31.01.12

dear february.

dear february,

i’m sorry for all the bad things i said to you and about you and behind your back. you are cold and cruel, but you are lovely also. you didn’t hurt me; i hurt myself & tried to bring you with me.

you did not lie to me any more times than i lied to you or to myself. i was wrong. i am aware that i could have been different, if not for myself than for you, because you could not have been different.

you lose a day for three years out of four. you are unpredictable and dark, you are not tall. you are unfriendly. your shoes are thinning at the soles. denim shows the fat your legs are lacking. i could not love a thing about you, except that you exist. i still do. as you fade into the melting spring i will end up lonely and you will be a memory.

of walking in our winter clothes, of sunshine on cement. old coffee in a paper cup. i’m so much more than fine with that.

the memories are worth it and
i’m sorry. you are good.

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04.01.12

dawn.

a stampede broke
the glasses we used for
our seeing and drinking,
and i was already drunk:

my heart bled for a year.
on the arm of my couch
like it hadn’t

your tongue melted mine
with the lights from the streets,
sirens for earliest
dawn

for me
you glue a piece,
one at a time, but glue is cheap

and i’m a liar.

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01.01.12

2011 memory scrapbook.

because it’s the first day of 2012 and everything, and because i’m spending my day in my bed in my blankets with the window open and with a cup of bottomless coffee and gunther for company, i thought i’d take a look back at some of my favourite things from last year. because i fucking need to be reminded that good things happened last year.

it’s cut, because it’s long, and really only for me.

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24.12.11

house.

there is a spoon in my house that isn’t really a spoon at all. it isn’t mine; it was just here when i moved in & probably belongs to my roommate.

anyway the spoon is mostly flat. it still functions and everything. i don’t use spoons very often but it will hold my cheerios or my coffee if it has to. it’s slightly awkward but at least it functions. it just isn’t really a spoon.

and it’s christmas now, and it isn’t like last christmas. last year i had an apartment with a boyfriend and a christmas tree and coloured lights in the windows. everyone’s gifts were wrapped weeks ahead of time. we made hot chocolate and bought candy canes and put cards in the christmas tree. i made new friends and plans to spend my holiday with them. i ended up getting sick and spending three days alone on the couch with no one to help me feel better. it was a sign, of course.

this year i bought half my gifts at gas stations on my way back to hamilton. i didn’t take any time off. everything is simple. i don’t have any loyalties or promises or responsibilities. i have my neighbour feeding my fish, who are my best friends now. i don’t have any reminders of any of the people who have come and vanished from my life between last christmas and this one. except a slinky on my shelf, because it’s cool. i miss them all the time and try to convince myself at least once a day that i don’t because i can’t, i can’t miss anything because it is giving a part of myself away, because i have tough skin, because that layer of skin is strong but thin. and of course i don’t care. i just eat cheerios and drink beer and wear comfort sweaters and pretend.

so this christmas is christmas, again. and it’s all scattered and fucked up and different, but it’s the way it should be. last year i was too prepared. trying too hard for something i didn’t really want. and so i got sick. and another year over and a new one just begun. and my heart and my head are still exactly where they were last year. and i don’t mind and won’t apologize (to myself).

and it’s like a flat spoon in the drawer.
it shouldn’t work but it does.

merry christmas friends.

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13.12.11

afraid.

the thought of spiders used to scare me. i could never lean against stone walls, especially beneath porch lights. or the thought of serial rapists behind my shower curtain when i’d come home late from work, or not wearing a hood in the rain. walking on the sidewalk when a bus would pass. rent payments. seeing him as i came around corners. that i’d one day receive a call from my past, one i never want. not finding the perfect raincoat. the thought of returning, or never returning home. quitting smoking or drinking or candy. seeing the dentist. nosebleeds. asymmetrical bookshelves and unaligned dresser drawers. people. my friends. work. my bosses. real estate. not being near a starbucks. losing the ring my mother gave me on my sixteenth birthday, despite. being left alone. not being heard. losing control. my horoscope. housefires. apartment fires. being ignored. flaccid penises. my future. losing gunther anywhere at any time. poetry. learning. reading. summer flings. having pets. hangovers or the prospect of later being hungover. not having anyone to drink gin with. not having a pen in my purse. or a tampon, or a band-aid. planning meet-ups.

losing my phone.

now i’m not scared of anything.
and, like last year, i am not making any resolutions.

