.remember.me.

One of these days, clicking "Remember me" on these websites will mean something. Like a pet, perhaps, running to the door, wagging its tail, swishing its whiskers. Excitment is an intangible odor in the air, settling on your hairs like dew.
Maybe it's just hungry. Feed me a password! it says.
And so you do.
But maybe one day beyond that day, it will remember you, and the torrent of memories washing up in your wake. It will be filled with excitement and relief, anticipation and nostalgia.

Remember me. Just as I remember you, something more than an automaton. Something less than love.

.sleeper.law.

Have you heard of the new law to be implemented? Call it censorship if you will, but the legislatives maintain that it is merely a formality for dealing with criticism. Pardon if I forget the wording, but it goes something along the lines of

"
So and so mandates that should this or that person should criticize this law, aforementioned this or that person shall be in some manner repulsive to humanity be put to death.
"

As far as odd laws go, this one will most likely take the cake. It acts brutally only upon those that criticize its very barbaric nature, but leaves all else alone.
Perhaps we are being taught a lesson to sit down and shut up, accepting laws as they come by.
After all, if you don't acknowledge the brutality of the new law, it can't possibly harm you. Rather, we must tiptoe around the one gruesome law in this civil society, like a sleeping bear in the living room.
It's nothing more than a coffee table, but you musn't wake it.

on giving up

grandpa died yesterday at five o'clock. mom thinks he wanted to die, has wanted to die for years now. he held grandma's hand until the end of it.

we learned words like multi-system organ failure, co-morbidities, terminal wean, agonal breathing. strange, how precise the language of death. how one can single out the nanosecond when the body transforms from living to dead.

but they didn't have to turn off the vent. he waited until his family surrounded him like a makeshift womb, and only then did he let his heart stop.

.shower.and.be.showered.

I remember when rain first fell in the deserts. I was there. We were nothing more than wanderers at that point, shuffling across the sands, not entirely certain what we were looking for. The desert is so vast that we couldn't really imagine an end to the arid expanse. We were trapped between the ennui of sitting stoicly in place, or the fruitlessness of travelling aimlessly through the uniform land.
So we walked.

And as you can imagine, water was always difficult to come upon. We ripped up cactuses, carried what we could from any oases we found, and even resorted to licking the sweat off our brow. As much as our travelling lacked any goal, we were always on the search for more water. We sucked on stones to keep the spit in our mouths, and would compare with each other to see whose stone whittled away faster.

And when the rain first fell, there was certainly a moment of confusion. Here all at once was a blessing of water from the sky of all places (for, really, how did it all get up there in the first place?), and yet it was splattering down all about, rather than any cohesive trickle that we could capture. It was miracle and mockery.
And nonetheless, we all looked upwards as it fell down on us. Those of us caught by ourselves peeled off the sticky fabric that clung to our skin and learned what it was to shower and be showered.
We closed our eyes and caught what we could in our mouths.

Tennessee

rain fell, staccato-drops against the deck.
what you made me feel at that moment, i'm not sure--
i wanted to be alone
but wanted you around--does it matter
anyway? i needed
the rain for another hour, falling
from the bright southern sky, out of place
and unsure of itself, what purpose
and right it had to be here.

.notch.by.notch.

Button one way, button another. Mens and women's clothing seem to mirror each other.
As I've heard it, the chiral nature of clothing was supposed to make it easier for servants to dress their masters, and women being dressed more often than men, everything was flipped on women's clothing to make it easier.
But that seems to make little difference in belt directions, which are apparently flipped as well, though who's to say, since you could very well go whichever direction you fancy with belts:
clockwise
counterclockwise.

And what does that say about men, women, people around us? Are they trying to turn back the clock of their waistlines, tightening themselves into the posture of their primes? Are they trying to zip ahead, squeezing themselves into aged obscurity?

Because it seems either way, we are all slowly tautening the nooses around our bodies
notch by notch,
carving away at our silhouettes until we are finally content.
Until we've whittled away at that round block enough to wedge it through the square hole in our self-appreciation.

All in good time.
Notch by notch.

.leitmotif.

I wish I had a theme song, a leitmotif. It would be quite the entrance, everywhere I go.
Although, I always wondered, that if someone were to have a constant theme song, wouldn't it just be a soundtrack? When is someone exiting one place and entering another?
Where are the doorways?
the borders?

