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.