The news

I could be anywhere else in the world. I could be demonstrating during a protest. I could be in war-torn countries, third-world countries. But I'm here, in Ottawa, safe as milk. Ottawa is one of the 10 safest cities in Canada. I've never felt unsafe here, even walking around the street late at night by myself. The problems in the world infuriate and confuse me. I watch the news only to turn it off.

Kaylie Smith

A 16-year-old girl is recovering from a vicious attack in Cobalt, Ontario, a town 500 km northwest of Ottawa. On Sunday night, her ex-boyfriend, an 18-year-old, struck her with a vehicle and cut off her hands with a knife. She was airlifted to CHEO and is alive. She underwent brain surgery as the weapon was lodged in her skull. Her ex is facing charges of attempted murder. 

Femicide is a term for the murdering of females. A partner is responsible in 40% of homicides involving a female victim. Every year, an average of 66,000 women are violently murdered globally.

This is an epidemic.

Pictures

I'm crying because I usually get what I want and I want it but I can't have it. Instead I'm singing love songs at pictures of myself. And getting recognized for my hard work. Nothing feels better than that.

Halloween

It feels like a summer night though it's almost Halloween. I'm on the phone to my girlfriend looking out at the highway which is black but for headlights. My playlist is comforting. I had another great week at work, another good month. I count them down. I record everything these days. I started a new journal for daily affirmations and mantras.

I got a new Big Bird costume from Spirit Halloween. Every year, I'm Big Bird, but this year, he's been updated. It's going to look amazing and I recommend everyone visit me at work that day. Halloween is on a Thursday this year. My birthday falls on a Monday, which is the first of my days-off. I'm going to go to the flower cafe and take Polaroids.

It was the half-smile that got me. It doesn’t help my favourite work is always about you.

Heaven

No, I don’t believe in heaven. There is definitely no such thing as heaven. Who could believe that, after you die, you continue to live? I pray but I don’t think it gets me anywhere. One day, the girls at work asked me if I believe in heaven. 

“No,” I said.

They didn’t believe in heaven either.

October

It’s fall. The clouds overtake the sky making everything glow. Like that, summer ends. Snow covering the earth is what's next, after Halloween. The evening sun disappears. The birds go south. Hibernation is upon us. I like this time of year. It's a time for reflection and reconsideration.

I did it for my art

You could chalk it up to me being fucked up over my childhood. I did it for my art, though. I wanted to pick at the dark recesses of other’s sick minds. I did it to write about it. So I’d know what it was like: what it felt like, what it looked like. Looking in the scariest places of the city I found what I wasn’t looking for. Death, drugs, pain, loss. I knew what I was doing.

This does not bode well. With you, not talking to me, and me just talking to myself. 

Thoughts after work

I come home from work. I put on my favourite playlist, my favourite clothes. I think this is the way you're supposed to live your life. I pretend I'm elsewhere but everything stays the same. I don't know if minutes mean anything but many pass me by. I let the beat play over the thoughts in my mind because I don't want to think them. Instead I think about hustling breakfast plates. It is engrained in my fibre to work, I was raised this way. I don't know what I'd do without it.

I used to be friends with people who didn’t have jobs. I used to not have a job. I hated it. Something about memorization, rhythm, money. Something about having somewhere to go. It gives me purpose. 

35 in 2025

I let people push me around. I sacrificed happiness for the sake of others. I let people walk all over me, use me even. I don’t know why and I have no explanation. I was young. I was impressionable and feeble-minded. I would never let this happen again. I stand my ground now. I’ve matured and grown up. I’m 35 almost. I’ll be styling by the time I’m 40. I wonder what the world has yet to show me.

Asexuality

In the last 24 hours, two men have told me they “need a girlfriend.” If there’s anyone who doesn’t need a partner, it’s me. In fact, the very idea turns me off. I am a sex-repulsed asexual. I have always been this way. The world is so hyper-sexualized, though, that I feel into its trap. I explored sex into my early 30’s. But I know who I am. I did some research on asexuality and it’s a thing. 

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others. There are asexuals who are indifferent to sex and don’t mind it, and then there’s me: someone who is repulsed by the idea of sex. I like to be left alone.

Reap what you sow

There are things you should know about me, like that my sister died. And there are things you may have gathered about me, from reading my work, like how I love my job no matter what. I don't want to forget about her. It moulded me, her death. It made me who I am today. Without having known Emma, I might be half as compassionate as I am now. And I'm not that compassionate to begin with. I believe people reap what they sow.

