Ave Innocence

I wonder about you sometimes
How you've made it into old age with the innocence of a baby kitten
Of how naive of the world you are
How the lines used by countless to show affection are simply compliments to you

I watch as negative emotions roll over your face and leave just as quickly
And yet happiness lingers on and forever

I am so jealous of the bubble you've drawn around yourself
I want to live in it with you

Last ferry to mainland

Commutes on ferries aren't quite like any other experience you'll ever experience
A bunch of strangers trapped in a giant patio
Waiting 15 minutes to reconnect with the rest of society
You would think it could all spontaneously burst into a giant roaring discotheque
And yet people sit silently
All with heads bowed and buried in books
Or staring at phones
As if we were all at a party and we all had just found out about some horrible disaster
Maybe it'd be a little more lively if that did actually happen
And then the boat chimes near the shore
And we all go back to our own lives

Christmas day

Growing up, I had a stuffed bear that I would sleep with at night. He was a bear I had since I was a baby, one of my first Christmas gifts. It was a little odd because we didn't really celebrate Christmas, or were even Christian, but we always did the whole gift thing nonetheless. Like religious vultures, picking and choosing at the things we like and don't like. At the time he was so big he was probably twice the size of me. I would sleep with him, each night it would shrink in size and I wouldn't understand why. But I didn't really care. I would tell it all my most deepest secrets, and he would tell me it was all okay. That he was the only friend I would ever need. It was something I needed to survive back then, because I didn't have any friends. And thankfully I was too young to be embarrassed that my only and dearest friend was a stuffed animal. I remember I felt all my other problems back then were so big. That someone had to save me from the loud and angry voices floating in my house. From the crashing of things in anger at all hours of the day and night. I would tell him about what new wreckage I had found the day before, artifacts of fury fueled by alcohol and nothing.

I sometimes think how simple and complicated those kid problems were. I sometimes think about how much more lonely I feel now, looking back at it all with the wisdom of time. That the innocence of youth can be the strongest armour of all.

Judgement from on high

I woke up between a man who was an idiot
And a man who was reckless
They were both screaming at me
And blaming me for all that was wrong in their life
I thought that that was pretty accurate

No language specified

It stopped me dead in my tracks
And I stared out a window at the trees
As I let it wash over me
The feeling that I had heard that voice before
A song where each and every note
Resonated deep within me
And the song of my heart
Was playing on the speakers
In that hallway in that mall
And I thought
This is it
This is when I'll meet her
This song must mean it
This song I've heard so often in my dreams is now out there
And I turn
And I see her

Where's Waldo

Sometimes I lose sight of you
You were just there a minute ago
And for half a second my mind blanks completely
And I can't even remember what I was trying to look for
Or even who you are
And in that small window of time
Where I still don't even know who you are
And I catch sight of you again
And before my brain can catch up
And before I can stop myself
I fall in love with you all over again
Before I get a chance to remember that I did anyway all along

Doing laundry and nothing

I enjoy spending Sundays folding laundry
Just reliving past Sundays with each small burst of fresh laundry smell
Where all I do is think about how the week will be
How my life will be
And the act of cleaning almost seems to clean my thoughts too
And all I have is hopefulness for the future
And I imagine we're all in a gigantic house together
Laughing and smiling and eating and drinking
All together
And the house echoes constantly from childrens feet underfoot
And I can see my future branching off like little wisps of lightning all into the future
All branching off from this right here
With a stupid grin on my faceJust folding laundry and doing nothing

It's about being flexible with your art

I don't know how to be creative and happy

Those spaces don't exist in the same planes in my mind

I wish they did

I wish I could write beautiful poems about uplifting moments

About redemption and glory

But it just seems so much easier to wallow in self pity

To write the verbal equivalent of punching myself in the gut

And just relishing in that desperate feeling

I feel tempted to just smash my head on the keyboard

Just over and over

Until the keyboard is sticky with a little bit of blood

And on the screen, still half illuminated and half shards of glass

Is the word 'FUCK' over and over

And I could sell it in MoMA for a million dollars

I'd stand beside it on display behind bulletproof plexiglass

Beside the display of the painting of just white paint on white canvas

And the suprematist exhibit on the fourth floor

And say, see, art!

I'm having a moment

I can feel the heat of the sun bursting in between and through the leaves
The wind picks at my jacket
As if to say
"Come on! Fly with us!"
And the grass is crisp and dry
Tickling the arches under my bare feet
And all I can see is trees and sky around me
And calm
And nothing
And I scream out
Pulsing my absolute abandon of joy back into the world
And I jump out into the air
And I close my eye
And hope and pray that I will freeze here
In this place and in this time
But all I have is the tug on my heart I feel
Every time someone says the word "Freedom"
And all I can think of is that quiet thicket
When there was nothing but life and happiness to the world
And the anger hid from us because we burned it with our shine
And the sadness slipped away into the dark shadows behind the trees
And there was just joy

Stand inside this moment

There are times I push away those that love me
When they reach out, I ignore them
And I used to think it was because I was introverted
I realize now it's because I'm selfish
That I would rather brood in the mood I am in right now
Stay in this moment
Than to let someone in
And let them shatter this bubble I've created

Intense

You can feel it again
It's a familiar feeling
Everything else dulls a little
Background noise seems to wash away
Until all you can hear is your own beating heart
Can feel the little bubbles in your blood form
Like a soda being opened for the first time
A hiss and a rush
Goosebumps race each other back and forth on your arm
Up the back of your neck
And escapes a wordless sound out your mouth
Your brain shuts off
Your body knows what to do

Drink make belief tea and play pretend

There's no such thing as normal, as socially well adjusted.
Not in the classical sense.
There's instead a societal average, almost an equilibrium that we've all reached
A common language of etiquette and decency we've all understood to be necessary for societies as large as ours to survive
And yet deep inside each of us, there is a yearning to break away
To want to truly express your primal needs, as simple or outrageous as they may be
But we keep them all boarded up with nice intricate cast iron shutters over our souls.

