28.5.07

changes

You broke down my barriers far quicker than I'd like to admit.
This is disgusting.
I let myself ruin what might have been great.
I am disgusting.
You knew I didn't want it, and I kept saying no, but you pushed it anyway.
You are disgusting.

And now I can never have that back.
We can never go back.
and that is disgusting.

27.5.07

In Recoil

My hands recoil
when I try to write down
the stupid things I feel
and the way others don’t.
So I can’t tell you
about the noteworthy patterns
throughout your history
of numbness
and of debt,
and instead
all I can do
is sit here,
in recoil.

edit:
This Week's Theme is:
"Something Changed..."

24.5.07

feels as water does, again.
vacant lines dissipating above the next rise in earth,
we struggle under heat.

force it and it crumbles.
the ease with which i may slide into new routines
tucked into place, the slack of shaken dirt

mumbling catastrophes
at gulleys that will hold me
and hold me

23.5.07

my disease?

this has been my pattern..



I said selfish goodbyes to everybody I loved in an effort to figure out and test my own potential.

I waved goodbye to the silly oh-so-teenage crushes because nobody is really that special, and it seemed necessary to stay away from those who try to make me dependent on them for my self-worth. I Shut the door on the pretty boys that taught me feelings can't be forced. I even pushed away the friends.My companions that showed me I truly could fall in love and be understood- the artists that were over emotional and dramatic - the ones who showed me that real heartache comes from expiration dates.


i guess that explains why I'm still unable to be that 'friendly open person' upon meeting someone. I can't open up, because when I do, I'm vulnerable.Too Vulnerable. Yeah, that's cliche, or maybe it's just common..maybe that's the same thing?

It is the roles we take on as human beings that ultimately dehumanize us, and I became so sick of being in that one. So sick of being the distant jerk, the self proclaimed cynic.I guess that explains my actions and reactions. Why I opened up so much when I shouldn't have. Is it clear now? Because if it's not, and if this is a power game, I will hand the trophy over. I don't even want to be the victor anymore.
So I guess I just can't end this vulnerability, and for once I'm not flaking off, and I'm not shying away.
I'm just letting my weakness show.
I hope it is for all the right reasons

What We Forgot

We picked up where we left off the day before, the rocky shores of the coast were just how we'd left them as far as I could tell. The waves still crashed against the land and the land still groped towards the sky and the sky still hung indifferent to the furor below. Everything was grey and blue and violent except the red ribbons you tied in your hair. They waved peacefully in the steady winds, blown with a gentleness that eluded the waves and the gulls overhead. I’d be a liar if I said the birds weren’t chirping jealously among each other, forming a plot to push you into the sea.
We’d reached the end of land and were faced with the choice of either marching across the sea or following the jagged cliffs until eventually they looped back on themselves and brought us home. As neither of us were Jesus and neither of us could swim, the decisions was made considerably easier. How we'd grown up without learning how to swim is a mystery that I still haven't solved. It wasn't for lack of water and it certainly wasn't for lack of opportunity. Despite visiting the ocean every summer we’d never moved beyond standing in the surf with arms crossed and brows furrowed, scowling at the kids whose parents believed in water wings.
You decided we'd take a detour northwards in the direction of the sand caves we'd camped in when we were younger. I didn't remember them, but you assured me that not only were they there but that they were a legitimate secret hideout. "We camped out there one night on vacation.” You said laboriously, panting slightly from hiking up a low steep hill. “It was that time when your mother brought her boyfriend and we spent the whole summer breaking them up." You finished, stopping to lean against one of the tall conifers surrounding us.
"Dirk?" I asked. He’d been my Mother’s first boyfriend after my Father disappeared when I was younger. I’d never really liked him, but when I was more mature I realized he’d made my mom happy when they were together. It was recent enough that I knew who he was, but distant enough that I couldn’t put a face to the name.
"Yeah, him. Do you remember now?"
"No, not really. All I remember of Dirk is that I thought he was a real bastard." I said, watching you pull off your beaten-up shoes to empty out sand and rocks. I could see the tall bank of sand we were headed for through the trees and briefly thought, “Maybe someone emptied a really big shoe?” But then remembered I was being ridiculous. I could fell the dull ache in my head that begins whenever I’m somewhere I don’t know that I’ve been before. The pointless grinding of broken machines in my head. "We always went where he wanted to go, especially for Summer break."
"Well not that year. It was your Mom's idea for both of our families to come up and camp on the beach back there.” You slid your calloused feet back into the shoes and laced them up to the top, aware that sand would get in regardless. “She wanted to patch things up between herself and my Mom. I really wish you remembered this place, Eric." You sounded so sad when you said it; this place was clearly important to you.
"It’ll probably come back when we get there, like with that cabin up on Lake Ontario." I said, knowing full-well I wouldn’t remember, but wanting to at least make things believe things were a bit less dire.
"Yeah, I hope so." You mumbled, stepping from the tree and continuing the hike towards our former secret hideaway.
The walk from where we'd camped out the night before to the sand caves took us about an hour but on the way we passed some spectacular views. We should have brought more film than we did. The irony that we’d have nothing to remember a trip that's purpose was to stir my memories was lost on me. Instead I made a note of the purple glow the sun gave off when it hit the ocean in the mornings, completely aware that by the time I had a chance to write it down I’d have forgotten.
I haven’t been able to formulate memories properly since I was a kid. It’s not like in Memento or anything, I can remember thing that happened recently, just not things that happened a long time ago. There’s no real distinct cut-off point though, I can remember what I bought my sister for Christmas two years ago, but I can’t remember where I was on Christmas Eve. I know it’s been hard for you, dealing with this memory defect. Sometimes at night when you think I’m asleep you’ll sit up in bed and sob quietly with a hand over your mouth. Ultimately, these are the kinds of things I remember no matter how much easier things would be if I could forget.

