dear blog

i miss you. 

goddammit. 

editing a newspaper sorta sucks all of my creativity. not sucks. but, requires. i have neglected you AND my lovely pen pals.

but, as i get ready to catch another lovely tfs film screening, i will give you a little somethin somethin.

violence. there's been a lot of hate on the streets of peterborough lately. and i've been seriously challenging myself to talk about it more. its hard to explain, but it's different. in my brain, its just different. the hate i get when im alone. its most always connect to my disability. not my gender, not my queerness. but my face. and its hard to negotiate a way to reach out to friends, my community without...re-living hate that really can't be 'explained'.

my friends ask... 'what happened?!!'

and i'm...sorta at a loss. usually i laugh and say it doesn't matter. trivializing the actual event in know way 'deals with it' for me. but it avoids feeling vulnerable the way i usually do when it happens.

but...what happened?

i can't help but getting all kristieva on this one. i represent the abject, for a lot of people. one time, i was alone on an elevator in the charlotte towers (i hate that place.) and when the doors opened, the young man on the other side waiting for the elevator shrieked. 

shrieked.

he immediately apologized and got flustered. i can't remember if he took the elevator with me or not. but i just wanted to run. and vomit. but mostly run.

that was an extreme case, but they're all kinda like that. yelling, gasping, or laughing. which is how we deal with trauma. its hard feeling like a trauma for humans. 

and its hard telling you about it because i don't know how to explain it really. are these people assholes? i can't really say. because there's so many. and if you didn't know me, maybe you'd scream. maybe i would.

this might take my whole life to figure out. or maybe, it's self righteous to think i ever will. 

breakdown, or- i guess making a newspaper is like being a dad.

i need and want someone to take care of me too.


i think i hate that about my humanness. i can be a rock and a island and a mutant and an android. but not simultaneously human.

words like woah

oh blog of mine. oh heart, i have not neglected you. intentionally.

what a summer. i have to say that because truly, it is not summer outside any longer. so much rain and so much bracing against the wind. and change change change. new rooommate. new job. new crush. you're not surprised, are you.

over the last month, my drunk alter ego has been named 'jeff'. the sardonic, antisocial jes that comes out when i'm feeling particularly anxious, and have been drinking. some evenings more charged than others, but really- its a little scary.

scary because things have been...relatively speaking...really okay.

i am i am i am. i am where i am not. lacan, learning, self reflection. whatever. d is going going gone, and i'm not just here left behind, but one sturdy left foot forward.

and i haven't had sex in months now. but i have had kisses. many lovely kisses. many lovely people. and one in particular, a long friend-acquaintence turned affectionate point of interest.

he's...we can call him wally. wally is bigger than me. we look like a funny big guy small guy hip hop group beside each other. he talks in low mumbles about philosophy and i talk in big hands and loud syllables about... what do i even talk about?

anyway. he's a good friend. he's far too deprecating, but i am too, so its familiar. and enough drunk hands finding tender holding has had me wondering recently about 'those feelings'.

caring about people, no matter the capacity, means you are vulnerable to them. i think thats where jeff came from in the first place. a deep subconscious reaction to caring about someone again. someone that i dunno-maybe-i-like could really-kinda-maybe-hurt-me.

but. i gotta breathe. because its not a bad thing. he's not a bad thing. feelings are not a bad thing. waiting, changing myself for someone new, self doubt- these, are maybe not so good things.

it's awkward. it's always fuckin awkward. it's supposed to be, i guess.

but sabatoging my own enjoyment of someone's company becausee they may not feel the same way (which is what, i still am not sure) is an old pattern that needs to be dropped off at the curb, if i actually want to care about that silly human notion of hope.

dates like kites

eli clare's book of poetry 'the marrow's telling' spins in its interludes some beautiful imagery of kites.

i flew my kite for hours on end, spinning line out, red tail hawks keening on the updrafts, sun and wind reaching through me.

but its a tug of a kite beyond nostalgia. its an idea about stories and spaces. silences and echos. i've been on lots of lovely dates lately. and i've gradually stopped thinking of them as trials, of do or die. of make a move or look like a loser, because its all just noise. and isn't there already so much old music?

you are pressure to perform but i resist. performing. you make me just wanna be. and tell you my stories too fast. i liked it when we had to pause last saturday. and wait to say the next thing. wearing our own eager conversation out. but a running camcorder in an art gallery with park equipment indoors outfitted my mind just the same with our synchronized swinging and head thrown back laughing. you're elegant like not noticing the way tablecloth corners happen to neatly fall below soldier fork-knife-spoon. you take off thursday. and i think it doesn't matter like it would last year. you're not the hope of a hope. just a barstool til 2am beside me while friends danced nearby and we couldn't tear ourselves apart neatly, evenly. i'd finish your beer as you walked alone out the door that would soon be kicking my ass each time we watch our shaky footage.

spinning line out, i listened to the hills echo, keen, reverberate, cradling the red tail's lonely call.

i can barely get my groceries in the fridge fast enough to meet you parked outside my dark apartment. i came outside before even receiving your text, knowing somehow you'd never come in to get me. my throat was starting to ache with damp neglect and two nights under drunk stars-more-than-skies. but we drove. we drove as the wands of the gods crashed down around us. you were all business. ballcap concealing the back of a freshly buzzed head, you put on 'white sky' to duoro and explained weather conditions like a scientist making conversation. the sturdy backrest prevented any weak knee nonsense but the orchestra outside fogging windows surely made the steam inside the car quiver.

let story be that kite, wild blue of sky, tug and beckon, dialogue and demand.

will you

they're on top of each other

those boys

wrestling in the coatroom

as i watched

(always had a thing for watching)

wesley and mikey

it was valentine's day

i had a crush on wesley

and spelled out my affection with a $2 hallmark and some

plastic gold letters

finally a face emerges

beat from the tousle

jessica loves you

are you gonna kiss?

mikey taunts

to a flustered other boy

no! i don't even think

she can kiss!

it was true

at 9

these lips puckered only

for lemon jelly and sour patch kids.

but its incredible

the things we learn

short leg strong

i wake up late

stare at the cheesies on the floor

and the shoes still on my feet

and the sun through the

christ what time is it windows

of my bedroom

racing the coffee pot

with a before work shower

i make a pact with the old spice body wash

i bought on one of those

'this is a lot of body wash and smells like the sorts of boys who make my knees weak'

impulses,

to quit drinking

(note to self - this smell turns showering into

ahem. long showering)

maybe if i just switch to light beer?

