to gordo from lizzy

small electronic light tracing yellow street
lines home
on a series of oceanic concrete hills
we followed it in the dark my bike pulling me downhill
asking me to jump on and turn the corner at the bottom
plunging into the pacific
solidifying myself in water so that there is no need to move
no necessary shifting of place of finding somewhere new

but we persist forward to end up back at those places that are known as home
we're talking and we're laughing
something about twisted old friendships
something about grade nine
things that I doubt anybody ever feels okay about
but we search for comfort in the discussion of it
and I remember bits and pieces of this specific walk home like it was last night
I remember cherry tree branches shaking and dancing
and wondering where the wind was coming from
and the cat playing out on the street up ahead
and the feeling of warmth
on a calm summer night
sitting on the sidewalk talking about departures
or maybe nothing at all
and y'know
everything felt really in place
except the wondering of where your friends will be in the nearing weeks

and I was found in a room making a zine
drunk on coolers, as usual
in a crowd of people I had just barely met
overhearing old friends, strangers to me, talking out on the sidewalk
and I tried my hardest to not scratch out some shitty poetry about
sidewalk conversations
after walking home from parties
and how it feels to no longer have that

but i stopped myself from putting pen to paper
probably because the poem would have ended up being something like this one:
confused with too much meaning,
made aimless ,un-poetic, and completely ruined by memories that are too wonderful.
and I struggled with that
with this distance
that can't be written about properly

and in some sick way of not wanting to be the only one who misses their friend
I hope you feel that too
if you walk home alone
and turn the corner
from haida onto linden
or church onto noel
the places where we always parted ways at the end of every perfectly memorable or potentially forgettable summer evening
where it was never goodbye
but only goodnight

i am afraid i'm losing touch with my masculinity

i keep saying i'm not talking about women
and you keep defending yourself as though i am.
i wish you could listen to my words instead of
doing your worst to read into me.

i don't understand why we are made to look like enemies,
struggling from "different" sides against the same perpetual victor

i used to think my life moved in a series of spirals
but now i see there is just one
and it is just me
at the hands of some faceless force of propulsion.

there are other words you could have used.
there are still others i could use,
new meanings to take the place of this
headrush whirlwind upset stomach
kind of twisting entanglement, the breaker roar and drowning sounds
something like every heart attacking, marching through the eardrum and into the skull.

there are always other words,
yet i wait for you to use them first, to give me some kind of outward motion.

this is
and is not

personal.


i didn't want to confront you on this,
but suddenly your face and this circle spinning
have taken the place of this shapeless force that
presses its hands to my shoulders
and sets the world revolving

My mom

Spitting, farting laughs
she sounds like deputy dog
this is a haiku

girl with death mask- thanks kahlo

OR....


he him
them
kidz
fuckin' stumbling for words

gorgeous complete circles

straight
white teeth
a smile
beautiful

and hats


you might as well lose all faith in me
are
we all
just language?



replacing the touch of tongue to teeth to cheek against lip
with fingerprint against broken keys

these words take effort
i notice in the grabbing of black hair and wandering eyes
it emerges in short hellos
in the books I use to distract

o fuck you
o fuck you
o
fuck
you.

if i went to a coffee shop to sit down
it would not be honest
but
pulling back whilst still feeling intact with you

well HEY
thats all me

take
note,
you
fucks


It's shorthand for
'this has NOTHING to do with me'

It Doesn't Hook You

Can't speak without stealing something
from someone who could say it better
or in fewer words
or in fewer, better words
that snubbed a context
and don't say "Well there I go again!"
and don't fall into circles and nonsense
circles leading towards providence
and instead say "This Boy is Exhausted"
and everyone chooses sides.

And while we're here, stop scanning group pictures for him.
This was never something you could have been good at.

Revolutionary Wars

wooden floors lining empty spaces
chopping and blending

the offerings of food.

"there'll be hippies there"
Define hippies

"I'm an activist" he assures
I nod in agreement

she overhears conversations and sits next to napolean and his Grand Armee

or
at least
someone with the same pride

THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR
I could have read it on the microphone
time and time and time again

but I draw a boy instead,
blending lines into shades

The Long Island Sound

Bruised long island sound
keyboards all smashed into bits
the horn section is playing off key
on purpose in 4/4 time
but out of sync.

Staged long island sound
guitars all fucked off
or distorted until far away
the drums are too loud and
out of time.

Faked long island sound
voice too high and too strong
bending too easily to make it beautiful
too beautiful to be good
too far away to be good.

who they are and how they leave

I'm not sure it's ever important.



I'm not sure I can keep making comparisons

The end result is that they were how I related to certain parts of myself

whether it was in
the cough of an old man, the ocean on the edge of a town, a feeling trapped inside of a school, the warmth of a friends hug, or a musical interlude


they'll all leave you feeling like crap,
the missing
of these things

D:

ooooooooooooooooooooo

fuckshitcockasscuntbawlz.

Band on the Run

You don't even know what makes you think of it, but suddenly you can't shake the image in your mind of Lauren Ambrose sitting in a diner at the end of Can't Hardly Wait. You see a low, early morning sun in the plate glass behind her and it flares out through the camera lens and reminds you of a photograph. You wish you were her, you wish you were there. You can hear Band on the Run playing in your head, the raucous, spontaneous version from the end of that Broken Social Scene video, or even just the Paul McCartney and Wings version. You get a little chill in your spine.

You wish you could have that moment, that it could have been one that belonged to you. You want to be on a trip, driving through the North America Middlewest with your friends. You want to be getting up at dawn or not sleeping the night before and pulling into a diner, still nursing a hangover or coming down off a high when you arrive in the parking lot. You want to sit there talking loudly and laughing a lot while a waitress begrudgingly or even happily refills everyone's coffee cups and you all say "Thank you." And she smiles. There's a musical flourish and the screen starts to darken making all the oranges and dirty yellows of the morning more pronounced, and a girl with curly red hair lifts a cup of coffee to her lips and grainy white text proclaims, 'The End'.

The credits roll, but then the colours come back and you know that it's not over. It's never ever over.