Upcoming months

Oh my god, winter is soon. I love winter. I love the seasons. I love the way the air changes, the way the setting changes. I can't wait for the snow and cold. The trees look infinitely prettier, in my opinion, when they're covered in white snow. The winter means my birthday, Christmas, New Years. This year it'll be 2025, which is huge. I'll be turning 35 on December 2nd.

I can't wait.

Restaurant

2 years ago today I got hired at my present job. I work today. I sat at table 18 for my interview. I didn’t get hired on the spot. I didn’t get a call-back. I e-mailed them a follow-up, and she hired me.

There are so many powerful, strong women I work for now. I am so beyond blessed to get to work for them. I am in awe at their compassion, their tenacity.

Thanks. Just thanks. If you’re reading this: thank you.

This is the longest I have worked at a real restaurant. Technically, my longest restaurant job was at A&W and I worked there for 3 years. But this is going on forever.

September

It’s September which means back-to-school and orange and red leaves. Work dies down. My intentions for fall are to spend more time alone and save more money. My friend does full moon rituals. We carve out our manifestations on a page and light candles during them.

Self-love

You can’t fake being healthy. Either you are or you are not. I’m bargaining with death again. I’m old now and you can see it in my face. Maybe I’m not that old but I’m not young anymore. 

The streets all stay the same but I don’t. It feels as though everything has changed. I am not the same girl, cluelessly chasing what I thought was love. I have higher standards now. I have inner peace.

Different things are important to me now. Instead of loving someone else, I love myself. That means more to me. 

Not everyone

It rained the day after what would have been Emma’s 32nd birthday. All day, the 24th, was sunny and hot. Her birthday was on a Saturday this year. 

I think there aren’t enough stories about women who save themselves. About strong mothers. About survivors. About women who don’t fall in love, get married and have babies. I think it should be less about love. Not everyone finds love. 

Help/save/fix

I tried my best but you can’t help, save or fix someone.

Abusive relationships: a theme

I don’t know how I ever got into an abusive relationship in the first place. Domestic violence was never prevalent in my home growing up. Guess the men I chose were scum.

Nico took cash from my wallet when I was sleeping. After that, Miguel tried to smother me with a pillow. He verbally and physically abused me. Even Jesse ripped a nightgown off of me and was also verbally abusive before he overdosed.

What I have to say is about it is that I’ve never been more prepared to deal with whatever comes my way next. I’ve never been stronger.

August

It’s dark at 8:45 pm and the mornings are cool.

Being human is disgusting but it’s also miraculous. It depends how you look at it. 

I work hard so that I’m true to myself. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me, but the dialogue I have with myself does matter.

I skim through books on boundaries and assert mine when necessary this month.

I get enough food, sleep and exercise and this is what allows me to be content. It’s not about what you do, but your attitude about why you do it. 

Blessings

Maybe the reason I wrote this blog was to explain myself. I wanted to be clear about the truth. I wanted to defend myself. It’s not that I care about people understanding but my side of the story is important. I didn't mean for Jesse to die, it just happened.

On the patio today, running my section, I thought about all the things I’m grateful for: my job, all my new friends I met there, the staff party coming up on Monday, where I get to see everyone in their street clothes. I am counting down the hours. I think about my apartment, beautiful and safe. I don’t think I’ll ever get robbed there. I think about my parents, my cousins. How lucky I am to have them. I think about how privileged I am to be a Canadian; how much that means to me is unmeasured. I count each and every small and large blessing that was given to me and I cry and thank god.

July

Through the screen I see fireflies in the garden. My mother says they’ve been there for 6 weeks but I haven’t noticed them til now. My favourite song is about drowning and my nightmares are of getting robbed. I’m in a hospital, all the pictures I’ve ever taken are spilling from a box on the floor as I’m trying to collect them. I wake up to the same thing every morning. 

Glow

Driving on the highway in Quebec, I see the sunset reflecting orange on a building and I think it might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. 