don't get me wrong

i respect nondrinkers

and smoothies

and freshly squeezed organic juices

and livers just not into

that kind of thing

consent is sexy

but i

am the kinda guy

who learned quite young

that i'd rather say yes to a fight

a challenge

a shot and a bar to dance on top of

than no

i can't

i'm not like you

my body is small

and 87 pounds

and riddled with words like

arthrogryposis

scoliosis

and that one leg shorter than the other

swaggerotosis

so i push myself

i ignore the red flags

while i hoist the rainbow ones

i will dance til the morning

and still find flicker in my eyes to walk you home

and linger in your doorway-

give in my bones to

push past your layers

of skin

and sensibility-

burn in my muscles to

drive until dawn

until i can feel you

fall asleep

around me

a friend of mine told me not to let it go to my head

this american able stuff

this art star famous stuff

and i find that funny

somehow

because its not about vanity

or humility

but dichotomy

i don't need to be on the screens of the TTC

to have one more asshole

tell me

how inspiring i am

its a distraction

the disabled distraction

if you're a fucking hero

no one has to sort out their shit

we can just smile or cry

i heard that one of the people detained

during the G20

was beaten with his own prosthetic leg

he worked for Revenue Canada

and i gotta say

when i read that

i couldn't stop laughing

man

here i was

stuck in peterborough

wishing i could protest with my disabled comrades

from DAMN2025

having to read Anne's speech online instead

about the money spent on securing

the fate of those secure nation leaders

and the money cut

from the diets of the special, disabled and poor

by our nation's leader

and buddy is knocked out with his own leg

shit.

i couldn't have written a better metaphor

he's not a hero

he's just another person getting whacked by the phallus of capitalism

and god if only that was a sexier thing to watch

i was kicked out of the washroom at woody's once

because i wasn't in there alone

but when that scuzzy door swung open

the 6 foot bar man

looked at me so fast he needed

to tell you

that you could take me upstairs

for the key

to the accessible

stall-

his apologies

the choice

between tired

from banging my head on the same wall

or tired

from too many cocktails

and un-healthy decisions

makes me wonder

what health even means

feminist fighter

betty friedan once said

that if we take care of the day

the night will take care of itself

but i think

sometimes

you gotta take the night like a lover by the hand

walk with her up to the bar

and slam down the key to the accessible

washroom

after 45 minutes

of

NEED HELP.

k guys.

im performing at ryerson on thursday night. and they want me to do like 10minutes of material. but, i havent written any new poetry in a while. and i like doing new & relevant stuff...


sooo i was thinking.

are there any blog posts you like that i could read as prosetry? bloggetry? ah?

ideally, since its an event called 'cripruption', it would have something to do with disability.

you're not coming home tonight

i'm working on getting back into the poetry headspace so that i have nice bundle of new stuff to perform next week at cripruption- a disability event at ryerson i've been asked to perform at.

who was it that said
if we succeed in the day
the night will take care
of itself
was it friedman or
mcclung
or de beauvoir
or whatshername

as much as i like solid
arity
i don't know how true
a thing this is
for me

it has been my experience that the night doesn't take care of itself. and all this fighting for a cause makes for days tricking nights into knees weak from tripping.

i was supposed to love and trust the feminist women like i was supposed to love and trust the christians like i was supposed to love and trust the doctors because we're all human right?

but its the night that is more honest than the day. the nights like last, which found me in a sunroom smoking unnecessary cigarettes and sipping whiskey til the sky caved and begged for some.

you soft spoken indie hipster boy with beautiful round sides. and you called me kiddo, curled, face to face with boy to boy underwear. i leaned in to kiss you, not to fight morning but to find the extra whiskey and cigarettes. stubble and sweet i lay there and can think of the friends of mine swearing they'll never sleep beside men.

and i get it. but also, it reminds me of church. and her.

it is often the powerlessness in them hers that can sabotage the strength in me.

back pieces

so...

all this tattoo talk and internet surfing and i've found another idea.



i've often though about the idea of getting a backpiece but my back has been my canvas in so many ways, so i've shied away from the daunting idea of 'coming up with' some sort of art to be worn there.

until now, that is.

amanda wachob is a tattoo artist based out of nyc. i found her stuff randomly on an image search, but browsing her portfolio, i stumbled across the idea of 'abstract' tattoo art.

can you imagine? strokes and pauses with a brush made all over my back. where scars are nestled. lines chosen, lines imposed, lines of stretched skin, lines of aged skin, and lines of bones beneath flesh.

i doubt i could make it to nyc before the fall... maybe end of summer... but i'd love to let this artist 'play' on my back.

"hopped a train and brother did we fly" - a postcard (and a misquoted townes van zandt)

ruby asked me if i get lonely.


it was midnight and i was still in my office, for some reason. instead of writing a paper for stephen's take home exam, i wrote a play. and that day, that day was the mandolin's last day in peterborough before the yukon. and it was that day that his postcard arrived.

i tried to explain to ruby the difference in one day, of knowing i would miss someone, and actually experiencing that absence. we played an acoustic gig that evening and it wasn't there...the magical second row. and it stung... like a million tiny stings. the transition from something you loved without abandon, into something signifying loss.

yet. another. thing.


but loss isn't lonely.

lonely is different. last night, the palpable loneliness was incredible. i picked a fight with ruby (or partially...mostly in my mind) for leaving carelessly for toronto and the pride festivities. in made me nervous. about our grand plans for the following fall - pick a queer-friendly US city and start fresh. do graduate work.

i suddenly felt ...less secure. ruby is a variable all her own. she, like everyone else, is outside of me. in fact, according to lacan, i am outside of me, in part.

when one of my favourite couple friends decided to stay in, and with ruby away, meaghan travelling, c falling in love with i and ever so far away emotionally, d literally so far away- even though i've 'gotten over it'... i just... sobbed.

maybe because my life is quite contented right now. i have multiple jobs (two and a half?), ambitions, school (and praises), and am no less social and flirty like i've always been.

but i guess i've always been the kind of guy that doesn't cut their world right open, hoping for a partner to complete the unit. i wish i was sometimes. not to say, having a partner is always better than not. but, i'm not convinced i know how to want that. and it seems to be such a priority in many... all?... my friends lives. and its terrifying. at least with d around, i was able to live for years inside an unrequited, unhealthy, dramatic friendship that was ever-present in my life. strange thing to say? well...i mean, it kept me occupied.

last night was indeed loneliness. and age.

i'm 25. i think i was half disheartened that i wasn't wooed like ruby by a scene and a dancefloor that has won me over so many nights before. it felt like i had not only gotten over emotional love canyons like d, but also, and perhaps more, a younger self. or, an expired self.

the horror. the horror.

every summer...for the past 4 summers, i've talked about my dream of going sky diving. i fear large bodies of water, and air-rated lawns (don't ask). but the sky...falling... i love falling. my memories of hang gliding in peru still exhilerate me.

and as i was watching 'last holiday' (terrible movie) and trying to cheer myself up, i thought 'hell. i have the money now. this year, this year i should do it'.

and actually, i think its a poignant time. i've been wanting to do it for the thrill. the feeling. and okay, maybe the metaphor. but now, i'm starting to think i need to do it for the fear.