And then we make pretend the beast that emerges when we're drunk, that THAT'S not who we really are.

Sunday afternoon driving

The best kinds of drives are the kind with no real destination
Where I have no where to be
And no where to go
The kind of drive where the clouds hang low on the sky
Ready to plunge the world into fog
And the trees crowd in close on either side
And it feels like the whole world is nothing but a single direction
Black to both sides
Gray up and down
And forward is just pure white
I pretend you're standing there at the end of it all
Waving at me
In no particular rush for me to get there
And I'm in no rush to get there
Because we both know
I'll get there eventually




Just a time and place I am trying to recapture

I watch you from afar

I read the words on the page
And I imagine it's my pen putting them onto paper
I can even imagine where I was when I wrote them
Who I was thinking of
And I wonder how different we must be after all
Because the words I see on this page
Are all the words I wish would come together in my own head
And not in yours

Reusing Canvas

I wrote on this piece of paper about nine times
The page is now dark grey from all the eraser marks
(I use pencil because I always make mistakes)
I tried to write every happy thought I could muster
And I came up with four lines
Two of them were depressing
And one was just a food I happen to like
I erased that and tried again
I wrote a tagline from a movie I realized I didn't really like
I tried seven more times and just wrote "I am a happy person and I love myself because..." and couldn't finish the sentence
Now I'm just staring at this piece of paper
Dark grey from all the eraser marks
And thinking, this is as happy as it gets for me

A staged reality

They say a picture is worth a thousand words
What they don't tell you is that they aren't describing things in the world
It's a thousand words describing yourself

Every direction leads back here, Eventually

You only meet a few different kinds of people in your life
They come in different sizes, shapes, colours, and ages
But they're essentially mostly the same
Kind of like assorted cheese
You'll find yourself seeing old friends and enemies in new faces
Reliving past victories and defeats in battles you're fighting all over again
And it will all never change
And you'll still fall in love with the same wrong people
And you'll still hate that person for all the wrong reasons
And you'll still find yourself hanging out in the same stupid bar
Telling the same stupid poems
Hoping that same stupid girl will show up again
And maybe this time she'll realize how deep you really are
And maybe this time it will be different
And maybe this time it will work out
But it won't
Until you realize the thing that makes them all the same
Each and every time, in each and every way
Is you

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

There's a lot of frightening things in the world
Fear of death
Of heights and spiders
Speaking in public
Fear of open spaces
And fear of closed spaces
(I wonder what would happen if those two fell in love)
There's even a fear of long words
(The word describing it is gigantic, you can look it up)
I'm not afraid of the normal things
I'm not afraid of a zombie apocalypse or vaccines
I'm not afraid thunder or lightning
Of falling or flying
I'm afraid that one day I'll wake up
Run my hands through your hair
And realize it was all a mistake
I'm not afraid of my parents dying
But I'm petrified of my kids living in a world without me in it
I'm afraid one day you'll all hate me because of how cautious I've been
I'm scared the world will wake up one day
And the rest of us won't

Reading poetry books in public places

I can't hang onto happiness
It escapes me constantly
So I carry this book
Waiting for you to come back for it

Oxfords

Clean shoes make me sad
So do the holes they build into jeans now
And t-shirts of aging rock stars beaten with stones to look old and worn
People don't wear their stories on their clothes anymore

Karlstad

I don't know how you put this spell over me
You make me want to melt into the fabric of the couch
And just live amongst the fibres and crumbs
With everything else you don't notice
You pass your fiery gaze across the room
Looking for someone to lavish your attention on
And I just become another piece of furntiture

Trusting by nature

I spoke to you because I wanted a friend
Not even a friend
I just wanted someone I could connect with for just a moment
That under the street lights, we could be alone with our private thoughts together
And of course you took advantage of that
Because why would you be any different from anyone else

Heart leaps to your throat

I want to live in that moment

That moment you look over the edge of a cliff
And there is just your heart racing a mile a minute

That moment you leap forward into frostbitten early morning waters
And there is just the air cutting at your flanks

That moment poised hunched on the starting block
And there is only the silence more deafening than the impending gun

That moment when the music just cuts out
And there is just the energy of the room

That moment when she leaves you with a slight hint
And there is that timid smile on her face

That moment the doctor pauses mid sentence, grim
And there is only that dropping feeling deep in your gut

That moment you're lying in your bed and staring at the ceiling
And there is only nothing

Blurs of Joy

Most people don't get to choose their names. A couple legally change it. That must be the most frightening thought in the world. To think you can go and change your name. And I don't mean your last name. People change their last name all the time, and it's never really changing you. Changing your last name means you're changing family, changing your past. It's for you, sure, but it almost kind of feels like changing your last name is kind of for everyone else's benefit. Kind of like how people use titles like "Doctor" or "Sir" or "Princess" or something. It's adding some more information about you. But your first name. That's you. It's what people call you every day. When someone has any kind of thought about you, in their head, they're adding meaning to the word that is your first name. It's why if you ever meet a Nina you don't like, you will probably never like any other Nina in your life, and you damn sure won't name your kid that either.