Remember me like this:

I was surprisingly nice on the street today. I smiled at people, usually I only smile at garbage men and the homeless. I even let a car go. I never let cars go. The medication must be working.
It’s a beautiful day but this city means nothing to me.
You have “no” written all over you and you never wanted to think about me again for years. It personally destroyed me. I wanted to kill myself in Ottawa. I wanted to kill myself in Toronto, too, but cars yield to pedestrians and the world goes on another fuckin’ day. I am crying in the back of a cab. I thought I could lose you a thousand times over but I was wrong.
Driving in a car and I’m pretty sure I want us to die. The Gatineau hills roll in the distance. My nightmares are of lakes full of sharks. We burned our hospital bracelets. Spent all day taking things for granted, including you.
I went somewhere today. But I completely forget where I went. I guess we’ll never know.
You are what I don’t want to write about, you liar. He couldn’t have done it without me. The precision and grace in which I was fucking with you was noteworthy.
“We’ll be happy in no time,” I say, as we do another line. Tell yourself you won’t be high forever.
I made a list of reasons to live. Brace yourself for impact: he is in love with another girl. This swallows me. How silly of it for me, to imagine what it would be like if he were in love with me instead.
She will make you pay. But not with money. Can you afford it?
I don’t want to waste my film on you. That’s when it occurred to me: life is the saddest thing. Passed out under an overpass, one day she’s going to have to deal with it. Lying there with you made everything seem okay. I get night terrors if I think about you now. Remember me like this: wanting you. Love like it’s easy. Do you ever miss a version of yourself you abandoned? “I knew you would come back to me,” he said, “I just didn’t know when.” I was 20 when I found out love was a gyp, so why did I continue to chase it blindly? People will never forget how you made them feel.

Julia's party

When I got there, I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knew they might be in the backyard so I traipsed around the side of the house and saw them all. I walked up to Julia. My hair was cut now, it had been so long since I'd seen her. She didn't know about Jesse, my dead boyfriend, about how he overdosed and died in my bathtub, about anything. It was almost safe. We embraced. There were children running around with water balloons, a plastic blue pool. We threw the dog the ball into it and he chased it and I tried to get a picture. Julia and I hung out in the bathroom while she was getting ready, doing her make-up. I watched from the toilet. She talked about her new husband, how they got engaged and they're moving to Hawaii. It was her birthday. Later, Kel arrived.

 
She was the life of the party. She hugged everyone and everyone hugged her. Kel has always been popular. We talked about how we hid Brenda's bike in the tree that one time we stole it from her. It was good to catch up, it was the first time we'd been at a party together in our entire lives. Which is odd, seeing as we sort of knew the same people in high school. Misty was sitting with her tattoos, blonde and loud in the corner. She said my name. I liked her. She said her pets might be cooked by the time she got home, because it was hot and she lived in a small apartment. Kel and I talked into the evening. All day, I had one mixed drink that Julia made with soda and syrup. I was driving home.

 
When things got more personal and rowdy, I left. I wish I’d taken more pictures of the sprawling yard, the chainlink fence, the kids and their denim shorts. The memory seemed sufficient enough. The long summer days twist into nighttime and I disappear into the car, start the engine, and take off into the black parking lot.

Patterns & schedules

I like patterns. I like calendars and schedules and plans. I like distance and space. I want my creativity to be the centre of my life. I want my projects to flourish, my habits to develop, and my craft to sharpen. I want ideas and hobbies. I want art to be filled into the places I’m missing pieces in. If anything, I can create beauty.

Discipline yourself by challenging your negative thoughts. You don’t have to believe everything you think.

Grief

I had a friend who told me to get over the death of my sister. At the time, my immediate feeling was defence. I am over it, I thought. Later, I thought, is that something you get over? What happens when it's over? You're all of a sudden happy? But grief is more complicated than that. Grieving is lifelong but it transforms and it isn't always sad. Life will always go on. 

June

I watch the news headlines tick by on the local channel. They speak of hope and doom. The summer has arrived smelling like lilies and honeysuckles. June greets me with open arms: the sun in my face, something I take for granted. All the regulars show up at work. There's Adrienne and Percy, a father-daughter duo who are going to the fine art museum in Montreal. And the McCartney's fruit people, who give us blueberries and don't take menus. I bring them all to their usual tables.

A nine-year-old drowns at the beach and life just goes on. No matter how unfair life can seem, you find a way to muddle through it. We are all trying to cope and that includes me. You can't pretend that bad things don't happen but you can find ways to make the best of it. Maybe summer brings out a certain sense of optimism in me.

Goodbyes

The first thing I immediately think of when I hear a beautiful song or see a beautiful sunset is my sister. My mind goes blank and instead I think of whether or not she'd like the song, if she were here. Instead I think of what she might look like, if her hair would be long and blonde. If she'd have long legs like me. I try to smile through it but what fun is there in goodbyes?