"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things." -AE

amelia. queen of the skies. i'm going to get an amelia bust tattooed on my right deltoid. i've been saving that real estate for something important and i think this all ties in quite nicely. i think that's the sort of person i am. my fear is most definitely in the little things. its the exhileration of the things so much bigger than me that fuel my journey.

perhaps i would do well to reflect on some of her words more often. in reality, these sorts of personal adventures are never wasted. nor do they claim me as separate from companionship. they just... make me poly lovers with the sky. and that is not something to underrate.

"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." -AE

it takes more

than fucking someone you don't know

to keep yourself warm





(frightened rabbit)

"the truth, george. always tell the truth. its the easiest thing to remember."

drama drama drama.

so, i woke up sunday wearing a hangover, accomplishment, and hives.

in no particular order... hangover. why can't red wine and a flask of whiskey work for once without making me sleepy and pruning my brainbuds? whatever. the music was yummy and the crowd not-so-young and not-so-crowded.

edith happened to be there and asked me what i was up to this weekend... or perhaps if i was done school? to either question i replied that i still had work to submit to her dad. ha. never said that at a party before.

accomplishment? even if the response you get is 'i thought you were a lesbian', telling someone you have a crush on them is rewarding and laudable.

hives. all over my body. itchy and painful. ruby suggested rust paint as the culprit. which could be likely... had i been around any recently. so far, no sleep times 2.

my brain is trying to sort out what i need to say for stephen's assignments. his classes always leave me with so many welcome and unwelcome questions. and observations. none of which are ever simple. or direct.

story telling. salesmen. masculinity. american drama. the family. redemption. death. naivity. money. impotency. baronness. pipedream. cadiallac. shame. silence. public. private. pleasant.

the way we acknowledge and don't acknowledge harvey, gabriel, simon.

is the story authentic?

one day after class stephen went on about lyric poetry and plays- how, as reader or audience, it doesn't matter if the story is true, it's how it affects us. if the feeling it elicits is authentic, we take it home with us.

if it moves you, you're stuck.

like a sermon. like a sales pitch.

Moss: I lied. Alright? My end is my business. Your end's twenty-five. In or out. You tell me, you're out you take the consequences.

Aaronrow: And why is that?

Moss: Because you listened.

this snippet from act 1, scene 2 of glengarry glen ross (mamet) puts dialogue to stephen's sentiment.

like the self-sustaining story, 'the family' is not designed to reveal truth but keep it concealed - it would shatter otherwise.

the stories in this class are representations of families. or vice versa. the families in these plays are stories. will the story destroy itself by the end? with truth? or will it sustain/reinvent, because we don't want it to not be there?

the american hero. dignity, and salesmanship. dignity and salesmanship?
how far do you have to move life to transform it into theatre?

why you look so sad?

playing cowbell in a 8 person band is less of a novelty than it may seem.

i stretch it too far, i think. i make 1 & 3 or 2 & 4 feel like rest after paradiddles with one stick and one hollow chunk of metal. it feels like tap dancing. but my favourite part of those lights and this band and that stage is standing beside you. 

curled over your mandolin with fingers and fretless fortune, my percussive metal clang cutting through the guitar riffs with a metronomic whisk and stir, we laugh a lot because the frontman and his fiddler keep the magic of our you and me row concealed enough to feel like backstage. 

i pretend to duel your underrated string stroking with jovial tambourine-to-foot action, but the laughing between us keeps me farther from the pull of the twelve bars that we'll both go home to. 

slap stick percussion is the kind of pun i save for you, with eyes and earnest grin that begs your study. i don't know if last night was the last show, because you're leaving on canada day. but you gave me a lozenge like a parting gift. i shouldn't have had that beer because my throat was already swollen. 

i guess i'm afraid of mornings like today, cooing at monarchs over breakfast with you. because once you say it, it can fly away. and i won't get to write the magic anymore. and i miss the magic when it flies away.

dogs with wheels

i woke up today remembering your last week in peterborough. it wasn't a remarkable week. but as lasts are made to feel, i guess it was too. 

i've resisted blogging for a while with all this american able buzz. because this is the space i've been using to 'just write' in that unfiltered way. surveillance is an interesting beast. feeling like you're walking some imaginary line between your honest to goodness self and the self you feel the need to be, now that you've earned a cyber-soapbox.

but fuck it.*

*(i enjoy how this phrase sounds like both 'but fuck it' aaaaand 'buttfuck it'. ahem. anyway. moving on.)

we were working on our last papers on the mushy couch of a mutual friend. the kind of casually kept friend that presents little drama but also not enough interest to see on a regular basis. the necessary layer in ones friendships, as the comings and goings and moods and makings of the 'close' pal (or undefined person) can be tough on a little heart.

nothing writes essays like youtube videos. particularly medleys of children falling. or miracle dogs. one dog had lost its hind legs. or perhaps never had functioning hind legs? i can't remember. but someone had engineered a little wheelie to help balance him out. 

i giggled at the endearment. a quadraped with wheels doesn't need a sitting position, the way us bipeds have found. as my mind thought about wheelchairs and segways and neocentaur possibilities, you cut through the room with the percussion of repulsion. a 'see this is whats wrong with the world' and 'it should have died', and 'thats just not right'. 

and i know its not quite the same as, you know, people and wheelchairs, my heart wiggled around a little bit, chafing inside a body with a casual relationship with prosthetics. 

truth and illusion. 

the fabric of my day to day is woven with so much hued fallacy it hums steadily like an engine. two canine legs and an axel is 'unjust' because you divide 'nature' from 'machine' like alpha and omega. like toast and eggs. like black and that other one.

my heart goes crunch with these realities and realizations. pop is $1.99 because flagging a 1 is easier than saying, actually this is gonna cost you 2 bucks. you okay with that? a dog on wheels is not natural. neither is this yogurt. or that floor cleaner. or this elocution. 

when the rubrics fail to grade contradictions that shape the brilliance of the flawed, quirky, diseased, deformed that has never ceased to occur in our recorded inhabitance on this planet, on what plane do we to turn to for our ever-necessary evaluations?

you are disgusted by the dog with wheels. you cut your thumb in first year and called the appendage your gimp. you discuss procreation with the air of 'old-fashioned'. but hell, so did the missionaries. 