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11.12.11

weather.

an attraction less halted,
more swept with the
streets by the salt trucks

he tells me it’s been
a long year, thinned like
the bottoms of socks we would
fold on his bed,
deflated like bellies
emptied for
summer, bites from
the bugs in the grass, or limp,
fallen like leaves, as far as
we have to the floor.

i say i forget.
don’t remember that bed,
or the weather

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02.12.11

december poem.

you fall between two
alphabetically,
a place they have both
been before, on
bleachers in snow

i fall for the
drywall, the bottles of wine

if you were not
you i would reach for
wrought iron

the gate would swing in.
you would vanish. if you
were not
you i would find

lost pieces of bolts in the ice.

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22.11.11

areola.

the flesh was reconnected
within days, healed
against his urgency, my
will

a seamless graft
protracting his old bruises,
tearing at the stitches never sewn

on louder nights i’m vacant,
more cavity than full, or
all i am
less chunks of skin

but with
these wounds all nights are quiet;
in certain light teeth
make a sound

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20.11.11

standards.

i’m this close to starting a “lists” category on my blog. for this list, or “new boy resolutions”, or in your wildest jesslyn dreams. this list came to thirty. i may need to lower my standards.

1. he’ll adore me and i’ll adore him, but sometimes we’ll probably have sex with other people.
2. he’ll have a car.
3. he’ll have a dope job. not to be confused with a job selling dope. not that i’ll care what he’ll do for a living. anyway.
4. he’ll have a loft condo.
5. he’ll only ask me over on weeknights.
6. he’ll be so into sports he won’t even know i’m there.
7. he’ll only watch movies that i want to watch, when i’m around.
8. he’ll force-feed me fruits & vegetables. especially when i complain about it.
9. he’ll call me for girlfriend stuff, but also for sex. except he’ll text me because i don’t like phone calls.
10. he’ll still do all the non-boyfriend stuff in bed.
11. he’ll drive me to work in the morning and stop at starbucks on the way.
12. he’ll wear ties & smoke cigarettes.
13. he’ll never take me shopping, ever, ever.
14. he’ll wine & dine me, but only at home.
15. he’ll listen to all my girl whining & we’ll both pretend he’s really listening.
16. he’ll be tall, but only to me.
17. he’ll like my pet fish and not mind that i have mild fits of insanity because he’ll get that it’s not his problem.
18. he’ll be quiet.
19. he’ll ignore my texts.
20. he’ll eventually not ignore me, but there will be the unspoken promise that he will again.
21. he’ll leave me alone when i want to be left alone.
22. he’ll call someone else if i can’t cater to him tonight.
23. he’ll have the most comfortable clean blankets that will always smell like laundry. except he won’t, because he’ll be kind of gross.
24. he’ll have a sweet collection of badass shoes.
25. he’ll be totally badass. totally.
26. he’ll get drunk in bed with me and listen to music.
27. he’ll only see me in black lingerie & we’ll pretend it’s the only underwear i own.
28. he’ll be apolitical or at least not care.
29. he’ll have fantastic. fucking. hair.
30. he’ll be completely in control & so will i.

it’ll be fucking awesome.
i’m pretty sure it’s called true love.

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19.11.11

bodymovin.

in my phone somewhere near the back, if that’s a thing, which it isn’t probably, there is a photo i found of him sitting across a table from me. once a long time ago i thought it therapeutic to organize the pictures from my phone. that was an overwhelming task. today when i went to do the same thing, when i tried to recall february because my nails are red and last christmas and our neighbours and the smell of peppermint and chocolate, when i went to do the same thing, i mean, i found that i haven’t taken any photos off my phone since the end of september when everything that was going wrong suddenly got better.

and that’s how i came across a picture of him.

logical explanations are the best.

now please excuse me while i do what i do best: drink cans of beer & dance to this with my fish, all day.

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