Erin Iwata
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Mine is a story of treachery and grace.
​

Where to find me

Owie-International

10/19/2018

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The rock in my stomach
Is immobile
A slog of ice turned stone
Jadis come to reside in my gut

They say the blue pill will dissolve it
Mercury off gassing into my abdomen
That scare me too

Before I might drop a hundred
To sit in a stranger’s chair
Who nods while i read her
My monologue
But I am far from such
Familiarity

I weigh how much of
Myself to reveal to neighbors
Who are already judging
The fragile self I have
Planted on foreign soil
Cracking like she always does
Exposed to sugar and sunlight

No one to tell.
The old ones will
Beacon me home
But the microbes from this place
Have embedded themselves
Under my fingernails
I am not the same
A part of me is in the environment
Not to be easily replanted

The new ones
Have no skin in the game
No retroactive reconnaissance
To recall saner days when
They needed me

Is it scarier here, sweetheart,
Knowing winter still arrives
In my belly even when all
My preclusive dreams have
Come true?

I say:
"How dare you be down
In Europe
Where castles clutter up
The landscape
Health care is free
Bakeries abound
UN suit talking solves all the
Western World’s problems-
Even yours

It almost made sense
When you sat immobile
Day dreaming your
Dis-reality
Raising your expectation
But now here you are
Eat another pastry
Climb across the cobblestone
Be a little God-damn grateful
Chin up buttercup

Isn’t this everything you ever wanted?
Tell Jadis to go fuck herself."

I’ll let you know if that works.

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Bulk

3/25/2016

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the singularity of this mind
circling around the same
dying delusion
is tearing fine lines around
the corners of eyes
passed off as shadows
awkward elbows
thrust back and forth
to mimic running as if
one could escape out of this
shell of a body.
But empty ramblings lead to
swollen hearts, too full to contain
spilling over to imaginary
spaces that decay slower
than the brutality of reality.


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Tidy

3/2/2016

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Tidy up
Diligently
Dutifully devoted
To that which rounds
Out your hours
My day is never so full
That I am empty of you
I am never empty of you

​
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Ours

12/19/2015

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We’ve all dashed so 
far from where we started
I hardly remember
youthful farsightedness is easily 
lost on the duties that fill our fingers
The clouds that clot our sight
do not mean we live in a fog 
The white black that consumes our 
plodding phases is not our 
eternity 
I have to believe that something of seventeen
still lingers, although she pains me with 
her adolescent optimism, I return 
hoping she wasn’t wrong 
that there is beauty in the stacked stones
along the path -that there is a path indeed, 
mountains to be scaled and conquered
that the world is still ours
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K-Baby

12/19/2015

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You are a lone skiff 

enclosed in the fog of the arctic

as my icy corpse drifts in the steely sea
I
didn’t believe you were there but

I could not deny the music

sometimes coming in plucked 

strings sifting through the waves

other times in piano chords unwillingly

resuscitating me from the water.

Then there was your voice-

the voice of a child I gazed upon 
only hours old

the harmony of sibling’s hymns

and your father 
somewhere behind the serenade

dancing like David his sweat 

mixing in the salt water.
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Yoga

12/19/2015

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Peace rippling -flowing over aged hands

muscles stretch to inhuman lengths

until the soul cries out “I’m here!” 
This is why I clamor for my mat
lay myself and bend 
hoping for relief

hoping for answers

hoping for sweat.

It is difficult to explain the melodies 

that echo from my head flowing out

veritably felt by each spirit in the space
They hear a foreign language, with no comprehension

only the emotion translating hand
gestures 
written on the sub-conscience

They’ll perceive it as a bow

call me humble

call me beautiful
I am neither of those things. The terror of that follows me

as I glide through the movements, making microscopic 

changes in position that reverberate first in my mind 

then trickle down into my soul until I am weeping
wetting the mat with salt and truth
​
a truth I never have words for
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Come!

12/19/2015

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Something is dying to get out-
circling in and out of my consciences-
roving on the peripheral of reality. 
I am a slave to the chance 
that color, light, meaning 
might spring from my fingertips
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December 19th, 2015

12/19/2015

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It’s true, we live on the planet of the dying light
Swallows still rush to spiraling shelter
Crickets sing in cities
Sand and sweat mingle with song
Empires of ants grow and are crushed with no notice
The flow and rush of seasons continues
Loons call from the rivers the edge despite the coyotes distance
And each morning, if you stand barefoot in the dew,
Your feet will chill and the earth will warm them
The sun, though she’s fading, gives nutrients
She never relents or slows her mercy.
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True Story from August 20

12/19/2015

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True story from Aug 20​

Driving alone I pulled over to clarify to the Universe
I’d rather be a friend than a threat.
Cop found this unusual and pulled over
to ask if I knew about the recent robberies.
I told him I was only stealing time and he drove away.

The Universe had already escaped, clearly trying to avoid me.

So I went home, determined to start fresh.
I came in ready to be the wife, but he held up his hand and said

“I’m drunk”

Then he wept and cursed at God because he doesn’t know
who I am without Jesus. He wants to be first
to me yet never felt quite good enough

I kissed his eyes - knelt on the floor
my head on his lap I told him


he was first
i love him
i’m sorry
i want God to show up too

He woke up in a stupor, pencil in hand
drew wild and dark things he doesn’t remember.
To this day, people ask about that sketch
they can feel what he couldn’t say.


Even us without hands are artists.
Even us without words are poets
I’m not sure if the Universe is my friend
but we all know
our hearts are voracious thieves that want everything.
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Dis-reality

12/19/2015

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Dis-reality:
​

after our meeting
I just want to sleep- sleep for days
let the drowsy drop over me
dark falling heat rising -where nothing
matters as my brain falls into autonomic
response inhaling-exhaling my troubles
slipping to an overinflated colorless world
where disaster and sexual encounter loom
around fuzzy edges of disreality
I’ll wake to three precious minutes
where I remember

nothing
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    Author

    Erin is a doula, writer, mother to men, and teacher on permanent hiatus. She loves how writing connects us and thrives on the bright edges of human experience. ​

    Finding Erin
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