but the space between noble and nobility is about as vast as life and death. as toast and eggs. as wheels and crawling. an existence despised. we look upon the creativity of this 'created' world with about as much tenderness and beholding as ... a chute with the word metaphor industifferently stamped across an ample direction. 

woah.

what language is this?

blogblogblog

news article.

the star

i love the descriptions she kept. especially meagh's affectionate 'dice-rollin hand' pet name for my claw. hehe.

alSO

my website, on zenfolio's free trial (suck it, bitches) for the time being.

crooked canvas

american able

the series.

eat (your heart out)

the interview, the plugs, the haterz, the blogs.

worn

meta filter

the frisky

nouvelle mode

definatalie

river wolfe

sociological images

disabled feminists

gender across borders

fuck you very much

threadbared

disability scoop

torontoist

bag news

"Clearly, there is no problem too small in a first world country. Regardless, the effect is somewhat intriguing, visually-speaking. It’s as if Charney dropped acid one morning and rang up Diane Arbus to shoot his next ad campaign. Sachse’s body, decked out in AA-brand Reveal-o-Ware is simultaneously intimately familiar and arrestingly different. It’s hard to know what to think. The pictures are as uniquely fascinating as they are quietly discomfiting." 

(more from Breslin)

sigh.

sometimes i love what i do. sometimes, i...i'm tired. 

web.site.

...suggests for hosts and stuff?

i used to use zenfolio, but then they censored by stuff. and i never renewed. and now i have no site on which to display my art.

:(

was it me?

was i always ready to make you a memory?

clairvoyance

my hair was days of dirty the day you left town

my hair was days of dirty the day you left town

my hair was days of dirty the day you left town

tag-along to your goodbye brunch

you hugged your friends / exes 

in succession before 

and i slipped out the back to the bathroom

cried into the mirror

like a bad poem

my hair was days of dirty the day you left town

you never came to the bathroom

i emerged to pay and realized i had forgotten to order food

my hair was days of dirty the day you left town

like a bad poem

----------------------]

there's a gap in my existence now

it's a like a weekend that might force somebody into a recovery group

i knew my battle was no longer about finding the centre anymore

it had come to be about forgetting it

i was a landless nowhere

an ellipses too long to type

---- /magpie ulysses 

man.

sometimes i wish there was a place called 'get laid here'.

...

(i mean. fine fine. dating. romance. seduction. blah blah. but i have essays to write. errands to run. babies to kiss. ribbons to cut.)

fuck anarchofeminist utopic earth goddess communes. i want a sex portal. 

floating down the otonabee

so, i've flooded you with lots of poetry lately. mostly because it keeps interrupting my essay. 

whine, whine.

but i've failed to give you much life context. ma bad.

its spring. i can feel it in my coffee snarfing, schoolboy giggling, stone skipping bones. i have crushes abound, and deadlines trying relentlessly to buckle my spirit (and failing beautifully). 

the poem i wrote about manhood was inspired by a very swoon-worthy kiss moment at a gay dance a couple weeks back. it threw me for a few intersecting identity loops. a gay man and a gay jes and what i know about gender and what i know about me and old barriers crashing down with wet, sloppybeautiful lips, and a stubbled chin like a welcome mat instead of a weapon or a wile.

dumbstruck, dumbfounded, and all around disabledlanguage surprised by my own skin and sexy, i processed. and processed and processed. 

oh, repining heart of mine. longfellow would smack me, i know. but the truth is, if it feels real, it is. solipcynicism aside, i think it can be fair to allow yourself to experience something without jumping ship in a rejection and self-loathing dingy.

so, i poemed it. as erotically and palpably as i felt it. and then i performed it at a poetry slam that i had not predicted he would be at. and whaddya know... he figured out it was about him, was cool and flattered about it, and messaged me the proverbial 'i'm a boy-only gay... i thought you were a girl-only gay too?'

i wanted to say everything. my 5 year journey in bones and boobs and gender and sex and 'well maybe men too, in an auden sorta way...' but sometimes a word count is a useful thing.

so i paused. i vented to a. who happened to be sitting behind me at natas - someone i trust, but who isn't directly connected to my day-to-day life. told her about my desires. about how it was okay that he was flattered and confused because i was too. told her about his 100% boy gay response. and how, i guess the gay boy in me likes the (100%) gay boy in him. in that erotic, sultry dark alley makeout men kind of way. and she said, you know, that's hot. you should tell him that. 

and i thought, yeah. yeah why can't i?

she threw in a great line for me too about my mouth not having a vagina (if its any consolation), which felt sexy and flirty and confident like i'd like to be.

its not even about unrequited or pining or whatever sometimes. more like, creative autocartography. and this fear of being alone....god. i'm starting to think its a thinly veiled excuse not to trust myself.

co2

she moved to this city too much in love

with places she'd been

her eyes, sparkling like the collections 

of a magpie

saw me in different bars

(she can't remember where)

this city

was a heart

that she moved through

was a t shirt

she sweat through

during dishwasher shifts 

that cracked her hands 

like the binding

on some book of poetry 

she is a memory-

like the one 

where i'm in the basement of that Christian private school

in my gym clothes

six years old

wearing those velcro shoes i always fished out of

the lost and found 

and i'm holding my prism

my friends, circled around me

they just thought it was a piece of glass

until i told them about refracted light

and then they all wanted to hold it

because it was special

was a gateway

made me important

but irene was bigger than me and maybe i wanted her 

protection

a big sized kid ally

so i let her hold it

reluctantly

and her clumsy big sized kid hand 

dropped it

and the concrete floor accomplice

severed that parallelogram in two

she apologized

i said it was okay

and the kids went to gym 

but i stared at it on the ground and pouted 

and i think

that was the day i learned about loss

because i put the pieces back in 

its velvet pouch until i got home

and sobbed and told my daddy

and he bought me a new one

and i thanked him but

i didn't hold it the same way, i

think i figured

well, the world has buttloads of prisms

i guess

maybe in a silo somewhere

run by bill nye

you learn things at five

and four

and six

that surface later like a revelation

but

poetry slams and show and tell

poggs and poker chips

clip-on ties and trust issues

drinking problems and imaginary friends

poo jokes and well... poo jokes

its old news

and nothing hurts like the first time

she spoke to me 

in my language

from 4, or 6, or 5

i know cuz she told me she

learned its meter

measured distance

to mouth

to pulse

to having me at hello

she had big kid sized confidence

and adjectives

and i figured maybe she could protect me

she told me once

oh, she told me a lot of things

but once in a poem

on a stage

she called me the destination

and i imagine 

a road map

like the 23rd birthday card

she used to tell me i was her moon

her watch

her jam

sticky

practical

lunar

and so many miles away

from

you, child of the sun

i should have listened

should have remembered physics

and known lightyears and einstein

and 

calculated two 

weeks to open 

and close me

by fifty-two ache like an eye

like a scared shoe

like a shitty patrick swayze inspired ceramic bowl 

used as an ashtray

should have listened to your metaphors

instead of eating them

like jam

like punctuation

i am not on that map

not yours

or the new king james version

none of us are

even if maybe

okay

there's a sachse, texas

and i have the t shirt

thought i could keep 

time

if i danced for you

like Cecilia 

or Biggie

but you are palpitating

through this city

that i work for

Little artery 

shuttling blood cells

with chemistry

oxygenating the tired--O, my love

i traded with you too

because that's what i do;

