park
The sun speaks in blue and yellow, stripes and fades
And still I'm failing to hear you or see you
Feeling doesn't come naturally and it's draining out of me like colour from a wet page
Draining out of me like an old bucket and I have no hands to hold it all in
The sun speaks in bright and harsh words but still it's all muffled, like I'm on a train driving away. I heard you from the corner of my ear. And I'm holding my chest from the momentary fear.
But it's passing and passing.
Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive
Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go
Look me in the eye and promise no love's like our love
I'm not mine
You're not
These aren't
This is not
Mine
Nothing when purpose and dreams bead off my hands like rain
Dripping from fingertips and strands of hair
I'm carrying around a little rock in my hand, soul,
Even though you keep whispering you've got the stick to break it
You can make the water flow
I'm watching passively
Trying to invent my own passion
Newspaper-paper mache-it all goes in the garbage
Pretty quickly
Where does the good go
I'm A
lost star a soft heart a dusty mic
but
i won't give in to
falling apart or dropping guard there's lifting up there's counting fail
there are heart
stop
moments
there are take
it or
leave it
there's my breath
in the air
you can share you can share it
i'm a
coffee break room an upstairs closet
i'm a
"hold onto your hats boys" and the one who never lost it
but i
hold the handrail
just to
set an example
my fingerprints are staying here until the whole room disappears
so lets get cryptic
go to the attic
look up magic
in a patchwork blanket
but
don't get comfy
you could get a bed of nails
for the next twenty years
unless you beg for mercy
I Keep Waiting
"Oh half of my heart's got a grip on the situation
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
That I can't keep loving you
Oh, with half of my heart"
Dreams keep seizing me, maybe it's the heat or the length of the bed
They stick around and leave deep impressions
I'm left wondering if they're signs or just shadows of the figures that walked around already
But no voices speak after waking and all that remains is a cord around my heart or a hand brushed across my own
--------------------------------
People want change, light, love
I see it amidst the gluttony and sex, I see it through loopholes
People want revolution
My seat is forward
I'm trying to light my lamp
Dreams Are Weird
I had a dream that a boy who was supposed to be a golden one
(or the unicorn, as some have said)
He left everything he held dear for me. His family, home, previous love.
He stood before me and professed all this, that we could run away and I would be in his open arms
My initial reaction was "this must be good, what he's doing for me..."
And then I remembered everything that was mine
And everything I had before
And I knew with my whole heart it was wrong
Bah Humbug
Stay the way I wrote you
Be just how I need you
Grow inside me daily
Fill the spaces until I don't notice
Hold to what I told you
You can't be a back up
Don't find me just to break it
I don't want to mess up
I don't want to be hopeless
This can't be listless
I hate dealing with the "oh well"s
If Only We Could See
Cuba stared out the door between her room and veranda, the twilight haze played along her iris's and danced through the threaded colour. Cuba saw monsters outside. Long silver lake monsters, large loping tunnel monsters. The the kind that come out from under bridges and from mountain caves. They were running down the street, past the houses, in white and purple bursts, their shadows pressing against the walls like great passenger trains.
She watched them calmly as they continued their parade, so many of them. Her dark curls fell down her pillow, undisturbed as she, as she watched the monsters go their ways. Every time another one galloped down the road her face was lit by its passing, each of her freckles standing out, one by one. In the flashes of light they began to form constellations, stretching across her mouth, reaching through her eyelids, falling down her nose.
If the monsters hadn't been moving so quickly, sending up sparks and fireworks from the backs of their feet, the would have seen a galaxy quietly revealed in a small doorway on the face of a girl.
If Cuba hadn't been watching the monsters run, she never would have been able to show off her stars.
March 16th
The power is out again and I feel like I'm moving in slow motion. I've put a candle in front of the mirror and the light pours out of the glass, creating soft shapes of yellow and shadow. Mason Jennings is singing "there's something about your love..." and I forgot that he starts by saying "I'm coming home to be with you". I'm in a loose t-shirt and my hair is still tangled and wet, and this whole sound-tracked atmosphere makes me feel like I should be walking into the arms of a man who carries me carefully upstairs.
It doesn't feel like there's a lot I can write these days without being completely frank. Masking feels overdone and story-bookish, which also makes it hard for me to publish anything at all. I'm overusing words like "dark", "Inside-out" and the ambiguous "heart", which aren't original words to overuse in the first place so I've given up on story telling. On the other hand, the nonfiction contains far too much "love" and phrases like "I'm sorry", "I need you and I'm broken" and "where the hell am I?". The themes haven't changed for a while.
The power just came back on, I noticed the kitchen light come on through a hazy window and almost simultaneously the candle by the mirror burst like a dam, hot liquid pouring through the luminous wax walls and onto the tile counter top. This isn't a dry spell, though, I'm convinced, or convincing myself, of that. So I keep the lights off and just plug in the music so I can keep Mason going further into the night, and maybe Mayer and Foreman too. My pen is still moving and a couple wicks are still lit, so I'm sure I can stay here a bit longer.
This Isn't Poetic, Nor Is It Just
When I first moved to Owen Sound, Ontario, we lived in a duplex in town, in the transition between arrival and finding out beautiful country house which we lived in for the next 6 years.
Across the street was an empty stretch of land where no duplex's had been built, and there I played in the mud and built forts out of leftover pieces of wood and cardboard.
Occasionally, the girl who lived behind me (named Jenn) and a boy from a block away (whose name, to this day, I do not know) would play with me, imagining we were builders or bandits or strangers lost in a barren wasteland. I think occasionally this boy was mean to us, but it was two to one, so we were generally safe.
One tragic day, I seemed to be caught off guard or unprotected, and this boy managed to grab my shoulders and kiss me forcefully on the cheek. The only feeling I get when I think about this moment is that I felt I had dirt all over my cheek as a result.
I ran home in tears, and cried and yelled in fury that this boy would do such a thing. I demanded my father go to his house and tell his parents, so that he could get the punishment he deserved. But justice was never served on that day.
Dear Haruki, I like you, like a lot. But I shouldn't try to be you. Sigh.
Cause and effect, memories, I am in love with Haruki Murakami but I need my own style. It's only flattery. I'm only inspired.
I firmly believe everyone deserves one of these, so maybe I'll start working my way through. For every person ever known. Ever. Good or bad. They may not like the things I write, but at least it's something written for them. Something that I recall. Something I will always remember. It will last the ages. Until I die, or until the inter-web internally combusts, they will not be forgotten. Generally those who mean the most to be get the most words, and the least of which I ever really admit, but they're repetitive, and shy. These few gathered words are for long lost strangers. We all have little to fear.