We only had to climb a little ways from the base of the sand hill to get to the cave we were looking for. Honestly, I don't understand sand caves. How they can exist is beyond me, my brain can't handle thinking of sand holding a steady form. Nonetheless we were able to climb up the sand slopes without sinking into them. You explained why this worked to me once, but I’d forgotten. The cave we wanted was a wide one, it looked like a gaping mouth as you approached it, but not in a tacky ‘Cave of Doom’ kind of way. It was dim inside, not dark enough for us to need our flashlights, but enough for me to have to squint to make out any objects.
"Anything yet?" You asked, your voice taking on a deeper tone due to the cave’s acoustics. Your question echoes into the cave ahead of you, growing quieter and quieter before it was swallowed by the darkness.
"Nope, nothing. How old do you think we were?" My voice didn't seem to echo as far as yours, settling into the ground beneath us rather than venturing into the cave.
"Well, your Mom left Dirk in 1995 and we came here the year before. That would make me fifteen and you sixteen." I could feel the machinery whirring inside my head but the gears only stirred the air, unable to make the necessary contact with each other.
"So we were still in school then?"
"Yeah, of course.” It irritated you a bit when I forgot simple things like that, but it was an endearing kind of agitation. “Come on, how can you not remember this place? Don't you remember being in here with me? Two blossoming youths alone on a hot summer night..."
"Yeah right." I laughed, my chest bobbing in an out of the shadows as it shook. "If there's one thing I can say for sure, it's that my first time wasn’t in a sand cave when I was sixteen."
“How can you say you’re sure of anything.” You mumbled under your breath, hoping I couldn’t hear it.
“Because that’s how I choose to remember it,” I replied strongly, my voice echoing into the blackness beyond us, “and that’s what counts, isn’t it?” And we walked hand-in-hand out of the cave and into the dawn’s purple light, leaving no evidence we were there except some echoes in an infinite abyss.

21.5.07

Diseased


We've all got this disease, oozing out our pores
So cover it up, and seal it shut
It's not wanted anymore

20.5.07

Could You Talk Me Down?

I don't get invited around much these days.
It means what it means, there's not a lot more to say.
I've tried to articulate that sentiment in a poem
but there's no real need.
All there is to say is that
I don't get invited around much these days.
Life goes on regardless,
for all of us.

This Week's Theme Is:
"Disease"

also: post ideas for themes in the comments section of this post!