a little O and O --> 

for your CO2 baby

may

always wish you had let me

[circulate:]inside you too

tasting your language

with the many tongues

of my 

hemoglobin

but if its not tonight

well then

thats okay-

we are immortal 

under a microscope

hey

remember how i took you here on our first

date

pretty sure i didn't know what a double of whisky was

or why i should drink one

before that night

you said it felt like you'd known me

prehistorically

and maybe thats the only place we'll ever balance

equilibrium, baby

remember how i took you home after and tried to make

osmosis with our lips 

you and your impermeable membrane turned me down easy

as your algorithms

so i put on october sky

one of like 5 movies i had on vhs

and we fell asleep talking about lesbians or something

(little artery) (big spoon) 

(little spoon) (big smile)

and then 

face / to /       face

occupying a fraction of a bed

that will always feel like a velvet pouch

in my palm

when its gone again

i don't think up comebacks anymore

i guess

it was a somewhat endearing moment

not

like its new

the laughing chorus

you can clock me at 

2-3 per week

times 52 reps a year

times 25 year career

hmmm

2600-3900

professionally speaking

it adds up

but in some ways

it's always my first

step

on the elevator with my father 

they wait

the Goonies with juice-stained lips

and shorts their mother laid out for them

that morning

with chocolate milk and race car 

tough guy dreams

still crying 

over skinned knees

tattooed with bruises and

youth

like i remember my knees

hard-working

with the curve in my back

turned toward them

they are two

until 

the lift stops at 2 

levels

and another

floor

as more

file in

the box on pulley answering

to buttons

smeared with sticky soccer hands

i can't hear my father over

freckles and front teeth 

still coming in 

big and white

entitled front row spot

in smile

or cackle

or sneers

steered

from the company of ascot's little men afraid of what goes bump in the night

where their bell tower popcorn 

etches my hump, in spite of the fact

that i don't always have my cloak of night shadow

armor 

from these

not yet successful covert

operators still learning 

to tie tight their 

sneakers, snickers

behind me

telling me to answer my father louder

or ask a question

about the weather

or jesus

or his band

or his beard

greying hopefully

enough to muffle what he might not have observed 

on this elevator

yet

doors open

stepping onto carpeted room with my father

and a trailed off conversation

encasing the several i've had 

with children who squealed audibly scattered 

amongst

adults who watch reality

t.v. telling

snot wiping sleeves to 'watch your mouth' and 'mind

your manners'

but the only one i trust

is slow step

slow step

hunched over

walker click 

shifting hip

bones

in front of me 

who saves his foul mouth

for the bedroom

like me

with my cock out.

i think about touching his body

on the bus

on the couch

on the dancefloor

in a cafe

in my dreams

i think about his body pressed close to mine

(airtight seal) 

i think about his rough 

chin,holding his soft tongue

chasing mine

and tequila

i think about his manhood

and where i want it

to meet 

my own,i think

about my body

and what it likes

and how it talks

if you listen

and then 

i think

about how his body

has things to say

to me,maybe 

like touch me 

here

like this

like that

and baby

and oh

and then

him, looking at my

manhood

thinking about where

he wants it

to meet his own

burrows is probably going to change the juicy bits

so ima post some of the original parts of my article this week. mostly cuz its gay and i like it.

---------

The Secret of the Midnight Shadow

Believe it or not, I was a boy scout. I'm sure its coed and stuff now, but back in the day (circa Jes at 13 - think keen times a trillion) it was boys-only boy scouts. The only non-penises were me and the scout leader's daughter. We tied knots, went camping in all four seasons, shoved each other, told ghost stories, ate smores...and played dodgeball a lot in the school gymnasium. Yes, tucked away with my decorated sash are fond memories of getting my 'culture' badge by making shnitzel for my troop, in honour of the mother(deutsch)land (believe it or not, Sachse is German and pronounced 'zook-sah' ).

But where was I? Hardy boys, Dick and Jane, boy scoutery; this imagery is the homoerotic rascal infantry of the pre-pubescent boychild. With his own sprinkle of life-sized Never Neverland magic, artist Daryl Vocat has created a world for us in full street view at Artspace. 

With a coat of near-nighttime cerulean covering the four walls of the main space, Vocat takes us to the nigthmarish whimsy of these small cops, robbers, and twilight mischiefs. Creator of Edmonton-planted poster project 'Children Be Gay', depicting other characters of boyhood, this show encompasses a body of work at the core of Vocat's artist passion, which he has been moulding since 2006. Before its unveiling in our city, the show was shown in both Edmonton and Toronto. Intrigued by the detail of the background work, I inquired about Vocat's installation-labour. "I use projectors in order to map out the trees and background details. The show at Latitude 53 (in Edmonton) was much less minimalist than this show though. I just found the background to be too busy, and detracting from the figures," Vocat shares.

Introduced to the artist by Dahn, who's calf is now sporting a pair of Vocat's figures, I share his excitement for the spectacular 'finished' work. Of course, its not really finished. Over the next month it will be there for us to invite us into a rabbit hole realm of slingshots, shade and glances. The subtlety of the visual reference to the secrecy of gay male experiences, both growing up and in their adult lives (undercover bars, sneaky rendevous, hook ups in alleys and other sexy dark places...) is powerful and an important aspect of the work. The work reminds me greatly of Uxbridge painter Daniel Colby and his series 'Collegiate'. Pouting about the prospect of spending 6 months in my slow, hick, and twenty-something repellent hometown, I grumbled trailing behind my mother and her man pal as we went on the artist studio tour last October. Our first stop was a father and son duo - dad makes furniture, son paints pictures of houses. They were good paintings, but houses are boring to me. 

After being interrupted from holding up the wall with my tough guy look when a woman asked cheerily 'are you the artist?' (what? cuz i'm covered in tattoos, look gay and out of place? probably more because i was grimacing for so long), I wander into a small back room. There, before my eyes, was not paintings of houses, but boys. Young and adolescent boys, posed with each other in such a strikingly covert way, many of the bustling country bumpkins didn't seem to pick up on the cues. One older woman sure did, and got out of that room pretty fast. But not me. I stayed and stared and stared. It got me through those months, lemme tell you.

