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.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

16.11.11

psilocybin.

you’re a handsome devil/
what’s your name?

almost eight years ago i started writing a diary that, this past february and march, when i was the stupidest i’ve ever been, i typed up & cut-and-pasted into a notebook so that i’d always have it, and i met a guy this past summer and for some reason, probably because it was the middle of the night and i was in the midst of this period in my life where i believed in an organic connection between all living things, or whatever, i let him read it (cover to cover) and judge me based on my past and pretend like he knew anything about me and i watched him try to convince me that my slight neurotic quirks are deep psychological problems when they are not, just because i used to be a little different, just because he was still hung up, and was a psych major, and later the man who fixed the holes in the office walls told me that english majors and psych majors do not belong together and i wondered where this handyman had been all summer, but aside from that i keep the diary beside my bed in case i ever need to remember that i am still the same and wonderful, i am too good for this, i dance alone and am special and i linger in doorways and get away with practically murder and i blog-post from my phone while i smoke cigarettes and i don’t give a fuck about anything.

but i don’t need reminders anymore, because the moon lit my entire bedroom on its own, and for the first time in too long i feel something unselfish.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , , ,

12.11.11

after all.

i woke up & didn’t know where i was.

i have been here before.
the door should not be here,
it should be there by the window.
(no, two days later, i remember, it was
always there.)
i found myself again and again
here, in all the perfect moments
but it still ain’t quite right.
the apartment is different, more his.
i think of my own.
i think i remember that towel rack
broken, still on the floor. but that
is impossible.

i knew where i was after all.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , , ,

08.11.11

centre.

after forty
days i have no fear
of death. the planes
lift off from pearson, sky
shuts on mississauga

in the centre
of a highway we walked
and we held
hands, we were
my nightmare soaking
in like sinking wheels before

my heels left holes
on bank street,
bad dreams to the glebe

Leave a Comment

Filed under poem tree

Tagged as , , , ,

04.11.11

apartments.

too many apartments
i haven’t seen lie
parallel across
the frost, cut
like seams of highways
fighting for the lake

in winter we use
him, and
cloth to cut the ice on
the canal. i don’t
go home with writers,

awake instead until the spring,
counting reasons and
his footprints in the snow

Leave a Comment

Filed under poem tree

Tagged as , , , ,

02.11.11

bangs.

i cut the bangs back again. i don’t know how to do anything else. sometimes i try for a few months to let them grow out, to grow up, but there’s no point.

and everytime i cut them again i think of what the hairdresser will say, but i keep the scissors going.

and the first time i cut them, when i dyed my hair purple at the same time he came back to a girl he didn’t recognize, and i remember his face, and looking like a different person, and realizing i was and i was not the person he knew and i decided around then that i’d move to ottawa.

and the first time i cut my hair myself i was in a basement bathroom that belonged to my high school boyfriend, and he was so unimpressed, and i had to keep the scissors going because i couldn’t get it even, and he had to help even though he didn’t want to, but we broke up soon after that and for the next seven years i was always okay to cut it myself.

and the first time my best friend gave me an undercut, and the second-hand store scissor-chopped clumps of hair sailed to the tile of her bathroom, and we never used a towel when she cut it and we dumped it down the bathtub drain and watched it catch and sometimes we’d get busted and her mom would be pissed and we’d fall asleep in the bunk beds at the end of the night and say before we drifted off, “i love you bitch.”

and the first time i broke my phone, living here, off justin’s balcony on january 18th 2008, and i lost all my hamilton numbers and so i went home and sat on the counter underneath flourescent lights, and cut the bangs and dyed my hair blonde.

not that cutting your own hair is ever a big deal, because it’s not.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , ,

31.10.11

jokes.

i made him a gift but i’ll
be in a silent backseat, the glass
has been given, the windshield
is already cracked

it’s getting colder all the time. i bought mittens because last year i remember finding comfort there. and because i think maybe i could use some comfort. i’ve never been very good at telling jokes. i forget them too easily.

i don’t go to the canal anymore, but i stop by the river once in awhile to see the swans and think fondly of summer, which makes me think fondly of spring, which makes me think fondly of winter, and mittens, and brings me comfort.

it has been six months.

i’m apartment hunting in my dreams. i’m not afraid anymore to live on my own; i need it. no one wants to be around me or suggests that they might. i don’t care. i don’t suggest that i might want to be around them either. i’m not good at jokes. i cast aside the things that have the potential to nurture me. i am cold. i don’t care. it is nice.

there’s a blanket i sometimes prefer to sleep beneath, but it’s out in the closet. my bed feels good the way it is. still, everything has come to this, to what i envisioned when he asked me, “what do you want?”

sometimes he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , , ,

27.10.11

sticking.

at fourteen we strung
telephone cords
across our chests, slept
in football jerseys two
sizes too large,
memorized names
and were out too late, too young
and in the bad part of town

transparency reserved
itself for later years
and counters, two
filters three times daily,
sticking to the next

now when the phone
rings, i let the voicemail
catch your stutter

and i sleep in pajamas
and you have aged without me

2 Comments

Filed under poem tree

Tagged as , , , , ,

14.10.11

whistle.

january.

we kissed without
mouths, you took my
hand by the back of my chair

in real life
a revolution

in the darkness
planting blood
at the scene of the crime

–

february.

i don’t trust
where i have not
been already, so i don’t trust you

you take me anyway
but i’m never inside

i see him afterwards
and recognize the danger
but i go home with you
there is ice
and a stairwell,
a walkway without salt

we are
too far ahead for comfort

–

march.

by now there are
too many lies, exposed not
by the sun
but by its glare
off the lavender snow, a
shade pulled by tires

a smile, i know,
is the lie of all lies, i do
it myself and i do
it well

we run with the winter
to gutters, i am
alone in my home sending
soap down the drain,
not killing the mouse
who lives in the wall

he reminds me of you
he comes
he goes
he smiles too often
and hides, but not well

–

i commit far
too much for the month
of april,

the lawyer would call this
escape clause

i feel more
like i’ve turned myself in

i use your shirts
one more time, still to
cover cold bodies

and this time
like those times

i’m warm
in the dark

i will never let someone else convince me
that i am something i am not

Leave a Comment

Filed under poem tree

Tagged as , , , , ,

04.10.11

new list.

reasons i’m not giving up.

1. i got rid of the hat.
2. i have a date this week.
3. i have only a few friends, and i treat most of them like shit, but they are still my friends. they are always there when it’s really needed.
4. i’m working.
5. it’s fall!
6. i’m going to stop drinking (as much).
7. i have the best pros & cons list ever.
8. the terrible day i was dreading finally came and it wasn’t so bad after all.
9. i love my room & bed.
10. at least i have gunther.

Leave a Comment

Filed under monologue

Tagged as , , , ,