Like clear mountain air, crisp and refreshing
I breathe in your music
And it brings me this feeling (however brief) of peacefulness
Like small waves on a calm day
The music gently washes over me
And it makes me feel cleansed for an instant
Like your arms tightly wrapped around me
Your music brings me closer to you
And I’m comforted for a moment by the sounds of your guitar.
But most of all like soft summer rain
It pours down on me, around me
And I want to feel nothing, but the rain on my skin, (and hear nothing but this music)
like sand
I wash you off my skin (out of my hair)
I shake you out of my clothes
I sweep you out of my room
I write you out of my head
I’m removing you from my life
I just wish I could rid you from my heart
——
Like sand,
abrasive,
but soft as you slip through
my splayed fingers
you’re impossible,
impossible like sand
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Hesitant
Snagged from Facebook if you haven't read it.
It was originally written for HR anyway <3>
It was originally written for HR anyway <3>
I managed.
I managed to find some time, between the bulk of the essays, between the shots of caffeine or vodka. Somewhere above the warm laptop and below the incessant flicker of the lights two shades too bright, I have managed to salvage some time and set it aside.
Sometime between the rising sun and the settling dust, I managed to find a sliver of time, a selection of precious minutes to place in an hourglass. Amidst the hustle and bustle and silver lemon summer sun, the disorganization of grass-stained shoes, the permanent haze of smog above sea level, I managed to find the time to fall in love with the idea of love and discover myself.
I managed to find some time, between the bulk of the essays, between the shots of caffeine or vodka. Somewhere above the warm laptop and below the incessant flicker of the lights two shades too bright, I have managed to salvage some time and set it aside.
Sometime between the rising sun and the settling dust, I managed to find a sliver of time, a selection of precious minutes to place in an hourglass. Amidst the hustle and bustle and silver lemon summer sun, the disorganization of grass-stained shoes, the permanent haze of smog above sea level, I managed to find the time to fall in love with the idea of love and discover myself.
Hey Everybody:
When I was sixteen,
I was relatively convinced I was going to rule the world someday.
I would rule all the sea otters and there would be free, healthy food distributed daily on a global scale, and no more starvation, and no more malnutrition.
No one would be kidnapped in the streets, pulled from their beds in the dead of the night. No one would be manhandled, or treated unjustly, or silenced with a palm or a pistol.
No one would be objectified, or disfigured, or strapped down, or ridiculed. No one would be judged, and everyone would have at least one best friend and loving parent.
and everyone would stop being so terrified of being themselves.
And friendly fire wouldn't be friendly at all, and be doused out immediately, with a hose of justice and a condescending pat on the head. Everyone, really, would receive a condescending pat on the head.
World leaders would all respond to me, and when I was too busy, they would be given a fortune cookie and whilst the crumbs would collect on their business suits, the slip of paper would read (and always would, every time) 'Love more: Hate less, stupid.'
And the UN would rid itself of the Security Council.
And education would be free and universal like health care, and efficient, and everyone would notice that student who sits alone during recess and offer them the soccer ball.
No one would gain anything but grief and regret from another's suffering, and the greedy few who continued on would lead miserably short lives by the bottle.
And people would know the difference between Respect and Respectable.
Music would be played in the streets, all over. Some Beatles, some Spektor, some Fall Out Boy, just to make sure everyone's awake.
The internet would stop stealing our attention spans and people would read more books, and learn more, and enjoy learning, and teaching, and laughing, and getting to know new people.
And everybody would stop disrespecting one another, and listen instead of hearing, and speak instead of talk, and give second chances. And third. And fourth.
Every child would be brought up with a swimming pool and a swingset, so when they're older, they remember how to get themselves out of trouble, and never forget what it's like to fly.
And everyone would fall in love at least once, but not know when, so the paranoia and uncertainty would drive some insane, cause them to turn to religion, and the internet, and pornography. Arguably the same thing. The last two. Not all three.
And everyone would know what heartbreak feels like. And never forget it.
And everyone would stop holding grudges. Singular feuds and entire countries' histories. Everything would be forgiven. and we would all start anew, everyday. Because everyday would be a blessing, and people would realize it.
When I was sixteen,
I was relatively convinced that I had the world figured out.
I managed to find the time to fall in love with the idea of love
and discover myself.
I was relatively convinced I was going to rule the world someday.
I would rule all the sea otters and there would be free, healthy food distributed daily on a global scale, and no more starvation, and no more malnutrition.
No one would be kidnapped in the streets, pulled from their beds in the dead of the night. No one would be manhandled, or treated unjustly, or silenced with a palm or a pistol.
No one would be objectified, or disfigured, or strapped down, or ridiculed. No one would be judged, and everyone would have at least one best friend and loving parent.
and everyone would stop being so terrified of being themselves.
And friendly fire wouldn't be friendly at all, and be doused out immediately, with a hose of justice and a condescending pat on the head. Everyone, really, would receive a condescending pat on the head.
World leaders would all respond to me, and when I was too busy, they would be given a fortune cookie and whilst the crumbs would collect on their business suits, the slip of paper would read (and always would, every time) 'Love more: Hate less, stupid.'
And the UN would rid itself of the Security Council.
And education would be free and universal like health care, and efficient, and everyone would notice that student who sits alone during recess and offer them the soccer ball.
No one would gain anything but grief and regret from another's suffering, and the greedy few who continued on would lead miserably short lives by the bottle.
And people would know the difference between Respect and Respectable.
Music would be played in the streets, all over. Some Beatles, some Spektor, some Fall Out Boy, just to make sure everyone's awake.
The internet would stop stealing our attention spans and people would read more books, and learn more, and enjoy learning, and teaching, and laughing, and getting to know new people.
And everybody would stop disrespecting one another, and listen instead of hearing, and speak instead of talk, and give second chances. And third. And fourth.
Every child would be brought up with a swimming pool and a swingset, so when they're older, they remember how to get themselves out of trouble, and never forget what it's like to fly.
And everyone would fall in love at least once, but not know when, so the paranoia and uncertainty would drive some insane, cause them to turn to religion, and the internet, and pornography. Arguably the same thing. The last two. Not all three.
And everyone would know what heartbreak feels like. And never forget it.
And everyone would stop holding grudges. Singular feuds and entire countries' histories. Everything would be forgiven. and we would all start anew, everyday. Because everyday would be a blessing, and people would realize it.
When I was sixteen,
I was relatively convinced that I had the world figured out.
I managed to find the time to fall in love with the idea of love
and discover myself.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Retire
You
announced your resignation
from the world
of the living,
with a gunshot and
another mess for me to clean:
on
the floor,
the family;
in
the house,
my heart.
Moon Shines on Earth's Creatures
The empty glass bottle lets out a deep, hollow groan as it rolls across the hardwood, clunking each time it stumbles across a gap between the floorboards, before it clinks into a wooden crate. It rebounds slightly before settling into silence, the clear liquid within sliding across the glass and settling into a shallow pool in its belly. He looks at it with a wavering, bloodshot eye that stretches impossibly large in the rounded glass, and he thinks to himself that the last drips are 80% saliva or something ridiculous like that. Then he thinks of the glass bottle, stretched into being by a man’s breath, how those last drips are like the inevitable spittle inside a balloon, and this amuses him. He smiles a yellow smile, too tired to laugh, wheezing and sputtering.
Oh God, he groans. Even just trying to laugh makes him feel like vomiting; he can hear the liquids in his stomach gurgling with every shake. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. Every crack of it familiar, every crooked line and seam of hardwood like the wrinkles on his face, or the way the water used to trickle down her skin over her round breasts and buttocks, over her closed eyelids, streaming off her nipples like young men diving over cliff sides, naked. And the wood is naked too, the paint peeling in all directions, spreading from that jagged hole in the roof where the rain falls through, clinging to the splintered wood before dropping onto his upturned face. He closes his eyes and remembers the feeling, the cool splash on hot, steaming flesh; the deep, satisfying huffs and the hay clinging to red, sweaty cheeks.
He opens his eyes and the sky is clear, a dark purple splashed with diamonds, cool and crisp. They shine on the glassy surface of his eyes, dazzling him, as if he were a cartoon character knocked silly. His head spins and reverberates. She is twirling him in a dance.
He feels flat, suddenly aware of the floor along his spine, lifting him like an upturned palm, offering him to the gods. He thinks of how he can see so many stars from such a small hole in the ceiling, a pinprick of the universe. And he sees the moon, a white spectre across the sky, gazing down serenely. Fuck the moon. Fuck the sky and fuck everything in it. And yet he feels still, here, cradled in a pocket of time, as if the world has stopped for this one moment. What if everyone else left in the world is lying down as he is, drunk with despair, contemplating the minutes slipping between their fingers? He feels secure in his aloneness, that others are also alone and waiting, somewhere far removed. An attic. A locked bathroom, in the bathtub, curtain drawn. Little buried ants, praying never to be found. He prays never to be found, but he knows she is looking for him already. Can she find him, here? Of course she can. She will.
He lies like that, pondering aimlessly in all directions, lost in a world without time. That was always his problem, she had told him. Too many "what ifs," nothing concrete and serious. He'd argued that there was nothing dangerous about hypotheticals, and dared her to try one, just for fun.
“If you ever died,” she had said, sitting in a coffee shop, swirling a creamy vortex thoughtfully with a stir stick, “I think I would kill myself."
"So would I," he said, and placed his hand on hers, tenderly. "Wanna keep it simple and go double?"
Laughter and flailing smack.
"You're a jackass."
But there was a twinkle in her eye.
He's too drunk to stop smiling. Maybe it's the irony, or the tears in his eyes, or maybe it's just the memory of her. Maybe it's a sob and maybe it's a drunken hiccup. He can't decide.
All he knows is that he dreads being found by her, like a boy hiding under the bed, waiting for the feet to appear, for the cover to be ripped up and the monstrous face to surge under. He rolls to his side, looks down over the edge of the hayloft, and stares at the barn's door, barred shut. Imagines her furiously pounding the door, seething. But it is too late. There's no turning back now.
He lurches up into a sitting position and immediately regrets it. His head is like a wrecking ball, dense and heavy, dropping deep and low, swinging high into the air. He thinks he might fall onto his back like a man shot through the chest until he realizes that he reason he feels he is spinning is because he is. He is sitting up, swaying his body around and around, drunkenly acting out his inner state of mind. He tries to climb onto his feet, brace himself against the angled roof, but he stumbles onto his ass. Notices the shotgun beside him.
The sight of it makes his already-pounding heart leap up harder into his throat, makes him feel like vomiting again. He had forgotten about that shotgun, didn’t want to remember it, but he knows the ultimate purpose of it being here. He just needed a drink, first. Or two. Closing his eyes, he lets his body sway on an internal ocean of booze. Tries hard not to imagine bloody pulp and crushed eggshells sneezed against the wood wall, but it all comes back to this conclusion.
He wishes he could just get on with it. But there is something about those last living moments that makes him want to enjoy himself, one last time, like a soldier drunkenly swinging a girl around, his money gambled gone, unable to look into those desperate eyes as they fuck for fuck’s sake because they both know this could be the last human touch they ever have and every moan is anguish. The complete abandonment of impending death. Only it's much more miserable alone.
But he won't be alone, he reminds himself. He leans back against the wall, sweating, swallows. Cradles the shotgun against his head. The cold nip of steel the last link to the physical world. Oh God, please just let it happen.