I think it's interesting when writers or musicians showcase work from and by themselves, under some clever name. Like Color and City. Or Ziggy Stardust. Or the artist formerly known as Prince. I think more than anything else, they understand that. That a name brings meaning with it. And in turn, the thing it names is defined by that thing. It's a cycle. And if you choose a name that seems odd, or has some literal other meaning, it gives a bit of bias to whatever it is they say and do. So much so that you might be listening to Miley Cyrus' music one night, and realize after all this time, she was singing about something you relate to on a completely personal level. And that realization might feel like it's destroyed you a little bit. Not the realization, but the utter lack of attention you paid before. But you had already formed some other opinion, just because her name used to mean 'Disney'.

'iwrotethisforyou' is someone I admire deeply. I would read some of his work, late at night when I was particularly gloomy, or even optimistic. And wonder and wish that it was really a girl who I had met and amazingly had managed to miss out on in my life, just simply not noticed that I had wronged so hard or left such a deep and lasting impression on. And that she was writing directly to me. That through chance (or really a friend) I would find her, and everything she had ever wanted to say to me, either in love or in anger, or in misery, or in joy, or just to pass the time.

And it wasn't until I read his explanation about who 'you' this was really for, that I started to think about the author as a real person, with a real name and feelings and life events. It both destroyed the old meanings I had for each of his poems, and attached a million new ones.

It's when I realize the name 'iwrotethisforyou' was for someone in his mind, but for me, it really was for me. It was for me and every other person that feels like a ship alone at sea in the eye of a dark storm. It was for everyone that feels like there is no redemption, no saving grace to life or themselves. Its for the people who feel shitty for and about themselves, so that they know not only there's someone else who can feel that way, but can feel better. That you can too.

I think about the choice of, what I feel like is now, my name. What I chose as a whim during a period of inspiration, until recently, was just the name of a blog. Blurs of Joy. It seemed like a clever name for something. And, I felt, elicited a response in the reader's mind that I wanted them to have. To think of me as. When I first started this blog, I think I was more interested in making other people feel a certain way. It's why I ended up emulating 'iwrotethisforyou' a lot, either subconsciously or not. I would read his poetry and think and feel certain things, and days later find myself wishing I could have that kind of profound effect on people, with just the words I write. That I could reach out and connect with people in ways they felt people in their own lives never could. Blurs of Joy was a blog name that implied mystery and happiness. And that's usually how I ended up feeling after reading 'iwrotethisforyou'.

I realize now, as much as I want to connect with people, as much as I want to make them think that I'm clever, that's not the best motivation for writing. That you can only emulate other people for so long before you run out of ideas, and you're left with nothing but yourself in your head. And you're afraid of what people will think of when they see it. If they will think less of that person. If they would think less of me.

I had this fantasy (correction: I HAVE this fantasy) that this blog will take off phenomenally. That I would become famous and popular, and I'd get a book deal, and it would all be under this alias. Blurs of Joy. And then one day I'd be famous enough that I'd pull back the veil and say 'Look! It is really I!' and all my friends would gasp and applaud. And suddenly, all the wonderful and amazing things that were Blurs of Joy would just transfer to my actual name. And now suddenly I would go from being some one dimensional real life character, to being a multi dimensional deep person, whose character is half made up in the minds of the world.

I still have that fantasy, but I am less interested in people finding out who I really am. Because here, I really am Blurs of Joy. I am the man that lives in my bedroom late at night and early in the morning. The man that goes on long drives in the middle of the night, into cold woodland on dirt roads, and watches the stars. The man that is still sitting in loud bars and clubs when everyone else has gotten up for that one last round of shots. I'm not the person that is alive and awake and optimistic and ready for the challenges of life and the warmth of people. Sometimes I am, but not here. Here I am Blurs of Joy, a name that is designed to make you think one thing about me, so that I can be something else entirely. And writing all this. And having you read it all. It's just helping define it a little better. But it's a part of who I am. It is who I am. And as much as he is a bit of a dick to me, Blurs of Joy is a part of my life too.

P.S. This whole entry, and blog really, and even persona, as hipster as that sounds, is dedicated to two people. The first one is Iain Thomas. Not 'iwrotethisforyou', but Iain Thomas, and his beautiful mind for writing so much and prolifically, in a way that always felt comforting to me. And to my friend who knows who she is. And for all the reasons she already knows why. But mostly because she knows me better than any other soul does or will, even if she doesn't know it herself.

