Juniper Leaves

It’s 5:37 in the morning — Juniper rocks to her left side and rolls onto the hardwood floor on all fours.

Juniper is a staunch minimalist:

her philosophy and practice require her to be without bed frame. Fitting — Juniper is her own frame.

She balloons

into the Brooklyn Bridge, stretching back into child’s pose before leaping forward into her day.

She waits, she stays

just

a moment longer than usual, because she’s already late; decides that the frame of her mind precedes whatever anybody else thinks or wants of and from her.

“Not today, boss. I’m about Divine Timing, now” Juniper sounds out in a new way in her mind’s eye, as the tip of her tongue touches the roof of her mouth — meridian points activate.

Because —

Juniper is quantum — leaping dimensions of just how positively cosmic she is and can be. Like a tree - her leaves root into the earth and rise into astral planes, simultaneously into the zero-point frequency of neutrality and love.

Juniper just begins to breathe, bodily heaves into the ways she now lets herself feel so she moves through and alchemizes her emotions from root to tip.

For the first time, today, Juniper remembers what she’s said to herself before:

“Create new rhythms, baby, make me jump into new timelines… crazy - no more -

p a u s i n g, b r e a t h i n g.

Slowing d o w n.

Remember, Junie —

I. come. first.”

Juniper never had quite put herself ‘first’. Today, she spiritually graduates. She’s moved mountains and moons within her to finally be here now, and, occupy space in this particularly juicy expansive way.

Through the cat’s meow she hears a knock on the front door.

“HmmmMMMmmmm,” Juniper purrs.

“Just because the call is there, doesn’t mean I answer right away. Only if, and, when I am ready.”

The knock comes again, this time followed by:

“Junie? I know you’re in there - your shoes are here, outside the door... with me.”

“Me” is Ron, Juniper’s soon-to-be-past-tense lover. Or, so she thinks.

“Fork. My feet always give way.”

Juniper writhes out of her head and onto the hardwood floor beneath her. She melts into what once was a tree; her breath holds her body steadily as she quakes in a quicksand of thought.

Juniper knows there’s nothing to hold on to, there.

“Stay still, Junie” Juniper revels in talking to herself as if she’s in her own womb: soft, cozy, warm.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Junie!”

“Steady, Junie… not yet…

don’t go

out there, now.

Timing isn’t right.”

Juniper’s higher self sings a soothing track to her, as she is the spiritual DJ of her life.

Junie listens, bobs her head up and down, all around while maintaining warrior pose. She remains unheard by Ron, outside.

“Meeeeowwww” comes the cat.

“Oh, Sir John Goodman - you really are vocal, today, huh?” Juniper whispers.

Sir John Goodman gives Juniper his best paw forward.

She takes him in her paws,

cradles her distinguished gentleman like the Momma Bear she’s been to everyone else.

“meeeowwww” Junie whispers softly, as the cat climbs atop her shoulders and nestles into her sweet-spot of love.

Ron squats and speaks through the threshold:

“Ok, Junie - you win. You got me this time. I’m going. I love you.”

Juniper reamins silent.

“Silence is as much a technology as sound is” she thinks. Juniper knows; she lives it.

She waits until all of the footsteps walk away from her door and out onto the street. She places Sir John Goodman down on the floor - he flops, she sways and walks towards her “I’m Just Visiting” doormat and notices a fat wad.

“Question mark?” Juniper asks aloud, standing betwixt her inside and outside spaces.

A little black book plays peek-a-boo with her.

Junie forward folds down to her feet to retrieve her little black book.

She takes a left and a right back inside, closes the door, but this time, doesn’t lock it.

Juniper reads the inside cover to Sir John Goodman:

“I always wondered what it would be like to hold your heart in my hand - and, now I can. A squishy red over-sized jellybean — I can’t eat — with peanut butter. Nor spoon with just my finger - yet, my tongue loves to linger with the shape of where it used to be, for me. Junie, you know me - I’ll always come for you. But, this time, you get to decide to come for me. If you want to. If you ever do. I’ll wait for you. For now, I want you to take care of yourself with this.”

A piece of paper slips.

Sir John Goodman purrs as Juniper’s heart drops into her stomach, shoots up her esophagus and pierces her throat, something saying ‘goodbye’ does to her.

Junie primal screams out into the ether from her apartment because something inside her wants to be heard, wants to be known by someone else, someone other than her.

Juniper leaves cry themselves onto the little black notebook, after they slink down her face around her mouth, a salt she craves.

Juniper manifests the slipped piece of paper, a check for twenty grand, now in Juniper's hand.