Then he hears it. The slow, ambling steps coming up to the barn, her dry, rasping voice, as if she's been crying too much. Her words are muffled groans. He quickly stands up, peers out the hole in the roof, only to catch a glimpse of her flower dress disappearing. It strikes him just how desolate the world seems outside. Quiet.
The barn door rattles. She's found him. He lifts the gun up to his shoulder, gets himself ready. As a second thought, kicks down the ladder so she can't climb up and stop him or make him lose his nerve. The sweat drips cold along his face.
Suddenly the door shatters, splinters flying from the hinges and she comes running in, screaming, her hair loose, teeth dark and bloody. Dirt and blood caked across the front of her dress, her hair, from her fingernails down her arms as she shrieks and claws wildly up at him. He clenches his eyes shut and screams.
The world is quiet outside. Two shots ring out, settle into nothingness. The moon peers through the barnyard roof, and shines on Earth’s creatures.
Oh God, he groans. Even just trying to laugh makes him feel like vomiting; he can hear the liquids in his stomach gurgling with every shake. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. Every crack of it familiar, every crooked line and seam of hardwood like the wrinkles on his face, or the way the water used to trickle down her skin over her round breasts and buttocks, over her closed eyelids, streaming off her nipples like young men diving over cliff sides, naked. And the wood is naked too, the paint peeling in all directions, spreading from that jagged hole in the roof where the rain falls through, clinging to the splintered wood before dropping onto his upturned face. He closes his eyes and remembers the feeling, the cool splash on hot, steaming flesh; the deep, satisfying huffs and the hay clinging to red, sweaty cheeks.
He opens his eyes and the sky is clear, a dark purple splashed with diamonds, cool and crisp. They shine on the glassy surface of his eyes, dazzling him, as if he were a cartoon character knocked silly. His head spins and reverberates. She is twirling him in a dance.
He feels flat, suddenly aware of the floor along his spine, lifting him like an upturned palm, offering him to the gods. He thinks of how he can see so many stars from such a small hole in the ceiling, a pinprick of the universe. And he sees the moon, a white spectre across the sky, gazing down serenely. Fuck the moon. Fuck the sky and fuck everything in it. And yet he feels still, here, cradled in a pocket of time, as if the world has stopped for this one moment. What if everyone else left in the world is lying down as he is, drunk with despair, contemplating the minutes slipping between their fingers? He feels secure in his aloneness, that others are also alone and waiting, somewhere far removed. An attic. A locked bathroom, in the bathtub, curtain drawn. Little buried ants, praying never to be found. He prays never to be found, but he knows she is looking for him already. Can she find him, here? Of course she can. She will.
He lies like that, pondering aimlessly in all directions, lost in a world without time. That was always his problem, she had told him. Too many "what ifs," nothing concrete and serious. He'd argued that there was nothing dangerous about hypotheticals, and dared her to try one, just for fun.
“If you ever died,” she had said, sitting in a coffee shop, swirling a creamy vortex thoughtfully with a stir stick, “I think I would kill myself."
"So would I," he said, and placed his hand on hers, tenderly. "Wanna keep it simple and go double?"
Laughter and flailing smack.
"You're a jackass."
But there was a twinkle in her eye.
He's too drunk to stop smiling. Maybe it's the irony, or the tears in his eyes, or maybe it's just the memory of her. Maybe it's a sob and maybe it's a drunken hiccup. He can't decide.
All he knows is that he dreads being found by her, like a boy hiding under the bed, waiting for the feet to appear, for the cover to be ripped up and the monstrous face to surge under. He rolls to his side, looks down over the edge of the hayloft, and stares at the barn's door, barred shut. Imagines her furiously pounding the door, seething. But it is too late. There's no turning back now.
He lurches up into a sitting position and immediately regrets it. His head is like a wrecking ball, dense and heavy, dropping deep and low, swinging high into the air. He thinks he might fall onto his back like a man shot through the chest until he realizes that he reason he feels he is spinning is because he is. He is sitting up, swaying his body around and around, drunkenly acting out his inner state of mind. He tries to climb onto his feet, brace himself against the angled roof, but he stumbles onto his ass. Notices the shotgun beside him.
The sight of it makes his already-pounding heart leap up harder into his throat, makes him feel like vomiting again. He had forgotten about that shotgun, didn’t want to remember it, but he knows the ultimate purpose of it being here. He just needed a drink, first. Or two. Closing his eyes, he lets his body sway on an internal ocean of booze. Tries hard not to imagine bloody pulp and crushed eggshells sneezed against the wood wall, but it all comes back to this conclusion.
He wishes he could just get on with it. But there is something about those last living moments that makes him want to enjoy himself, one last time, like a soldier drunkenly swinging a girl around, his money gambled gone, unable to look into those desperate eyes as they fuck for fuck’s sake because they both know this could be the last human touch they ever have and every moan is anguish. The complete abandonment of impending death. Only it's much more miserable alone.
But he won't be alone, he reminds himself. He leans back against the wall, sweating, swallows. Cradles the shotgun against his head. The cold nip of steel the last link to the physical world. Oh God, please just let it happen.
Then he hears it. The slow, ambling steps coming up to the barn, her dry, rasping voice, as if she's been crying too much. Her words are muffled groans. He quickly stands up, peers out the hole in the roof, only to catch a glimpse of her flower dress disappearing. It strikes him just how desolate the world seems outside. Quiet.
The barn door rattles. She's found him. He lifts the gun up to his shoulder, gets himself ready. As a second thought, kicks down the ladder so she can't climb up and stop him or make him lose his nerve. The sweat drips cold along his face.
Suddenly the door shatters, splinters flying from the hinges and she comes running in, screaming, her hair loose, teeth dark and bloody. Dirt and blood caked across the front of her dress, her hair, from her fingernails down her arms as she shrieks and claws wildly up at him. He clenches his eyes shut and screams.
The world is quiet outside. Two shots ring out, settle into nothingness. The moon peers through the barnyard roof, and shines on Earth’s creatures.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A Thought
there is no elegy to be written, snow:
however perfect your return,
however displaced the beauty
of your occurrence
between the yearning buds of spring.
you are no travesty, no--
no transgressor of any natural or
calculable law;
your arrival is
a simple reminder:
a photograph uncovered
from years of correspondence,
an overturned stone
in an abandoned garden,
a forgotten set of initials
carved in the wood
over a door.
so if there is no rage at your coming,
no howling at your storm,
it is because of this.
no covering of what we found,
no hiding what has been bred
from this dead ground--
only a memory of what was
and what will come.
however perfect your return,
however displaced the beauty
of your occurrence
between the yearning buds of spring.
you are no travesty, no--
no transgressor of any natural or
calculable law;
your arrival is
a simple reminder:
a photograph uncovered
from years of correspondence,
an overturned stone
in an abandoned garden,
a forgotten set of initials
carved in the wood
over a door.
so if there is no rage at your coming,
no howling at your storm,
it is because of this.
no covering of what we found,
no hiding what has been bred
from this dead ground--
only a memory of what was
and what will come.
Monday, April 26, 2010
some small pieces (late I know)
Initial collision
We were better friends
Before I
Knew you
We were better friends
When we
First met
Not sure what has
Happened since then
After the initial collision
We drifted apart
Closest at impact
And then travelling away
In opposite directions
Panic Time
As deadlines
keep appearing
And piling up
I can’t procrastinate fast enough
And when you need time to go slowly
It always races
Leaves you scrambling for last minutes
And lost seconds as you wonder where
The hours went
The timepiece on the wall
Must be speeding
When I blink an hour flashes by
Like a shooting star it’s gone
And I’m left racing against
The grandfather clock
Whose hands won’t stop
And I’m certain they sped up.
We were better friends
Before I
Knew you
We were better friends
When we
First met
Not sure what has
Happened since then
After the initial collision
We drifted apart
Closest at impact
And then travelling away
In opposite directions
Panic Time
As deadlines
keep appearing
And piling up
I can’t procrastinate fast enough
And when you need time to go slowly
It always races
Leaves you scrambling for last minutes
And lost seconds as you wonder where
The hours went
The timepiece on the wall
Must be speeding
When I blink an hour flashes by
Like a shooting star it’s gone
And I’m left racing against
The grandfather clock
Whose hands won’t stop
And I’m certain they sped up.
Rocks
Hello. This is Francis. I've changed my name to ScotchTape to remain anonymous on my friends blog at his request.
My friend threw rocks at a sleeping homeless man once. It was a handful of gravel really. It didn't hurt the man, not physically. He got up and chased us all away. We all ran excitedly but I didn't feel the usual sense of glee which accompanies excitement. The man was rather old and mustn’t have been it quite good shape because he didn't chase us far and he held his hip as he walked back to the bench he had been laying on, muttering as he went. My friend never showed any sign of remorse and this hurt me a little because I felt both guilty and remorseful.
Phillip was my friend's name. He was a couple of months older than I was and so back then, while there was no explicit power in our friendship, I always had felt I needed to follow his lead. The time he threw rocks at a homeless man, we had been walking home from school together. We lived close by so we could walk together most of the way home. I only had one more block to walk than he did. When we split that day, I felt quite glad that I was no longer with him because I wanted time alone to think. I didn't think that telling my parents about the incident was a viable option because then Phillip would probably get into trouble with his parents and get grounded. Also, he would know that I had told on him. So I kept it to myself. I thought about it that afternoon, but I never came to a conclusion about how I felt. I simply moved on and thought about other things. The homework I had to do for the next day and watching the Canadiens game.
The next day, Phillip acted the same way he always did. He was polite to Mme. Isabelle and Mr. Paulson, our teachers, and he was dominant in the classroom. He wasn't mean or controlling. He was simply the smartest person in our class, the most eloquent and the most courageous in the eyes of his peers. He would raise his hand to answer every question and he was rarely wrong. On the dodgeball court, he had the hardest shot and it was quite a feat to eliminate him. The team he played for usually was the won to win. I was glad that he always picked me on his team. Naturally, he was a captain nearly every time.
By the end of classes the day after the incident, I had forgotten about the whole thing and hadn't a care in the world again. Phillip had a doctor's appointment that afternoon so his mother had come to collect him from school early meaning I would have to walk home alone. I was a bit frightened to run into the homeless man again. I did. This time, the man was not asleep. He was sitting upright and I imagined he was expecting us. I imagined the would grab and handful of gravel and throw it at me. I imagined that he would get up and shove it down my throat and yell, "How do you like it?"
But he didn't. I walked by him quickly and I think the man understood that I wasn't the culprit behind his assault. After I'd gotten by him, I stopped. I turned and said to him, with difficulty, "I'm sorry my friend threw rocks at you." I then scurried off and didn't look back. In fact, I ran all the way home. Once home, I realized it had been silly of me to run away. I hadn't done anything wrong. When my mother arrived from work, I told her all about the incident and what I'd done and she told that I'd been very brave and that Phillip had been very silly to throw rocks at the man. I didn't think silly was the right word. I would have said stupid or mean. Later I would learn that the adult words were idiotic and asshole. I was also told by my mother to walk home a different way. And she showed me on a map and wrote down the directions on a piece of paper in case I forgot.