Bedroom Philosophers

We have this ability to romanticize ideas
Where we take snippets of our past
And mould them just a little more on each remembering
To warp chance encounters into lost opportunities
Meaningless happenstance into profound realization
Mere seconds into hours of significance
We become old men and women in our souls
With decades of wisdom born from a few moments of misconstrued nothingness

Roald Dahl was the champion of the world, I was nobody

You know, I'm not frightened. It's just that I will miss you all so much. 
    ~ Roald Dahl to his daughter Ophelia on his deathbed

I don't know what I want my last words to be
I've thought about it sometimes
Trying to think what I might say when I have one last opportunity to say anything ever again
I would want it to be important
No, not important
I would want it to be reflective though
I would want to distil the essence of a lifetime, my lifetime, into a single thought or expression
A sentence that starts with the innocence of my youth, and goes on to express the pain and torment and joy and wonder of a lifetime
And ends with a calm acceptance
A sentence that conveys the love I have for those who have had a profound effect on me
And even for those who hurt and damaged me
For they too have helped mould who I am.

I just pray, more than anything else, my last words aren't 'Ow, fuck'.
And yet, those two words would describe my life more than anything else.

Remembered Day

I still remember the way your smile showed both your top and bottom teeth. How you'd squint as you laughed, little lines forming around your eyes. How the silver grey in your eyes glinted a little, even though there was so little light. As if they shone on their own, from deep inside. 

I've never expected to meet someone at a bar that I'd form any kind of connection with. Never a friend, definitely not a woman. I always kind of thought of bars as just facilities to go to with friends. A place where people anonymously mingle, and part ways at the end of the night, back to their own lives apart from each other. 

The bar was a dingy one. I remember the little light they had seemed to be swallowed up by the black floors and tables and walls, everything to hide the wide variety of stains built up over the years. My shoes stuck to the ground with each step, each threatening to suck my shoe right off my foot. The clientele seemed equally slightly dingy: skin a little too sunburned, arms a little too tattooed, hair a little too greasy. 

I don't think others would label me introverted, but it's how I see myself. I don't normally approach strangers, definitely not women as attractive as you were. My friend being highly interested in yours helped I guess. 

I remember being just slightly buzzed, enough that I was relaxed. Slow enough that I felt the attraction before any kind of gripping anxiety or fear could take hold. Just enough that I could be just me, and talk to just you. We spoke like friends of twenty years. You laughed at my shitty jokes and touched my arm. I held your hand as we spoke about our fears. The music pounded away, I could feel the stickiness of a thousand spilled drinks on the couch gluing itself to my pants, but still we spoke, right into each others ears to be heard. 

And as we stood outside, you asked me something. Something that suddenly brought reality crashing down on top of me. I felt like I had been hit by a train. You asked if I wanted to walk you home. For some reason up until that point, this had been a chance encounter, a moment of fleeting serendipity. Something that would end as the final song played, and we would go back to our own lives. But you had felt it. Like I had felt it. This was something a little more than that. You put your hand in mine, not waiting for a response, and turned to take me with you, turning to a street that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of me. Stretch into a future that seemed a little brighter than the night itself. 

It was the middle of summer, but it felt like the dead of winter. That odd quiet after a fresh snowfall, as if the whole city is under the blankets and asleep, or speaking in whispers. Nothing could touch me. Or you. 

And with a single screech that all shattered. As your friend swooped in, and saved you from me. You had to go home together, you both had an early morning the next day, she didn't have space in her car for another person. The reasons rattled on and on, but it was already over. You were gone. 

I'd be lying if I said not a day goes by that I don't think about you. I don't think about you. Years have gone by since that night. I've gone months without thinking about you at a time. 

I don't know what I hope to accomplish by writing all this. Maybe some closure? Maybe. I doubt you'll ever find this. So much time and space has passed since then, us meeting in a city I don't live in. Not knowing if you've moved away. So much could have happened since then. So much HAS happened since then. 

That night was like any other, and yet...
yet still...
I am waiting for another like that to come again. 
Waiting for your intoxicating laughter
Waiting for your smile, with the tops and bottom teeth all showing.

The highway is my treadmill

The next time you're on the highway, late at night, when there's only a few cars around, try to do this. Match the speed of those cars around you, so that you're all sort of driving in formation. Then, retreat into your mind a little, and squint your eyes a little, so that the dotted lines on the ground blur into a line. And the buildings along the side and in front fade from view. And all you are are three cars on the road, standing perfectly still together, as the world rushes past. I like to think that if you can do that, trick you're mind into thinking you're actually completely still and the world is what's moving beneath you, you'll share a moment with those other drivers. In their cars they will feel a connection with you they have never felt with anyone else. And then you will all go your separate ways again.

Are you even listening?

Forget what might happen
Forget your fears and doubts
Forget about your dreams and desires
Forget about the plans and contingincies
Just see this for what it is
Right now
We already have it all
And we'll never have more than now
And we'll never want less
But we have to get by
Just see this for what it is
And not for what it might be

Big E Little e

Have you ever stopped to think your other half is out there
That they're maybe halfway across the planet
Just waiting for you to show up

Have you ever stopped to think your other half is out there
And it's not the person you're with

Driving back from Waterloo

We used to drive all the time at night. I remember it would always be dark out, and I would open my window all the way, take my seatbelt off, and sit up on my knees, my cheek pressed to the bottom of the window sill in the door. Eyes shut tight as the wind whipped through my hair, and the orange of the street lights would light up the darkness under my lids every few seconds.

