dustlandcinders

If I apply pressure
and he bends or he breaks

at least I will know

just how much he can take

We need to assess these things

when we are building

or unmaking
landscaping

trying to keep

casual observers

happy

on a shoestring budget

The arborist

is a dream

just out of college

driven, clean.

All his paraphernalia

and heavy, rigged belts

and his obscure

stunning skill up in the tree-

which I am sorry that I

 failed to witness,

rest somewhere, ripe for

shallow fantasies.

My mother never has opinions

or advice for me

except to tell me when

I am too old for something. For him.

Casually, she twists that knife

in deep.

Any time I have ever showed her

my belly

she’s come at me sooner or later

this way.

In fact, she just did,

as I was writing this,

as if I conjured her here.
Anyway-

My ex is the metaphorical tree.

The unknown world

shines like this other man, this

23 year old boy-

city landscaper by day,

and self-starter by evening-

who stands on the driveway

politely chatting,

he downs the glass I brought him

wordlessly,

one gulp,

 then sets it down on

the ground.

He is immune to me,

of course.

 I am no more than a

cold water dispenser

who falls for him like all women

near, at, or past a certain age do

and many men, I am sure, too:

in a five minute span, foolishly.

I knowingly applied some pressure to

my ex.

He’s my new boyfriend now.

It makes everyone angry

that I don’t need or want

the oppression of
marriage
ever again
anymore.

I am fond of telling myself that

it’s only logical that

if all goes according to

plan

………………….?

we should try to build some kind

of home again, and soon.

In my opinion.

My opinions though, are shaken,

are shaky,

just like all the old beliefs

that were chain sawed away,

violently,

those few cuts, some brief but

blinding riot of noise and gas powered smell,

and there it lay -

a mess that took

the arborist and his family

the better part of a day to clean

up

and required two dump runs.

While my parents and I

hid inside from manual

labour

pretending that

the $650

my father paid

buys us some sort of

status

when we are really,

all of us, lazy.

I am motivated

lately.

To create a home of my

own

and to do it pretty

honestly.

It’s not hard,

finally, for me

to outrank my mother

in all things

domestically
especially love
and that bugaboo of mine:
emotional generousity
come stand by me if you
know what it means,
the emotionally stingy- my sworn
enemies

I am no longer afraid.

I usually have regard and love

for Mom, her struggles, and her own fatigue,

and we’ve bonded

though, it seems to be unravelling.

So, not today.

I have been lucky

to be allowed to

lick my wounds and

live like a ghost

for nearly a year,

but it only works

for triage

it’s no longer an emergency

I am stir crazy,

I am coming alive,

so forgive me if
I sound like one ungrateful child.

If I apply pressure
and I bend or I break

at least I might learn

just how much he /I can take

In a hope that has yet to take shape

in a home that has yet to reveal its shape

long bend, or slow break?

Through my failures-

and fortunes-

I guess,

I went back

I fell back

into the nest.
I'm 36.

It’s a place where

emotions are discouraged

except when violent, raging,

then, can be waved away as something

uncontrollable-

a force of nature.

All the other kinds

are not for public

display.
Public, here,
is what your
mother,
your father,
your sisters,
can see on your face.

A place where

napping is frowned upon

as mandated

and regulated by the lady of the house

through

a series

of slamming doors

needing to vacuum

needing to summon

whomever there is to summon

beyond her earshot;

A deaf man rises

out of his chair,

exasperated and swearing,

casually enraged,

for the fifth time that day.

In a monarchy

leaning toward a dictatorship

the rules are different or nonexistent for those

at the helm, it’s inevitable

the hypocrisy, it’s entitled.

There has always been

there always is

a valid reason for her to arise late

nap for an afternoon

paralyze the realm

for 24 or 48 hours

with one sweep of her bedroom door.

I experience it now

just the same

as I remember it then-

It's too tender.

And I am too long gone

from her embrace

to delve into what

Mom surely did to my heart

prekindergarten-

I feel only anger and disgust,
and a little tired,

as I witness

her casual cruelty.

Her latest lackey feels the sting,

the not-black poodle,

it sits, banished from her side and
favour

so like it's predecessor,
that not-quite-white poodle

who gave its pitiful
lonely life in service
to this.

