simplicity,
a backwards pedal
into a garage
your seeping wealth
of beads of sweat, dark
hair,
your back blurred
in the dryer of a
mens’ room.
stray cats, sex, grey
shorts alone and one
less cigarette a day and night
Tag Archives: calm
recent thoughts.
days.
ten days after we fucked i
went grocery shopping with my
dad, which doesn’t happen very often.
he bought four bottles
of ketchup because it was on sale
and he still lives in 1962
and every spot in the sky is a
reconnaissance plane
every spot in the sky was a cloud
marked by breath you’d expelled to
the stars,
every sound that had failed to
reach space
there was one bottle left in
the cupboard at home,
but he said that
he never wanted
to buy it again
Filed under poem tree
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.
Filed under monologue
connection.
things i might e-mail, if i had a connection.
i lost my new sunglasses. it’s night time now so i don’t need them to see but i’ve been stumbling around on a mission, like a crazy person, to find them.
the lake is so calm even when the boats go through. i swam across to the other cottage, on the other side of the bay. we climbed the rocks holding roots of trees with our bare feet, and jumped with our fingers plugging our noses.
they’re beautiful, the kind of people whose energies are at constant risk of escaping. they smell like the lake and shampoo and they are kind to me; i have developed a new appreciation for that kind of thing.
i hate missing anything because it makes me feel like i’m giving a part of myself away. but i don’t mind this. i almost want it. things aren’t better when he is around but they’re not the same, not in a bad way.
i don’t belong here. i will find a way to tell you, without e-mail, with real words. i found my sunglasses in my backpack on the drive home. i used an inflatable turtle to make it across the lake. i don’t really care for the scent of shampoo. but i still don’t mind, or still don’t mind so much.
Filed under monologue
um camping.
i went camping a couple weeks ago & it was totally rad. it made me want to do a million things differently because for two tiny days that’s how they were done. i smoked quietly and alone, hidden in the trees. i kept a fire alive long enough to make fun of the guys. i saw a turtle swimming below the surface of the lake, i saw a fish jump out of the water, i paddled a canoe (j-), i swam until i thought i would drown and almost did, sort of. it was a nice almost-drowning though. we took the rain cover off the tent and i unzipped my sleeping bag and was calm and at peace and stared up at so many stars it felt like there was something wrong with the sky (some kind of pox?).
it was perfect.
it made me less lonely and when i came home i wasn’t depressed. i don’t know what happened. i guess it started when i had an out-of-town visit and we all shared the long car ride back home together and i realized (was reminded of) how simple it all actually is. how many people actually give a fuck about me, and care, simply, not because they have to, not because they’re trying to, because they can’t help it, because they don’t think about it or notice it. i haven’t felt at ease like this in a very long time. and then we went camping. and there are moments that i have now, brief ones that are gone before i have a chance to capture them, that i can’t even be bothered to explain. because i don’t fucking have to.
Filed under monologue
split.
where the track
splits i stand and
am shaky, alternate
route to prevention,
certain insecurity, to
bolts of rails
that spiral at the
ends
Filed under poem tree
dundas.
present.
everyone was dancing in the parking lot of mac’s milk and there was a sing-a-long, or something, but i can’t remember the song. i had asked you for something, like change for a coffee or a cigarette and you were trying to help me but too much was going on. you knew i wasn’t worried and your eyes were very full. not in a bad way at all. it was simple and everyone kept dancing and there were puddles all over the place. everything was reflecting in the streetlights and the mac’s sign, which was still yellow. right as i was waking up i was spinning and could see you. your arm was held out and you were wearing your jacket, which i like because you look good in it.
past.
today i did an unnaturally generous thing and was repaid instantly for it. he was an awkward reminder of all my friends back at home. he was scrawny and dressed blandly in skinny black jeans and a brown toque and a beautiful chemical smile. for my brief trust in him i received a single wrinkled American cigarette and vibrant recollections of the narrow, yellow kitchen in my father’s apartment.
Filed under monologue
