One Hundred and Fifty

Dear ridiculous social networking site #452;

There is something inherently wrong
about how you differenciate yourself from other websites because the other websites are ruining tangible social interaction and becoming a casuality in a lack of connection and effective realistic collaboration when


You are a website.


just saying.

One Hundred and Forty Nine

Yknow what I do think about often, though?
Is timing.


I think you came into my life at a very specific time. A kind of stupidly ironically convenient time for you to walk through those doors on that night,
when I'd stupidly ironically conveninently chugged an entire pint of beer
on an empty stomach.

It wasn't smart.

Nothing about us was smart.

Only folly.
Pure folly and folly and more folly, fed on dreams and maybes and flirting with fire that you made me think was there. But there was nothing there. Only dreams and maybes.

And now only anger
and avoidances.

I try so hard to not regret you.
You make it really hard, though, sometimes.

One Hundred and Forty Eight

Right around

here. now.

is when I start thinking I should've just stayed.
I should've just

stayed there.

One way or another, instead of the rest of this life, I want to just stay there, lying on an unparallel couch in an empty apartment between raves and angry washing machines, with a discarded watch and switched off phone, with my cares in my bag and my bangs in your hand. I should've just stayed there. I would like to have remained there in an almost perfect moment of halted time and delayed concerns.

I'll keep it, though. I'll keep it with me.
Feel it;
feel your fingers, hear your breaths,
on a loop.

I'll keep it safe.
I'll protect it.

One Hundred and Forty Seven

Okay. Well. Yes. In restrospect, yes. Yes.

In retrospect, that would've been a good time.
On one of the last warm October nights in Montreal,
- maybe the last one of the year -
with a beautiful chilly rainfall descending like snow on natural curls
and warm cheeks.
In comfortable silence and underneath lights and lights and more night lights.
And colourful waterfalls, and later, tea.
Warm tea in quiet kitchens and quiet rooms and quieter moments
and honest stories.


Yes. Yes, in retrospect, that would've been a very good time.

I'm

just






silly.


so so silly.

One Hundred and Forty Six

My friends write really well.
And I don't know if that's insecurity or fawn or biased opinion shining through. But I think they write phenomenally well. It's weird to think about how young a writer I am, compared to them. Weird to think that - really - I was quite late.
I can't remember what I used to do before writing.
How can I be late if...

Timing is strange. I never quite seem to understand it.
If I had a time machine I'd never know what to do with it.
It always seems as though there are multiple strands in my life that burst into their own line of actions, each a different colour or shade, my entire life a ball of multi-coloured yarn.
And then conversely it feels like it's all just one long string that twisted and faded into different colours, like an Autumn leaf. How am I supposed to know where things started, when things began? And does it mean..
Does it mean nothing really ever ends?
not...not really?

One Hundred and Forty Five

I miss you.

Not all the time.

Not all the time, cos I know I have to be patient.
I know I have to listen. I know I have to wait.
It's all I do.Wait.

So not all the time. But sometimes.
Sometimes, I miss the person you used to be.

I miss the way I could trust you.
And the way you could look at me
without wanting anything from me.

And I miss our tea dates. And I miss the ease
our comfort.

I miss being able to watch movies with you
without having to worry
about everything.

I don't regret the past few years.
I've said what I had to. It was right for me.
I don't regret anything I've done.
But I wish you'd be better. I wish you'd be faster at this.

This in particular.

I wish you could believe I can do this.
I wish you could tell me what friends can tell me.

I wish you could believe I'm the kind of person
(the kind of lover)
who's dependable. and honest. And worthy.

One Hundred and Forty Four

I had a dream of you, of us, last night.

You were sleeping in my bed, resting on your side, cuddled up beside me, and I stroked your cheek lightly, drawing a sleepy contented smile. And suddenly an actor appeared standing, at the foot of my bed, standing there sternly with unjudgingeyes, hands at his side, he recited Hamlet's lines to Ophelia. And his eyes slowly raked from mine to your sleeping body, and try as I did to shield you, he stopped speaking. And he pointed at you with a professional tone.

"That won't last," he said with an air of familiarity, "That won't work. You won't let it." And I scrambled to reach him, to push him down like a standing piece of paper, to crumple him to the ground, dissolve his words into the carpet, but the covers, and your arm now suddenly around my waist, held me down.

"You'll be trapped,"he observed, "You can't do this. You're not like the rest of them. You're not built for this." And the covers tightened moreso around my waist and I was suddenly strapped to the bed, fighting your arm off me, fighting the suffocating bedsheets. His eyes went kinder, and for the briefest of moments, I saw my parents in his misunderstanding, condescending, sorry sorry eyes.