That old shorthand
persists
whenever we spend
time together,
I hand you a piece
of gum
unwrapped for you
as you drive,
and you take it,
implicitly trusting
yet, unaware
of the thought.

A short while
later
at dinner
as always,
from here to
other people's weddings,
you sit, sheepish,
hopelessly stuck
with a gob of pink
unwanted
flavorless rubber.

As usual, I put my hand out
for your gum
like I am your mommy
forever improvising
slighly clever ways to discard it.

All the while
and forever
ignoring
that maybe my love was offered
and taken the same way,
carelessly, reflexively.

Willfully blind to
the everyday tragedy
of the way you suddenly
discarded me, your girl,
predictibly, it's always the same-
the flavour goes, and it's
just garbage,
at worst, an ugly black smear
on a downtown sidewalk
no different from all the others.



 

All those beautiful

1980’s British gay boys
singing about
unrequited love,
and bold desire
confused us so –

suburban girls
foolish, eager,
emotional bundles
of nerves, anger
and ready tears,
forevermore.

They came to us
like lovers
from faraway;
U.K. Imports,
expensive, worth it;
vinyl treasures,
something to
trade with the boys.

Our pale heroes
taught us
that love was
elusive,
tentative,
underground;
to be cherished
while the world,
the fates,
conspired
against us....

"And if a double
decker bus
crashes into us,
to die by
your side,
well the
pleasure,
the privilege
is mine".

Tutored in,
and by
Morrissey and
many more,
we were,
at once,
consoled,
thrilled,
compelled
to dream
and ruined.
Skirmishes
followed.
Running away
as far as we could
meant riding the length
of the subway.
It ran all night,
in those days.
Breaking our
parents' hearts',
for good,
and our own
brittle ones too,

we invested
all we thought we knew
in an image
of love-
a specific
fantasy.
We related
we vibrated
with longing,
the outsider
position,
neither
subject,
nor object,
knowing,
winking,
sneering,
was the only
safe place
to be.

We knew not
that this love
was exclusive,
formed in a specific
kind of repression (white, male, gay)
of a stuffy time;
it had nothing to
do with us
but we pined,
modeled our desires
upon its'
persecuted,
ironic vibes.
Glamorous, it infused
everyday angst
with romance - 
the best kind:
British-Accented.
The voice of authority.

We hung on
we clung, there was
no better thing -
no more beautiful
vision;
some of us still do.
Imagining
ourselves into
someone’s retelling
of Yeats,
ignoring our studies
for the Cemetery Gates
and ask anyone
around here, they
can still tell you
”Somebody”
word for word, from memory:

Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

(Still a noble goal 
if love is your game.)

Placeholders were found
for our sensitive,
unobtainable
angels  -
the space
taken up
eagerly
by broken boys
from broken homes
who were
swept away too;

a t-shirt
admired
was currency,
was courtship -
we could
I did
commit
All on this
basis,
repeatedly,
until it passed
for reasonable
grounds for vows.

Possessing
no poetry
of their own,
these local
boys borrowed,
and stole
beauty,
writing to us
reams of
meticulously
transcribed
song lyrics
on lined
notebook
sheets.
 
These, we
eagerly
accepted,
opening up like flowers, settling.

As if they were
original gifts -
and armed with them
and our choices made,
took away the lasting
lesson of the day,
of love in our time,
in our town,
and of our type:

one that was an eternal,
shifting compromise,
shoddily built on
seductive, artful,
artificially sweetened affection;
with a tendency to
take ourselves
far too seriously,
as you can see from me;
a celebration of
sadness - 
a current of stale
religion -
heaped with its' guilt;
a sublimation,
a deferral to
brighter,
more articulate,
prettier
faraway minds,
and the allure
of an exquisite love
that while dreamy,
and cerebral,
was wholly fantasized. 

That high school,
that world,
which I acknowledge
only to disown,
(now, don't I sound
just like him?)
full of delinquent mimics
and compulsive writers,
produced no poets of its own.

And from the other side
of love
I sit
in envy
of that heady time
as facsimiles go,
it was vibrant-
it felt like mine-
it tasted sweet-
it's tears seemed
purposeful.
We were inspired
at times,
we took risks,
the best kind
fearlessly
and with
hearts and
desire uncloseted,
outrunning shame
for a decade.
 