With my head sideways, I would pretend I was in a convertible, and then in a rocket ship as we passed between orange stars. I would pretend the songs on the radio were the aliens singing greetings to us as we passed by, sing songy voices in foreign languages I didn't know but sounded so familiar.

I would sometimes scare myself with visions of what those aliens might look like, and I would open my eyes, and see my dad in the drivers seat beside me. My mother in the back seat. She with her eyes closed and asleep. He looking ahead. I don't remember ever looking out in front of the car myself. I remember looking out each side, trying to look up at the moon, looking backwards at all the cars chasing after us as we won the race. I don't remember ever looking forward at where we were going.

I remember just as we got home, I would always sit back down on my seat as we turned the corner to our house. And I would shut my eyes real tight and pretend to be asleep. And my parents would sit for a moment in the car, having some grown up conversation, before getting up and out. And my dad would come to my side and open my door, asking my mom if I was asleep, and I would reply, with eyes still closed and voice bright without a trace of sleep in it "I'm not asleep, I'm only pretending!" and we would all laugh. Every night. I would be so pleased with how clever I was.

These days I'm always the driver. It's what I prefer. I prefer being the person in charge of the destination, the reason my friends and family get to and from places dry and safe. But more than that, for some reason, I like the idea that, late at night as I drive, my friends fall asleep in the passenger seats, and maybe they're really wide awake and dreaming of chasing the stars in spaceships too.

Wearing costumes

I'm tired of following you around
I can't stand the crowds of people always around you
I've had enough of the endless nights in endless bars after endless drinks
I'm done with the fake laughter with fake friends and fake problems
I'm repulsed at the mess you are every morning after
I want to step outside all this
And I want you to see it for what it is
And stand outside with me
And become real people

Shipping off

I remember when two weeks away from you would kill me
I remember it like how I remember my first word
I know it happened, once, a long time ago
I have proof of it
But I can't remember it in my mind
I can't imagine what kind of person
Would be so lost without you
I can't begin to imagine
How he could worry and fret
Over I don't even know what

I remember when two weeks away from you would have killed me
But it didn't
And yet
I wish I could be that boy again
When I felt so alive with emotion
When I felt hungry with want

I remember when two weeks away from you didn't kill me
And yet I feel dead all the same

Times were simpler

There was a time when all that mattered were that my grades were good.
Another when all that mattered was that my friends liked me.
Another when all that mattered was my freedom, from parents and authority and life itself.
Another when all that mattered was my security, to live how I saw fit, and comfortably.
And now all I ever seem to care about, is that I get to keep caring at all.

Drinking Water

 The gasp of fresh air after a long overdue tall glass of water on a hot dry day. The last bit of crust on the last hot dog of 23 others eaten after a long night of drinking. The lean you make, arching your back backwards after having run a long race and the burning in your calves start to subside. The feeling of completeness after you turn off the computer monitor at the end of finishing that problem assignment.

Some day I'm going to die. I relish in that thought sometimes. Not the dying. But the afterwards. The simplicity that comes with it. The finality. Be it heaven, hell, reincarnation. Nothing. My remains burned and my ashes tossed into the evening breeze.

The long exhale that has been my life will reach it's conclusion, the "..." finally drawn to a close. The great questions finally answered. There is no reason to think there will be more questions unanswered, more stresses or confusions of the future. The future will blend with the present and past, for one long uninterrupted now, a now of no consequence. Time will be a line that I stand on the side of, no longer lassoed by it's tight grip on reality.

But then I finish the glass, and I gasp that sigh of relief.
And think that maybe it's not all so bad.

Trying to keep my head above the surface

You are the cresting of each wave of the ocean
And I am the calm waters between
Waiting for you to crash over me
And leaving me in a whirlwind just as quickly
Leaving me spinning
Lost and confused
Unsure how to go back to the calm I once was.
Finding it only moments before you crash over me once again.

L'Arbre du Ténéré

I once thought travelling in the desert must be amazing. I thought it would be so cool if I could cross the desert myself. When I was a kid, I watched Babar, a children's show about a royal family of elephants. I'm not sure that they lived in a desert, probably more like a jungle, but back then I thought they were always beside each other anyways. They're both hot places after all. At any rate, in one episode I saw one of them walking the desert with a canteen. At first I thought it was a purse, but when I realized it was filled with water, I thought it was so cool. So cool that I wanted one too. My mom had, years before when I was pretty much a baby, bought me a canteen. It was covered with red canvas and had a picture of Snoopy on it. I remember when I had been old enough to go to school for the first time I didn't want to take it to school, but now I thought it was just great. I started using it to play desert with my friends. We would pretend that our bikes were camels, we would bike real slow on them, and every few hundred meters we'd get really thirsty and have to drink out of my canteen.

My friend, Cameron, he loved the game too because neither of us knew anyone else who had a canteen and thought it made the game that much more real. We played lots of games together, usually with no toys except for our imagination. There was a tiny forest near our houses. It probably isn't fair to call it a forest, it was more like a small growth of trees, maybe 20 of them, bracketed on one side by people's back yard fences, and on the other side by a tall fence separating our neighbourhood from the train tracks. We would play in that forest all the time, trying to climb the weeping willow, and laughing wildly as we'd tumble off the branches.