Confessional (Themed weeks are not dumb)

Her mind wandered, slightly confused. She was living some aspect of her life she always wanted to, things were in place, she was happy and she was busy. Yet something inside made her stomach tie itself in knots. Everything she did made her feel disgusting.
Maybe it was because she couldn't get past the second date without getting at least partially naked. Every time at the time she felt right in her actions. Afterwards, she wanted to vomit and punch herself. Most of the time, it seemed like she almost blacked out for moments, like she was extremely intoxicated or extremely drunk. Those are not valid excuses though, alcohol was only involved once, and any impairment it would have caused had worn off by the time hands were down pants.
Now she plans slightly for these moments. She tells herself she's not slutty, she just doesn't want a relationship but still wants some action. That's not too much to ask. Most men wouldn't deny any woman that. But then they lose all respect for her, or not all, but some, she knows it they treat her differently after. To her, certain men could be the sweetest most respectful people she knows, but after their tongues touch certain parts of her anatomy things change. Sexual innuendos and attempts for sexual banter become normal parts of conversation with any of them. It makes her feel like she's ruined something. Now this never even has the possibility of being a healthy relationship.

"I've touched you and you've touched me far too early into anything. It has no meaning. We've destroyed any meaning we could possible ever have. We've ruined things. We've tainted things. I don't want to ever ever ever be your girlfriend. I can no longer trust that you aren't going to be another, 'please just let me fuck you without a condom, I'll pull out, please please please,' kind of guys, and I really don't want to get myself invested into anything just to find that out. You don't respect me sexually anymore. How could you? I certainly wouldn't if I were in your position. I don't even really respect myself now. In fact, I feel disgusted with myself. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with my life! Everytime I do this shit I just want to die. I don't want to ever touch you ever ever ever. I don't want to see you. "

She wants to scream this at him. She wants to scream. But a part of her is still curious. A part of her is also cowardly and indecisive, so instead she says, "Alright, I'll see you tomorrow at 7:30... maybe I'll stay the night."

18.5.07

You Want to tell the Whole Block

You’re trying not to but you can’t help staring at him. His dark bee-sting lips are what it means to be in love. The little bits of coral that are his teeth are poking out from behind his bottom lip and you want to die. You could drown in his thick hair. It’s wispy at the sides and it swoops around his head like a crown. It’s blonde again, like it was the summer when you met him. You take a moment to remember his sand speckled body in the surf, the lack of tan-lines under his swim trunks, the way they clung just right... You lose yourself just thinking about it. He still makes you feel that way now. You aren’t bored with him; you never could be. You know the initial sparks are gone for him, but according to everyone you’ve talked to that just means it’s your chance to prove your dedication to him. Anyways, sparks or no sparks he still lets you blow him in the back of his Dad’s station wagon and making love to you when he’s drunk. It just means that afterwards instead of saying thanks he pulls his clothes on and tells you not to look at him in the middle of it.
He’s with his ugly girlfriend again. He knows he’s way too good for her but he got back together with her just before the spring semester anyways. You still remember exactly how he’d broken the news to you. You were waiting on the curb like you do every Wednesday and he pulled up in front of your trailer in his Lincoln town car. You figured he must have had something special planned; he never picked you up with the car he drove to school in. Excited, you got up to get in but he rolled down the window before you could and said, “Me and Hillary are back together so don’t call unless I tell you to and if someone asks who you are tell them you’re on the football team.” You stared at him, dumbstruck but still giving him your cutest smile. “I’ve got to go pick her up now. I can’t be seen driving my car around this shit hole anyways. Later.” And just like that he sped away.
You’d been devastated at first but then you realized he was clearly just trying to preserve your relationship. If people saw he was unattached to a girl for too long they might start to have suspicions, which he tells you could really jeopardize this scholarship he’s lined up for. You don’t mind if he’s with ugly Hillary anyways, she’s a strict christian and she won’t even let him finger-fuck her outside marriage. They’ll never last, and you’ll be there when he needs someone to talk to or to fuck without a condom. You know that eventually he’s going to realize that what he really needs has been kneeling in front of him all along, wether Hillary stopped coming to bible study or not.