It would take
a long time
to realize I had
somewhat
interchanged
those narratives
for my own memories;
buried my own
voice in harmonies
in my own key
but ones I can't sing -
they are yet imprinted
upon my brain
and on that other broken part of me.

I am
resigned,
just another
bitter old queen
at times,
suddenly -
vampirically
lusting after
those
youthful
and alive

and so
attempt to
reclaim the me
of memory
who dreamed.
While mistakes
were made,
half a lifetime,
a heart gone awry,
an official
transcript
abandoned
halfway through -

I still cherish
these lines,
inside of which
my strange
imaginary
true love
is safely
entombed:

"I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice
You can pin and mount me
Like a butterfly"

Forever will expire at last.
The curse will fade, cease to reanimate me -
even the undead have their limitations, their endless roamings and ravings. It's true.

The Official Version

 It was never enough time, or too much for me
except those few times when it was.
I meant, for life, sickness, health -
a vow assumes that you will let me.
I vowed, the same
he said he meant it too,
but how can that be?
What does meaning mean?
This is what you get
My own hateful voice says to me:
in marrying a rootless child who doesn’t much believe in anything higher.
Maybe those who stay have a healthy fear of God and damnation,
It’s as good a guess as any.

He ran, 
to a calling of something
deeper than love
higher than god;
crafty, inarguable,
a story: like real refugees
of real wars, in countries
he will never see;
he had to flee
to save his own life
you see.
Trumped with that. Sneaky.
One day, his mind turned to poison
and I was the enemy.
From then, all bets were off,
my love unseen, my anger, my faults,
all encompassing and fresh,
bubbling:
like that time, he said, (with a straight face, in 2008, with a child’s pain)
that I threw a laundry basket at him in Whitby; (a place we had lived unhappily, briefly, back in 2003.)

The day before the end,
I was led to believe
that we weren’t just all right,
and I wasn’t just safe, but
in spite of the flurry of family crises
we were great! better than ever.
He was going to be at my side
to see me graduate, strong, invincible
At a distant time and goal I have not yet achieved.
It's as simple as this- don't ever call anyone who doesn't share your blood your family. It will end in regret and your family will die just like that.

We thought we were a team.
I'll say it now, we thought it was cute.
We had a deal.
A Deal's A Deal said my own, irreverent, engraving. I will never mention it again.

The ring is gone, and the lifelong, poisonous susceptibility
to Tiffany and Co propaganda along with it,
leaving a black hole.
A casually horrible memory, a secret, remains:
me standing on the Danforth, in the oppressive July heat,
the first of many public unravellings,
having sold the ring to a jeweller for my survival.
I pressed on, and took the money.

I was a girl
who had bullied two different boys
into half-assed engagements;
I went all in with the wrong one, I now admit  
but the years suggested validity for my claim,
and I had followed my heart while
shutting off other parts of me, then.
I have never been desired, sought; thought “a gem”, it's not me.

Traditional values failed me. I don't know what I believe
Stay out of my orbit if you want to be safe in your beliefs
if your vows are precarious too
even though you meant them
at the time
I have no ill will, but
suddenly -
I don't care; it has nothing to do with me;
I have immunity.

Love is mere words; words, merely everything to me
for him, a tool mostly ignored, except as used to keep
the truth at bay
til it smothered
there is no truth now
not even the version I tell
that implicates us both -
it’s just lost in the wreckage

And now as I accept where I am and what remains for me to form a life
with at this stage, it seems an eternity. 15 years now, gone. A dream, a day.
I wake up, the government, my creditors, my school and friends want to know
how old I am. It traumatizes me, the lie fades. It’s my own little borrowed
piece of disassociation I took from him. I should be 21, doing it all differently.
I don’t regret the love, or most of the years, but the sum of waste; I was not alive, I was hiding in his embrace. Or in his emotional withdrawal, later. Or in his depression, or feeling the static of it competing with mine for air time in a race to the bottom; or making the world's greatest sandwiches; or taking road trips, those drives were it. Heaven, Everything.