Opening this past Friday, Dary Vocat's work, along with two other works will be exhibited until April 24th. A short film entitled 'Labyrinth'  portrays a surrealist private eye afterlife tale employing stop animation through a retouched painting storyboard, a groovy film noir sound, and in decipherable mutter-dialogue.

In the Mudroom (the gallery's back space), Montreal-based artist Sayeh Sarfarez features a multi-media installation entitled 'Magic Never Ends: Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Well coupled with the theme of Vocat's work, this exhibit tells a story of a war zone struggle and dissent through lego men, a helium balloon, chicken wire, and a looped soundtrack (a song of inspiration to Iranian resistors). The live-streaming video surveilled show-patrons interaction with the work, scrawled across the walls in at times purposefully micro-sized handwriting. The devastation of armed conflict is told in arrows, paragraphs and miniature playtoys. 

Standing 4'9" and looming over the lego-daisy grave of a man whose experience and struggle is unfathomable to me, I can't help but feel the ineffability of his donut-size chicken coop graveyard seeping into my boots traypsing clumsily across the artist-marked concrete-landscape floor. And I suppose thats the point. I walked out of the room feeling less the superficial 'well, all this is so much bigger than me', and more the unknowing passport holder in solidarity with a struggle I can't understand any more in lego literature than press releases.

Between The Secret of the Midnight Shadow and the Magic Never [Ending], this childlike world created for grown-ups welcomes us with tender terror, into inverted worlds between words.

shawty's like a melody in ma head, that i can't keep out got me singin like

essay essay essay.

rj visited me in my 'special booth' in the liesbrary. its not mine i guess but when i got here it was occupied and i didn't know what to do with myself. i wandered around the 3rd floor aimlessly, like a fucking little doe- 'yer not my mama' at every vacant study space.

but score! i'm here and ima pillage this essay and all its essay cousins. 

i'm listening this song 'replay'... on replay. (veeeery creative jes).

last night i went to the trent film society screening of dakan. i cried during the love scene. it's this incredible film about this boy in guinea that loves this other boy. classic homo story told in a very beautiful and unique way. amazing shots- minimalist lighting. 

and manga tries, through religious ceremony and for the love of his mother, tries to move beyond his feelings for sori, and falls in love with a woman. but when they start to make love, his mind goes to sori. and not just imaging oumou was sori, but going to moments the two men had together, kissing, falling down laughing. and my heart broke a little bit as i thought about the times i've had sex and been thinking about d; desiring a companion i wasn't in bed with, and the weight of the guilt of not being 'there' for the other person.

and then manga visits sori at the end and sori asks if manga would like to meet his son (new baby with new wife). and manga plays with the child with this piercing laughter and enthusiasm that made me overwhelmingly sad and happy at the same time. imagining holding d's baby, the baby of someone who you hold so much love for, in a being they created. but the wave of knowing this baby is a piece of the life you didn't have with someone you loved so strongly.

...

and rj and i are laughing in this booth and talking about criticisms we have of this queer community. masculinities privileged, whiteness prevailing. feedback unwelcome. stepping back from organizing has been a blessing. looking for new teachers, mentors, places to learn. i have been a teacher too, but the best leaders never stop making students out of themselves. this, i have learned.

rj is one of my teachers. so is nate. so is my father. my father who visited and told me he didn't see colour at the dub fest after telling me he didnt realize it was a black type of poetry. i was like 'of course you saw colour, dad. and its a good thing. peterborough doesn't often have artistic spaces wherein racialized people make up the majority of performers and attendees.'

people like my dad will get their back up and fight if you ask them to. 'asking them to' is disrespecting their voice. privileged or not, if you want someone to listen to what you have to say, you have speak with love. and sure, i'm no fool. i know that if we went around telling the ignorant we loved them, we'd open ourselves up to attack and abuse. but, discernment is key. and not just seizing opportunities but making them. and not just making them in the moment, but laying down the ground work. 

and now, back to this essay...

don't speak too soon

(they did it. they broke me. they broke in. with broadway and candles and chorus. they showed me a love undiluted and i said stop and they said no. the self loathing. its rooted in colonial mire. but i gotta find a new pond to swim in. clear clear water, filtering into my pores.)

birthdays

oh man. twentyfive.

this has perhaps been the best birthday i've yet to experience. 

it's sunday and i'm sitting alone in 'my booth' at the olde stone. saddled with a hefty pint of stout and my current overdue essay putputputtering out of me in seismic spurts of almost-academic-enough, and smirking with the satisfaction that sundays after-arthur article submission provides.

d is working in the back. i woke up at her house after another too-drunk to walk home party. dad and nate visited to give me birthday wishes and some of the best gifts i've ever gotten. dad bought me a pair of paratrooper goggles from an army surplus store, and matched with my same-shade leather coat, i look like a young amelia earhart. nate bought me a gorgeous pen. he says he made the would part of it...with aspen? i dont even know if thats a kind of wood...or tree.. but anyway, it's pine-y in colour and inlayed with gold and black. the weight of it in my hand is perfection. 'it's cuz you're a writer' nate says across our table at kubo, as he beams. his zest activates a part of my heart that only he is able to access. 

i talked them into accompanying me to the remaining evening of the dub poetry festival. clifton joseph. lillian allen. klyde broox. afua cooper. ritalin. the line up was incredible. titans of the dub movement. word warriors. and my father.

my father, who listened to poem after poem hit syllable to microphone to air. affirming the neocolonial clutch that is cunningly grasping his privilege, in the parenthesis of his queer and only-daughter's life hitting its 25th year. i'm not about to say he drove back to uxbridge with any sort of revelation shackled to his hands, because it was nate that had to drive, courtesy of the gratuitous tequila shots. 

but after a series of discussions that blew my mind every way that one's mind can be blown, save for a loaded gun, my birthday meal was literally and figuratively on my father's dime. generationally, i was gifted with time. this time. where queer won't cost my life. where disabled doesn't guarantee segregated, uneducated, immobile. where safety doesn't mean silence.

i exist in a space and time in a body and mind of my mother and father's making. the graces that nate and i have found are a direct result of the spirit and soul they allowed us to see in them. sure, my dad wants to be comfortable and provided for. sure my mom doesn't wave a rainbow flag for me. but they continue to love me here, now. and that speaks in ways that they don't. 