17.5.07

I wrote this a really long time ago

He made a joke about a young fat ugly girl. He Looked at me as though I should laugh along at his joke with him. Feeling like I had to give him some sort of response I just looked away from him and said "okay" in a monotone voice.

He then laughed about how I'm serious, the way he usually does.

I said "yeah". Yeah, I am serious, but he doesn't know the half of it. If I was really serious I would have been yelling at him, or crying. I would have been telling him that it's jokes like that that represent what have been my personal roadblock that prevented me from ever loving myself as a child , and from ever gaining self respect as a teenager. I don't care whatever bullshit someone tries to feed me, learning to love yourself physically as you grow up is crucial to your self esteem, and having self esteem is having power over your mind and body and life. This is a power I have never learned to have, a power I have never allowed myself to have, a power that I feel my culture has tried to tell me that I don't deserve, a power I feel that I've been robbed of.

So I respond passively with "yeah" because maybe I don't love myself enough to stand up for what I believe in, and I don't want to start any controversy, because I don't want to have to listen to him trivialize a struggle I feel so close to and so passionate about, because feeling weak has become my reality, or maybe because I just felt to fucking defeated to be anything but apathetic.

Sometimes I'm disgusted that I think like this, that I identify my physical self consciousness as a problem like it is something I should feel victimized by or bad about, and that I think it is something I should avoid writing about because I am ashamed of feeling this way, that being a girl has been some sort of disease for me.
There is such a huge stigma around being a feminist. Because y'know..feminism is unnecessary or angry or sexist,and women are already equal.
Well if that's true, then why do I have to continually remind myself that I don't really fucking hate being a woman and I only fucking hate what it has been like to grow up as a woman? Why has viewing myself as undeserving and worthless become an automatic way of thinking? Why am I still ashamed to speak up ? Why am I still ashamed of my body? Why do I still feel that I am supposed to take some sort of vulnerable innocent and submissive role?

And most horrifyingly, why am I still consumed by all of this negative thinking when at this point in my life I know so so so much better?

It's really terrifying, really fucking terrifying to realize how big of a mark misogyny,patriarchy, and the gender binary society that we live in has left on me.
And after all the education I have I'm still unable to 'kick' this way of thinking.

So yes, I am serious. And why wouldn't I be?I have something to be really fucking serious about. We all do.

Let's Get Confessional

I miss life. It's wrong to make generalizations, but I'm pretty sure everyone does. Doesn't everyone have some space of time in their life where they felt like they were actually living the life that they live in movies and Family channel television shows? I felt like that, but I didn't really realize it. I don't think I'm very aware of what I'm feeling at any given time to begin with so when the feeling becomes familiar I start to ignore it completely. That's just how I feel that I feel about myself. A while ago I tried to write that sentence down, I still don't have it right. I wrote "It's all about how people see you seeing yourself." but that's not it. This is going nowhere.
There was an idea to describe in all detail but if you don't feel it is there a feeling to describe?

Themed weeks died fast, which is to say I picked crappy themes and didn't even bother to contribute anything. I don't think I'll keep updating them. Other people can if they'd like, this is the communal blog afterall. I need to stop feeling like it's my "responsibility." I need to stop feeling invested in it because it's already been made abundantly clear that things I create or plan usually die off. I'm happy it's come this far? Does that sound too final? Does that make it sound like I'm saying "It's over"? Because it isn't. I certainly don't feel it is. It shouldn't feel like it is ending.
I swear to god whenever I'm writing a blog entry i just think in clips of songs, usually fucking BARR. I can't even count the number of lines from Summary or Context Ender or whatever I've dropped in this blog post alone. It's tedious, I'm sorry. That's the way my brain works though. It seems like every facet of my creative process is run by this machine that circulates random sentence fragments and uses them as 'inspiration.' (That's a stupid thing to say, that's why I put it in quotes. How self-absorbed to say something 'inspired' you, that's like saying because you saw or thought something inspiring the work it produced is "Inspired" [capital I-Inspired] Maybe I just spend too much time worrying about what's pretentious and what's overly self-conscious and what is and isn't worth saying.)
This week's theme is:
"Let's Get Confessional"

13.5.07

When the Road Gave You Back

Broken typewriter,
how will you make anything
from those crooked teeth?
Melt your steel down
and destroy your old keys.
Cast yourself anew.