He always wanted to play fighting games. Like cops and robbers, but he'd always be the cop, and he'd always have to wrestle you when he caught you. It wasn't enough to just get tagged, he needed to fight you to the ground. I didn't like those kinds of games. I liked the kinds where we were all on the same side, and the bad guys were all imaginary. That's why we almost always played Ninja Turtles. I was always Donatello, and he'd be Raphael. Armed with broomsticks and hand rakes, we'd take on invisible foot soldiers and aliens.

We would always chase animals and pretend they were monsters too. Pigeons and squirrels mostly. We would chase them down, but we would never catch them. They were always too fast. But then, one late August evening, Cameron decided he wanted to be Leonardo. I remember the clouds were an odd shade of purple and red, but it was no where near sunset time. It was like the skies were embarrassed. But maybe that's my own memory tingeing the past. He brought out a hockey stick, and it started off like any other day, except we had found a squirrel standing in the middle of the street. We chased it around the corner, and had it backed up to a brick wall. It tried to climb up the wall, but kept losing it's footing. And that's when he struck. Cameron brought the hockey stick high up over his head, and down on the squirrel. I don't remember how it looked. I only remember feeling sick. At first I thought it was an accident, but he brought up the stick again, and down on the squirrel's head. And again. It came apart quickly and the whole area looks like a balloon filled with blood and guts and fur had exploded against the brick wall. I told him he should stop, but he said it was a monster, and we had to kill it. He even stepped back and handed me the stick, and asked if I wanted to take a hit too. I ran into my house, washed the blood on my hands, and hid in my room.

I don't remember much else about those days. I do remember that we went to different schools. He went to a catholic school somewhere away from me. I remember thinking that the first day of school would be horrible without him. He was my best friend and I wouldn't know anyone else. He was the friend who always fought the bad guys so I wouldn't have to.

But I learned to fight my own monsters, in my own way. And he, he just learned how to fight himself.

There is a tree in the Sahara. Called the L'Arbre du Ténéré, it is the most isolated tree on the planet, the only one for 400 km around itself. It used to live amongst a couple other trees, but they had all died out, and it lived on its own for decades. And it was destroyed by a drunk driver. A man, driving a car, managed to miss 800 km of open empty desert, and hit the only tree in basically everywhere. How absolutely ridiculous is that? They have since uprooted the dead remains of the tree, and now it stays in the Niger National Museum.

Sometimes, on days like today, when the clouds look like they did on that August afternoon, I wish I could go back to the last day of L'Arbre du Ténéré as it sat there alone in the Sahara. And I wish I could sit under it's shade, and drink from my red Snoopy canteen. And look up and watch the purple embarrassed clouds pass by. As we await for the end of the universe.

Hanging onto the grudge

It's amazing how much effort it takes to preserve you
To keep the corner of my mind you live in so fresh
To make sure I visit every once in awhile to make sure you haven't vanished
All in an effort to remember a feeling
An emotion I am afraid I will never feel again

It's amazing how quickly a flash of anger and frustration can snuff all that out

It's amazing how quickly you forget
And how worthless it all really was

You're more alone than you know

So helpless to that feeling of belonging
Of necessity
The longing to have that person waiting in the bed you crawl into after a long day
The ache for that someone to be waiting outside for you as you leave the office on a rainy day
Donning a sheepish grin as they clutch an umbrella too small even for him

You always forget the power coursing through you
That picks you up on the gloomiest days
That keeps your emotions in check
You forget it is he who needs you more than you need him

You don't realize how wide your smile is when he's not around
How full your laughter is

We miss having you around

In this house, we don't believe in love

I got home early from school one day. My grandfather hadn't heard me come home or open the door. He was in the living room. I could hear him speaking softly and gently to someone, but I didn't think anyone was home. And the whole situation already felt a little weird, because I had never heard that tone come from him ever before. It felt like he was speaking in a foreign language. I silently went to the living room doorway, and watched, as my grandfather was on the ground, cuddling our pet dog, and telling him how much he loved him. Nuzzling him with his own head as he whispered in his ear how good a dog he was. I was so dumbstruck by what I saw, that it's my earliest and strongest memory of actually having my mouth agape in shock and surprise. 

I felt confused at first, I had never seen him treat anyone or anything with such affection. He had always been so stern with everyone in our family, always a little distant. Always belittling everyone. And here he was, telling our damn dog how much he loved him. The confusion fed into a combination of jealousy and anger almost naturally. That he could treat this dog so much better than his own grandson, his own family. And, after yet another beat, I felt a happiness as I watched, at this pure, unadulterated joy they were bringing to each other. And finally sadness. 

Sadness because I knew when I had seen my grandfather had behaved like that. He had used that same tone on me when I was a child. When I couldn't really remember the words, but I could remember the shape of the sentences. None of it held meaning to me, and yet it meant just as much. The roundness of the sounds and the warmth of them. Quiet enough for just the two of us. I had seen him speak that way to my sisters as well. Never when he knew I was around, but only when he was alone with them, and I was too young to really understand back then what he was doing. When they too were too young to form the sentences to talk back. At some point when we gained the ability to talk back, to question him, that's usually when it stopped. And then I thought the only other person his whole life he must have been like that to was his daughter, my mother. And his wife. My grandmother. My grandmother who died when my mother was just a child, and couldn't even speak herself. He must have spoke sweet affection to them both. To my mother who couldn't speak. And my grandmother, who's final days were in a coma. And as my mother grew up, and learned how to speak, he learned how to remain silent.