The next day went by quickly and was just like any other. Mme. Isabelle taught us French and Arts and Mr. Paulson taught us English and Social Studies. During recess, we played dodgeball and I was on Phillips team and we won by a landslide. At lunchtime, someone tried to through a banana peal into the garbage from his seat and missed and Mrs. Dawson, one of the lunch ladies slipped on it and fell on her back which was quite funny. It was okay to laugh because she sprang right back up as soon as she'd fallen and her cheeks became tomato red. Then it was funny because she yelled at the student who had thrown the banana peal in front of everybody and made him go pick it up and he had his deserved share of laughs.
When the bell rang, we all ran outside, and set off to go home. I told Phillip that my mom wanted me to walk a different way home and he laughed. He told me, "Don't be a Mamma's Boy." I wasn't quite sure what he meant. He then added. "Look you can go you're Mamma's Boy way if you want, but I'm going the normal way."
I didn't feel like walking alone and I didn't want to be a Mamma's Boy whatever it was. So I went the normal way too. While we walked, I reasoned that there was no good reason for going a different way anyways. I was ten years old, I could do what I want, I thought.
We walked along and when we came around the corner, I saw the homeless man again. He was lying down but when he caught sight of us, he sat up. Phillip told me he needed to tie his shoe and bent down. I snuck in a quick smile and wave to the man who smiled back. We started walking again and as we went by the man, Phillip stopped for a moment and then whipped a handful of gravel at the homeless man. I was horrified. The man became angry with Phillip and with quickness he hadn't shown the other day; he got up and grabbed Phillip by the shirt collar before either Phillip or I had registered what happened. The man yelled at Phillip quite loudly, "Don't be a fucking brat. Rocks hurt! How would you like it?" Now Phillip was the one who was horrified.
Then I heard the wail of a siren and noticed a police car that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. The homeless man immediately let go of Phillip but it was too late. The officers were stepping out of the car and in seconds, one officer had the man pinned to the ground and was cuffing him and the other had a hand on Phillips shoulder and was asking him if he was hurt. Phillip said yes and the policemen faces took on a look of disgust and they violently shoved the homeless man into the back of their squad car. I tried to tell them that Phillip had thrown a rock at the man but they wouldn't listen. Then, then, one of the officers walked us home and the other drove off with the homeless man.
That was the last time I ever saw the man, and when I got home, I told my mother all about it and she became angry that I had disobeyed her. I tried explaining to her that Phillip had thrown rocks at the man but all she could say was, "Well of course, if the bum was attacking him." She sent me to my room and then began talking with my father about whether I should walk home alone.
Phillip became an even bigger celebrity at school and all the teachers and lunch ladies were especially nice to him. I never saw him throw rocks again though.
My friend threw rocks at a sleeping homeless man once. It was a handful of gravel really. It didn't hurt the man, not physically. He got up and chased us all away. We all ran excitedly but I didn't feel the usual sense of glee which accompanies excitement. The man was rather old and mustn’t have been it quite good shape because he didn't chase us far and he held his hip as he walked back to the bench he had been laying on, muttering as he went. My friend never showed any sign of remorse and this hurt me a little because I felt both guilty and remorseful.
Phillip was my friend's name. He was a couple of months older than I was and so back then, while there was no explicit power in our friendship, I always had felt I needed to follow his lead. The time he threw rocks at a homeless man, we had been walking home from school together. We lived close by so we could walk together most of the way home. I only had one more block to walk than he did. When we split that day, I felt quite glad that I was no longer with him because I wanted time alone to think. I didn't think that telling my parents about the incident was a viable option because then Phillip would probably get into trouble with his parents and get grounded. Also, he would know that I had told on him. So I kept it to myself. I thought about it that afternoon, but I never came to a conclusion about how I felt. I simply moved on and thought about other things. The homework I had to do for the next day and watching the Canadiens game.
The next day, Phillip acted the same way he always did. He was polite to Mme. Isabelle and Mr. Paulson, our teachers, and he was dominant in the classroom. He wasn't mean or controlling. He was simply the smartest person in our class, the most eloquent and the most courageous in the eyes of his peers. He would raise his hand to answer every question and he was rarely wrong. On the dodgeball court, he had the hardest shot and it was quite a feat to eliminate him. The team he played for usually was the won to win. I was glad that he always picked me on his team. Naturally, he was a captain nearly every time.
By the end of classes the day after the incident, I had forgotten about the whole thing and hadn't a care in the world again. Phillip had a doctor's appointment that afternoon so his mother had come to collect him from school early meaning I would have to walk home alone. I was a bit frightened to run into the homeless man again. I did. This time, the man was not asleep. He was sitting upright and I imagined he was expecting us. I imagined the would grab and handful of gravel and throw it at me. I imagined that he would get up and shove it down my throat and yell, "How do you like it?"
But he didn't. I walked by him quickly and I think the man understood that I wasn't the culprit behind his assault. After I'd gotten by him, I stopped. I turned and said to him, with difficulty, "I'm sorry my friend threw rocks at you." I then scurried off and didn't look back. In fact, I ran all the way home. Once home, I realized it had been silly of me to run away. I hadn't done anything wrong. When my mother arrived from work, I told her all about the incident and what I'd done and she told that I'd been very brave and that Phillip had been very silly to throw rocks at the man. I didn't think silly was the right word. I would have said stupid or mean. Later I would learn that the adult words were idiotic and asshole. I was also told by my mother to walk home a different way. And she showed me on a map and wrote down the directions on a piece of paper in case I forgot.
The next day went by quickly and was just like any other. Mme. Isabelle taught us French and Arts and Mr. Paulson taught us English and Social Studies. During recess, we played dodgeball and I was on Phillips team and we won by a landslide. At lunchtime, someone tried to through a banana peal into the garbage from his seat and missed and Mrs. Dawson, one of the lunch ladies slipped on it and fell on her back which was quite funny. It was okay to laugh because she sprang right back up as soon as she'd fallen and her cheeks became tomato red. Then it was funny because she yelled at the student who had thrown the banana peal in front of everybody and made him go pick it up and he had his deserved share of laughs.
When the bell rang, we all ran outside, and set off to go home. I told Phillip that my mom wanted me to walk a different way home and he laughed. He told me, "Don't be a Mamma's Boy." I wasn't quite sure what he meant. He then added. "Look you can go you're Mamma's Boy way if you want, but I'm going the normal way."
I didn't feel like walking alone and I didn't want to be a Mamma's Boy whatever it was. So I went the normal way too. While we walked, I reasoned that there was no good reason for going a different way anyways. I was ten years old, I could do what I want, I thought.
We walked along and when we came around the corner, I saw the homeless man again. He was lying down but when he caught sight of us, he sat up. Phillip told me he needed to tie his shoe and bent down. I snuck in a quick smile and wave to the man who smiled back. We started walking again and as we went by the man, Phillip stopped for a moment and then whipped a handful of gravel at the homeless man. I was horrified. The man became angry with Phillip and with quickness he hadn't shown the other day; he got up and grabbed Phillip by the shirt collar before either Phillip or I had registered what happened. The man yelled at Phillip quite loudly, "Don't be a fucking brat. Rocks hurt! How would you like it?" Now Phillip was the one who was horrified.
Then I heard the wail of a siren and noticed a police car that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. The homeless man immediately let go of Phillip but it was too late. The officers were stepping out of the car and in seconds, one officer had the man pinned to the ground and was cuffing him and the other had a hand on Phillips shoulder and was asking him if he was hurt. Phillip said yes and the policemen faces took on a look of disgust and they violently shoved the homeless man into the back of their squad car. I tried to tell them that Phillip had thrown a rock at the man but they wouldn't listen. Then, then, one of the officers walked us home and the other drove off with the homeless man.
That was the last time I ever saw the man, and when I got home, I told my mother all about it and she became angry that I had disobeyed her. I tried explaining to her that Phillip had thrown rocks at the man but all she could say was, "Well of course, if the bum was attacking him." She sent me to my room and then began talking with my father about whether I should walk home alone.
Phillip became an even bigger celebrity at school and all the teachers and lunch ladies were especially nice to him. I never saw him throw rocks again though.
A Winter's Tale Part II
***
That was then, and now is now.
And now I am walking under torrid mid-afternoon sun on a black street, barefoot, rushing to get onto the beach. Onto wet, dark sand. The air is salt-drenched, digging into my lungs and clearing out the leftover nicotine. The run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada street, like a decaying, coffee stained-carpet. Most hotels proudly boast the Quebec and American flags, and sometimes a Canadian flag. Why even bother with sovereignty when you can drive six hours south of the border to the Quebec-invaded colony of Old Orchard Beach, Maine? The colonists mostly being above the age of 65, of course.
Perfume lingers in the salty beach air, churning my stomach.
I walk past the bakery smelling the fried dough among the mortally obese, feet still simmering, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dead, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten, and then death. These thoughts, as I glance at a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with nutella spread.
“bein tabarnak c’est bon!”
It’s a beautiful day for a parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Too bad I am stuck among bulbous males fishing on the beach next to young children. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all.
Once I get on the beach, I look through my sand speckled duffel bag and pull out my cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna. It reminds me of my youth. It gets me thinking.
Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, which emphatically symbolizes the death of something or other in most classical literature. I have been reading too much Camus and everything seems meaningless as I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I am eighteen and until I can do anything, or so I am told.
With the sun down, the “nightlife” truly begins. Rusted old ferris wheels twirl at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown, which consists of a single street. An old club called The Caribbean Paradise blasts out wedding music like The Macarenna and YMCA, and my drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margarita. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.
Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies, whom I envy due to their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave allegory. In fact, all this thinking in theories has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. One word, monotony, not Mono Tony, the kid we used to make fun of in high school for contracting mono after making out with some French girl nobody knew.
I spend quarters at the grabbing machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, the entire South Park cast in doll form and even a gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother fucker called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me. People undermine the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles -- the 30 second timer, the mirror reflecting you in back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) -- and grab machining becomes quite serious.
Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering “clawing” skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who mastered Dance Dance Revolution. I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me -- people my age. And I notice enticing dark girl eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The lightbulbs flashing red, white and blue, changing her skin tone. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up.
Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who tried not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, low top single colored shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat.
“where you from, Adam?”
“Montreal.”
“should I even be surprised? wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”
“eighteen, actually.”
“then what the fuck are you doing over here?!”
“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”
“that’s for you to find out. Hey is that Camus in your jacket pocket? The Outsider?”
She took me by surprise. I forgot the book had been there all along.
“yeah...”
“he’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. Too masturbatory, too, you know? In-itself, of-itself, for-itself, it can go fuck itself.”
For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laughed, not because it was funny, but just because it was.
Under the pier, with a few more of her friends, I roll a joint on The Outsider (a flat surface is essential, after all). Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot. I’m just happy that I don’t smoke alone tonight.
“you Americans gotta’ step up your game. Getting out-smoked by a Canadian fucker!”
“hey, shut your trap, you... you existentialist! HA!”
Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth and then laughs some more. Everybody is laughing and dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic, they are innocent. We plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.
The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in.
“you have to be kidding me. You are such a tool. She wore an intsy bintsy teeny weeny...”
“shut up! I find it cute. And I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s intsy bitsy...”
I chase her into the ocean. It is all so cinematic -- it runs through my mind. Every little thing I say is perfect, she reacts to it intently. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.
Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water dripped from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bouncing with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of the bathing suit.
She then lifts her arms, a purple elastic around her wrist. She holds back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.
