My rhyming skills are very bad,
Enough to make one very mad
If they hap' to be a poet
And cringe to hear the lack of flow it
Has!
Friday, August 30, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Mary's Birthday
Today at the park I saw an act of extreme cruelty (and I do not use these words lightly). A little girl was playing with her mother by the swings. This man in sports clothes walked by and just as he passed them he emptied his water bottle on the little girl's head.
The little girl was so surprised that she just stood there, absolutely still. The man had already run off at a good pace, as they do. The little girl only began to cry when her mother started to fuss and tried to take off her soaked dress.
I began to wonder: shouldn't the mother have shouted at the man, ran after him, punched him in the groin? I began the wonder: am I the type of mother who doesn't say anything when a stranger empties a bottle of water on her daughter, or am I the type of mother who runs after the man, shouts at him, punches him in the groin?
Do you know what I mean? It's an important question, when you think about it.
I walked back home and called Mary because it's her birthday. I forgot to tell her about what I'd seen in the park. So she had no idea I'd just witnessed an act of extreme cruelty.
The little girl was so surprised that she just stood there, absolutely still. The man had already run off at a good pace, as they do. The little girl only began to cry when her mother started to fuss and tried to take off her soaked dress.
I began to wonder: shouldn't the mother have shouted at the man, ran after him, punched him in the groin? I began the wonder: am I the type of mother who doesn't say anything when a stranger empties a bottle of water on her daughter, or am I the type of mother who runs after the man, shouts at him, punches him in the groin?
Do you know what I mean? It's an important question, when you think about it.
I walked back home and called Mary because it's her birthday. I forgot to tell her about what I'd seen in the park. So she had no idea I'd just witnessed an act of extreme cruelty.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Scraps from My Notebook
[I haven't written anything solid since graduating, but hell, I might as well post something. Here's some notebook rambling for your entertainment.]
Pot has trained in me dumb-struck awe. I've learned to hang my mouth open and forget that I'm even thinking - everything is pure sense, and every once in a while an inane thought stumbles across my mind like a lopsided butterfly clutching his leg, screaming, "OH GOD IT'S BLEEDING! WHO MAKES BEAR TRAPS THIS SMALL?"
Maybe I ought to narrate to myself more, talk out loud.
Here's a typical scene. A character looking in the mirror, splashing water on their face, wondering, "How did I get here? How did it end up like this?"
I wonder if characters blow their noses and check the contents after.
I bet everyone has different standards for appraising their boogers.
Pot has trained in me dumb-struck awe. I've learned to hang my mouth open and forget that I'm even thinking - everything is pure sense, and every once in a while an inane thought stumbles across my mind like a lopsided butterfly clutching his leg, screaming, "OH GOD IT'S BLEEDING! WHO MAKES BEAR TRAPS THIS SMALL?"
Maybe I ought to narrate to myself more, talk out loud.
Here's a typical scene. A character looking in the mirror, splashing water on their face, wondering, "How did I get here? How did it end up like this?"
I wonder if characters blow their noses and check the contents after.
I bet everyone has different standards for appraising their boogers.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Kiss Me With Your Morbid Obesity
Mmm, sweet, soft flaps of flesh –
bunching and rolling down our sides with every shift,
soft and puckered as many lips.
[just felt like posting something...]
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Content Warning
UPDATE; We're fine :)
Ahoy Hearties,
I've privatized this blog for the moment because I just received a warning email from blogger saying that they are going to delete all blogs that contain 'adult content'. I am currently in talks with them about what counts as 'adult', seeing as we do not showcase any pornographic or violent for the sake of violence material. To be blunt, though, it's seeming like they're going to delete any and all blogs with any sort of 'adult' content, including swearing. I've privatized this blog so only we can read it at the moment, and removed the adult content warning. Hopefully they'll get back to me and we can open it back up again. But this is just to say: Please save any and all important writings that you have on here in case we do indeed get deleted.
<3 tabia="">
Ahoy Hearties,
I've privatized this blog for the moment because I just received a warning email from blogger saying that they are going to delete all blogs that contain 'adult content'. I am currently in talks with them about what counts as 'adult', seeing as we do not showcase any pornographic or violent for the sake of violence material. To be blunt, though, it's seeming like they're going to delete any and all blogs with any sort of 'adult' content, including swearing. I've privatized this blog so only we can read it at the moment, and removed the adult content warning. Hopefully they'll get back to me and we can open it back up again. But this is just to say: Please save any and all important writings that you have on here in case we do indeed get deleted.
