while bearing the weight,
when every bone struck
by another finally
gave
you came up through swamps,
through metres of
dampness, miles. you swam
pools of water for me and
my wavering faith,
an idea you would travel
much farther,
give lessons in sadness
and strength
Filed under poem tree
it was christmas. all the walls came down at my torn toenails, the way his heels still sometimes do. it wasn’t an accident or anything; i chipped at them until they would not stand.
when i got the phone number of my first “love” this weekend, from his mother (that classic boy-next-door, the one our mothers dreamt i would end up with), it all became so clear. if i just called him, i could walk a small town party with him, in my high-heeled shoes (he’s an AUTO-mechanic, say it with me), linking arms and catching up on the fifteen years we lost. i’m sure i could. but i saw everything beyond that fallen concrete when he kissed me, though i forget the kiss. i remember that there were two mouths and flaring nostrils that i could see straight into. i remember that i touched his skin, protruding, an uncanny and disturbing scar. i remember that there were teeth because they bit me. i remember that there was a boy there doing this with me, but i forget his face the way i forgot his number and was reminded (incorrectly – he’s always been a kidder).
there is no chance for me. in the same way that there is no remembering. there are only small town memories, churches and backyards. addresses in covers of trade paperbacks. places to linger. places to look back at and remember the man i have loved from the very first day, a man who never wrote me a farewell card. a man who had not been a man, who had still been the boy next door.
until that boy next door gets married, i don’t stand a chance. even if he disappears without a trace i will always stay this way, making all the same mistakes, choosing all the wrong numbers to remember. somewhere in me i’m sure that it’s on purpose.
because i’d rather drift alone forever never knowing, than know that he was just one call away.
Filed under monologue
tips lather at
seams
and are strung,
at mouths,
twine to my hands,
knots for your hands
scratches
to come in, be
let through a window
with shoes on
Filed under poem tree
well it finally happened
and i live alone.
it took me a year but it happened. just me, and gunther of course. and king julien & mort, who survived yet another move and who have been noticeably upset with me ever since. i’m giving them some time to cool off.
i keep hearing that things will get better, that i’ll have a fresh start. i’ve heard it so many times and fallen for the promise so many times that i have nearly abandoned all hope. i’ve never really been much of a “hopeful” girl anyway, but i am easily tricked. friends tricked me, boys tricked me. and my own blind faith in myself and in others tricked me, too.
so here i am.
alone, where i should have been a year ago. what i wanted so badly last february. but i didn’t really want it, not yet, not then. because i tried for something else when i should not have. and that’s that. i chose to do it, somewhere. somehow i made decisions.
so whatever. it’s not like i actually give a fuck, obviously, about anything, or about tricks or those boys or those friends or a hat or etymology or deconstruction or getting thrown under the bus. because to care now i’d have to have cared then. and they’d be kidding themselves if they even briefly thought i did. which they know as well as i do.
i’m close,
to giving up. but not quite there. i have no hope, maybe, but it isn’t hope i need. it all works out, it’s all good, whatever. hakuna matata, life goes on. i’m all right. i’m always all right. not that anyone asked.
but then
they cared for me about as much
as i cared for them.
right?
Filed under monologue
this is the last night before i will finally live on my own.
i’m leaving tomorrow. i have nothing to look back at.
i never really do.
i’ve taken everything apart and down over the past few days, but just now i noticed that the calendar is still on the wall. i’ve thought about taking it down, but i kept stopping myself from doing it because it makes no sense to remove it. i still need it. i still need to know what day it is.
i don’t.
i have a phone, obviously. and i can count the days without a calendar, at least for two or three. i don’t need it. and i should have taken it down when i took away my photographs and notes and birthday cards and coasters and yorick and everything else.
but i left it. i keep leaving it. and now i’ve even recognized that i don’t need it and i still will leave it. until i’m gone tomorrow.
fuck.
i’ll probably forget it now that i’ve made such a big deal about it.
Filed under monologue
this is how
we remember ourselves
three hundred days later
exposed pipeline
in dirt, a wrong turn.
fresh as the holes where my
eyes had been once, and were, yours
on the nape of my neck
with hands,
in gananoque
a winter so long no spring
ever came, no summer
bled into no fall
Filed under poem tree