Until I remember.
Until my chest suddenly feels hollow. Until the feeling that everything is dead hits me.
She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, a smile below the crusty, dried-up salt water and snot under her nose. I turn back, without even looking at her in the eyes, and I walk away. And I continue to walk, without a goodbye, without an explanation. My heart thumps as if hidden under a floorboard. I wonder if she follows me. I walk and walk, and I remember. I remember. I remember I am alone, and why I’m alone.
I continue walking down the beach until the winds begin to pick up and black clouds cover the sun and I am the only left, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and I am blinded as it scalds my eyeball. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears in my eyes, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.
That was then, and now is now.
And now I am walking under torrid mid-afternoon sun on a black street, barefoot, rushing to get onto the beach. Onto wet, dark sand. The air is salt-drenched, digging into my lungs and clearing out the leftover nicotine. The run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada street, like a decaying, coffee stained-carpet. Most hotels proudly boast the Quebec and American flags, and sometimes a Canadian flag. Why even bother with sovereignty when you can drive six hours south of the border to the Quebec-invaded colony of Old Orchard Beach, Maine? The colonists mostly being above the age of 65, of course.
Perfume lingers in the salty beach air, churning my stomach.
I walk past the bakery smelling the fried dough among the mortally obese, feet still simmering, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dead, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten, and then death. These thoughts, as I glance at a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with nutella spread.
“bein tabarnak c’est bon!”
It’s a beautiful day for a parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Too bad I am stuck among bulbous males fishing on the beach next to young children. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all.
Once I get on the beach, I look through my sand speckled duffel bag and pull out my cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna. It reminds me of my youth. It gets me thinking.
Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, which emphatically symbolizes the death of something or other in most classical literature. I have been reading too much Camus and everything seems meaningless as I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I am eighteen and until I can do anything, or so I am told.
With the sun down, the “nightlife” truly begins. Rusted old ferris wheels twirl at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown, which consists of a single street. An old club called The Caribbean Paradise blasts out wedding music like The Macarenna and YMCA, and my drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margarita. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.
Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies, whom I envy due to their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave allegory. In fact, all this thinking in theories has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. One word, monotony, not Mono Tony, the kid we used to make fun of in high school for contracting mono after making out with some French girl nobody knew.
I spend quarters at the grabbing machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, the entire South Park cast in doll form and even a gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother fucker called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me. People undermine the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles -- the 30 second timer, the mirror reflecting you in back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) -- and grab machining becomes quite serious.
Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering “clawing” skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who mastered Dance Dance Revolution. I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me -- people my age. And I notice enticing dark girl eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The lightbulbs flashing red, white and blue, changing her skin tone. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up.
Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who tried not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, low top single colored shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat.
“where you from, Adam?”
“Montreal.”
“should I even be surprised? wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”
“eighteen, actually.”
“then what the fuck are you doing over here?!”
“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”
“that’s for you to find out. Hey is that Camus in your jacket pocket? The Outsider?”
She took me by surprise. I forgot the book had been there all along.
“yeah...”
“he’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. Too masturbatory, too, you know? In-itself, of-itself, for-itself, it can go fuck itself.”
For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laughed, not because it was funny, but just because it was.
Under the pier, with a few more of her friends, I roll a joint on The Outsider (a flat surface is essential, after all). Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot. I’m just happy that I don’t smoke alone tonight.
“you Americans gotta’ step up your game. Getting out-smoked by a Canadian fucker!”
“hey, shut your trap, you... you existentialist! HA!”
Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth and then laughs some more. Everybody is laughing and dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic, they are innocent. We plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.
The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in.
“you have to be kidding me. You are such a tool. She wore an intsy bintsy teeny weeny...”
“shut up! I find it cute. And I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s intsy bitsy...”
I chase her into the ocean. It is all so cinematic -- it runs through my mind. Every little thing I say is perfect, she reacts to it intently. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.
Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water dripped from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bouncing with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of the bathing suit.
She then lifts her arms, a purple elastic around her wrist. She holds back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.
Until I remember.
Until my chest suddenly feels hollow. Until the feeling that everything is dead hits me.
She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, a smile below the crusty, dried-up salt water and snot under her nose. I turn back, without even looking at her in the eyes, and I walk away. And I continue to walk, without a goodbye, without an explanation. My heart thumps as if hidden under a floorboard. I wonder if she follows me. I walk and walk, and I remember. I remember. I remember I am alone, and why I’m alone.
I continue walking down the beach until the winds begin to pick up and black clouds cover the sun and I am the only left, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and I am blinded as it scalds my eyeball. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears in my eyes, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
hipstergenerationmanifesto
don't judge us
or rather do
judge us
we like to be looked at
coolhipmodernretrop
we wear large glasses
with plastic rims
and tattered clothes
with block colors
we avoid capital letters
and the mainstream
(and when we can't find
hats and shoes that fit our style
we make our own — the more botched the better)
oppunktrippyrockvin
we wear scarves
indoors
and smoke cigarettes
(entirely aware that it poisons our
lungs and shatters our dreams)
we sing, we dance
gyrate our hips to the rhythm
of an era
tageoldschoolelectrofu
we also write things
down (mostly)
fiction, sort of, in prose or poetry
unaware, we emulate Carver's style
a generation of Carvers
(the trick is to write short, quipped sentences — you punch the period [.] in fast, for effect, before too many adverbs creep in and make you sound like Dostoyevski, then you insert random things — details that are meaningless but can mean anything for an english major, which we all are at heart)
nkycoolfolktrashrem
we have opinions
(based on pop-culturists
and rebels)
we shout them at
our parents and each other
ixjazzraphouseblues
but it's more than
how you look
or what you do
it's how we are
that makes us hip:
that calculated nonchalance
and cool, biting wit
to cover an empty inside
lost
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Hidden Wilderness
Yet again, I forgot to post on my day this week. At least Im posting something I guess.
The weeds grew up to my knees
while years past they never reached my ankles.
It was easier to hide among them
while others called my name.
The silence made it easier to breathe
as the light slowly faded.
Eyes heavy, starting to close,
they never found me.
MY BABY LEFT ME FOR A SHOTGUN (irrelevant title)
Before I begin, I have two things to bring up: 1. Why did everything get darker on this page all of a sudden? The picture is just black now... 2. So...um.. Mark/Jamason/Jason/Mason... when uhh... is he joining?
Also, don't expect greatness. I literally just wrote this at 1:20 AM and just let my mind roll. It's raw, unpolished and I am in love with a brick wall. That is fact.
Underwater Pillowfight
I am in love with a brick wall.
Built around me, it becomes
Avantgarde pop music
To be cloned and tweaked
Slightly
Around the world
So others can be lured in.
I am in love with a brick wall,
That I've allowed to wrap around me.
I am in love with the feeling of
Cutting off the wind
When my bricks keep me in a box
and Fling me about from each wall
Like a child is wondering what
This box contains.
I am a treasure.
Bonus Post: (Another one word poem)
Drunken Backflips Over Broken Glass
Challenger
Also, don't expect greatness. I literally just wrote this at 1:20 AM and just let my mind roll. It's raw, unpolished and I am in love with a brick wall. That is fact.
Underwater Pillowfight
I am in love with a brick wall.
Built around me, it becomes
Avantgarde pop music
To be cloned and tweaked
Slightly
Around the world
So others can be lured in.
I am in love with a brick wall,
That I've allowed to wrap around me.
I am in love with the feeling of
Cutting off the wind
When my bricks keep me in a box
and Fling me about from each wall
Like a child is wondering what
This box contains.
I am a treasure.
Bonus Post: (Another one word poem)
Drunken Backflips Over Broken Glass
Challenger
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Social Absenteeism
I was standing in the kitchen today, thinking of how my friendships are like spiderwebs. Fragile, translucent. It's hard to tell if they really exist. And I am in the center, absolutely still, just waiting. Waiting for something to shock me awake with the violent vibration of its struggle, of its desire to live and fly free. And I am waiting to feed off that lifeforce, to nourish myself, then discard it. Keep its hollow shell in macabre company. Then I fall into a satiated trance, waiting once again, supported by that fragile network that might tear at any moment, sagging under my gluttony.
As I float there sometimes I snap awake, forget that a web exists, feel like I am hovering over that great abyss alone, clinging desperately to air. No one will approach this web, except by unfortunate accident. I live alone, in this shadowed corner. Feeling the zest of life in my veins only every long while, like an old woman waiting for death, only to be prodded to life by the sporadic family visit. Wishing they could just leave me alone, let me wither, instead of tantalizing me like this.
I watch the world around me change colours, flourish with life. Yet I just sit and wait for life to come to me.
[What, Andrea's posted on Heart Rape?! My deepest apologies for the neglect. I pledge to work harder on my writing now that school is out and hopefully I'm out of my creative rut, and can read all of your posts for inspiration! Yay! Expect a flood of comments soon.
On another note: I now have as many posts as the FAQ! Hurray!]
As I float there sometimes I snap awake, forget that a web exists, feel like I am hovering over that great abyss alone, clinging desperately to air. No one will approach this web, except by unfortunate accident. I live alone, in this shadowed corner. Feeling the zest of life in my veins only every long while, like an old woman waiting for death, only to be prodded to life by the sporadic family visit. Wishing they could just leave me alone, let me wither, instead of tantalizing me like this.
I watch the world around me change colours, flourish with life. Yet I just sit and wait for life to come to me.
[What, Andrea's posted on Heart Rape?! My deepest apologies for the neglect. I pledge to work harder on my writing now that school is out and hopefully I'm out of my creative rut, and can read all of your posts for inspiration! Yay! Expect a flood of comments soon.
On another note: I now have as many posts as the FAQ! Hurray!]
Shudder
I AM UNABLE TO
DISTINGUISH right and wrong
now.
And though I can see your flag, waving in the distance,
calling me home,
there is something that keeps me pegged
here
and
I am undone.
I am no longer able to tell my body what it wants
and I fear it is because it has already made up its mind.
This war, that rages between the logical and heartfelt, can only last so long
but it's difficult - difficult to tell - when wrong feels right
and right is everything you imagined it to be.
I am beginning to lose control
of everything that was - clearly once - sturdy
and permissible.
I am unable to distinguish friends from foes
and abhorrence from misplaced hunger.
It blends together between my sheets, covers me warm in the night
and I fear that when I wake
I will be nothing more than an oxymoron.
DISTINGUISH right and wrong
now.
And though I can see your flag, waving in the distance,
calling me home,
there is something that keeps me pegged
here
and
I am undone.
I am no longer able to tell my body what it wants
and I fear it is because it has already made up its mind.
This war, that rages between the logical and heartfelt, can only last so long
but it's difficult - difficult to tell - when wrong feels right
and right is everything you imagined it to be.
I am beginning to lose control
of everything that was - clearly once - sturdy
and permissible.
I am unable to distinguish friends from foes
and abhorrence from misplaced hunger.
It blends together between my sheets, covers me warm in the night
and I fear that when I wake
I will be nothing more than an oxymoron.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Stagefright
I sit, curled, at the base of your spine: a malignant Kundalini ready not for awakening but already awake, ready for a taste of your fear.
Alternatively, you could think of me as a pool, where your face reflects distortedly and time loses its meaning as you stare into everything that is wrong with you and everything that will be wrong with you, failure looming beneath the surface like Grandfather Carp.
