Someday
in the near future
in an airport
lounge
martinis
bossa nova music
we will talk
about
how close we came to day-jobs
and how i almost
never asked you
out
just because you
were living with someone
at the time.
How close we
came to not knowing
eachother
but then–
freedom.
I’m glad
you were right about me.
In class, I learned or didn’t learn a thing but after the escalators of the Hall building and the front doors, the night was cool and breezy and as I looked down the street towards home, a blue band of sky ran between the buildings and trees on either side of Maisonneuve and a sound came from it. The fourth song on the first album hid in the night-sky on my walk home. It took a form I could easily accept so as not to scare me off. It cooed in my ear and could only be a woman ancient in her patience, demanding no attention yet making her way closer, closer.
I was the life of the party, charming all guests with my stories. Someone stood silent in the room as I puffed my chest and told everyone I knew what life was all about. She kept time with the trees in the wind outside the window, slowly wound her way around me, patiently.
Later that night, I saw her heading home as she stood at the corner, smiled and said nothing. I told her I recognised her from the party and asked how she knew the host but she didn’t answer. She told me that I was coming home with her. I asked her where, thinking she was just another guest like me but she was the host all this time. Her eyes flashed and her hair was aflame and she knew me again and again that night and I was already there.
It’s a strange time for me.
I’m riding the bus,
awake
and I had a dream last night
that I was cruel
but I awoke to an open window
and birds,
always birds.
I work for a living,
but I know it won’t last forever.
There is always time to plan my escape.
In fact,
I suspect the freedom is in the planning.
I can point my intent to go home
here or there,
in any direction.
It’s a little bit colder than it was
yesterday
as the spring has not yet pushed through,
but I will take the lead.
Lightly now,
let’s start this heart.
From the moment he wakes
he puts odd socks on,
brushes his teeth with shampoo
and turns on the washing machine
to watch the news:
he’s wrong all day.
Lucky for him,
he’s so wrong
he thinks he’s right and
doesn’t mind.
Marie,
we are walking
down Ossington Ave.
with your tiny dog
and I’ve got a piece of glass
in my foot.
I’m hoping
to make love to you tonight,
Marie.
You will call an ambulance for me instead.
Many will hear the sirens;
only I will hear
their song.
—————-
‘I’m sorry… I get shy sometimes.’
‘That’s alright. Did you know I was going to kiss you?’
’10 minutes ago.’
—————-
I knew the lobby by heart.
It’s dimensions were familiar
and I was proud.
I got proud and
walked around like I owned the place,
had a place
to leave my coat.
—————-
***Next station, Bloor… Bloor station.***
‘Are you sick of me yet, Marie?’
‘No, but I’ll tell you when I am, Oliver.’
‘Make sure you do.’
————–
Everything up to this point
has changed.
The path has forked.
There was a dog
in the yard
and I let it out the gate.
He shot through my legs,
scattering my bread-crumb trail
as he ran.
He’s off like a shot
and moving fast
down the street.
It’s too late.
The person I was
is no longer.
Though I’m sure this is the way I came,
I can’t recognise the scenery.
I am now and finally,
lost.
—–
Back home for a week,
I am playing hit and run
in the city of my birth.
I hope to fit as much family
and old friendships in as possible;
go over old stories,
well-worn jokes
and absence reports.
I’m drunk on my first night back,
and I’m walking barefoot
down the middle of my street
expecting some home-coming,
some princely welcome
but the trees stay silent.
And at the second step,
I feel something sharp.
It’s inside me in a second
and makes itself a home.
——————————
Marie,
I hit on you
while you were slinging flat pitchers of beer
and putting up with aggressive flirting
and limp tipping.
For my high school class
it was a place of reunion and
alleyway groping,
fuzzy memories shine amber through
spilling pints.
But I think for you it was just loud
and getting old.
I am going back tomorrow
to the city I now live in,
but I saved this last day for you.
—————–
At The Brass Taps we learned
that we have a shared love for
(certain) Phil Collins songs,
Caesars in the early afternoon,
and stuffed potato skins.
And we established for the good of the world
that the part in ‘The Neverending Story’
where the horse drowns in the swamp
is like, the saddest ever.
You watched the server like a hawk
and asked for
a cloth to wipe the table and two glasses of water
when he failed to bring both.
I made it clear to you
that I would stay by your side
until you said the magic words:
‘I’m getting sick of you, Oliver.’
You said you probably wouldn’t
and took my arm
We rode the long subway ride north,
stood and swayed with the car,
our wine braced between your shapely legs in purple tights.
We each held the bar for support
and smiled at each others’ shy summaries
of the 6 months since we last saw each other.
You charmed my old friends into
thinking we had been lovers for years
and hurried me up with intimacy
when my stories took too long.
——————————————————————–
And the agony…
on the subway ride home,
I am waiting for you to turn ever so slightly
so I can kiss you
after 4 years of merely wanting to.
