...And When She Tells Me She Loves Me, I'll Act Surprised.

Discipline.
My mother always told me,
"If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."
and my teachers always said,
"It's important to be critical."
and my head has always been split down the middle,
hoping someday there will be a reaction that
will allow me to stare at an imperfection
and smile at it, like it doesn't need work.

Can we keep our hands
from feeding, feeling, facing?
Can we keep our tails
from waving, waiting, watching?
Can we keep our eyes
from looking, losing, lying?
Can we keep our legs
from collapsing under the pressures of walking
day to day on the same streets
up the same hills
while whispering,
"this is just a bad transition
in a series of small mistakes
and although 'real life' sprung itself on me so soon
I keep my hands shut and my mouth tied
as I trust these 'professionals' with my future"?

(I think the problem is that I know what I want.)

I want to make others feel invincible,
like they can do anything they want,
just like when speech and emotion convey the feeling
of a japanese girl, raped by 50 men in a day,
who then forces herself
to dive headfirst into a brick wall,
bringing me to tears, whispering
an apology that should not come from me,
but from humanity, entirely.

This makes me feel like I can change things.

I can change the world.
I can change this small part of the world.
I can change my school.
I can change my group of friends.
I can change my family.
I can change my room around.
I can change my clothes.
I can change...
right?
I can change, right?

I can change the way things happen.
(I don't mean revolution but evolution.)

Consider this my brick wall.
Consider my life's work and the rejections my 50-man rape.
Consider my small moments of invincibility my biggest moments of vulnerability.
Because I am in love with this brick wall,
and I will keep throwing myself at it,
until it opens its arms and sings me to sleep
as I whisper "I did it" in the most quiet triumph.

I can change "I did it" to mean "I am it"
or "I beat it" or "I won" or "finally"
but that feeling will remain.
Because, to me, it's just a matter of time
before that brick wall holds me close, says my name and sings me a lullaby.

Voyages en Europe

Keats was alone when he died
in a small room in Italy
in the small house where
we are staying.

Did he hear as I do the
forest of cobblestone and smoke
and live though the ink
froze in his pen?

If anything the window must have
broken from the canopy that spread
from the ceiling, pushing
the tiled flowers

out out out like
a slow tide or
a mountain or
breath

from one who knows it will come
so (like a bloom) it may as well come now

Montréal -40c

they set off in the night

north-bound, to higher ground

treading the ice-laced, crunching streets

the lonely lit windows of skyscrapers

suspended above them

and the long beams of revolving light

from the roof of Place Ville Marie

searching the steam over the city

they tried to make it to more hospitable hills

god, it was cold

Going Nuts

(Hey guys. Just writing a few choice lines that I liked.)

I've been given four screws and an ultimatum.
I still don't know where they belong.

Thinking ahead is for uh... the...uhh...

Competitors? Compredators.

A nice gesture from a jester.

These rings never fit my fingers, but they bound my pages well enough.

Oh, what? Yes, thank you. I've been meaning to acknowledge that.

Strangers can be quite normal.

I always regard silence as a stamp of approval.

Murder

I realize what day it is as soon as I wake up. I dread it already.

My eyes are still closed shut but I feel the morning light burning white through my eyelids. I’m usually awake at this hour, but sleep has only slightly pulled its soft wings apart. I can still feel their soft load weighing down on me, holding me tight against the bed like a soft push, a second gravity.

The kids will be up soon. Maybe they are awake already. How long before they realize? Before they come crashing into my room? I’d rather they find out on their own, my surprise will be easier to fake that way. Maybe they won’t even notice.

Please, make it last a little longer. The sheets throw back my sleep-warmth at me, pack me in tight like the silken cocoon of some exotic caterpillar. Maybe I will emerge with wings, fly away to some inconsequential place.

The day ahead keeps nagging at me from the back of my brain. The long drive to their father’s new place. The kids look forward to seeing him again. I’m going to have to pretend to be mildly happy. I sense a vague stirring of nausea in the pit of my stomach.

First I’ll have to deal with the kids this morning, about what I did. I had to do it on the same day so the kids know what happened, so the excitement of seeing their father again will make them forget about it.

Finally, I hear it: the eager thump! thump! thump! of the kids running up the stairs. Both of them. I know from the irregular cadence.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

My bedroom door bursts open. My eyes open to full blinding daylight.

The split second of calm before the storm. The time it takes them to cross the space of floor between the door and my bed. How I revel in the delicate peace of that moment.

Then comes the crash. The flood of cold air rushing under the sheets, goosebumps cover my legs. Tommy hugs both my thighs with his little arms, buried in the fleeting warmth. Alice is already sitting on my stomach, staring at me wide-eyed. Is it horror or excitement?

“MOMMY!”

Either she’s about to tell me today is the day she sees her father again, or—

“The dog is dead!”

I screw up my face in an expression of concerned surprise.

“The dog is dead?!”