Dandelions

The bright yellow dandelions turn into white puffs in a matter of days. It feels like I just noticed them. They line every street. It means summer is coming. I buy myself new hair clips to celebrate. They are neon pink, green and orange. Summers are always prolific, with adventures packed into every day. Walking around the city, photoshoots on the balcony, drinking Shirley Temples at the bar late at night, stuffed into a booth with all my friends. 

They say you need sixty minutes outside every day to “recharge”. I heard it on the radio. I spend a lot of time trying not to worry about the inevitable bad things that will happen, like the death of my parents or my own death. I know what happens when you die. All your friends and family are sad forever and your body gets either burnt into ashes or buried six feet under. I don’t believe in an afterlife, heaven or hell, so I don’t think I’ll reincarnate into a butterfly or anything like that. I believe your memory is then trapped into the brains of the loved ones you left behind, alive on earth.

I like this for myself. I even made sense of death. 

Transit-way in Ottawa

For my entire life, Ottawa had a bus called the 95, which took riders from Orleans to Kanata along the transit-way, snaking through downtown. 

In 2019, the city of Ottawa took our precious 95s away and replaced them with a bunk light-rail train that keeps breaking down in the snow. Everyone in Ottawa was reeling over this. The LRT had problems with its doors, cracked wheels, and derailed more than once. 

The sad part about the whole thing is that we used to have a functioning transit-way. We were all used to commuting from suburbia to downtown on the 95. You could catch the 95 at almost every station. It was so fast. 

The present LRT system does not work. The city should admit its fault and bring back bus 95. The train is nothing but a giant disappointment. 

I never thought about drowning or overdosing or dying in a car accident; in fact, I particularly recall thinking it would never happen to me. Until it did. I’m begging for mercy on the ground to a god I can’t bring myself to even believe in let alone pray to. When the misery of death takes over everything, I lerch toward religion. I find solace in drugs. I tried every form of escapism I could: I shaved my head and moved out of the city. I had the hardest time with the second step of grief, which is anger. I was angry at everyone, everything. Things were triggering. I went crazy in Vancouver and got hospitalized and diagnosed. I went back to Toronto and fucked that up, too. With my tail between my legs, I came home to Ottawa. That was in the spring of 2018. The next five years were disastrous. So many irresponsible, bad things happened on account of my behaviour which was appalling. I’m thankful to say I’ve changed. I look in the mirror and I’m proud of who I am now, something I haven’t always been able to say. 

Angels

When it rains, I think about Emma, Jesse and Phil and I am somehow put to peace. That is, my sister, boyfriend and friend, who have all died tragic deaths at a young age. “That’s how angels work,” my friend points out, which both breaks my heart and makes me smile all at once. 

What I think justice is

Serial killer Robert Pickton seriously injured in Quebec prison assault, the headline on the news reads. My father explains that they torture you in prison. He says Pickton, a terrible person, probably wishes he was dead. This makes me feel relief for the women he killed. Everyone can rot in hell for all I care.

Homage to graffiti

I used to paint on billboards and highway signs and concrete with spray paint when I was a kid. “I’ll never fall off,” I’d say to myself, tiptoeing around in the street at 3 am. Falling off, in graffiti, means to not be up. 

There isn’t anything else like seeing your own name in ink on things in the city. It’s better than everything. I’d try to get the drips just perfect as I squeezed the marker. I’d come home with paint under my nails and sleep all day. I was 18 and everything was chrome and black. I spent afternoons walking around with my friends under bridges or over train tracks, looking for our next spot. Spots. It was all about spots. 

Graffiti became entangled in the nature of my very being. For a while, all I cared about was getting up. I met all the players. It’s truly a boy’s sport, however, here I was, impressing all the guys with my insane spots and almost stylish tags. Letters and fonts took over my thoughts. I have always loved words. Now, I barely write graffiti anymore because I sleep at night and it really is meant to be done at nighttime. I could never forget all those summers we ran in the city, driving by our own hits with stars in our eyes.

Summer starts

It smells like lilacs outside when I roll the windows down as I’m merging onto the highway at Bayshore. The patios open one by one. It’s the first few hot days of the year. The begonias bloom as the weekend crawls by. I am poised and waiting for summer on the ledge of my seat. Just being outside in the sun seems to mend broken hearts, including mine. 