Become a just gun
with damages more grievous
and a quick draw heart,
Silencing old words;
those of the righteous many
who’d press your keys.
Soon will come new ones
which owe no debt to the old.
“Such is life,” I say.

8.5.07

talking in extremes beneath layers and layers of earth

What scares me the most about the future
is not meeting new people, or the uncertainty of what is ahead of me

it's stumbling across memories
that remind me of what I am missing
and what will probably never once again be

and I'm not trying to be pessimistic
because I know there will always be good company who I can count on

but there is nothing that can make me fall to pieces
as much as progressing into the unknown
while never being able to forget what was

We'll always have the nostalgia that so powerfully shakes us
and the memories that are so intensely impossible to forget

I'll always have that
and that's what scares me the most

If I already know how to remember everything,I'll need to learn how to hold onto little

"we should always carry our history with us, but never let it bury us"

I'm gonna need a fuckin' excavator to get me out of this one









What the Year Brought Me

26 Stories and 20 Poems
13 Stories and 18 Poems
5 Stories and 10 Poems
5 Stories and 8 Poems
9 Pages, 4,844 Words
1/2 Page, 281 Words
Maybe, Sparrow
All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone
NYK
Birds on a Wire

but it's the Context that makes or breaks everything.
I don't know what you're supposed to do with this
I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with this
I removed the descriptors, you just have the statistics
like a newspaper headline
no names
just numbers
except at the bottom
where I wrote names...

THIS WEEK'S THEME (Sunday, May 6-Sunday, May 13) IS PROGRESS?
IS THAT A STUPID THEME?
YES.
HOW ABOUT INSTEAD OF THAT THE THEME IS...
CONTEXT!

Just do whatever you want to do, in either theme/in no theme. Who cares.

6.5.07

exiles among you


she stands wearily against any set of spare arms,
feeling the alcohol subside
and the memories flood in
"this is what the night gave me"
she thinks
and this is not what i am
but this is who I have let myself become

there is no happiness there.
thank yous and commiserations
what were you after, again?

love Her.
the people who love her are told to ignore
eyes avert themselves from blinding miseries felt by those dearest to them

later in the backyard propped up in the passenger seat of an old rusting truck,
recognizing that the patterns of the leaves against the sky
are the same as leaves floating, layering on the hood.
She sits next to her best friend.

She only mutters "I am still so fucked."
They laugh
Afterall, that was the point.

drunken nights left her wishing he would have read her name like he just learned it yesterday
and at home now, on the back porch in the sun, with the nerves of the bumble bees
she looks at the bottoms of her feet
and wonders how they'll look
trailing home after a long hot day in july

5.5.07

Michigan

I was thinking today what a rad name "Michigan" would make...Then I wrote this little thing like 5 seconds ago, in like 7 and a half seconds. YUP.

He was a beautiful book across the way, folding beer labels with his hands, laughing at something someone said, something they had read some place...The talking was loud and I dimmed my mind to it. Friday night, yes siree. "I'm young, I'm young" I repeat over and over in my head, "I'm young, enjoy this, you fuck." It doesn't work, and I dim my mind further, fold a beer label with my hands, keep staring.

Michigan begins, it sounds interesting I tilt in, it's something she read somewhere about politics, I hesitate a moment, I don't know anything about this..."focus." I say in an old slow way, "just listen.." Oh no, I totally get this, it's funny. I'm laughing, watching him turn a page. He isn't laughing, just sitting there, but that's good enough. A God forsaken sigh. I've torn my label to shreds and now I'm swirling the pieces around with my finger. I notice that his, though folded madly is still intact. "I wonder what that means...?" I am struck down in my prime, despair takes me by the hand for a long walk along the shore with seagull sound and a cardboard backdrop of orange flare sunset behind. I muster a smile and aim it at the sticky table top, keep taring.