Couldn’t have fooled an adult, but I think she buys it.

Yes, the dog is dead. I killed it. I killed it because I was sick of having to walk it and clean it and feed it. I killed it because their father bought it for them and I had to take care of it. I poisoned its food last night so we would find it dead this morning, no questions asked. Or not too many, anyhow. I hope they’re not too traumatized.

I should’ve killed their father instead.

FATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA

(Imagine Win Butler singing this (Arcade Fire))))))

They buried me today.
They buried me today with all the rings on my fingers,
wrapped into fists.

They buried me today.
They buried me with nails on my sides that I used for
the birdhouse in our frontlawn.

I know a ghost whose name I can't remember
and I feel guilty every night he haunts me.
But I call him what he is: a ghost,
a dead man searching for home.

I don't understand you

I'm alive! I thought it would be better to post something (finally) a little less than par rather than let another un-posted week go by.

I don’t understand you

With your whispered words

Hating

Tongues full violence

I don’t understand the way you think

And how your words affect me

They make me hate

And cry

And scream

Until one day I’ll rip my heart out

And lay it at your feet

A willing sacrifice

To counteract all your words

Mostly to free the things

Unspoken.

I hate to feel

Anything

Crying’s for the weak

It makes you weak

Until your bones turn brittle and you crumble to the floor

An ornament

For you to step over

For your decorative pleasure.

There Really Is No Other Theme

sit straight
uncross your arms
forget about your
penmanship
forget about your
broken heart

for this is
less serious
than you realize,
friend--

this is less of a
crucifixion more like the
scratching of
twig against leaf
in autumn

and the poem isn't
the blood on your hands
the poem is not the trace
the poem is holding the
leaf by its stem and
letting go

Seen Through a Window

{Hello all! I'm happy to announce that I'm taking an evening creative writing class in Bristol, which means I'm forced to cut back on all those long-winded ideas and write short, experimental exercises. I'm reminded of all those good times we had in our Marianopolis meetings! Our first homework assignment was "Seen Through a Window", like we did on the blog all those months ago. Here's what I wrote... N.B. I won't be tagging this as "away" because, although I wrote it away from home, it's not specifically about being abroad.}

*

I was interested in Don Miguel from a very young age, because Don Miguel was a writer, and that’s what I wanted to be. I was never good at sports, and my mother had always told me I was destined to become a famous man of letters.

Don Miguel wasn’t really renowned internationally, but he wrote sufficiently popular novels in an energetic, manly prose — reflected in titles like The Furious Commandante, Walking on Burning Suns, and Death and the Queen’s Gardener — to be something of a celebrity in the town where we lived. My father owned the town’s hotel. Don Miguel rented from him a small, one story guesthouse, which served as his studio.

One day — I was about probably 11 or 12 — as I was watering the flower bed of peonies that grew at the edge of the hotel gardens, I noticed that the guesthouse window was wide open. I approached and peeped inside, noticing that a peculiar odor, a kind of tangy sweetness, was mingling with the smell of the peonies. The window’s angle only offered a limited view inside: the opposite window with its curtains closed, a patch of tiled floor, a rickety chair in front of a wooden desk, a large black typewriter on the desk with spindly metallic strands holding the keys and a sheet of paper jutting out from the top, an ashtray with a cigarette still burning in it, spewing a thin plume of smoke that swirled and dissolved halfway to the ceiling.

Then, to my surprise, a naked woman walked into view. She was thin and inconceivably beautiful. It was the first time I ever saw a naked woman other than my mother. I made sure the hedge covered me and stared, hot blood thumping in my ears.

The naked woman went over to the typewriter. She took the lit cigarette, put it in her mouth, and bent down over the desk, giving me a marvelous view of her narrow backside.

I stood there, awestruck, frozen stiff. The hard, cold hose was still my hand, spurting water at the fat, fragrant peonies.

She started to type fast on the typewriter. I heard a man’s voice, imperious, from the other side of the room: “Make the dialogue more intense, guapa. Make it funny, like when I tell you terrible things and you answer with that sarcastic tone.” It was Don Miguel.

The girl typed away, sucking on her cigarette.

Soon, my mind became less crowded with the image of the woman’s naked beauty, and I realized that Don Miguel was not the author of his novels. This girl had written The Furious Commandate, Walking on Burning Suns, and Death and the Queen’s Gardener. Despite never having read any of these books, I felt cheated.

Then, it struck me that this woman was also Don Miguel’s lover, and that the faint, vaguely sickening odor that drifted out of the open window was the smell of sex.

Paint

I feel like paint.
It's a strange thing to compare yourself to,
but when I say it,
it feels true.
I cover walls of their imperfections
and with the passing of time and conversations,
crack under pressure and stillness.

I used to love to dance,
but you told me a secret,
and once you're gone,
I'll break into tiny pieces.

I gave you part of me.
Just realize that
you don't have me completely.