I wake up before the sun. My dad always says, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Make no mistake: no one here is happy. In an emergency, you leave the house in the same way. You don’t panic and forget to lock the door. You don’t run down the building’s stairwell hoping the windows aren’t about to shatter. You take your time. Maybe it’s the same thing with the rest of my life. I make calculated, measured movements. Something I don’t want to change.

The Industry

I’ve worked in restaurants my entire life. My first job, I was 16, serving cake and pizza at Cosmic Adventures. I was a birthday party hostess there for 6 months before getting a lip piercing and quitting to go work at the A&W in The Gloucester Centre. I was there for 3 years, I even left and came back. 

After that, I worked for Starbucks and after that I worked in my first real restaurant: Kelsey’s at Elmvale, which was bulldozed to make condos. I was a hostess for a year there. The boss of Bigg’s hired me over Christmas to serve evenings, he took a chance on me, so I put it in my resume and tried for a real serving job after the season had ended.

Broadway at Innes & Cyrville hired me. It was my big break. My first real serving job, where I really learned the ropes. I served 2 illegal poker nights, on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then 2 karaoke nights: Fridays and Saturdays. My shifts started at 6 pm and I got home at 3 am. Cindy, my old boss and I used to sit at the bar after work, drinking and smoking cigarettes, just the two of us. I did that for about 6 months. I saved so much money. I moved to Toronto and lived there for 2 years, serving out of a European-style bistro boasting over 100 beers on tap. My boss didn’t have a thumb. It got cut off in an accident. Despite that, he was a good man.

Finally, I returned to Ottawa. I worked in a few more restaurants and coffee houses before settling in at my current breakfast diner in which I hostess and serve. I’ve been there 2 years. It’s something special to walk into work like you belong there. I’m so lucky to love the work I do. I was born to serve. Even when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a waitress. It takes a certain kind of person. It’s physically and mentally demanding and it’s menial. But I need waitressing to calm my busy mind. 

Non-fiction

Trust me when I say, the guilt ate me alive. It wasn't the first time the mother of his child tried to attack me, but it was the last. I expect never to see her again. Ottawa is big enough of a place. It was at his funeral, the one I barged into with two of my girlfriends, only to see Jesse laying in a fucking casket on the other side of the room. "You killed him," she screamed as she charged at me but his dad was standing in-between us and he held her back. My girlfriends and I promptly left.

I had gone to the flower store earlier, and I had said, "there has been a death," to the man who was running it. I plopped the white flowers down on the ground of the funeral parlour before we exited the room. It tortures me, what she said. First of all, no I did not kill him. I stuffed the drugs in my bra the night he died. I cut him off. It's a truly horrific thing for me to recount, now that I'm thinking about it. But I can't stop thinking about it.

Do not blame someone else for your happiness or lack thereof. 

My past

Driving up Ogilvie, I go past the car dealership, I go past the pharmacy that used to be the corner store. I drive past businesses trying to sell you things. I slip into the parking lot. I step out of the vehicle. I consider the way things were vs. how they are now. For one, I am not the most nasty drug-addicted wench one could find in Ottawa, anymore. I do not like to lie about my past. I used to be a drug-addicted wench, in the most heinous of ways. I have had a wild childhood. I grew up way too fast. I didn’t plan it, just happened that way. 

It’s not necessarily my fault, because things in life happen that are out of your control. I admit I could have made better choices. But I didn’t. And yet here we are. I am alive and for now that seems to be all that matters. It could have been me, who overdosed and died, but it was my boyfriend instead. Something I cannot get over. Something I must justify by quitting drugs entirely, starting over completely. So that he could know that he saved my life, not the other way around. The world is an awful place. It’s full of bad people and horrifying things. When I was with him that summer, all I saw was good. I call it real love, now.

Unrequited love

It’s a theme in my life, unrequited love. Always gotta fall in love with the most unavailable people. It is never good timing and it never works out. Maybe I do it to myself on purpose. Maybe I choose the ones that are difficult to challenge myself with a complex puzzle. I do not recommend. It is not filling the empty hole in my heart. And it is not getting me anywhere. It is further confirming my belief that maybe I’m just not meant to end up with anyone. At all. Ever. Maybe I’m just not built for love, marriage, a relationship. Maybe I'm just meant to be alone.

On death:

This is what they don’t tell you about death: you will miss them for the rest of your life. No matter what. 

