I disappeared for more than a year. In that time, I participated in the most extraordinary correspondence, I fell in love, I graduated from college, I toured with The Morrigan, I participated in my third National Poetry Slam, I took my partner to the hospital and held her and her concussion close, I moved in with my partner, I largely stopped writing (with the exception of love poems to my partner), I completely stopped performing, I began martial arts practice, I made friends with two dogs, I swam in gorgeous rivers and lakes, I grew wild with joy, I learned how to canoe, I made very few telephone calls, I lost touch with almost everybody I have cared about, I found a wildness in myself I had never known was there, I reveled in the wildness of my glorious partner, I facilitated the “We Love Andre Project”, I lost two very precious individuals (both of them mentors and teachers) to cancer, I laughed and cried a great deal, I touched and held, I grieved and despaired, I gave my partner a massage almost every day for six months, I suffered a kidney infection, I learned how to drive, I danced and I wrestled for pleasure and for money, I modeled, I witnessed one exceptional meteor shower and two rings around the moon, I had my wisdom teeth removed, I threw up for the first time in ten years, I fell into a deep and long-lasting unassailable depression, I grew unbalanced emotionally, I forgot everything I ever thought I knew about peacefulness, about Buddha nature, about calm, I grew crazy, I banged my head hard against solid objects—doorframes, walls, bookcases, I shrieked and screamed and slammed doors and strode out into the night half naked, I hated myself for the first time since grade school, I unjustly blamed my partner for my problems, I grew humble, I grew arrogant, I officially broke up with a friend of mine (for the first time in my life ever, called a friendship to a close), I started taking 5-HTP and St. John’s Wort, I held my love close to my heart, I took my love for granted, I bought oranges and greens and garlic at the Farmer’s Market, I listened to KPFA (Pacifica) Radio, I fretted and wept and cursed and kicked inanimate objects over the actions of the citizens of the United States and the open-faced evil of the United States government, I stopped believing in the words of “To the Patriots and the Activist Poets,” a poem strongly linked to my identity and my own sense of love-of-country, I voted for Barbara Lee and as many Green Party candidates as I could find, I read my partner all the Harry Potter books, I read Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass series, I read Wicked by Gregory Maguire, I read The Ethical Slut for the second time, I read Carole Maso’s The American Woman in the Chinese Hat, I read Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, I read The Hobbit, I read Octavia Butler, Dorothy Allison, and Anais Nin, I read June Jordan and Mary Oliver and Lyn Lifshin and Marty McConnell, I heard Arundhati Roy speak for the first time, I subscribed to The Nation, I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer religiously, I attended two Ani Difranco concerts and one Sweet Honey in the Rock concert, I traveled from San Francisco to New York, Chicago, Seattle, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Mount Shasta, Pennsylvania, Young Forest, and a great many points in between, I ate at the Macrobiotic Café, I came to love tofu, I delighted in the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring and Monsters, Inc., I was awestruck and inspired by and (not to mention sickened by the information I found in) Bowling for Columbine, I grew a taste for flax seed oil and cheese on sprouted wheat raisin bread, I cooked coconut milk stew, sautéed tofu, broiled a rib-eye steak, fixed tilapia and fried catfish, I tested for and attained my orange belt in Kajukenbo, attended one traditional Irish wake and three memorial services, I attempted to teach poetry and spoken word to 11-15 year olds, I fisted and opened my body up to my partner’s loving fist, I fucked and allowed myself to be fucked (in bedrooms and dining rooms, in public restrooms and dressing rooms, on rocks, in rivers, in cars traveling 70 miles an hour or so down the freeway, in clusters of 2 or 3 or 4 individuals at a time, with men, with women, with wine, with poetry), I made love, love made me, I reveled in physical intimacy, I drew away, I received a pair of running shoes and began to jog, I ran three miles at a time on multiple occasions, I suffered the ending of my relationship with my partner and the bliss and uncertainty of its rebirth, I ate too much candy, I spoke ill of a dead dog, I listened to Lauryn Hill, Nikka Costa, The Coup, ThaMuseMeant, and Mystic (and Ani and Sweet Honey), Dave Matthews band and Dave Matthews (the jazz organist), I had my period maybe four times total, I extended heart and body to new lovers, I withdrew unable to trust myself in a sexual environment, my body uncertain of its own desires, I feared looking deeply inside myself at my behaviors, my actions, my needs and vulnerabilities, I abandoned myself. Many times over. I got real with the fact that I don’t know who I am any more or what I want or need. I wrote this passage as part of the beginning of what I hope will be the re-emergence, the reconstruction, the rebirth, the discovery, the invention, the creation, the quest to the true heart center of Ariana Waynes.

Please be patient with me. I’m just being born.