4.5.07

Pattern Recognition

From what I can remember, the first time they tried to teach me pattern recognition was in sixth grade. My opinion was and is that only serial killers and mormons pay attention in sixth grade and as a result I find my skills lacking. I think that if I had a proper concept of pattern recognition, I wouldn’t have woken-up laying face-down in my best friend Jordan’s bed last New-Years. I could have been micro-waving some left-over stir-fry and watching the New Year’s parade; satisfied with having survived another year. However, rather than settling into my own well-established couch groove, I found myself struggling to get comfortable in the one Jordan’s body had imprinted into her bed. Naturally it was my best friend’s husband, Nate-- Nathan, whose skinny body was settled on the other-side. The pale blue eyes my friend used to blush just talking about were turned towards the wall, towards an ugly abstract painting Jordan had bought the year before. Even though I couldn’t see his face the irregular rise and fall of his chest gave away that he was only pretending to sleep. It sounds stupid, but it was laying there; staring at the hairy back of my best friend’s ‘first love’ that I realized I could have avoided my position. Had I been able to really understand the events leading up to that morning and my own part in them, I could have saved so many people so much grief. It’s strange to take pause and consider the people who could still be in my life, had I learned fractions and long-division rather than how to kiss with tongue and steal from teachers.
I’m sure it’s not an issue, but don’t pity my situation. It isn’t as though it snuck up on me. Despite my poor sense of prediction, I was fully aware of what Nathan and I were doing. The part I should have recognized sooner was exactly how it would impact the people we loved the most, which is to say Jordan and my brother, Tim. It was selfish of me, but I honestly didn’t think about them for a second until they were forced into my mind by the sobering light of the morning after. It wasn’t for lack of time or opportunity, I barely had to do a thing other than follow Nathan’s lead. It was a thing of beauty, the way he lead me that night. I was aware of where the evening was going from the moment he called me up, the alcohol had already made his voice sweet and heavy, but I still found myself surprised by every twirl or hesitation in his box-step. “Nadine? You doing anything?” He’d asked me over the phone, his voice wearing it’s dancing shoes, making it lower and more confident than normal. I told him I wasn’t. “Great,” he replied, “want to come over and watch the New Years countdown with me? If you don’t have any plans for later, I mean?” In fact the only plans I’d had for the night were to watch ‘Sixteen Candles’ again, cry and resolve that I wouldn’t spend the next new years alone. “Sure, of course. Do you want me to bring anything?” Who could blame a girl for choosing to dance?
I still remember the details of that night pretty clearly, considering the volume of alcohol that was in my system. We stuck to the events Nathan had proposed over the phone for the first hour or two. We drank modest glasses of champagne and watched the count-down, danced the even box-step of drunk friends. We probably sat there on his couch for a good thirty minutes after midnight passed, just exchanging banalities about the weather and music and whatever it is that people like us talk about when we’re drunk together. Eventually we’d lowered our guards enough to allow for the kind of talk that the evening demanded, “Are you making a resolution this year?” He asked, finishing off his festive glass of champagne. I replied too quickly to be convincing when I said, “Oh, you know. Gain weight, drink more, pray less, take up smoking again...” He laughed but moved closer, “No, seriously, what’s your resolution? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” He was treating me like a kid but his baiting wasn’t working, I responded as casually as I could, “Sorry, it’s private.” He stood up and put his hands on his hips mock-sternly, “Well then, if you won’t tell me your real one let me help you with one of your others.” He piped cheerfully, stepping out of the living-room and into the adjoining kitchen. When he came back he was holding an oversize bag of nachos in one hand and a magnum of wine in the other. “How perfect,” I thought, “how couldn’t I sleep with him now?” I stopped. It was the first time I’d actively let the thought process pass through my mind that maybe I wanted to have sex with Nathan. Up until that point every come on and flirtatious movement had been accompanied in my head by an insincere commentary of “I hope he realizes we’re just friends, I could never do that to Jordan.” Naturally, it was me who suggested we opened the wine first.
An hour later a quarter of the bottle was gone and we’d come back to the topic of our New Years resolutions. My feet were sitting in his lap and he was massaging them with the palms of his hands. It wasn’t a sensual thing so much as the result of my complaining about the way the shoes I wore killed my feet. It was pleasant in a clumsy way. With my feet resting in his lap I was reminded of just how thin Nate had gotten over the past year. Even though he was holding my feet up I could feel the lack of substance beneath his dark jeans. The animals battling through his body had left no loose skin in their wake. The familiar devastation of his chemotherapy was draped like crop-dust on the cancer destroying his body. He’d kept his hair but his body had thinned out rapidly, at least thats what Jordan had told me, this was the first time I actually experienced his skeletal new figure first-hand. It was unsettling to think about how quickly his body had taken it’s new more severe shape. He’d been muscled before, not incredibly but enough that when it disappeared you noticed. His body was whittled down by the chemicals to a sad coat of skin draped on a mess of angular bones.