Justice

A man was in prison for murdering three women in Arnprior. The news reported he died of “natural causes” in jail. But really he was murdered in jail because he killed 3 innocent women. Maybe there is justice for women. 

Forever

It’s not officially spring but there are days you can take your winter jacket off outside. The sun is out, it sets after 7 pm now. The weather breaks and I immediately think it is easier to cope with. Not much changes, other than the days getting longer. 

Turns out the sun on your face is what you needed. Life passes by one second at a time. The sobriety really makes my skin glow. I think about the things I want to do this summer. I want to swim and tan and wear sunglasses every day. I want the sun to crisp my skin to the colour of tanned leather. I want the days to last forever. 

Skeptics

I used to want to get married. I heard a radio show today about marriage. About how it was constructed for the ownership of women. Now I can’t think about anything else. The death of my boyfriend undoubtedly changed me, turning me even more skeptical. 

I’ve never been a people-pleaser. I’ve always been an outcast, the black sheep, the lone wolf. The older I get, the more I’d rather be alone. Being alone comforts me. 

It’s about the little things in life, like taking an elevator trip by yourself. I figure one day it’ll all work out, and whether or not I know why I’m here won’t really matter in the end. The daydreaming part is more fun than reality, anyway.

Depression isn’t an excuse for missing work, it’s the reason you go to work. 

Love

That’s what love was. An endless sense of belonging. I would’ve never walked to anyone as fast as I ran to you. After 11 years of wondering, I finally got to be your girlfriend. It was like magic for me and I would have done anything for you. But the story about us stops. Abruptly. There is a new pain, so unexplainably deep, that irks me to my core. It is in the suffering of life without you. It is in every beautiful memory. I could never transcribe perfectly the moment when I think about your face, your voice. I can never get that back. I feel like I don’t believe in love anymore. 

Time

The snow is falling, making everything beautiful. The news plays tragedy on repeat. My legs are stiff in the cold so I walk fast. In 6 weeks, the time will change. I will have, too. You can always count on time changing things. Even if you try to escape it, you can’t. 

The Club is a Drooling Hound

Don’t stop doing what people tell you not to do. The Nuden had a lot of hoes coming through it but had never seen one quite like me. I was wearing white mesh. The competition is fierce tonight. I’m not afraid. I can handle it all. Whatever life throws my way, I’m ready. I’m stronger now: mentally, physically but why did I always find myself at the strip club? If you’re looking for love, behind a dumpster is not where you find it. Boys are intimidated by girls. Now. You’d think working on your feet all day in 8” heels would tire you out, but I refused to sleep until I’m in the spotlight. I was destined for fame. There is only one thing to say about strip clubs: they’re mesmerizing. 

Getting rejected isn’t easy but it isn’t hard here. Girls get shot down on the regular. The only place where women can abuse men, exploit them for their riches, get away with murder. The owner didn’t mind I was back. He never would have remembered me. Either way, there I was, slipping back through those silver doors. I was semi-entertained by some clown boy who spoke too close to my face. I did a pose on the spin pole. I saw Champagne there and she complimented my skin, making me smile. She gave me a heartbeat. 

Colourful cars drove by on the highway. None of them I recognized. Now you have a baby and I have a cigarette and life just isn’t the same. The LRT can’t even go around corners and you’re telling me the city’s fucked up? I left my friends drunk in a ditch, sped away without giving a fuck. I lost my bank card, my bank account, my ID, last night. Can you can trust your friends? If you’re drowning, don’t breathe in. My friends are snitches, my doctor is a snitch. All I can think about is drowning. 

The sky casts a pink shadow on the earth. Why, then, are you all of sudden so happy? I remember what happiness is, where it comes from: within. I lived in Ottawa. A cold city capital, a frozen ice-rink of despair. Ottawa was in Canada, 5 hours away from Toronto. 2 hours away from Montreal. And it wasn’t an island, it wasn’t a huge city, it was smaller than that. Toronto was a huge city. 

The club was like a drooling hound, teeth snarling. The bartenders kept you smiling, the waitresses walked around with their short-shorts, their ass hanging out the back. Girls. Creatures of beauty, not knowing quite what was wrong with them and wondering, wondering hard. 