Around that same time in my life is when I started sleeping a lot lighter, and I would wake up from just about anything happening in our house. That's when I first learned of my grandfather's dreams. How he would have pretty regular dreams where he'd be barking like a dog in his dream, and he would bark in real life, in his sleep. At least that's how my mother explained it after it had happened a few times, and I had asked her. The next time I heard it, I got out of bed, and peeked in on him from his doorway. After I don't know how long of waiting, he barked again, and then, almost inaudibly. He started to whine. Almost a whimper, or a cry. And through his shut eyes, I could see the tears run down his face. Turned onto his left side, the tears went down his nose, and his left cheek. I didn't know what to do, so I went back to bed. 

I sometimes think that he only shows love for those that can't talk back, because he's scared of all the things that won't love him back. That can't any more because they're gone. Because someday it will all be gone. And so will he. 

Crystal

It scares me how much I love you
No, not how much
But the way that I do
It's not something I completely understand
I have known the love of a girl that I lusted as much as I love
This doesn't burn quite as intensely and needily as that
I have known the love of family
This doesn't feel as passive and foundational as that
The love of friends is so fleeting compared to what I feel for you
It's not like any of that
I want to say I love you like I would love a sister, but I know its a little more profound than that too
I love you the same way I feel when certain music plays with no lyrics
And there is only that feeling of immense joy bursting to break free from my chest
And a lump the size of a tennis ball forms in my throat
Or rather, you make me feel like I could leap right out into space and zoom off at the speed of light
And yet never be afraid of feeling too far away from you
And no matter how far we might be in space from each other
I would still feel the warmth of the love you seem to have for me no matter what
I think love might not even be the right word
Because the word almost seems to imply a beginning and an end
And I can't remember a time before feeling this way about you
And I can't imagine a time it ever will stop
I think love is the wrong word because it seems to imply I have a choice in it
And yet it feels as fundamental to existence as the earth beneath our feet
As the sun and sky about our heads

It scares me how much I love you
Because I am scared of the day you stop loving me
I am scared that when I am done living, there will be more days that I have loved you, than you have loved me back

I wish I loved her more than I do

I know a girl, Spencer. She complains that her name sounds like a boys name, but I think it's kind of pretty as a girl's name. She sometimes tells me stories far too personal for someone I know far too little. Stories about how her father would beat her slightly too hard and too often. And typically her more than her other siblings. She had two older sisters, two older brothers, and a younger sister. And of all of them, she got it the worst, she said. Of how her mother would berate her senselessly in public. Stories of her siblings living to become such great people with successful lives and beautiful children and a nice car while she has nothing to show for her own life, in her own opinion anyway.

She even told me about how her one older sister once tried to kill herself. Her sister had been found with her one wrist slit open across the wrist. In hindsight, she says, it was probably more a cry for attention, because she had only done the one wrist, and it wasn't a very long or deep cut. And she said that when her mother had called her father on the phone saying their daughter had tried to kill herself, he had responded "Oh, was it Spencer?" She asked me how fucked up that was. That he would guess her. That, in her mind, he himself knew that he was harder on her than on anyone else. And that there was no reason for it.

She sometimes alludes to how she wanted to kill herself once. How sometimes she still wants to kill herself. Sometimes its how we'd all be better off with her gone. Other times its "you'll see how much you miss me when I'm gone".

At times like that I sometimes think, that since the dawn of man, maybe 8 million years ago, there have been people who have thought the same thoughts. That have found so much value and so little value in themselves all at the same time. And that for all the advancement and technology and wonder we now have and take for granted, that we can fly through the air for god's sakes like fucking kings of the universe, that a girl like Spencer could have learned so little, and think thoughts so primitive they were likely thought the exact same way 8 million years ago.

It all seemed so important at the time

And in time, even empires of hulking glass citadels will come crashing down
Resting peacefully as they become the spines of mountain ranges
Pools will become seedlings for oceans
Gardens will become forests
Slowly but surely our mark will be erased from the earth
Just as those long nights have become mere wrinkles on my forehead.

Staring at the first rays of sun on the ceiling

I sometimes wake up
If the sun is shining in my face just right
I am brought to another time
And in my mind I see myself
Young
Energetic
Full of potential
My entire life lying before me

And then I try to get out of bed
My knees buckle from the pain
I slump back onto the bed

Those first few moments of the morning are the most blissfully ignorant

The guy beside me ordering food at taco bell

Think about the happiest moment you can think of. 

And just how happy and full of joy you were at that moment. 

A moment completely free of past regret and future doubt. 

Just happy. 

And then think of the saddest moment you can think of. 

That moment that fleeting scent in the breeze brings you back to. 

And how life altering its colour has tinged your life. 

And then, think about the last person you met that meant nothing to you. 

Passed before your gaze, not even worth a whisper of a thought. 

And how that person has felt the same highs and lows as you have. 

That that person is uniquely and singularly the most important person in the story of their own lives. 

And how meaningless they were to you. 