i brought nate and dad with me to m and d's pisces party. we rolled with cigars, my dad giggling about how clifton joseph grabbed his hand and told him he'd been 'feeding off his vibe all night'.  my dad stood in a circle with my friends shooting the shit, as i grinned and showed them my prezzies. outta of some unknown pocket nate produces a bottle of single malt scotch for me. as IF.  

d slid into the booth with me after a shift of muck and grunt work. she orders us calamari to share, and we launch into an evening of conversation that keeps me perpetually smiling. about aging. about this queer community and power, used and misused. about our responsibilities. about of failures. about our future friendship. 

we left and rolled into the only, not missing a beat. she read me the label of the chimmay her bartender macking skills afforded us, leaning in close, being sure to meet my cheek with hers. and as i let myself get romanced by her tender and careful intonation, i felt certain of my place in the world. 

and i know that sorta thing, paired with the girl and the bar sounds so goddam trite, but it was a real moment. recalling it to you now makes me choke up, as i feel the terror of not having the ready access to d once she rockets from this city that wears her face in restaurant windows and street corners.  i was fine before her and will be after but time is leaking a trail of tears behind me like hoda sputters in crackpot. 

as much as i am over her, in the in-love sense, i'm still in love with the feeling of her around me. the way she insists on taking care of me. on steering our evening. on being the tempo to our intoxicated dancing. no one spins me like she does. ima miss that. in a way my reluctant heart isn't ready to speak.

and she gets quiet whenever i talk this way. about caring and loving. but i know she remembers me in the same sort of moments. and separation will mean less remembering.  so i asked her to go to saskatchewan with me because i've never seen flatness and i've been dreaming of an imagined landscape and she readily-agrees in pipedream punctuation. 

maybe this is what 25 means. 

we are always mutable. we are always moving. up and away. and away from where we started. away from where our parents first planted our petite pies. its terrifying because its palpable, that distance from the couch to the coffee table. go.

pulling on my socks again

where did the night go.

writing a book

is this a ridiculous idea?

truthfully, i always assumed i would attempt to. but anyway. it's for neal's class. the creative writing one. we have to put together a portfolio. a pretty sizable one. i could (and perhaps should, as he is nudging) use it as an opportunity to get started on a book.

problem is, my writing so far ....

well okay. i've got a bumfull of poetry. and some prose-y chapters that sorta just read like a blog. a blog like this one. which is fine, but lacks...well, characters and development and all that shebang. 

i could just keep doing the poem thing and submit a whack of them at the end of term. or i could push myself to start an actual story. semi-autobiographical, most likely. but yknow... a thing with chapters and direction. maybe some doodles in it too.

hmmm              (would people read this thing?)

hmmm.

i tried to do handstands for you

this video made my heart smile today

so it's valentine's day. and i have nothing cynical to say.

...

well okay. i've been at dana's since passing out here on friday night post-self love cabaret madness. and saturday slayed me with a killer hangover. 

and now it's sunday. dana made me a breakfast sandwich and was chatting with her roommate as they cooked. 'my valentine is almost here', referring to a cross-province hitch hikin lover. 

valentine. made me sorta squirmy. not dana having a sweetheart, but the word i guess. like putting scrambled eggs in your pocket. 

this song makes me think of all the times before the let down. the 'i-think-i'm-crushing' but you're actually more than crushing and blushing and you can't admit it to yourself yet because once you do any little let down is like a tiny stinging dagger deflating the hope of something new. some new feeling. some new person. the gushy.

i catch myself these days. i do handstands for myself only. which is definitely not without its vim and whimsy. but remove the risk and its just jumping around in a field. i love jumping around in a field. but i'm missing the handstands a lil bitty.

and not because its valentine's day. but maybe because it's just the time of year i wanna chase shadows and feelings. and napkins and knowing glances. and floorboards just worn enough for dancing. and mood lighting. and crusty bartenders. and spills on new shirts. and sloppy goodbyes. and being young when i feel old.

today

i didn't move.

it was frustrating because i really wanted to go to the library. tomorrow? tomorrow. 

bleh.

dedicated

to you, this self love week. 

i just wanna be gay. like really gay. wanna be your burnin butch dyke. wanna be your leather daddy, sugar. just wanna operate you like a drill. wanna take you with my pills. wanna fuck you on your kitchen table. wanna hammer you to a wall. wanna rock you like queen between my flannel sheets. just wanna be your girl in the streets. wanna see you drip wet like summer on sand. just wanna be your unchartered land. just wanna hold your hand. wanna power-suit your lipstick lesbian. wanna let you toss my head of hair behind you. wanna stick-shift remind you. wanna feel your sili-cock between my thunder thighs. wanna be your lord of the flies. 

wanna have you pin me against my fair trade fridge...or on top of the recycling bin...below the weight of your vegan-beefy bones. wanna hear your moans. just wanna buffy your apocalypse. wanna be the loose lips on your sinking ship. wanna be sub sub substitute teacher to your principal. wanna be on my knees, master. wanna go harder, faster. just wanna find me a queen to wine and dine and disco. wanna have them hear me in san francisco. just wanna rock out with my cock out to that thumpa-thumpa. just wanna be glitter on your body boy. wanna see you touch your body boy. wanna bend you over my knee and punish your begging bottom. just wanna knight rider your galloping steed. wanna make you bleed. wanna feel you so deep inside me there's no noise. wanna bring the noise, baby. just wanna be your juliet. wanna cleave to some little eggshell picket fences. wanna lose my senses. wanna let you tie me up and paint my nipples chartreuse. wanna play duck duck goose. just wanna soccer mom your dick and jane. wanna feel your pain. wanna pre-nup you in every orifice. wanna ready-rim you ambiguous. wanna pillage your money-spot religious. wanna have your hipster anti-o my hick salacious. wanna daisy drive {formerly you} ze fellatious. just wanna finger-phone-fuck you on-call. wanna have it all. cuz i can have it all.

dear readers

should you exist.

i must let you know that i change this blog colour on a need-basis. this nauseating pink is courtesy of the pink sparkly heart shaped shortbread cookies i purchased for cara and i at natas today.

re: a note, it has been a turbo-bitch day. i feel my friends (not cara, who lives with me on the island of the non-whole-hearted), perplexed with my moody behaviour as of late. sometimes i think they forget i depressed and that will keep coming back inconveniently. maybe one day it won't. when i have a pony named karl. 

but for the time being, its bumpy. the sparkly heart cookies didn't irk me the way valentine's normally does. almost cracked a smile, to be honest. i just don't know what to do with the heart cookies but devour the sparkly icing that my body's continence certainly doesn't know what to do with, squint really hard and hope it translates into something productive as a human citizen.

my posts lately seem sad, i think. or tragic. i don't necessarily feel sad. or tragic. maybe just separate from any sort of upward climb. nothing i do seems to really, add up to something the way we are made to feel actions should. i do things. i feel a feeling. and so it goes. 