It could also be that I am a creature with tiny fingers and tinier joys, tying your intestines into complicated knots out of sheer malicious boredom; I am a brownie, if you will, and you have eaten me and I am wreaking havoc on the most delicate parts of you.
Perhaps you would rather see me as a virus whose only functions are to send ripples of discomfort through you, make your fingers and hands and knees and legs shudder as if it were the coldest day of the year and you were out in your birthday suit, make your mouth dry and your palms wet and the worry lines etch themselves into your forehead.
To me, it does not matter how you daydream and nightmare my form, only that you recognize it when I invade you, body and soul, and that you do not banish me before I kick your words from your head, loosen your hair and your clothes and your stomach, and prick holes in whoever it is (I do not care) that you intend to be when you walk out to glaring lights and thunderous applause.
Alternatively, you could think of me as a pool, where your face reflects distortedly and time loses its meaning as you stare into everything that is wrong with you and everything that will be wrong with you, failure looming beneath the surface like Grandfather Carp.
It could also be that I am a creature with tiny fingers and tinier joys, tying your intestines into complicated knots out of sheer malicious boredom; I am a brownie, if you will, and you have eaten me and I am wreaking havoc on the most delicate parts of you.
Perhaps you would rather see me as a virus whose only functions are to send ripples of discomfort through you, make your fingers and hands and knees and legs shudder as if it were the coldest day of the year and you were out in your birthday suit, make your mouth dry and your palms wet and the worry lines etch themselves into your forehead.
To me, it does not matter how you daydream and nightmare my form, only that you recognize it when I invade you, body and soul, and that you do not banish me before I kick your words from your head, loosen your hair and your clothes and your stomach, and prick holes in whoever it is (I do not care) that you intend to be when you walk out to glaring lights and thunderous applause.
Sarah Dances Through the Gyres
Désolé pour mon retard!
COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT
Observe--
the masters have abandoned us again.
We came to their temples
and found them empty as the dawn--
cloth scattered everywhere,
tables overturned,
doves half-baked
on broken spits;
they made haste, as usual.
But we are used to such goings.
How many sharp staccatos of laughter
when they tore the curtain
and took the tablets we carved
into the night?
Not as many or as loud, it seems,
as when we find no trace
of any destination,
shake our heads,
and turn inside
to harvest the remaining flames.
COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT
Observe--
the masters have abandoned us again.
We came to their temples
and found them empty as the dawn--
cloth scattered everywhere,
tables overturned,
doves half-baked
on broken spits;
they made haste, as usual.
But we are used to such goings.
How many sharp staccatos of laughter
when they tore the curtain
and took the tablets we carved
into the night?
Not as many or as loud, it seems,
as when we find no trace
of any destination,
shake our heads,
and turn inside
to harvest the remaining flames.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sand (part 2)
***
“What do you mean I don’t care?” protested Christine “I said I liked the mocha”.
“I mean you’re always somewhere else, you’re never in the room and your whole, ‘I’m detached’ thing drives me crazy!” Herbert cried. He brought his hands to his face and wiped tears away.
“What are you talking about Herb? I’m right here, right now. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I said I liked the breakfast in bed, and your mocha was good.”
“Open your goddamn ears, Christine!”, At this comment she walked out of the kitchen and went to sit down in the living room alone. Herbert followed.
“What happens inside your head? Why don’t you ever tell me what you really think?” he sat down on the couch beside her.
“Stop crying” she ordered him and looked away.
***
Herbert, thought of that time as he walked to the counter and ordered. Slowly and deliberately, He turned around, leaned on the counter, and faced Christine, who was staring at him through the window again. Another smile met each other’s lips.
“Four seventy three” said the cashier disinterestedly. He paid the young woman and carried the coffees over to the table. Christine looked directly into Herbert’s eyes.
“It doesn’t feel like that long ago Herb” she grinned at him.
“No, it does” Herbert answered back.
“You see what I mean?”
another long pause followed “no”.
Herbert brought the coffee to his lips, took a sip and winced in pain at the heat.
“I still can’t tell when you’re joking or not” sighed Christine. She looked inquisitively into his eyes.
“I’m serious” he responded smiling. She knew that he was annoyed.
“So you have a new job I hear?”
“Yeah it’s a small gig writing for this magazine. The editors think that they’re publishing a New York Times, you know. Whatever, they pay.”
“I like it when your angry Herb it reminds me of the good old days”
“Just stop it”
“What?”
“The musical chairs game, the ash tray. Same as it ever was right?”
“It is, isn’t it?”, she smiled “Look Herb, I don’t want to fight. I really wanted to see you today.”
Herbert grunted. Silence again as Christine lit a third cigarette.
“What do you write about in the magazine?”
“Condescending cd and concert reviews. It seems that that’s all what magazines want these days, witty, obnoxious writers. I hate it.”
“I can tell”
“Yeah?”
Herbert reached across the table and grabbed a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Without missing a beat, Christine lit it.
“Don’t say anything” Herbert grumbled.
“Wasn’t planning on it” she responded, exhaling.
Both started laughing out loud. He took a drag from the newly lit smoke and put it out right away. He didn’t cough.
“It’s much worse than I thought”
“Smoking?”, she asked.
“yes”
“I know. Plus they’re menthol.”
By now, Herbert had finished his coffee and started fidgeting with the wooden stirring stick.
“Hey Herb, I gotta go”
“What, why? I just stopped being mad at you, I was enjoying myself there.”
“Yeah... I’m sorry Herb, I have a lot of stuff to do.” She rose from the table and checked her cell phone.
“Like what? it’s friday afternoon.”
“Like, stuff.”
“Just sit down”
she stared at him in response
“Do you remember that day we went to the beach together?” he asked her.
“Yes” Christine sat down “what about it?”
“We took our shoes off remember, so we could run?”
“Sure”
“I bet you anything we still both have sand left in our shoes”
They let their eyes lock and Christine smiled.
conversations with old friends.
It was a cold night.
I knew this because the my nasal cavities had become ice caverns with wild branches. My watch no longer functioned; the hands on it had simply stopped indicating the time rushing by, I knew that it was late and that I had to be home.
I quickened my pace and so went my heart, thumping a little harder against my rib cage. I hate this part of town; there's always the hobos in the bus shelters who stare at you almost longingly as you walk by.
"They want your flesh."
I walked harder against the pavement, but I made no sound. In between street lights, I felt my breath growing fainter, as though the sporadic darkness is attempting to crush me. Wait, I've felt this way before...
"Is he following you?"
I had not heard from Freddie in so long.
I dared not turn around, in case the hobo had heard Freddie too. I was afraid of the attention his comments had attracted. What if they hid in the bushes?
There was a crack, a rustle.
"I think he is."
I ran. If I stopped running, there would be horror to pay. Those stories on the news where the body is found so disfigured that they need dental records to identify it? That would be me come morning. There was nothing left in my body but adrenaline. Not the good kind.
I burst through my front door.
Slam. Bolt. Lock. Chain.
A succession of sharp movements designed to secure the insecure, keeping the intruders out on your doorstep. Arm the alarm. Turn off the lights. Lock the second lock. Step away from the door. At this point I wish I had installed some kind of panic button.
I turned to the dark hallway that lead to my bedroom. I wondered if my wife would be waiting for me, lying there peaceful and cold, as she always did.
I smiled, reassured. But Freddie did not.
"Didn't she leave you last year?"
And the door handle rattled; the intruder was here.
I knew this because the my nasal cavities had become ice caverns with wild branches. My watch no longer functioned; the hands on it had simply stopped indicating the time rushing by, I knew that it was late and that I had to be home.
I quickened my pace and so went my heart, thumping a little harder against my rib cage. I hate this part of town; there's always the hobos in the bus shelters who stare at you almost longingly as you walk by.
"They want your flesh."
I walked harder against the pavement, but I made no sound. In between street lights, I felt my breath growing fainter, as though the sporadic darkness is attempting to crush me. Wait, I've felt this way before...
"Is he following you?"
I had not heard from Freddie in so long.
I dared not turn around, in case the hobo had heard Freddie too. I was afraid of the attention his comments had attracted. What if they hid in the bushes?
There was a crack, a rustle.
"I think he is."
I ran. If I stopped running, there would be horror to pay. Those stories on the news where the body is found so disfigured that they need dental records to identify it? That would be me come morning. There was nothing left in my body but adrenaline. Not the good kind.
I burst through my front door.
Slam. Bolt. Lock. Chain.
A succession of sharp movements designed to secure the insecure, keeping the intruders out on your doorstep. Arm the alarm. Turn off the lights. Lock the second lock. Step away from the door. At this point I wish I had installed some kind of panic button.
I turned to the dark hallway that lead to my bedroom. I wondered if my wife would be waiting for me, lying there peaceful and cold, as she always did.
I smiled, reassured. But Freddie did not.
"Didn't she leave you last year?"
And the door handle rattled; the intruder was here.
A Winter's Tale [Part I]
Part one of my final assignment for Creative-Writing with Alapi.
I remember Cynthia entering my life the day before the first snow fall of grade eight. She sat in front of me in English class, and every day, almost mechanically, she would tie her hair into a pony-tail. Although this may seem like a simple act, the coming of Cynthia’s morning routine began the part of my life you could call, adolescence. She’d begin by flinging her hair back, a purple elastic around her thin, tanned wrists. Lush, peach-fuzzed arms would stretch out, a slight bicep muscle expanding as she’d slowly and smoothly glide it around the wad of glowing blonde-streaked hair. Holding it tight within the palm of her fist, behind her head, she’d gently slide the elastic down. Slowly. Then she flipped up her hair before finishing off.
Other times when she leaned forward on her seat, whenever she’d accidentally drop a pen, or lean forward to rest her head on the desk, I was able see a glimpse of the her holy lower back. On a lucky day she’d be wearing her hot pink thong, and I would become scarlet, the heat rising to my ears. Cynthia was not a shy girl, and after a couple weeks, I was able to construct a rainbow of lace in my mind.
Snowflakes tumbling down desolate Montreal skies, latch onto my semi-long overcoat, slowly enveloping the blackness. It was an old coat, passed down from my cousin -- the material frayed, the mismatched buttons roughly sewed on by my nonna as if done in a rush. Some were more oblong than others and one of them even purple. It was piled deep within my closet as I pathetically wrestled it out for the first fall. The first fall which continues to shriek gusts of wind past my ears, spitting specks of snow, blinding me. The perfect juxtaposition to its scorching summer. My paradise.
I remember being nervous and cold, Cynthia’s body crushed into mine, under my sweaty armpit. We were sitting on a park bench and her nose was red and runny, the tip shining due to the vibrant whiteness of snow, which seemed to glisten off the ground even despite the lack of sun. Her bony fingers strangled my pores, rarely ever letting go. Her low-top Vans were sole-less, and she persevered with them throughout the deadly winter, albeit, not without any complaints.
“my fucking socks are wet again.”
“how about you get some new shoes?”
“how about you suck my dick, Adam?”
“lovely, Cynthia.”
Cynthia.
The basement window rattled in my mother’s duplex due to the weather battering itself against it, and the humidifier I forgot to turn off let out a low hum. Cynthia’s mouth formed the shape of an O around the tip of my cock as she had trouble pushing her throat any further down. I concentrate. I don’t want to finish too soon and seem look like a loser. I chew on the inside of my cheek, biting off minuscule particles of dead skin which latch onto my tongue like leftover bread stuck in teeth. This whole time, I could not turn away from the blonde locks on the back of her head which reflected different perspectives of light as she bobbed it slowly, up and down. The strange sounds of swallowing and gagging meld into a premature orgasm in her mouth.