Afterward, you hid your face in your hands..
——————–
‘Can we go back to your place, Marie?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sleeping with you tonight, Oliver Sullivan.’
‘That’s alright Marie… but it would be lovely, wouldn’t it?
————————
You have a snaggletooth unlike any other
and I am falling for it at great speed.
—————-
We took too much
in your kitchen and
’10 thoughts until critical mass,’
I have already died
but at 5 in the morning
with a cinnamon girl’s undivided attention,
I dont want to admit it.
I still think that these hands can hold things,
that they can make everything stay
as long as I want.
’9 thoughts left…’
Where is that coming from?
’8 thoughts left…’
Until what?
’7 thoughts left…’
I feel
’6 thoughts left…’
now that
’5 thoughts left…’
I have
’4 thoughts left…’
been selling
’3 thoughts left…’
water by the
’2 thoughts left…’
river.
’1 thoughts left…’
Dark is the doctor with the medicine.
——————————————-
Every other time I took this drug,
I was merely let in the waiting room
and stayed there.
Now I have opened the door
and have no choice but to step through.
‘You asked for this.
What have you learned?’
‘That it’s worth giving it all away, just to know it was once mine.’
—————————————————-
Marie,
my head is in your hands.
You’re slapping me hard
and asking me my name,
my address.
I don’t want to go to the hospital,
Marie.
I’m not mad that you called the paramedics,
Marie.
but I want to stay here on your bathroom floor,
Marie.
There’s an ambulance,
far off for now
but moving fast.
The sirens sing only for me.
Before the dark closed in on me,
Marie.
I saw every face of love in you,
Marie.
I saw your face change,
Marie.
A thousand women in a moment,
Marie.
They were all beautiful like you,
Marie.
—————————————-
It hit me when my head hit your sink
when I fell for you for real.
There’s a bump on my brow,
it’s tender to the touch,
and I do
from time to time.
—————————————-
I have tried to keep things
beside me,
tried to make them stay,
when I am the one leaving.
Because this,
all of this:
my green eyes,
the slower smile I have learned lately,
my ratty New Balance sneakers,
a rotation of a few button-up shirts that I am loyal to,
my taste for a sharp, well-written song,
and the way I like to smell your hair,
even the creeping cloud-fear that gave the countdown,
the rushing and black,
coming in before I could make it to the cold bathroom floor
and lay there
lay there
and even this is a part of me,
part of what makes up me,
but is no longer mine to keep close,
to claim as mine
or hold on to.
It is as much yours
as anybody’s, Marie;
As much
anyone else’s
as mine.
All of this fits in my heart
and leaves much room left.
This is why
I stand at the void
and throw everything that was ever real in my life
into that cold space
that gives no sign.
I watch it sail out
and away from me
and never see it come back.
Never expect it back.
Never need it back.
Never want it back.
Are you satisfied
putting up
with the bare minimum?
Settled to survive
on your own breath?
Careful now:
every dream is heard.
Every wish echoes
and betrays you.
You have sold your
Self short.
Look out now:
God is coming
and she’s on a mission.
You made a pact lives ago,
and now it’s time
to hold up your end.
Hear that velocity.
Brace yourselves.
Beauty does not
take ‘no’ for answer,
and Grace will take
without asking.
There is a Love
with the eyes of a hunter,
the patience of a mountain.
It saw you long ago
and never looked away.
If you can love a man who
has laundry on his bed.
wears a shirt with a missing button.
will buy today’s breakfast with cans he returned to the store.
has socks that are not as clean as they could be.
has never lived with a lover.
rarely brushes his teeth at night.
You can surely love a man who
has quit three jobs in a month.
practices how he will ask you out for a drink.
wants to sing you songs on the walk home.
sees your name in street-signs.
Don’t fear friend.
This is the real sleep.
This is the sleep
I will teach you.
Please,
before you lift
yourself to the day
and light,
go deeper
when you dream,
go deep within.
Go dark and bring that with you
from your cave,
find a stable heart
and start from there.
Because you don’t
sleep when you
dream and
you’re only in love with it.
You know this land
better than
your own heart,
but the day
snatched it away.
Go as dark
as you can,
because dark is the doctor
with the medicine
and with any luck
you won’t come back.
He’s a man who knows things
that people
usually
ask about.
He
knows where to get
the right deal
on shoes,
vegan sandwiches
and maybe
he could find you a ticket
to see that DJ,
although
you think it might be
sold out.
I
on the other hand
could not find my keys
before leaving the house today,
and might be locked out
if my roommate’s not home.
I can’t speak
the words that make me feel
old
but the silence that moves in
when I don’t get them out
makes me feel
less human by the day.
I have no choice.
I will use these words
in limp thank you notes
written to
the glaciers that sneak up behind me
closer every time I look back
until I am a part of them,
cold all over,
frozen shut and solid.
I now have
the dusting cough of history.
These are tomes we write separately
but bind in the same volume.