<3 tabia="">
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Call
Ring ring… ring ring…
ring ring…
“Hello…?”
“…”
“Hel-“
“I need you to pretend for me”
“It’s 2:35 am”
“Exactly, I can’t sleep. Just help me get to sleep”
“…”
“I just need you to pretend it’s ok now. You owe me this. I
just want you to pretend that we’re ok”
“We are ok, we just aren’t toge-“
“I KNOW! I know… Sorry. Please?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You always know what to say.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I just told you.”
“I don’t kn-“
“I’ll start just play along”
“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“Babe…?”
“…”
“Babe, are you up?”
“What’s wrong? Is everything ok?”
“I’m sorry I woke you up. I can’t fall asleep.”
“Was I snoring again?”
“No that’s not it, well, you were, it’s just I’m nervous
about tomorrow.”
“What for? You know you’re amazing and smart and gorgeous”
“Thanks babe…
”Feel better?”
“No.”
“Look, I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I want you to clasp your hand together really tight.”
“Ok”
“Alright now count to 10”
“One”
“Your arms and legs hurt your face is pushed in a scowl”
“Two”
“Your stomach is tight and uncomfortable”
“Three”
“Your back hurts from slouching”
“Four”
“Your breathing starts to slow down”
“Five”
“You relax all the muscles in your face and you let your
hands go.”
“Six”
“Your shoulders melt like hot butter”
“Seven”
“You feel warm from everyone’s love around you”
“Eight”
“Your mind stops racing”
“Nine”
“You are comfortable”
“Ten”
“…”
“… Ten?”
“You are asleep”
“I am not”
“Oh trust me you are”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because we’re together right now.”
“So this is a dream?”
“Yes. You’ve been asleep all this time. It’s a beautiful
dream where we are together in our bed touching. You can hear my voice whispering
in your ear.”
“I can feel you.”
“When you wake up you will go back to the real world, but right
now, enjoy your dream. Good night my love”
“Good night. I love you.”
“I love you.”
Click
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Walrus Waits
She is as fat as a walrus, so that's what they call her. The Walrus. Lovingly.
She is long and thick like a tube of almond paste—although to be fair her ripply skin is not Walrus coloured or even almond-coloured, but rosy pale like whipped cream into which a half-eaten strawberry has been dipped. Lovingly.
She is beautiful. They love her in the salons, at the opera. The young men carry her across the city, arms outstretched, hands softly folding into her generous flesh like bakers' hands kneading dough.
But tonight The Walrus has stayed in. She is waiting for her love. She has put on her heaviest jewelry: diamonds the size of quail eggs, pearls that spill like treasure between her breasts. You'd barely notice them.
She is waiting. She waits. She longs for the lover who will enter her room and enter her everywhere—her whole body can be penetrated, that is its beauty. She waits for the kisses like the pecking of bird beaks on her skin. She waits for the slim man she will smother. She waits for her lover.
She lies on her side; her bulk pools like a spill on the plush satin bedcover. In her hand she holds an oyster, plucked from the salt-covered dish by the bed. She is holding the oyster to her open lips; her lips are not quite yet touching the sharp ridge of the shell. A drop of sea water shimmers there like a pearl, about to fall. Perhaps her tongue—the most agile part of her body, her tongue pink and plastic and warm like molten candy—will be quick enough to catch it when it falls.
In that moment, The Walrus can almost see the oyster recoil, pulling its fleshy mantle and salty pool of juice back before it slips out of its pearly bed and falls down her throat. She will not chew it, for chewing is not a thing that ladies do. And she is a lady.
The hanging moment stretches on.
The Walrus should've waited for the young lover to come before she began to eat, but she was bored. She is about to eat an oyster out of boredom. But she is still bored, even now. An oyster is not cure for boredom. Not like a healthy young man is.
She waits. And she will wait for longer still.
The Walrus doesn't know it yet but her lover will not be able to come tonight for he has just received a bullet in the neck. It was a stray bullet from a duel he was watching a moment ago.