Love was life. My goals, and desires were simple, immature, fairy tale, a sleeping kiss, no more…easily achieved, yet, unsustainable. They revolved around comfort, closeness, and sleep. Grafting, me to him - but the experiment killed everything, a life's work- a waste. I don’t know how to account for the time, the effort, the campaign, in the official version of me.
------------------------------------------------------------------

(Edited and revised June 13th)

The Upstairs Room

Skipping
one's own
birthday party
was
an event
soon to be, and
long after, seen
guiltily -
witnessed, fly on the wall
style
in the mind's eye.

There were beautiful
presents, to be collected
later, the likes of which
would never be forthcoming
again.
A hand knit sweater.
Chanel perfume.
They knew;
you'd be lost by
Sweet 16.

This usual
useless guilt
dominates
whatever
else passed for feeling
at only 14,
choices made
in haste to bury
the girl
somewhere
subterranean

Your boyfriend
was barely tolerated
in that home,
owned by his
father's girlfriend - 
they had started
out as tenants.

And your birthday

was forfeited

"forever and always"
-he liked to say
forever bastardizing
those words -
in this way.

Later you thought it
reasonable
to hide in a closet
and overhear
that bastard of a father
say:
"stay away from
that girl, she's trouble"
and still you came.

Lost, occupied
vacated, head games,
patterns for a lifetime -
no. Stopped now.

You were invited upstairs
only twice in two years
and he was locked
out of his own room
when alone;
you would give or
loan him many things
that you would never
see again.

But indiscriminately
you gave,
marking territory,
acting shamelessly,
feeling alive -
climbing down
on the ground,
picnics in your good
clothes
your father's borrowed
blazer
stained.

And your family took him in.

You two
travelled endlessly 
these few
blocks of yours
as teenagers do; 
your one-time domain
where you now
return in disgrace
and shame
that seems
long overdue. 

At the same window
an ugly
caricature of you
sits still -
where love never
comes to grace that
same streetlight;
whistling up at you
throwing rocks
yelling "I love you"
but too, never walks away,

love was found in
the cemetary
a public swimming
pool in a satellite city
strange driveways,
nothing less
than unhealthy
intensity and
long letters
would ever
do it for you.
Something
like that, no adult
could maintain.

Yet,
a great

forgiveness arises

finally

from out of this mess,
and real fondness is allowed

to bloom-
for the smell, the stillness
of night
in summer, in spring
in  suburbia
sitting on a curb
riding bikes,
still kids, too.
Already,
strangely,
broken
when you met,
you named it love
but do not know
if it was.

                                                                              - For me.

grief:
All I ever wanted was that
with D
that plan, that enthusiasm
that eagerness for me
And it's still all and everything
a wish to transpose.

 

the word exists

in profound absentia

like me, its crater shaped

defined by its’ absence

restless

unease

disease.

I run down all the possibilities of home

available to me

it’s clear:

peace is not to be

though it must have been…

too painful to finger that sort of memory,

but presumably, it must have been

once, often, somewhere, somehow,

in our embrace.

Today

weighted down with a week of family and holidays

my love lost

too few distractions

and too much emotional fatigue

I long for

a hotel

or hotel-like room

anonymous, clean, that is -

one not imprinted with loathsome memories

though at my own discretion I will take along, secreted away,

poems and songs: my memories

at the moment are all that prove my I.D.

Hotels are almost worth the money

we used to sleep easily, with no dreams

rarely made love; but we

luxuriated

rolled away from one another

and back again

finding

and loving

private space within each other’s reach.

Blackout curtains

heavenly darkness

remember when we slept til 1 pm in NYC?

those curtains serve both the happy and the unhappy needs for sleep

so I add them to the list I am building

for hibernating.

In Toronto, pretending to be travelling

    one night honeymoons

    Affordable, almost

    but I was always shamed out of room service

    (and can neither confirm, nor deny its romantic potential, not in all those years.)

   Hotel rooms contain everything you need

   and omit everything you lack, without shame

   bar everything that can’t fit inside 300, perfect, square feet

   tell you: you are adequate.

  Beautifully exclude all those proofs of love, of life stuffed inside a home

  all that shit, the bulk it insists upon, that belies everything that is wrong

  that becomes an albatross when you are left to clean up and out,

  a trap
  of unacceptable dependency

  on tired old fathers,
  on shifty-eyed men who move for cash,
  on exes

  and still doing far too much heavy lifting
  for a woman, straining everything and still paying;

 with each thank you,
 another piece of self flaking away onto the dirty floor.