“What are you thinking about?” He asked, breaking a silence I hadn’t noticed. “Work.” I said bluntly, pulling my mind away from the skeletons under his clothes. “I’m no fun that way.” He stiffened up a bit, sliding his back further up the arm of the chair which he was laying on. “Jo gets back from her business trip tomorrow, right?” I asked spontaneously. “Yeah, around two or three.” He mumbled, probably a little bit ashamed to be talking about his wife in such a precarious situation. He stared at the foot he was still absently massaging in his lap and took another small gulp of wine. He cringed slightly at the taste and I pulled my feet back in, curling my knees to my chest. He looked at me curiously and I spoke, “I don’t want to be alone anymore, Nate. That’s my New Year’s resolution…” It sounded even more pathetic uttered to someone other than the mirror. “Sad, huh?” I smiled weakly up at him but he was staring down at his hands. “No, I know what you mean.” He said slowly his voice sounding audibly strained,“Maybe it’s unfair to say, but I think marriage is it’s own kind of loneliness, you know?” “No, not really but keep talking.” I insisted. “Well, it’s just that… not to sound ungrateful, but ever since I got sick everything changed. Jordan isn’t my ‘wife’ anymore, she’s become this person who has to take care of me, you know? Like I can’t talk about the disease honestly with her or she gets worried, I can barely even complain about a headache without her calling 911.” He sipped some more wine and sighed, “But I understand it all and she’s completely justified in being afraid, but it makes it hard to feel close to her… Sorry for--” he hesitated, unsure what he was sorry for but I cut him off “No, don’t be sorry. I’m just being a dick. Sitting here, complaining about my life when I’ve still got so much going for me-- not that you don’t have a lot going for you-- but I can’t even imagine having to deal with something like what you’ve got...” He sighed and shook his head, “Yeah. It’s a mess.” I picked my wine glass back up off the table it was sitting on and threw the rest into my mouth, seeing this, Nate followed suit. Eyes squeezed shut, adam’s apple bobbing he emptied his glass down his throat.
“I’m going to get healthy, Nat. That’s my New Years resolution.” I stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or just smile. The humor came from the blunt way in which he stated it, as though by doing so he had eliminated every cancerous cell in his body. He picked up the now half-full magnum of wine and lifted it over his head, “and maybe once I’m healthy, I’ll be able to have sex with my wife without crying.” He toasted before he knocked back the wine and drank several deep gulps while I stared at him incredulously, partially because of the blunt candidness of his statement and partially because of the insanity of his actions. “Nate!” I protested, starting towards him. But on hearing my voice he eased the bottle off his lips and back to the table, a few stray drops falling from it’s mouth and onto the dark couch cushions. He turned his eyes to me and I was paralyzed, something in the way he looked completely destroyed me right then and there. Maybe it was the small, imperfect tears forming in the creases of his eyes, or the dark red and purple stains on his lips and tongue, but something in it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen.
That was when he kissed me. I mean really kissed me. His face was coarse and salty from the now obvious tears and his mouth tasted like wine and champagne and nachos but I kissed him anyways. He was crying and I was crying and we were both drunk and sick and alone so we kissed until our faces were sore and our bodies aches and we were panting on our backs in his and Jordan’s bed. “We have to promise not to tell her, okay? I need you to promise me that.” He whispered, both our breathing still slightly uneven whether from the act itself or the terror of realizing what we’d just done. I nodded in agreement and turned on my side towards Nate. “Shake on it... and cross your fingers.” He said with a tone of severity I’d never really heard him use before. I did it immediately, there was something desperate in his voice that hadn’t been there earlier, a kind of fear he hadn’t anticipated. First we went to do a traditional handshake, but our crossed fingers were in the way. I began to undo mine, but he stopped me. “No, just use your other hand. Keep them crossed, please.” We switched to our bad hands and shook, our fore and middle fingers crossed on one hand while the others clung together and rocked clumsily. He pumped my hand twice weakly then let it go with a sigh. Simultaneously we rolled onto out opposite sides, facing the wall rather than each other.
It was still a few minutes before my heart had slowed enough to allow myself to sleep, so I found myself staring out the window and into the sky. Even though it was New Years most of the city’s lights were already out, replaced by the ever-present glow of street-lights and the moon on the river. I looked up at the vacant space where the stars should be and sighed internally. Maybe it’s ugly to say, but I didn’t feel guilty while I laid there, staring at the new year’s sky. Despite the fact I’d just set in motion the events that would destroy me and my closest friends, the only thing I could think was “it wasn’t supposed to feel so wrong…”