As he dies the lover thinks of The Walrus, her hot flesh like curtains falling over him and sweetly taking all the breath from him as his blood spills out from under his neck and pools like a pillow on the pavement. He tastes salt; blood must've splattered on his lips. The sweet breeze pulls the breath out of him. He stares up and sees the moon like a pearl shimmering faintly above the city. The light is beginning to dim.
The Walrus will never know if he forgot about their rendez vous or if he was merely running late. She will learn of his death at first light.
She is long and thick like a tube of almond paste—although to be fair her ripply skin is not Walrus coloured or even almond-coloured, but rosy pale like whipped cream into which a half-eaten strawberry has been dipped. Lovingly.
She is beautiful. They love her in the salons, at the opera. The young men carry her across the city, arms outstretched, hands softly folding into her generous flesh like bakers' hands kneading dough.
But tonight The Walrus has stayed in. She is waiting for her love. She has put on her heaviest jewelry: diamonds the size of quail eggs, pearls that spill like treasure between her breasts. You'd barely notice them.
She is waiting. She waits. She longs for the lover who will enter her room and enter her everywhere—her whole body can be penetrated, that is its beauty. She waits for the kisses like the pecking of bird beaks on her skin. She waits for the slim man she will smother. She waits for her lover.
She lies on her side; her bulk pools like a spill on the plush satin bedcover. In her hand she holds an oyster, plucked from the salt-covered dish by the bed. She is holding the oyster to her open lips; her lips are not quite yet touching the sharp ridge of the shell. A drop of sea water shimmers there like a pearl, about to fall. Perhaps her tongue—the most agile part of her body, her tongue pink and plastic and warm like molten candy—will be quick enough to catch it when it falls.
In that moment, The Walrus can almost see the oyster recoil, pulling its fleshy mantle and salty pool of juice back before it slips out of its pearly bed and falls down her throat. She will not chew it, for chewing is not a thing that ladies do. And she is a lady.
The hanging moment stretches on.
The Walrus should've waited for the young lover to come before she began to eat, but she was bored. She is about to eat an oyster out of boredom. But she is still bored, even now. An oyster is not cure for boredom. Not like a healthy young man is.
She waits. And she will wait for longer still.
The Walrus doesn't know it yet but her lover will not be able to come tonight for he has just received a bullet in the neck. It was a stray bullet from a duel he was watching a moment ago.
As he dies the lover thinks of The Walrus, her hot flesh like curtains falling over him and sweetly taking all the breath from him as his blood spills out from under his neck and pools like a pillow on the pavement. He tastes salt; blood must've splattered on his lips. The sweet breeze pulls the breath out of him. He stares up and sees the moon like a pearl shimmering faintly above the city. The light is beginning to dim.
The Walrus will never know if he forgot about their rendez vous or if he was merely running late. She will learn of his death at first light.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Every Moment, Scored Perfectly by the Symphony in My Head
I stand with a slouch just below my neck
because it's what's most
comfortable.
I stand with my feet pointed at an outward angle
because it's how my body knew they belonged
innately.
I didn't choose these things.
I let people tell me stories when a short conversation runs
long.
Though I'm not always interested,
there's always a part of me that thinks
their story will be useful
someday.
I didn't choose these things.
Some may call it confidence, bravery,
or overconfidence,
I call it an instinctual straightening of my spine,
One that goes without
a conscious decision.
Straighten it right and pick out some
vertebrae;
I don't need that kind of control.
But the choices I make regarding what I need
or don't need
go undocumented yet are
revisited
and edited,
changed
and rearranged,
to suit the mood I'm in.
Whether an old man's story makes me happy or sad
changes with the times and with every decision
that comes with whether I want to dip
into nostalgia
or if I'm
really
into eating spinach.
But I want to need you.
No. I need to want you.
Wait.
These things are both truth and are subject to wavering
but have proven pretty stable over the past few months,
years,
weeks.
Having been exposed to
situational comedies and
to the romantic ideals of
both the North American
canon and its piss bucket,
I've come across many
loving glances and
knowing looks
and they are always
returned.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS UNREQUITED LOVE
AS LONG AS PERSISTENCE
IS INVOLVED.
Yet,
when I sleep at the wheel
and my tense grip loosens on the reigns,
my weakness: my smile,
My loving glance
sees the light of the day
through the cracks of my lips
but
it
is
not
returned.