“sorry. Um.”
“...”
“um, do you need a kleenex?”
“no... that’s okay.”
The next day, I sat next to my friend Devin as he went off on some tangent.
“Adam. I totally just took a piss while drinking from a bottle of water. Isn’t that fucking... what’s the word... fucking... fucking like paradoxical?”
“you’re a douchebag, Devin. That’s just weird.”
“no it’s totally legit! It’s like messing with the body.”
“dude, that’s like taking a shit while eating supper.”
“don’t pretend like you haven’t tried that, bro.”
“don’t say bro, you fag.”
When Cynthia entered the class, I avoided eye contact with her, but nonetheless, she came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. She bent over to place her school bag on the ground showing off her pink thong. Devin stared incredulously.
Cynthia was the first person I ever legitimately felt passion towards. She’d tell me she loved me, she’d kiss me at any available moment, even in public. She was the first girl to ever give me the attention I strived for, the attention I gave myself. The first girl to take away my virginity and she was the first girl I ever loved.
I remember a week later, getting drunk off of forty’s of 8% Labatt (what we used to call rat-piss) in back of the Place Lasalle with a couple older guys from the neighborhood. Cynthia and I had gotten into an argument -- I don’t remember why, anymore. I stumbled avoiding cracks and potholes in the parking lot. And I saw her, knees on cold concrete, sucking off Devin, his back resting against the maroon bricks of the wall. And he saw me and his body jerked and she turned her head, cat eyes, incandescent in the moonlight.
I remember sprinting home.
I remember shrieks into my pillow.
I remember ripping apart the sodden bedsheets.
I remember my mother trying to hold me down as I punched a hole into the wall and as blood dripped down my wrist.
I remember Cynthia entering my life the day before the first snow fall of grade eight. She sat in front of me in English class, and every day, almost mechanically, she would tie her hair into a pony-tail. Although this may seem like a simple act, the coming of Cynthia’s morning routine began the part of my life you could call, adolescence. She’d begin by flinging her hair back, a purple elastic around her thin, tanned wrists. Lush, peach-fuzzed arms would stretch out, a slight bicep muscle expanding as she’d slowly and smoothly glide it around the wad of glowing blonde-streaked hair. Holding it tight within the palm of her fist, behind her head, she’d gently slide the elastic down. Slowly. Then she flipped up her hair before finishing off.
Other times when she leaned forward on her seat, whenever she’d accidentally drop a pen, or lean forward to rest her head on the desk, I was able see a glimpse of the her holy lower back. On a lucky day she’d be wearing her hot pink thong, and I would become scarlet, the heat rising to my ears. Cynthia was not a shy girl, and after a couple weeks, I was able to construct a rainbow of lace in my mind.
Snowflakes tumbling down desolate Montreal skies, latch onto my semi-long overcoat, slowly enveloping the blackness. It was an old coat, passed down from my cousin -- the material frayed, the mismatched buttons roughly sewed on by my nonna as if done in a rush. Some were more oblong than others and one of them even purple. It was piled deep within my closet as I pathetically wrestled it out for the first fall. The first fall which continues to shriek gusts of wind past my ears, spitting specks of snow, blinding me. The perfect juxtaposition to its scorching summer. My paradise.
I remember being nervous and cold, Cynthia’s body crushed into mine, under my sweaty armpit. We were sitting on a park bench and her nose was red and runny, the tip shining due to the vibrant whiteness of snow, which seemed to glisten off the ground even despite the lack of sun. Her bony fingers strangled my pores, rarely ever letting go. Her low-top Vans were sole-less, and she persevered with them throughout the deadly winter, albeit, not without any complaints.
“my fucking socks are wet again.”
“how about you get some new shoes?”
“how about you suck my dick, Adam?”
“lovely, Cynthia.”
Cynthia.
The basement window rattled in my mother’s duplex due to the weather battering itself against it, and the humidifier I forgot to turn off let out a low hum. Cynthia’s mouth formed the shape of an O around the tip of my cock as she had trouble pushing her throat any further down. I concentrate. I don’t want to finish too soon and seem look like a loser. I chew on the inside of my cheek, biting off minuscule particles of dead skin which latch onto my tongue like leftover bread stuck in teeth. This whole time, I could not turn away from the blonde locks on the back of her head which reflected different perspectives of light as she bobbed it slowly, up and down. The strange sounds of swallowing and gagging meld into a premature orgasm in her mouth.
“sorry. Um.”
“...”
“um, do you need a kleenex?”
“no... that’s okay.”
The next day, I sat next to my friend Devin as he went off on some tangent.
“Adam. I totally just took a piss while drinking from a bottle of water. Isn’t that fucking... what’s the word... fucking... fucking like paradoxical?”
“you’re a douchebag, Devin. That’s just weird.”
“no it’s totally legit! It’s like messing with the body.”
“dude, that’s like taking a shit while eating supper.”
“don’t pretend like you haven’t tried that, bro.”
“don’t say bro, you fag.”
When Cynthia entered the class, I avoided eye contact with her, but nonetheless, she came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. She bent over to place her school bag on the ground showing off her pink thong. Devin stared incredulously.
Cynthia was the first person I ever legitimately felt passion towards. She’d tell me she loved me, she’d kiss me at any available moment, even in public. She was the first girl to ever give me the attention I strived for, the attention I gave myself. The first girl to take away my virginity and she was the first girl I ever loved.
I remember a week later, getting drunk off of forty’s of 8% Labatt (what we used to call rat-piss) in back of the Place Lasalle with a couple older guys from the neighborhood. Cynthia and I had gotten into an argument -- I don’t remember why, anymore. I stumbled avoiding cracks and potholes in the parking lot. And I saw her, knees on cold concrete, sucking off Devin, his back resting against the maroon bricks of the wall. And he saw me and his body jerked and she turned her head, cat eyes, incandescent in the moonlight.
I remember sprinting home.
I remember shrieks into my pillow.
I remember ripping apart the sodden bedsheets.
I remember my mother trying to hold me down as I punched a hole into the wall and as blood dripped down my wrist.
Monday, April 19, 2010
toe kisses.
I'm not sure about a beginning or an end.
I remember the day I became aware of your existence.
It was a Tuesday, I remember, and I was washing the dishes in my little yellow sink by the window. The wind was blowing, and a leaf was stuck to the pane. I felt bad for it, watched as the wind tried to rip it away and free it from the glass. I felt nauseous. I remember thinking how insane I was, to feel nauseous about a leaf trapped against my window, until I realized that my nausea was not fading and that it was definitely not linked in any way to the lone leaf.
I knew. I just knew it was you.
I think the love began when I first fantasized about you.
When I first pictured your face, your smell and the feel of your skin in my arms. The thought of you, although microscopic, made me blush. You were like a storybook character that I could picture perfectly in my head, but not the kind that I would be disappointed to see in a movie. When I would see you, you would be exactly the way you should be.
And I felt like those crazy ladies who spend their entire lives waiting for their knight in shining armor to show up, those pathetic people who waste time thinking about people they wish would love them back.
Truth was, I had no idea if you would love me as much as I still love you.
It was like a countdown to New Year's, one of those things you mark on your calendar, an event I had no plausible choice but to attend. I would wait until the very last possible second, hold my breath and wait for you to show your face at last.
I remember the day I held you for the first time.
I'll remember the smell of your hair until I die. I will remember kissing your toes, and the giggles that would follow. I remember the sound of your voice waking me in the night. All I could do now is watch you grow.
I remember the day you ceased believing in my existence.
The day you brought home that boy with the piercings and the leather jacket. The day I walked in on you smoking a joint out your window. I remember the names you called me, the fights and the day you told me you were leaving me.
I remember not getting that phone call from you on my birthday.
I suppose that in the end, I am one of those crazy ladies who hold onto faded photographs and sit by the telephone. An old lady with only one thought on her mind...
those toe kisses, and the giggles we had.
I remember the day I became aware of your existence.
It was a Tuesday, I remember, and I was washing the dishes in my little yellow sink by the window. The wind was blowing, and a leaf was stuck to the pane. I felt bad for it, watched as the wind tried to rip it away and free it from the glass. I felt nauseous. I remember thinking how insane I was, to feel nauseous about a leaf trapped against my window, until I realized that my nausea was not fading and that it was definitely not linked in any way to the lone leaf.
I knew. I just knew it was you.
I think the love began when I first fantasized about you.
When I first pictured your face, your smell and the feel of your skin in my arms. The thought of you, although microscopic, made me blush. You were like a storybook character that I could picture perfectly in my head, but not the kind that I would be disappointed to see in a movie. When I would see you, you would be exactly the way you should be.
And I felt like those crazy ladies who spend their entire lives waiting for their knight in shining armor to show up, those pathetic people who waste time thinking about people they wish would love them back.
Truth was, I had no idea if you would love me as much as I still love you.
It was like a countdown to New Year's, one of those things you mark on your calendar, an event I had no plausible choice but to attend. I would wait until the very last possible second, hold my breath and wait for you to show your face at last.
I remember the day I held you for the first time.
I'll remember the smell of your hair until I die. I will remember kissing your toes, and the giggles that would follow. I remember the sound of your voice waking me in the night. All I could do now is watch you grow.
I remember the day you ceased believing in my existence.
The day you brought home that boy with the piercings and the leather jacket. The day I walked in on you smoking a joint out your window. I remember the names you called me, the fights and the day you told me you were leaving me.
I remember not getting that phone call from you on my birthday.
I suppose that in the end, I am one of those crazy ladies who hold onto faded photographs and sit by the telephone. An old lady with only one thought on her mind...
those toe kisses, and the giggles we had.
Titling Lies At The Heart Of Pretension
[Not sure what this is exactly, form-wise. It was supposed to be a prose poem, but I'm not sure if it's too prosey now, lacking too many of the elements of prose poem conventions. Anyway. We're here to break conventions right? :) Just that's why it's all in a single paragraph. Also help me find a better title. Couldn't think of one.]
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Sean Turner Files
THE PROBLEM
One day, I had to use one of the stalls in the basement bathroom of the Leacock building at McGill. Since reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, I've been particularly alert to the scribbles in bathroom stalls, which sometimes turn into witty, fascinating conversations.
That day, in my poorly lit stall in the hot, dry basement, I couldn't help but notice that a name kept recurring in the scribbles. I was so intrigued that went to check the other stalls after to see if there was some kind of recurring pattern. There was. People were constantly referring to someone called "Sean Turner" in their messages.
I decided, over the course of a few weeks, to record the evolution of these messages in the bathroom stalls. Call me crazy, but I really needed an idea for heartrape. The idea was to find a pattern, a story, some kind of clue. Anything. I needed to know who Sean Turner was.
THE EVIDENCE
(in response to above)
Are you conversing
on your there bro
or are there two
of you in
HERE?
Sean Turner Supports an Indepen(t)dent Zaharia
Sean Turner
broke my heart and my
sphincter
(Not in that order)
Sean Turner let the dogs out
I fucked Sean Turner's sister
- No, she fucked you with a didlo.