“What?” She said coyly to her boyfriend, “you don’t like me anymore?” He crossed his legs, uncrossed them, sitting on the couch. Fingers interlaced, he looked at her with a stern brow. She smiled that crazy smile. The No-Train was running now, but it kept getting stuck around corners and breaking down in the snow. They spent millions of dollars on this piece-of-shit transit way, when there was nothing wrong with our old transit-way. However, everyone knows how to drive now, so we mostly hung out in cars. I called it The No-Train, instead of the O-Train. I wished for the 95’s back. Everyone in Ottawa was reeling over this. She knew he couldn’t stop liking her.

Everyone in Ottawa knows each other, so that means everyone in Ottawa knows me. Life is not a game, and it isn’t funny. It is hard work, sore feet, long days, dark thoughts. But through this comes beauty, simply recognizing the beauty in everyday things. I wasn’t having paranoid delusions, I was just imagining what it would be like to be somewhere the fuck else.

My eyes get sleepy when I dream about you. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Two years of living in Toronto will do this to you. But Ottawa was colder, still. Ottawa was more inviting. In Ottawa, you made real friends. Toronto knew you couldn’t stay. I know winters, block letters and street signs. I try not to compare myself to other women, but I can’t help it. I try to see the beauty in everything, but sometimes I can’t help but not. That things are bleak and full of despair. That no matter who you are, how badly you try, nothing will ever happen for you. So instead you dream it up: the black cars, the sprawling mansions, the California wind and sun. If I die here, I’ll be really unhappy. 

Back to the club. The heels so tall on some girls you’d think they could’ve stabbed you through the throat with them. Things that haven’t been done before: the cool rail of the bar, the bombing in the streets, the running away from cops, the sprinkler system and the break-ins. I wrote a 14-page essay on why people should have assisted suicide in high school. 

My mother is fucking gorgeous and that must be where I get it from. I look in her eyes and I see the truth. 

The night warms the room. The sky is dark, the stars are hidden behind clouds, the building’s lights’ shine. I don’t care about anything, I insisted. But when you called my name I knew that was a lie. We created art together. 

Me pretending you’re here won’t bring you back. Me imagining I was someone else won’t fix my problems. No matter how many banks I storm in and out of, creating scenes at a funeral, no matter how many people get hurt in the process. I wish I was dead, too. 

They said to enjoy the journey. What if the journey is like bricks tied to your feet? Ottawa is a small place, with many secrets. Death. Surrounded by death: death everywhere. When I left and learned to walk in Pleasers, how to dance, I thought to myself: this is what the point of life is. So we danced. We danced all over Ottawa and Hull. “How come I’m crazy and you’re not?” She asked. He looked at her. Smiles on both their lips. I think to myself, if just this one thing doesn’t disappear. 

In the silence, you can hear a lot more. I liked the sounds of dishes clanking together. I can’t fucking believe the doctor thinks I’m like a threat to myself or whatever. It makes no goddamn sense. The doctors and the hospitals, they can tell you anything, but I only believe what I want to these days. 

Now all of a sudden I’m using my hips to smash into and open doors. Now I’m alive when I’ve pretended to be dead for all those years, hanging like a star. On display on some stage in some city, hanging upside-down from a pole. In dance, I had a stage name. In writing, I had pen-names. Everything was a cover-up for who I was as a person, which was not very nice and not very lady-like. 

The older I got, the less sense it made. Until I was literally dangling one leg off the balcony, smiling back at my reflection in the glass. But I can’t will myself the will to be alive. I moved back for a reason, I can’t let it go to waste. My own name on the walk to the store, my own name in pink marker, that we stole, on the sides of things that aren’t mine. What was it, about death and dying, that was so mysterious? What was it that you wanted to tell everyone? That you weren’t here? You disappeared? Years ago, this happened years ago. Think about it nonstop.

 

You made me feel like breathing again after holding your breath for so long underwater. You made it feel like bandaging old wounds, like tearing up the past and piecing it back together more properly. This year, I write. For freedom, for change, to break limits. I publish 5am Girl, my blog, and sell it to my friends. It is an instant hit, it fucks everybody up. No one knew what I went through the last 3 years. Everyone thought I was fine. That’s how I can relate to being in prison: it is the confines of your mind. That’s how I can relate to the push-ups, the mistakes, the drugs. Addicted to jewels, to diamonds. 

It wasn’t like anything else. It was like sipping air for the first time in years, like dangling your legs off a stage. Like winning. It was like flying to California and having no one listen to you there, too. It was like leaving and never coming back. 