"You're not built for this," he repeated as he shook his head in disappointment. And then with a blink he was gone, and you withdrew your hand from my waist to put beneath your head, and the covers went loose around my legs, and I laid awake in the night, staring at the ceiling, feeling the room inhale and exhale with me. I remember turning to you, slowly, before reaching out and pulling you closer, close enough to feel your heartbeat.

One Hundred and Forty Three

I saw you in the metro the other day.

I could've sworn it was you, at Lionel, I was so convinced, even from the distance, from your haircut, from your different hoodie, from all the way across the platform. I could've sworn it was you because I'd recognize you anywhere. And as the metro arrived I just stared at you, and I think you stared back.

When you got off at Peel and I stayed on for McGill, you took the long way around to walk up the stairs in front of me, narrowly avoiding my gaze. And I fought, for the briefest of moments, my feet to jump out and chase you. Instead I just watched you, and I laughed to myself that usually this was my stop. Usually I too would take those stairs, turn that corner, head down that hallway, and for the past few years I always secretly hoped we would pass one another, we would meet again, and make pleasantries.
And that day, the first and possibly only day we would ever find ourselves here, we couldn't. For a reason so simple as a DVD that needed to be returned at a very specific time on a very specific day in a very specific library closest to a very specific metro.

It's so odd, isn't it.
That theatre of all things kept us apart.

or

or maybe I finally have nothing left to say to you.
(I sincerely doubt that, though. I have a lot of things to tell you. Like I'm happy. I'm happy, these days, in a way that I genuinely never knew I could be. It's terrifying and new and everything no one told me it'd be.
But I'm happy. And I really hope you are, too.)

One Hundred and Forty Two

Iva.
Anastasia.

I didn't know you.
Either of you.
Not really.
So I didn't go to your funerals.

But there hasn't been a day that's gone by
that I don't think of you.

I keep trying to measure my life in love for you.

One Hundred and Forty One

It's like

you don't even know
how romantic I find you.

How even the little things
the tiny sentences
the small glances
the offbeat giggle
just -

make me realize
what swooning feels like.

this is what it feels like....?

It's very nice.

One Hundred and Forty One

I will always remember it.

You gripped my shoulders and held me close
and though I could smell that alcohol on your breath, I knew this was it, this was the moment, and I took a breath as you did as well.
And you told me to live.

Told me to live
and love
- and now. today. -
because time is precious
and this last year
will pass so much faster than I think it will.

And like that, every fear and regret
flashed into your eyes
and I felt every worry and yearning I've ever felt in turn.
Every crossroad, every opportunity, every choice.

You made me promise.
And as if I hadn't been planning on living this year to the fullest,
I shook my head and loved you in your eyes
and promised.

One Hundred and Forty

I'm still so bad at receiving compliments on my writing.
I don't know why.

When I click on the tags in this blog, all comments on writing are about how it's holding me back, about how scared I get of losing myself in words, or resentment. So much resentment; I tend to see that words are lovely but they also hold me back. And ironically in my wordy search for truth, I've only found that words are everything but truth. Maybe the better writer I am the better liar I am, too. The better webs I can spin, the better worlds I can create, the further I push myself away from what I'm trying to grow closer to. Reality, reality and truth I just keep diving down, further and further into a bottomless swimming pool and blimey I have excellent form but I can't find it. I just can't find it. I don't even know what I'm looking for, sometimes.

And why.
Why do I always feel like I'm running out of time?

One Hundred and Thirty Nine

I shall never forget that summer night, the one that went on for seven days; the sound of the strangely suiting rain splattering on the window: the little sister pracing about the kitchen, the realization that she doesn't know suddenly dawning on me; of cinnamon; the loyal friend, flour-covered hands, uncertain of what to say, and worriedly glancing at her friend, still stunned and silent.

I remember we sat and ate sugar cookies and sat some more, and when it was done, we continued to sit. And later when she held me closer I mumbled the truth, the bitter reality that was stolen from me, and I felt every fiber in her being clench for me, begging me not to give up on words, begging me to see this - this of all things - is why I need to keep writing.

One Hundred and Thirty Eight

I wonder sometimes if I romanticize religion.

And then I think
there's so much more more to it
than people give it credit for.

There is something inherently gorgeous
about a convoluted mixture
of tradition, and culture, and faith.

One Hundred and Thirty Seven

You wrote me a letter.
And I held onto it. Held onto it like a child holding a bird, like it would fly away with the wind if I wasn't too careful, like all of this is just a dream, because that's never been too much of a stretch for me. I clung to it, and for a moment felt the world spin round my clasp on this piece of paper. This moment, this silly moment in a dirty downtown metro when I used to live in Montreal, I felt the world spin around me and a letter and a feeling I had inside. I didn't know what it was but I knew I was so lucky to have it, and so terrfied it was leaving, fading even as I closed more fingers across the seam, holding this memory in space.
No, I remember thinking to myself as the metro approached,
No, you can't lose anything you don't let go of.