Sean Turner smokes the funny tobacco
Sean Turner is Chuck Norris'
WORST NIGHTMARE
Sean Turner let the dogs out
Sean Turner
is a one man
Wolf Pack
SEAN TURNER
is
God.
Fuck Sean Turner
Sean Turner's old news ------ I agree, Sean Turner's
a fucking twat!
Let's talk about someone
cool... Like [SEAN TURNER]!
SEAN TURNER is where
it's at
THE SEARCH
The evidence was too compelling, I needed to find who this Sean Turner really was. A quick search online gave me the answer I was looking for. First of all, Sean Turner was referenced in the Heard at McGill website. Two guys are washing their hands in the bathroom, one mentions he just wrote a sick Sean Turner joke in the stall wall, the other asks: "Who is Sean Turner?" If this was funny, it implied that Sean Turner was something I should know about. It was an inside joke shared by all McGill students.
Sean Turner, it turns out, also has a facebook page, complete with the juiciest Sean Turner jokes excerpted from the stalls. The facebook page states the Sean Turner stall messages started as a joke among friends started in the basement of Burnside which escalated into a university-wide phenomenon. But who is Sean Turner? Does the real Sean Turner exist?
Well, it turns out he does. In a March 29 article in the McGill daily entitled "Sean knows me!", Daniel Lametti claims to have met the real Sean Turner, "a McGill engineering student (...) shorter than I'd imagined." Article here.
THE NEXT STEP
So Sean Turner exists. The real one, at least. The Sean Turner in the bathroom stalls has become someone else completely. He belongs to the communal imagination, now. He belongs to fiction.
It is our duty, then, to take Sean Turner to the next level. As students, as writers, as young Montréalais, as heart-rapists, it's time we brought Sean Turner to life on the page. He deserves to be written about, to be given flesh and blood and bones, and more importantly, a voice. Sean Turner deserves to eat, sleep, love, have sex, get into rambunctious situations. Sean Turner needs to become a character, a hero (or an anti-hero), a protagonist.
What say you, heart-rapists?
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Animals Dressed as Humans Dressed as Animals
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What possessed man to carve
The skin of a cow
And wear it like his own.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
If man has already
Tried to save
Chicken wings
To construct his own.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What afflicted
The human race enough
To turn it into
Animalia's bully.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What category
I fall under
And if that could be
Changed.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
If extinction is
'Fading'
Or
'Multiple disappearances.'
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
Why animals
Worry me
As much as they do.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
Who.
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What possessed man to carve
The skin of a cow
And wear it like his own.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
If man has already
Tried to save
Chicken wings
To construct his own.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What afflicted
The human race enough
To turn it into
Animalia's bully.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
What category
I fall under
And if that could be
Changed.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
If extinction is
'Fading'
Or
'Multiple disappearances.'
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
Why animals
Worry me
As much as they do.
Sometimes,
I stay up late nights
And wonder
Who.
Friday, April 16, 2010
I left the better one of the two I had posted
Storm's 'a 'comin
Storm clouds are gathering
Furiously above my
Aching head
Don’t
Disturb me
Today is
Not
The day
To mess
The air is electric with
The promise of
Lightning
And heavy with the threat of
Rain
Thunder has begun rolling in from a distance
And I am longing for
The storm to commence
Because I can’t deal with the stress of
These storm clouds
Hanging
Above my head
Storm clouds are gathering
Furiously above my
Aching head
Don’t
Disturb me
Today is
Not
The day
To mess
The air is electric with
The promise of
Lightning
And heavy with the threat of
Rain
Thunder has begun rolling in from a distance
And I am longing for
The storm to commence
Because I can’t deal with the stress of
These storm clouds
Hanging
Above my head
[boom]
All writers feel love and loss
ten times harder
than normal people.
Especially love.
Especially loss.
ten times harder
than normal people.
Especially love.
Especially loss.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Rhetoric
We, changeable as the salty sea, impossible as a storm-laden sky, volatile as the roiling hot springs in the middle of the mountains – we, feather-fickle in our choice choices between, for all intents and purposes, delirious or delirious; we, jagged rocks on a crashing shore and jagged lines on a graph of something relative to something else, are somehow fixed here, now.
And where is “here”? And when is “now”? And why are “we [...] fixed”?
And when we say “fixed”, do we mean that we have settled upon a decision, an opinion, a state, one of a multiplicity of everythings? Or do we mean, perhaps, that we have been repaired, disabused of some notion, transformed for the better from our changeable, changeling selves?
And where is “here”? And when is “now”? And why are “we [...] fixed”?
And when we say “fixed”, do we mean that we have settled upon a decision, an opinion, a state, one of a multiplicity of everythings? Or do we mean, perhaps, that we have been repaired, disabused of some notion, transformed for the better from our changeable, changeling selves?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
HEY!
My post (which should have actually been posted yesterday) is simply to inform everyone that the first edition of the heart-rape club lit journal is COMPLETE. Please pass by Marianopolis during artsweek to pick one up and tell all your friends. I believe Ms Liss is printing out 50 copies (though I will persuade her to print more).
Peace, love and Kid Cudi,
Jordano
Peace, love and Kid Cudi,
Jordano
Song
I wanted to apologize
for your return that day,
from linens white and patient spite
and disinfectant spray;
Your melodies were muffled
By the din of all my thoughts;
So I could only yell and rage
Until the movement stopped.
I got the hesitation
But I didn't get the choice
When you were asked which one to trash--
And finally picked your voice
But now I'm old and songs are only
Measures to slow time--
Or else to pull me back like I'm
some catfish on a line;
And having heard so many tunes
From the many and the few
I know it's when you never spoke
That you managed to stay true.
for your return that day,
from linens white and patient spite
and disinfectant spray;
Your melodies were muffled
By the din of all my thoughts;
So I could only yell and rage
Until the movement stopped.
I got the hesitation
But I didn't get the choice
When you were asked which one to trash--
And finally picked your voice
But now I'm old and songs are only
Measures to slow time--
Or else to pull me back like I'm
some catfish on a line;
And having heard so many tunes
From the many and the few
I know it's when you never spoke
That you managed to stay true.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Information, The Kinetic Image
This is dedicated to Bruno
[Gratuitous apologies for the length, but this was my final piece of my prose fiction portfolio that I actually managed to finish. So this is for anyone with mad concentration/procrastination skills. I would appreciate comments, but I understand if you're all too busy to read such a headfull :P and as a note on commenting: sorry for not being able to lately but check back to your old posts by next week and I should be caught up!! :)]
The brain was sitting there, beside him, in a pool of its own viscous fluids.
Kyle had just walked languidly down the endless escalators to the belly of metro Namur, and had sat on one of the orange benches feeling mindless and dizzy-sick from a bad mixture of beer and rum and cokes and a half a joint. He’d taken out his phone to check the time and had been about to text a friend when he saw it in the corner of his eye. He glanced over, assigned it the offhand subject of a lost hat, and turned to his phone again. On seeing a void of service bars in the top left hand corner of his KRZR, he snapped the phone closed, frustrated, so that it echoed around the tunnel. He shook his man-bangs out of his eyes, and as his head turned, his attention fell once more on the hat-brain.
A moment of blind numbness ensued in which Kyle was too drunk to truly see what was in front of him. He squinted his eyes, certain his contacts had scratched or, with his drunken logic, decided they must have somehow fogged. He was positive his high had been overpowered by the alcohol, so he was fairly certain he wasn’t hallucinating because of that. The weed his friends got wasn’t exactly laced with acid or anything else either. He was pretty sure.
His brain sludged a few stupored moments computing the odds of this possibility before he realized how silly his paranoia was. The corner of his mouth sagged in a smile at the irrationality of his imagination. He would have to tell his friends as soon as he got out of the metro and they could laugh at his stupidity – although not too hard; just thinking of laughing was making him nauseous. As was the fact that the brain wasn’t disappearing. Its continuing presence was making his foot tap in nervousness, as though the seconds going by were actually hands turning a wind-up toy in preparation to let it loose and go berserk. The faster his foot twitched, the more he needed to know.
In an inebriated process of common sense, he decided that the only way he was going to believe it was there was to touch it. He formed a weak fist and protruded his index finger, sailing his hand toward the foreign object like a sloop ship to a new world. The uncoordinated momentum resulted in a kamikaze finger dive-bombing into what was unmistakably a genuine jelly-rough texture. In a heavy clunk of realization, he was forced to come to the very obvious conclusion that he wasn’t so wildly drunk that he had started seeing things.
His first thought, on accepting that the brain existed, was, of course, that it must be fake.
A second later, however, he noticed the smell. Nothing on earth could fake that, he was certain. Not that he knew what rotting brains smelled like, the tang of their slow decay in being exposed to humid subterranean air. But, like when he encountered spaceships and yetis and ghosts (and he had), he knew the real thing when he saw it; it wasn’t some imaginary force taking hold of his thoughts and perverting them into crazed fantasies. This brain was real.
The next thought was nearly obliterated by revulsion and horror. Something out there was dead. This brain was the functioning organ of a living thing and it was here, beside him, leaking and oozing white matter onto the mid-80’s style tiled floor, stuck all over his finger from where he’d touched it. He felt the gray matter and dead skin cells creeping under his fingernail and seeping into his pores, infecting his body with secondhand death, racing up his veins so fast it felt like everything within him was rushing to his head in a mad clamber-dash to escape the repulsion that was now infiltrating his insides so –
He vomited.
His body bucked and released curdled-looking liquid all over the floor. Sixty bucks just to spew, he thought as his esophagus burned, and remembered why he hated going out to drink.
The next thought, which he immediately realized should have been his first thought, was where was the body?
As if it would manifest at this presumption, Kyle looked around with mad-wide eyes, wiping his mouth and sweat-droplet nose on his hoodie’s sleeves. No one was there. He hadn’t even seen the corpse-eyed nightshift STM employee in the ticket booth when he’d passed by. He’d assumed that had been in protest of working, though, because there was so much red paint thrown at the plexiglass window to the point that you could barely see in or out anymore.
The metro was dark and musty. It was a quarter after one in the morning; he was catching the last train. The stairs led upwards ominously toward lightly glowing geodesic domes defying gravity that cast square shadows like he was caught in a cubist version of reality. His heart beat in rapid smashing knocks shouting the mantra Get out! Not safe! Get out! Not safe! He tried to calm it by wrapping one arm around his stomach and one hand around his throat. It was his version of fetal position.
How long had the brain been here? What if the killer-mutilator was hidden at the other end of the track – on the tracks, ready to spring up with a giant bone saw and eyes crazed from a fresh kill? The blood had barely begun to dry and it had felt somewhat warm when he’d touched it.
For a painful few seconds, in which his heart suddenly grew spikes and began to violently swing around his chest cavity like a mace, he thought that the zombie invasion was finally here. He jumped up (or rather staggered to a troglodyte stance), wondering why he’d put off buying a chainsaw for so long.
Then he shook his head. No, he told himself in a desperate, enforced calm, zombies would have eaten the brain. Yes, that was true. He closed his eyes and breathed out, laughing a nervous laugh at how he clearly was getting ahead of himself. Not only that, but the murderer was without a doubt gone, had likely caught the metro he’d seen pulling away just as he’d scanned his Opus card and slouched uncoordinatedly down the stairs, unable to run for it. There was no one here – unless you counted the person trapped in the convolution of cell structure, locked in the no longer functioning organ beside him.