And with every time that I ask,
"Why doesn't she see me?"
the slouch in my spine curves further
and claims another vertebra
and the cracks in my lips deepen
in a desperation
for my light to be heard.
but I
cover my mouth.
Because I'm scared.
There I said it.
I'm scared.
because it's what's most
comfortable.
I stand with my feet pointed at an outward angle
because it's how my body knew they belonged
innately.
I didn't choose these things.
I let people tell me stories when a short conversation runs
long.
Though I'm not always interested,
there's always a part of me that thinks
their story will be useful
someday.
I didn't choose these things.
Some may call it confidence, bravery,
or overconfidence,
I call it an instinctual straightening of my spine,
One that goes without
a conscious decision.
Straighten it right and pick out some
vertebrae;
I don't need that kind of control.
But the choices I make regarding what I need
or don't need
go undocumented yet are
revisited
and edited,
changed
and rearranged,
to suit the mood I'm in.
Whether an old man's story makes me happy or sad
changes with the times and with every decision
that comes with whether I want to dip
into nostalgia
or if I'm
really
into eating spinach.
But I want to need you.
No. I need to want you.
Wait.
These things are both truth and are subject to wavering
but have proven pretty stable over the past few months,
years,
weeks.
Having been exposed to
situational comedies and
to the romantic ideals of
both the North American
canon and its piss bucket,
I've come across many
loving glances and
knowing looks
and they are always
returned.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS UNREQUITED LOVE
AS LONG AS PERSISTENCE
IS INVOLVED.
Yet,
when I sleep at the wheel
and my tense grip loosens on the reigns,
my weakness: my smile,
My loving glance
sees the light of the day
through the cracks of my lips
but
it
is
not
returned.
And with every time that I ask,
"Why doesn't she see me?"
the slouch in my spine curves further
and claims another vertebra
and the cracks in my lips deepen
in a desperation
for my light to be heard.
but I
cover my mouth.
Because I'm scared.
There I said it.
I'm scared.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Home
At the place where we stop
to empty our bladders and fill up the fuel tank,
the sweet grass sings with the sound of dust.
The air is rank with gas fumes and roadkill.
We take turns to piss; urine glows golden
in the sunlight and pools at our feet
on ground parched past drinking.
Loose jeans hang on narrow hips,
looped with a rust-coloured belt.
He zips up and says, “Only the cockroaches
will be left alive when it’s all over.”
-
While one drives the other reads yellowed paperbacks:
Doris Lessing, Toni Morisson, Margaret Atwood…
There’s something about old ladies who write.
When it’s too dark to see words we play Leonard Cohen,
howl the lyrics
at the gush of breeze that flies in from the open windows
and fills our throats with lust.
Afraid that the border agents would find the weed
stashed under the CDs in the glove compartment,
we took the long way across the continent.
-
In a small town stretched thin across the road,
we pick up two cheap girls and a bottle of easy booze,
bring them back to our motel room.
The whiskey soothes our throats,
contracts our stomachs into hard fists.
“You don’t waste any time,” they say when
we abandon their bodies to reach for our glasses,
clink them over the chasm between us.
“We don’t have much of it left.”
-
We wake up late.
Don’t like driving in the morning anyway
because the sun gets in our eyes.
-
Two unfinished novels lie in the trunk,
bound to be manuscripts forever,
kindling for the fires of apocalypse.
Somewhere between Brandon and Winnipeg
we leave the trunk open, speed until the prairie wind
picks up the pages one by one, unfurls our stories
behind us like the tail of a comet. A scattering.
-
We spot the house off a lush country road in Clinton,
Ontario.
The car sighs to a stop in the deserted driveway.
He asks, “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Dead sure.” We get out and stretch our limbs—animals
after a nap. Climb up to the porch in nonchalant steps.
Bang on the door until our knuckles ache.
Nobody’s home.
My friend Sugar and I gave each other the same prompt: write a piece in which two male characters face the end of the world by driving out to meet a famous writer. This is what I came up with. Can you guess who the famous writer is?
Thursday, January 24, 2013
New poems are now on on my blog!
Hey fellow writers and writerly folk :)
I'm going to try to start posting more regularly on my blog,
I'd love if you check it out! :)
http://adarkstormynight.wordpress.com/
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