no matter how much i seem to learn the rules, there are no rules. so i suppose i've stopped caring? about rules? about what healthy is supposed to mean? about what happy is supposed to mean?

my creative writing prof told me my writing on wednesday was sarcastic and witty. he thinks i should be a comedian. he, and the subsequent chiming in of my classmates, are not the first people to tell me this. 

i guess i could do that. the same prof told me once that he thought humour was a higher form of thinking. or expression. or something. sometimes there is no greater feeling for me than making people laugh. othertimes, the idea makes me feel more indifferent than anything else. its funny that way.

my aspirations at this point are few. as my birthday nears, i don't know if there is anything about 25 and who i am now that seems out of place. 

right now, i'm still at natas, and i really wanna go into the bathroom and pull really hard on my hair, grabbing clumps of it - now long enough for a pony tail - in my fists. and stare at my face in the mirror. sometimes my motor self needs the release of visceral actions rather than these composted words. 

a note

to anyone in a relationship that is monogamous:

please do not give me bedroom eyes. flirt with me. give me your number. follow me to the only. invite me to go dancing with you at the trash. hold my hand when we get there. wait for me to make a move. tell me you have a girlfriend in ottawa you are deeply in love with.

i do not allocate time in my schedule to get played. you're wasting decent buffy watching hours.

most sincerely, 

a die-hard loose lady of the evening.

when in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

i all alone beweep my outcast state 
and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
and look upon myself and curse my fate, 
wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
with what i most enjoy contented least; 
yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
haply i think on thee, and then my state, 
like to the lark at break of day arising 
from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
for thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
that then i scorn to change my state with kings

i love you

just got back from montreal. i didn't have the money to go. but i never usually do. 

it felt good to travel alone again. i mean, i wasn't entirely alone. my pals and i rented a car together. but, they all had their own plans. and i had to justify the trip with some sort of article for the paper. 

i attended a conference on police brutality, which i enjoyed immensely. it reminded my sometimes unjustifiably disenchanted heart that the struggle continues. the struggles bleed into each other. and this quiet... just means i can't see it anymore. the reasons for caring at all. for mobilizing. when i feel too privileged to wave a flag about anything. 

i got suspended from welfare again. i submitted my income form well on time, but they lost it it seems. and now my rent will bounce (again) and i will incur the cost. and i'll look like all the stereotypes of someone poor and dealing with mental health issues. and really, i don't need their help in that regard. 

but why do i do that? feel shame? get overcome with fear? slink past my landlord's house, situated too close for my liking.

because i believe it too. i believe that crazy and poor are things i need to distance myself from in order to assure myself i am ...who i want to be. but like my prof molly once said to me in her kitchen, as my heart bled all over her table while we sipped our gin: 'you're not a fuck up, jes. you're just struggling. life is struggle'

and ain't it true. 

nate sent me an email today entitled 'i love you'. all it said was:

"The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so honest. But the person who loves those around them will create community."

i guess thats what i'm starting to understand. the intelligence i am crafting with the academic mentors around me means very little in terms of any sort of utopic climax. the opportunity is always present to experience community. the politics are important but the love is the institutional memory. 

maybe that's what stephen was getting at with our discussion of Richard III today. the role of the men in the play and that of the women. the women were constantly mourning. and losing. and flailing. and enduring. sure it ended with the gorey death of a king. but that was for entertainment. the real conclusion was this hunger for power could slaughter and force submission to innocence and life but never exist without the tenderness of the womb. 

and its a great metaphor. we can harden ourselves. like richard, this self-loathing hunchback with bloodlust and a beautiful tongue. but we require love. and it kills us.

i'm not the one you want, babe

new semester.

new poetry books. new resolutions. new problems.

old solutions. old(er) age. old habits. 

old anthologies.

listening to a lot of dylan these days. producing some of the best writing i have in years. for arthur. for my academic self. for poetry. it feels good. but it also seems to drain me.

watched this great episode of grey's anatomy today. this opera singer has a cancerous tumour on his lung. he wants the doctors to spare his lung. he says he doesn't want to live without singing. he talks about the suppressing emotion in the real world. in a restaurant when his food is cooked too well done. how he says nothing.

because at night, on his stage, he can kill the waiter and dance on his grave.

he doesn't know how to be ordinary. he's mean. he's mean to his lover. the show posed the question of passion vs. love. your gift and talents - the essence of who you are and what you sing through. pitted against the person who sings through you. 

i've gone out the last couple nights in a row. its a queer socialite world. its a gay scene. it's fun and vicious and exhausting. and i will probably cave and go out tonight. 

but its hard to hide my disenchantment. and my sadness. i am mean. because my pursuit of love in this place is riddled with losses. not rejection of advances but rejection of romance. and words. beautiful words chosen from the branches and held out like berries. juices trickling through my fingers, which i can name anatomically. dripping down to my elbows like an invitation. written in an ancient language barely surfacing in allusive bobs of a body treading indifference in egg-beater legs.

sometimes i want to sleep forever. sometimes i get scared to leave my house. 

my bedroom is beyond the picture of destruction. this usually indicates that i am avoiding dealing with something. 

maybe i'm not allowed to be nice. or something. maybe the closer i claw towards my artistic articulations...maybe the quenching of my desert throat for more words. bigger worlds in intricate words. maybe it has a price. 

i tightened the knobs on the drawers at her party. i was drunk and got triggered by all of it and so i crouched down and took all the knobs off and put them back on tighter. as tight as i could. and i cried quietly as they all got naked and made out in the kitchen. i don't know why. it seems silly. sex can be a handshake. i said that once, i think.

maybe i'm losing it. 

for now, i'll just go lightly on the ground.

poo.

so, i have just entered the realm of spite.

i woke up really angry today. angry at myself mostly, but i needed a target. i needed her to know how i was hurt. and so i lashed out in text. 

and it felt good. but now it feels awful. we had never fought before. never said things like this. and now, they hang in the air like landmines incompletely detonated. 

my brother is sometimes a bit of a loose cannon. or misunderstood. because he's eccentric and eager and stuff. but he is also one of the wisest people i know, and had this to say when i told him about the fight:

'if you see a brother in sin, talk to him in gentleness, considering yourself, lest you be tempted.'

and he's right. who am i to cast the first stone? i can let my mental health and neurosis wrap around me like one giant self-involved bubble sometimes. 

people have told me that they are jealous of my creativity. and my eloquence. but its times like i wish i didnt know how to wield words so artfully. i cut her so deeply. because i know how. i went from never telling the truth to saying too much. 

she's already hurting. but i just wanted her to hear me so badly.