There is no place of peace for me

not yet, anyway

somewhere quiet

somewhere private

somewhere cheap, or free

somewhere with new everything, or even rented

junk and its (ordinarily) sad, dingy, safe anonymity would please me

I now dream of a private memory:
an unknown stain on a nubby, ugly, uncomfortable couch.
One that does not serve well for sitting, laying,
fucking or much else but a travel bag and a moment’s distracting look;

one that bears no trace of you or me.

I lean toward

I long for

I can’t afford, but I packed today

will soon

book a blank and quiet room just for me

fight the fear of the mysterious suicide cliché;
pretend, rather, to be a business traveller, a writer on assignment, a spy.

I will fight, too, the deviance of my act,
if only my family knew

the decadence;

all that money, just to sleep.

What would you pay, to sleep in peace?

(Written at the pinnacle of Christmas Family hysteria 08)

What I am now is defined by what I am not

to beat in tune with a mate -

Under Construction

I am trying to change my entire worldview
turn the monolith, the sinking ship of me around
180 degrees

with my bare hands
with my pop bands
my heart was turned inside out with the effort of loving you
now it's buried deep underground

but not like a treasure, like some other thing
something ugly.

my hands are not mittens anymore
their function on this earth is no
longer to keep you warm
so what are they for?

I can't pretend my face is still 21, since you took
your gaze away
I can't look
I am just a series of nots,
a pattern of voided spaces that have to stay that way
I can't let just anything come in and take your place.

My parents don't know me, and their will is strong
they make me feel that I am what they see
a projection of some ridiculous teenager
and back in my old room, the sullenness becomes me

Why can't it just get better?

Why does it have to spiral around and around?

Why can't I learn forward motion

I am running as fast as I can

except when I stop, stock still with the shock
that has no business in me, 9 months on

Still homesick at times
my heart, and my brain, a ridiculous waste
I am sometimes overwhelmed with the task I face -
It involves
simply
restructuring my entire inner landscape
And a new façade is in order too
I have never been this fat person
I have to shed the dead weight.

I am sometimes determined, and true -
I can touch, I can taste, new definitions of alive
of happy, of light, of friend
And there is pleasure in not caving under the noise
of a family who does not change.
 

How did I get here?

On Wednesday

I posted apartment ads,

and looked at others.

Cruised the job postings

too.

It’s been 9 months

since forever ended

so maybe I should look around.

I have always heard

this was the place to

hook up
but I am ready to date

and I am going about it

the right way this time

Start slowly, coffee or drink

Be clear about what I want and don’t;

Be me

You never know...

Thursday, a flurry of emails

a flood of attention

something I sorely need

a bit overwhelming

and this is the truth:

there are interesting

intelligent people here

we just don’t know how to meet.

This world has made online

too easy

and eye contact too hard

but I’m optimistic

not bitter

for now

Friday, I remember some

darker places of the heart

when only casual sex can

heal and anything more

is too much, and not enough

random encounters

it’s just talk, it’s not serious

or maybe it is

even here, I hope for some

kind of magic

something organic

It takes on it’s own life

a culture of people get off on it

I am one

Sidetracked

Far from the apt and job listings

distracted, gone from the nice guys who

want coffee

confused by the ones I knew a bit  in the
dating section
who turned up in another thread crying

"No Strings Attached"

and who I am I to judge?

can we meet and be real?

yes, I am this, AND I am that

and so are you. And we are human

damaged? flawed. real.

But it’s not to be, we cancel each other out

And so it seems

that what I really want is everything

And nothing.

delete, unread

I’m addicted. I even put up a missed connections

and it was real and I know they only fail.

I did it, I am no victim

I am interested in the human condition

And I wonder if we really all want love

buried deep inside all this playfulness

Consolation: I am far from alone in my unhappiness

I’ve seen so many uninvited dick shots

And so few hearts

And it’s passive aggressive

like marriage

exciting, we all want some of what it felt like when we were young

but it can’t happen here

and I feel like
I am the only one not getting

what they want

Just like when I walk down Bloor St.

Invisible and in my own thoughts

Not yet having

random stranger sex

or a drink with a new friend

or love with a person I haven’t met yet

And my broken heart a black hole we all

side step

And my broken man, who grew up with me

still living in what beats.

How did I get here?