Post-Script:: I'm toying with the idea of themed weeks. How do you feel about this? Would you participate?

3.5.07

Boys/Girls

I've never known someone, boy or girl, who had healthy relationship with their Father.
Not when they were a teenager at least.
I don't know the reasons, it's just the way things are through my eyes.
They aren't dependable though, my eyes I mean.
Without glasses they're of little more good than an appendix.
To be fair, I can still see
But therein lies the problem.
What is the point of being able to see when all you can glean is the fuzzy shape
of what could potentially be there?
I'm lucky.
Even though I need glasses I can still see pretty well.
I can see a cone around me, probably a few feet in diameter.
But all the rest is just a well-meaning blur.
It's worse than it sounds though.
The best comparison I could is this:

Imagine someone who can only grasp the outlines of a concept
They can grasp it pretty well mind you, they understand what makes it tick
But they can't make the connections between the concept
And real-life.
It's like an incredibly well-learned Doctor
who gets confused when the organs inside the patients aren't paper-thin.

That gives you context for why I'm able to make such a bold generalization as
"I've never known someone, boy or girl, who had healthy relationship with their Father."
I don't like saying things like "I've never..." or "I always..."
Well thats not true
I say those things all the time, I do like to say them
I just feel terribly false when I do.
I get distracted easily when I'm writing something careless like this
something fluid or malleable.
Once my brother gave me a lecture about malleability
well not so much a lecture as a speech where he used the word with wild abandon.

He'd just read a poem I'd written
and he was drunk, because people like to talk to me more when I'm drunk,
and he said "You may have Chris Cannon in you, but you also have a lot of Donna Cannon in you, and there's a lot of malleability there."
ever since, whenever I hear the word malleable I think of my brother.
Thats a god example of how teenagers don't have healthy relationships with their parents
I can't speak for their relationship
I could speak about it but I'd just end up catching shit for it
Who knows who from.
Talking about people's relationships with their parents is a good way to catch shit.
Rightfully so, maybe.
I don't know.
I can't talk to my father about anything serious,
I do all the time but I always feel like an idiot afterwards.
Like with the never/always thing it's something I do all the time but don't like.
Except I think we decided that I do like to do the always/never thing.

So maybe it's nothing like that.

2.5.07

Everybody RELAY!

So, I'm still kind of coming down off my relay high, having worked at Nordia here in Montreal for the past 2 months, which at this point is my average period of employment...Any way here is an example of what a relay call looks like...This is an entirely fake conversation of course.



Angent: RINGING 1...
2...
3...
4...
(ANS MACH)
(Recording for relay)
Hey it's me uh you know what to do name and phone number and a brief message when you hear the beep and I'll try and get back to you as soon as I can alright have a good one (beep)
(would you like to leave a message qq)
Caller: Yeah...God? It's me Donovan again just kind of wondering what's up man where you at? Give me a call sometime I think you have my number let's talk GA to SK
(PLS STAY ON THE LINE WHILE I REDIAL TO LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE)
RINGING 1...
2...
3...
4...
(ANS MACH)
(LV MESSAGE)
(MESSAGE SUCCESSFULLY LEFT ANOTHER CALL Q)
Caller: SKSK

To be continued...(maybe)