On the other hand, the pyrotechnic accompaniment might make it all worth the while.
Maybe even bar me from returning to the United States.

absinthe

and no green faeries. turns out the dose of wormwood you need for hallucinations
is a lethal one$.

.gainful.employment.

It would seem that I am once again gainfully employed!
Building bikes, cashing checks, turning tricks.

Maybe I can afford a new deck soon.
or rent.

on the way home

i tried to keep my eyes open while
overpass signs blurred by.

tell me where to go and
i won't ask how.

trees with broken
backs hunch and lurch

for the road--
miserable.

like anything
could save us now

.happy.chickens.

Tomorrow, I will see what a happy chicken farm looks like, not that I doubt that my vegan ethos will waver, but I imagine that it will instill me with some hope.
Veggie burger/hot dog grill-out as well, and we'll find out if that corn on the cob that's been in their freezer since at least New Year's is any good.

Just don't rat me out to the customs officials that I've been near livestock and foreign soil.
On the other hand, it can't be as sketchy as the fellow on the bus coming up here that replied to "Are you bringing in any weapons?"
with "Uhhhhhh...."

hiatus

starts....now!

all creatures

i was alone and dreaming
of you and now my life
without you

how will i know you
after all

if i can't keep
myself together

all creatures
look up at heaven, their mouths
dry, no words, nothing to name it

and so i looked to you--

fill me with what
i cannot say

.low.tide.

Every time I skip a day, whether by accident or not, I feel like I have unknowingly observed a secret leap year that only I am privy to. And as the rest of the world charges on I'm constantly behind, clamoring quietly in the cracks between days.
The footsteps overhead are visible as they dislodge the dust from the wooden planks, drawn like venetian blinds on my window to world.
As I lie beneath like a benevolent troll, I allow them to cross, collecting my toll: little snippets from their everyday tête-à-tête.

daffodils

growing wild in the field
behind your house, like a small
fire. a hundred yellow mouths
turn skyward, waiting
for rain.
the wind moves through them,
cold as a passerby, rattling
stem to root.

.smear.the.queers.

On Tuesday, I overheard a lady in the bus station reading the Holy Bible to herself, when a man sitting across from her interrupted her politely and started conversation. He asked what book she was reading and she replied.

"The thing I never understood about the Bible, is in that Chapter you're reading, Genesis [it was Numbers], it says that Cain and Able moved around and married other people. But if Adam and Eve were the only two people that God made, and they were their only kids, then who did they marry?"

She didn't have an answer, but appreciated the question.

On Wednesday, I was co-hosting a radio show at the University of Western Ontario, and as my friend and I were walking out of the studio, and out of the building, we were stopped by a girl with a Japanese name who asked if she could take a picture of us for her fashion blog. We shrugged and said why not, even though Lulu hadn't showered in days, and I happened to look like a monochrome menace. We did a Crystal Castles pose, and she asked us before we left if we were related. Cousins? Brother and sister?

On Thursday, I wondered who was really related to who, and as familial social order collapsed around me, I saw only sacks of flesh walking down the street, pulpy fruits of family trees smashed into the pavement like a grotesque painting.
We are artists.

.electric.shuffle.

If Chris buys the Alex P. Keaton, I might as well move into the lounge upstairs, settle into the Forest City.
Then I could co-host the Electric Shuffle more often than just tomorrow from 13.30 - 15.30.

march

it all begins outside: the way you
shimmied up my porch steps to greet me
the sound of church bells rolling through
the night, parting the air with each new note--
i felt the turbulence in my chest.

here's another way: i can hear the train
howling like a wounded dog, slinking
through dark.
i sleep with the windows open
just to listen. all of it meaningful
if i can put it together right.

and then you, your mouth's full
of words when you sleep, always talking
like i can pull you from

wherever you've gone.

.onwards.on.to.ontario.

Last time I was on a bus ride with my partner, we were fooling around in the back, and I ended up walking around the NYC Greyhound station with blue balls for an eternity. I even had to meet her father, who showed up drunk on wine at midday and insisted he knew the way to her gate. She was going back to Tennessee. We broke up not too long after that, and the next time I saw her was when I went down to Chattanooga with high hopes involving her roommate. That didn't pan out either.

Tomorrow, at the least, I'll be in Canada, so there's no way I can lose.
And anyway, we have sandwiches and steamed buns for the ride.

best

in the August heat, you pulled
the covers to your chin, the hot air
lulling you like a lover's hand.
i loved you best then

huddled in my bed
sleeping
like morning would never come

again.