back to the oceanBut I’ve seen too much. I’ve seen the tether that ties us here. So I drove the needle deeper.One day I came to the crossroads. She was there holding her black bag of bones.We sat together in the dirt. She cast the bones in the dust. She saw there my loss. She recognized the ocean.She touched the tiny stars tucked away deep in my head. I pushed her hand away, “They’re worthless," I said. They are mine and I am here trapped in this soggy body.”She touched my forehead and a star popped out. It floated out and up. Then, like popcorn, silver shine flooded out And the sky was full of stars.Soon the shards of my ocean were coming together. Rearranged and reassembled Bigger Brighter Pulsating.The back of my head softly opened. It too was filled with stars. Stars that were oozing out into the ocean Into the mirror. And it was perfect.I started studying herbal medicine at the end of my drunken crusty squatter girl career in 1997. My life's work is healing. I am sure of my future, and I will never regret my past. Sweet Pali Dog crossed over on December 30, 2006. Her life was well lived. She was 12 years old.