In your life story, that guy wasn't even worth a comma, not a drop of ink. 

And likely for them, you.

If there's a god, we must all be as meaningless as those nothing-extras are in our own lives.

Hindsight is 20/20

There's that trust exercise you can do, where you close your eyes, fold your arms, and fall backwards. And then, hopefully, your partner that you brought will catch you, and it will teach you to trust that person.

If you fall backward and they're not there, you can't trust your friend.

If you fall backward and they catch you, you can trust your friend.

If you fall forward, I guess that means you can't trust yourself.

And If you fall forward and your friend is there anyways, it means you can trust them more than you trust yourself.

I like to think that's what love is like.

Santorini

I dreamt of a place a long time ago
Fire and smoke filled the night sky
As shrieks echoed over the hills and the water
Families huddle and run away from the burning huts beside burning houses
Along the edges of the mountainside, priestesses chant and sway
Breasts and bodies laid bare, but faces hidden by demonic wooden masks
Torches cluthed in both hands as they cackle at the destruction
And all at once they turn to me,
Eyes burning with rage
I take a running leap off the cliff
Down to the next plateau
Into the center of a small pool
Lit from below with an unearthly blue glow
I stop to catch my breath
I turn my head back up the mountain side
And see a dozen women
Wooden masks turned animated
Jaws snapping
Baring fangs dripping with green venom
Falling in slow motion towards me
As they ready to tear me to shreds

Toothpaste Marbles

Your features are so rigid and firm.
Like they were cut from the hardest of stone,
And slathered with the matted fur of wild beasts.
But your eyes, they're sunken in your face.
An inch too deep, and too small around.
Like the tiny eyes of a hyena, peering through a sculpted mask, playing at being human.

An hour late

Your eyes dart between the two talking
Just a few seconds behind in the conversation
The light of understanding goes dark behind your eyes as the words whiz back and forth
It's almost like watching a tennis match, set to fast forward, and missing several frames in between and at random.
Finally the match is over, and they back down, and slink away.
But still your eyes move across the scene.
Unfocused, and attempting to replay the events one more time.
Perhaps this time attaching meaning to words, forming ideas.
And finally, recognition.
But it is morning now.

Duchess

It struck me as odd
The sharp curves on your calf muscle as you stretched, one leg over the other
Skin pock marked with little scars and imperfections, but in colour only not smoothness.
The landmarks of injuries of yesteryear.
But a strength ripples underneath, barely contained by such a thin layer of flesh.

Your fingers stretch, unwavering, reaching, grasping for the cool metal bar.
The veins on your forearm pulse rhythmically, almost in time with the music you are surely bobbing your head to.

And your face, oval yet sharp.
Lips that curve into a fragile smile,
cupped by cheekbones gently trying to hold it all together.
Eyes, downturned, as if forever on the cusp of bursting into tears,
Tears of a sadness that has spent a lifetime being dammed behind your lids,
filling the bags under your eyes.

Fred

I am at the centre of my own stage
My fans cheer for me, adoringly
They roil with laughter at my wit
Gasp as I set loose my falsetto
Cry as my gentle siren lowers to just a whisper

All but one.
There he is, staring at me.
Peering into me, piercing through the glitter of lights and flashes
He watches, not with shame, or contempt, or disgust.
He just watches, in pure curiosity.

------------------------------

Fred, I don't know how you do it.
I don't know how you go out there night after night.
I don't know how you put up with the cackles and jeers.
I wish I was blind like you.

Deeper than deep point

I can't stand those looks
The pause you awkwardly place in sentences
The emphasis on words that need no emphasis
The gazes off into the thousand yards you've never seen into

You expect me to understand something about your cryptic phrases
Your non messages
To be enraged as you are enraged,
Saddened as you are saddened
That we might both hum philosophically at all this bullshit

Discoteca

Underneath the flashing lights and loud garish music, fake eyelashes, the eyeshadow and blush and lipstick, underneath the implants and the botox, and the endless string of nights equally as grand and empty as each of the nights before, followed by the even later drinks with the ice that's a little too metallic tasting, and cigarettes just a little too bitter, underneath all of it, is a person that really was just looking for the same simple pleasures I was looking for. But for now, we stand on opposite sides of this velvet rope, left contemplating how our lives lead us to the unique monotony that has driven us together.

Real smiles

I wish I could go through your photo albums with you, and talk about the ones with the real smiles.

The ones that have the real stories behind them. 

Éponine

It's not the big, out loud, and grandiose loves that hurts the most when unrequited. It's the soft and subtle ones, that goes quietly unnoticed in the night that can cut the deepest.

Blender

It's when I'm most nervous that I flee, I run to find a place away from everyone and everything. And it is then that the voices attack me. Rising like a cacophony of crows circling a new fresh kill, jeering and teasing, threatening. All in my own voice.

Temporary Sanity

It's when the music is loudest, my feet most out of control, breathing most ragged, that I need you to hold my hand just a little tighter, to keep up just a little longer, just enough to reach that high we have both been chasing.

Looking for you

We each hold our hands to cup our eyes, ears plugged and mouths shouting, trying desperately to touch each other, even to just find each other. Blind and unaware to our painful closeness. Unfeeling to our elbows bumping up against one another as we try futilely to make ourselves heard.