I am glad I carry that weightless piece of love with me wherever I go. Even if sometimes I don't know I have it with me ready to deflect a bullet away from something important I think I have in me. 

Don't fret if you awake in the dead night startled by the wind. It is me. My pebbles have run out and I have grown tired into sleep beneath your window. Don't let the wind scare. It is but me dreaming of kites.

ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet...

dearest c,

there is a love you gave me.. in the fictitious beauty of fleeting words that i can't get out of my mind.

it's always worse around your birthday. as if there's a magnetic needle threading my dreams into and through some newly generated representation of what we had. i close my eyes and i let go, and just before i fall away, every word we have passed between each other flashes back into my mind and then without control i dream of you.

things here are as they are. i have a boyfriend. he doesn't have anything you did... including that piece of my heart that will follow you around without your recognition.  i say that because i know i have that control. you will never know how my heart aches for you. you'll think you do, and you'll use it to generate a smile or two. but in the end that is mine... mine only to be shared with the memory of you.

so for the you in my dreams and the you in that vast land up north, i wish a happy birthday and many more fantasies from both my mind and yours.

with all the love i do and do not actually understand, i remain in a way i can't control,
yours consistently,

m

I don’t like the idea of someone having to tell you that I am still pretty because that is how long it has been since we’ve seen each other. I don’t like that you wouldn’t know for yourself. And more than anything I don’t like it because I m not sure it’s the truth anymore.

I think I was pretty. I have a picture from that day; that day we spent in bed. I know it’s from then because I know what I was wearing, and I know I didn’t take it. Looking at it now I can see both my hands, and I’m a fuzzy wreck. Everything’s messy, but also pretty.

I can’t find that in myself anymore. My hair’s straight and stubborn now, and my skin is angry. I have eyes that could shatter, and I might only smile when a camera commands it.

Sounds appealing doesn’t it?

I might not be pretty anymore, so maybe no one will tell you such a dishonest truth. But that doesn’t stop me from disliking the fact that you won’t have the ability to refute any such comment. Not that I have any idea what you look like right now. Maybe you have gone grey, and only wear navy blue sweat suits. I have no idea. Maybe I don’t want to know. I probably do just want to keep the memory I have of you.

I have found the greatest hurdle in overcoming what was, the fact that there are others; there have been others who spent days with sweetness on their lips and poetry in their fingers. And yet, you, you are always there, waiting to act as a measuring stick, upon which all others must be judged. And there in your shadow sits this moment, when against better judgment I remain tethered to your whispered greatness.

If the last few months are any reflection of the space reserved for you and I, the chance is we would rather see what was than what is. Reality isn’t as pretty as what was. Nonstop earthquakes of heart stopping first impressions do tend to keep better than the evolution of some potentially great emotion.

Options for great emotions don’t have a shelf life. They are like vibrant bursts of firework hopes that light up dark moments, but then fall in ashes around us, scratching our eyes and burning our throats when we get too close.

I might have rather never known you, than know that you would never want to stand in front of me in a light not brought on by a burst of Independence Day light. In the end though, if I didn’t know you, would I have ever really met the person I wanted to become?

You have ruined me with a broken heart disease I hate attributing to you. Too much power given when so little is returned, but there is nothing I can say to bring you back again, all I know is what is falling through.

You aren’t my everything. But you might be my great thing…

Or I might have had too much iron and (red) wine tonight.  

mj

i've been here for eight days
talking about you, remembering.
i've answered yes to those questions; they ask:
"did you sleep with him?"

over a week i've been here, without you.
and it has been normal,
like every other seven day span
that passed without hearing from you.

"do you resemble a bucket at the bottom of a deep hole?"
"are you well?"
"it's been ages, what are you doing tonight?"
"out of town"

yes, tonight taht is true
you will not be here
regardless of how many times i glance towards the door

i love you
i miss you

but none of that will put you outside this door
smoking your last cigarette
waiting to tell me i don't know tricks

tonight- after eight days and seven nights
i miss you
your three piece suit and knapsack
the voice and your stupid crooked grin,

i hate you for both,
only because i can't stop the adoration.

it keeps me yours.

mj

Where did they all go?

They, who?

The nice ones, those who cared.

He was sitting right next to you.

No, he just didn't want to lose me, didn't want to forget what I tasted like. He wanted to conquor, to win. But he didn't know what he was fighting for.

He's always there...

But he's never looking, only assuming. And his assumptions have started to make me cringe. I don't recognize the girl that he sees, and I can feel myself hardening.

But he, and then you...

I leave and want to curl up against a figment of my imagination

mj

It didn't make any sense that I was the only one that heard the whole story over the radio. We were riding in a dusty pickup truck, not too fast but fast. The garbage in the load was swirling around like a man made storm.

"What Happened?"

I reiterated the story as simply as possible while flying over one of Ontario's mini hills:

"A woman went into pregnancy, things got complicated, they brought a chopper to take her to hospital: a pilot and a co-pilot. She gave birth in flight, the co-pilot delivered it. Then something went wrong with the chopper. They crashed into the forrest. The two pilots, the mother and the baby died. Everyone.

My brother in shotgun muttered: "Pushed out and pushed right back in"

I giggled: an unfortunate chuck of chuckle.

But he put it so right.

I loved the exactitude of his memorial.

I apologized immediately.

Not to him or anyone in the pick-up.

It was possibly the sadist story I'v'ever heard:

A crash of fatalism.

Pushed out and pushed right back in.

If only he knew what he caused. He didn't.

And maybe he coughed up a chuckle with a clot of blood

And his first thought was WOW.

Most likely his first thought was HOW DO I BREATH!?

and then hopefully, WOW.

There was poise in the pilot.

The mother was breathing in breathes she'd lost screaming.

The co-pilot was in awe: "I've never delivered a baby."

His helmeted head was mis-weighted the same as the baby's.

Everything was gurgling, sputtering, and screaming.

"He we go!" The pilot yelled to the back.

The co-pilot softly: "Are you ready for this little guy?"

cg

I tried telling the truth

And everything came like a confession.

Tried sniffing cocaine

But I still can't describe how it smells:

INVINCIBILITY,

with a floppy Achilles tendon, maybe

After 40hours on the bus

I tried fitting in with the Mountains

And wound up feeling racist.

So I came home,

Small as a gnome,

Grew into a man,

Got Drunk,

Tipped over,

Picked myself up,

Dipped the Barmaid with a wink,

Tipped her with a toonie

Then pushed the street open with the door,

Felt the night like a speeding pick-up

Windows down and wind, engines and noise

"where we going?" I HOLLERED.

To find beautiful women.

"BEAUTIFUL" i whispered.

The ones here to try and keep everything honest.

"BEAUTY" Let's go.

cg