Innocence

The winter drags on. At work, I scrub maple syrup off of various surfaces. I serve my old friends, who tip me well. Life can’t get any better than this, I swear. We don’t talk anymore but sitting there in my section, I know we’re still good. I cut out negative energy this year. I listen to the same songs and try my best.

The snow outside is white and wet. It reminds me of fresh air and new beginnings. Holding out for something I deserve has never been better. Neither has getting what I want. It never gets old. This time, we don’t run around doing drugs and fucking up our lives. Instead we make everything innocent and it’s way more real this way. Feels like how it was meant to be.  

Jesse Larocque

Today, on January 5th, it has been 2 years since your overdose. I woke up at 11 pm from a nap on the couch and the house felt eerie and quiet. I ran to the bathroom upstairs, the door was locked. I used the clasp on my choker to break open the lock. I cried for 50 days and 50 nights. I knew you for 11 years but we dated for only 8 short, sweet months. You said we could get married in 2 years, though. I will make sure no one ever forgets about you. Your sleeve was so much sicker than mine but you never made me feel like that. You were a true thug til the day you died and you were my best friend. You didn’t want to die. It’s important to ask for help if you are suffering from an addiction or are mentally unwell. I know I should have, now. I will always love you.

Winter in Canada

The year is almost over. Outside, everything is white. The time I spend by myself is precious and healing. I want to focus on my art in 2024: write, live and create. The winter is mild so far but it’s only the beginning of December. Soon, January will cover us in ice. Things I can look forward to include Christmas festivities and New Year’s Eve. A fresh start is what we all deserve. The crispness of the air snaps me right back to reality, out of my daydream-like state. Winter is not over yet. 

"She must be a South Pole elf."

You will never know how my brain works. For that, I am thankful. 

Parkway

The parkway has no lights on it. The only light comes from the other car’s headlights speeding towards you in the opposite direction. You could probably see the stars it’s so dark. The sky blends into the road with a slick blackness. The days shorten while the distance between you and I lengthens. It’s next year already and my resolutions are shot to hell. Why was I always in a rush to go nowhere?

Debts and regrets

I did a lot of dumb things. I did drugs, stole, tased someone, I smoked in my apartment. I never considered myself dumb, just misguided. I guess I was seeking attention. Risk-taking behaviour. I was trying to escape from a life I didn’t like. I had no reason not to like it. In fact, it was selfish and ungrateful of me. I realize that all now. Mistakes are to be made. 

I guess that’s the interesting part about life. You can alter aspects of it to better yourself. Or you can destroy it. The choice is yours. Maybe the reason I didn’t like my life was because of what I was doing. Vicious cycle-like. I’m different now, though. Everything is different. That was all years ago and I’ve paid my dues. I had to find out, for some reason, what it was like to do all that. Honestly, I’m just happy to be alive.

Growing up

It’s raining today and the air is thick and dark. It’s morning, of course I’m up. The year is mostly over. I lost a few friends this year. I can’t help but reflect. Friends always come and go, I’m used to that by now.

The tables get flipped as fast as we clean them. You know how this works. By now, I’ve learned so many lessons the hard way. It only strengthened me. I came so far. The work I put in paid off. I’m 33 years old. And finally growing up. 

It’s weird because in school, I was smart. Somehow sadness took over that. Sadness has a way of taking over things. 

Vanier

I purposely don’t come to this part of town anymore. It’s not that the sidewalk’s cracked or that there are shadows of things I can’t explain in corners, but the memories that flood through my brain when I cross these streets. 

I never thought I’d get to experience some of the things I did. It was passion and loss. What I remember about being in love is that it was frustrating. I’m not in love anymore. I stopped writing love poems and started writing about being alone. 

I also stopped looking for happiness provided by another human being and it changed me. I was no longer seeking acceptance. I turned my back on my old life and as I walked away, I could feel that what was next was even better. 

The end of summer

The crickets are louder this year, no one knows why. As summer flies through the city, I work. A nearby conversation I overhear reminds me of the word "spinster" and this becomes what I call myself. The older you get, the smarter you are. People's tricks become easier to navigate. Maybe things hadn't fallen into place, but they were closer to it. 

The end of the summer always reminds you of crunchy orange leaves and snowstorms, but maybe this winter wouldn't be that bad. Besides, I was getting used to the frigid cold, the slippery ice and digging the car out of its parking space. Life's all about acceptance.

The watch on my wrist tells me the time but mostly I ignore it and as the daylight hours shorten, I kiss the sun goodbye.