Unless…was it still functioning? He frowned at the brain, squinting his eyes and giving it a suspicious sidelong glance. Was there a person still in there? More mind sludges considered this prospect. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed there had to be someone in there. Dormant and maybe writhing silently in pain, but beyond-a-doubt-bound to this hunk of flesh, scurrying, scuttling along electrode neuropathways.
He began to feel sick again, and leaned back to let his stomach stretch out. What he needed was to distract himself from the nausea. He looked back at the brain and tried to imagine what kind of person it had belonged to. What was its name – was it male or female? It was a pretty big brain, so he figured it was male, but he imagined one of his feminist friends slapping him and decided to be diplomatic and give it one that was gender neutral. He tried to think of the names that he’d happily escaped as a helpless infant when his parents were bent on giving him one that was old-made-modern and could go either way. Constantine (shudder). Jessie (meh). Emerson (maybe).
He paused, pressed his lips together and ground his teeth in thought. Emerson was good – inferior to the name “Kyle”, but he’d always felt a twinge of jealousy whenever he’d met someone named Emerson. He looked at the brain, like God, and saw that it was good.
“HeyyyEmerson,” he slurred (smelling his stink of post-puke breath in the process).
Emerson just sat there, stewing and growing continually more fetid.
“Thassssokay. I don’t talk mucheeither.” Kyle listened for the metro coming in the distance, but there was only the insect buzz of the florescent lights, so he tried to think of something else to say. His stomach was settling slightly; he had to keep talking for a few more minutes and then he knew he’d be fine.
He wondered what the last thought in this brain might have been before it had left its body.
“I wonder iffffyou ‘member whatchoo were thinkin’ of,” he said. “Musta been scared.”
He thought about the scene that might have taken place. There must have been running and screaming and blood, so much blood. Fear, pumping away in an adrenaline rush through the veins, making up for the fact that life was about to end by giving you an extra dose of vitality. Then that life had rushed out of those veins, spilling on some alleyway, or backseat of a car, or cruddy apartment in some basement of a building. Blood, blood, so much blood.
His head was spinning again. His stomach unsettled once more as the Leviathan of sickness stirred in his belly, breaching its dormant waters and prickling up his throat. He didn’t want to throw up again, and threw himself in an almost entirely reclined position against the wall and the seat, gripping the edge with one hand and putting a clamp-like hand across his eyes to squeeze each temple. Black. He needed blackness and numbness. Anyone who says it’s fun being drunk is retarded, he thought. Why do I do this to myself?
Just as he’d started to achieve that transcended space of quiet, the sound of hollow chimes suddenly rung out in the air.
“Attention,” said a clear and extremely precise-speaking female voice. “Un accident cause un ralentissement de service sur la ligne – ” (ever so slight microsecond pause just enough to get his hopes up) “ – orange – ” (Damnit, he thought) “en direction – ” (another fraction of a pause as he once again puffed with hope) “ – Montmorency – ”
He slunk even lower in his seat, both hands dragging in frustration down his face, accidentally ripping his new snakebites in the process. The taste of blood was exactly what he couldn’t handle right now, and he vomited again, finishing just in time to hear the woman calmly say, “ – Merci pour votre comprehension. D’autres messages suivront.”
Son of a bitch STM lady, he thought, squeezing heave-tears away from his eyelashes with his knuckles and feeling chunks in his throat. He forced himself to swallow them down.
It took him a few minutes to recover, in which no messages suivront-ed. He stared straight ahead and sighed, feeling slightly better in any case.
“WelllEmerson,” he said after a bit, “lookssslike it’s just you ‘n me.”
He looked over at the silent brain, head rolling against the wall to fall on his shoulder. Here was this intricate train of cells bound together into the most complex organ of existence. Information through organics. Images stored in coils and ready to spring to life with a spark of kinetic energy. The same thing was in his brain.
It occurred to him that all this mind’s memories were stuck inside this jelly hunk of cellular matter with absolutely no means to communicate them. The person inside Emerson was helpless. He himself would be helpless one day, cut apart from his mouth. He could be this brain – Emerson 2.0 – if the killer still did happen to be lurking somewhere close by. (He looked nonchalantly underneath his seat just to make sure that he wasn’t. Safe.)
Still – he thought about his life and how it was bound up in intricate electrical impulses. If no one heard what his life was about, then he was left with nothing. He would be nothing. He would be an empty, lonely brain waiting for a metro that may or may not come.
Kyle no longer felt afraid of the brain, or even all that nauseated. He wanted to do something for it, but he didn’t know what.
When he was young and stayed home from school sick, or tripped over his rebel shoelaces in the playground and got woodchip splinters in his knees, his mother would put him in bed, bandaged or medicated, and not know what to do either. She probably shouldn’t have ever had kids – at least not so young – because she just sat awkwardly by his bedside, flipping through magazines and reading him gossip magazine articles she’d find that were of moderate interest, skipping over the inappropriate-for-four-year-olds parts so none of it even made coherent sense.
Kyle didn’t know what to do for a brain either, so he followed his mother’s example and began to tell Emerson stories. He only had ones about himself, and he didn’t have the energy to edit, so he just started to talk.
“WhennI went to an art ex’bition once, I jacked offffffin front of a painting.” He chuckle-breathed through his nose. “’Twasssa private show sssssso no one saw. I came onto the painting, but it looked like a Pollock and no one noticed, theyyyall thought it was part of it.”
He looked over at Emerson. “Dooonnn’t get judgmental,” he said to the silent brain. “The artisssst was a sunuvabitch. He thrrrrewa rock at me once and said it wasssart. Bastard. Had to get three sssstichessss on my chin.”
Kyle tried to run his finger along his half-inch scar, but missed and poked himself in the eye.
“Thissssother time,” he said, wiping his streaming eye on his sleeve, “I wassssso drunk I decided I really wanted one of those tatoooossss on your stomach, of a monkey’s asss, with the assssshole where the bellybutton is, that I actually asked my frrrriends to shave off all the hair on my chesssst ssssooo we could go to Adrenaline and getit done.” He absently stuck his hand up his shirt to play with his naval. “’Course, I jusssst happened to be with girls that night, ssso they thought it’d be smarterrr to wax. Fucking Chrisssst that fucking killed. Then we gottttooo Adrenaline aannnd they were all, ‘We dooonnn’t tattoooo drunk people’.” He patted his untainted and not-quite-so-queasy-anymore belly, and sighed. “Thank God. I would’ve killed mysssselffff.”
Emerson’s quiet made him think twice about what he said.
“Oh – ssssorrry Emerson, I wouldn’t’ve reallyyy killed myssselff.” He ran his tongue over his lips, mouth feeling extremely dry. “Ssssuckssss that you’re dead.” He made a face that he hoped was sympathetic. He couldn’t quite feel his jaw so he figured the expression didn’t look like much of anything. At least Emerson didn’t have eyes to see him fail.
“I alsssso lit ssssomething on fire once,” said Kyle. After this statement he was quieter, he and Emerson thinking solemnly and contemplating his words. “I wassssn’t sstoned ‘r anything even. I wassss just really angry. It was right after I turned ten and ssssuddenly my dad decided to pickup and leave. I ssstole his lighter and ssset the treehousssse we’d made together onfire.” He paused, then rephrased. “Nnno…actuuually, I won’t lie. It alwaysssounds cooler when I putttit like dat. Thingggis, my dad loved his lighter, so I ssstole it. Then I was hidinggin the treehouse and lightingit again andagain, but I couldn’t sssee what I wassdoing because I was – ” He paused again. “My eyes were tired, I wasssn’t paying attention. I dropped the lighter. The treehoussse littton fire.”
He recalled clambering out of the flaming wooden hideaway. Once he was back on the ground, he’d most distinctly remembered the satisfying curl of the ashes landing on his face like moths. Then his mother had run out of the house, tear streaked, running as fast as her skinny short legs could carry her and the giant fire extinguisher she brandished. She screamed at him for a week after about ‘how dare he do something so irresponsible?’ and ‘didn’t he think about anyone but himself?’ and ‘she wasn’t going to be there all the time for him to come crawling to if he fucked things up!’
Emerson waited patiently while Kyle belched loudly and satisfyingly. It made him feel a smidgeon better. “ThennnI rebuilt the treehoussse a few yearsss later. It was, like, the firssst year of high school or sssomething. I did it with my girlfriend and our bessst friend.”
Kyle paused at that point, and frowned.
“Actually, I should sssay my ex. She jusssst broke upwith me, by the way. Well. Not jusssst. Four daysssago. We were going out forrrover eight years. This weekend we were sss’posed to go camping. But shhhe ended up going with our best friend instead.” He stopped, licked his slimy lips, and scowled. “Now shhhe’s making ssweet, sssstoned love to her for a whole week with the weed I bought for usss.” He leaned down really close to Emerson to whisper, “And shhhe didn’t even have the decency to tell me shhe wasss completely lesssssbian. Apparently she’ssss bi, I’m jussst not man enough to keep her on thisssside of the heterosssexual fence. She’sss too busy wanting to sssstraddle it. Or her, in thisss case.” He burped again, glad there was no one around to feel the reverberations that emanated from it, and leaned upright again. “Y’know, come to think offffit, they were actually the onessss who got all the other girlssss to wax my chesst. Bitches. Bet they’re laughing nowwweh, Emerssson? Well we don’t need them. Lookssslike it’sssjussst you ‘n me. It’sss justyou ‘n me, buddy.”
For a second, Kyle thought that Emerson was rumbling an answer, moved so greatly by his stories that it had broken the binding shell of its skin and managed to communicate with him.
“’Merssson?” he slurred.
Then blue and white stripes shot out of the station’s tunnel led by headlights. It was exceptionally loud and bright. He winced.
“Well dasssmy metro,” he said, now feeling a slight bit awkward. How should he say goodbye to a brain? “It wassnice meeting you,” he told it. “But I guess thisssis goodbye.”
Emerson sulked, sad at being left alone. After all, Kyle had just promised they’d stick together.
“Now don’t be like that,” Kyle said. “I’ll tell you what. When I get home, I’mmma burn down that treehoussse again and thinkof you.”
The metro started to slow. He stood up in a swagger akin to a newbie pirate who would likely drown before he found his sea-legs.
“ByeeEmerson!” he waved. “Take careof yoursself!”
The metro stopped and the synchrony of dozens of doors opening echoed through the station. He lurched forward uncomfortably, trying not to slip in the pool of sick by his converse shoes, and yet desperate to make it inside the doors before they closed. It took two tries, but he made it.
The car he stepped into wasn’t, as he’d hoped, empty. Still, he was able to sprawl himself across the long seats and put his feet up on the single chair in front of him. He caught the other passengers looking suspiciously at him. One man in particular squinted at the brain, and then at him, and then back. But no one did anything. It was Montreal. No one spoke to each other, let alone after 1am, let alone in a metro car, let alone to a twenty-two-year-old with snakebites and a vomit-stenched hoodie.
As the doors shut again and the metro’s take off horn sounded almost inaudible, the STM woman’s voice came on the intercom once again.
“Attention. Service rétabli sur la ligne orange. Service rétabli – ” (Thanks, thought Kyle absently, surprised at how disappointed he was that Emerson was no longer in view. “Merci pour votre comprehension, she finished, as they rushed into the darkness between stations.
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