2025

When you inhale purple, you know you can die. For his deathaversary, I put the pic of us kissing on NYE on my Instagram profile as if he were still here. As if he were still here and making fun of me and playing our tracks and I was still in love. I'm not this year. Despite the fact he abused me, despite the fact he said I was no legend, despite the fact that I was his girlfriend at the time and I chose him. I'm out here putting nothing but respect on his name.

Open the wounds

The first train leaves Blair at 5 am Monday morning, I can attest to this. I've been thinking about the id/ego and super-ego lately. I got all the dolls off Fakebook Marketplace. I wrote in my calendar, the start times at work, how much I made in tips that day and scrawled in the corners reasons to continue to live.

Photosynthesis

I was never invited to the basements or the graff jams where everyone was there, or maybe I was but I didn't go anyway. I never cared about the guys and their jawlines. I never cared about the hundreds of dollars I made on shift, it was about what was wrong and right. I could care less that I served him there, that he sat in their chairs and let me talk to him. He came enough times until I served him and then he was polite always but if you think I need this fucking diner then, bite me.

I could go back to my stage with my pole because I can't stomach it here. I can't live knowing what's wrong and right will never be corrected. That I won't ever get to be in charge of this shit because you guys already got enough managers. I need to talk to one more person about it, ask how happy they are, and shake the hands of my bosses.

This is about me pouring my blood, heart and soul into my work and getting jack all shit in return but a fucking bag of money. Love is torture.

The apathy is death’s work. 

Bring them to their knees

Bring them to their knees and make them suffer for all they have done to you.

Iker,

I did like you, okay? We kissed once, you were wearing a black shirt. If you see this, I miss you.

The difference is

I'm going to change. You're not going to.

Thieves

When I'm alone in my room all I can think about is the injustice. Like how people drown because they don't know how to swim. I can't read your mind but I know what you are thinking. It's funny how each day goes from being sunny to cloudy to raining. What's not funny is my reputation. 

They’re going to prey on you. Until you are weak in the knees, your eyes hurt, and it’s over. That’s what being a girl is like.

Sometimes I spot the cops or ambulances out the window with their sirens blaring, lights flashing. Today I vow to say hello to everyone in the kitchen. It's Friday. In preparation for my staff Xmas party, I will be getting Polaroid film and pre-rolls.

Trust equals love 9/13/21 10:08 AM

"I almost passed out at the gas station today. Ginger, Jesse and I are at The Zoo and he’s putting the legs on the couch right now.

Got two gs. I can’t be passing out in random places. They’re going to send me back to the psyche-ward.

We got purple and Jesse overdosed. There are 6 ambulance people in my apartment. Spent 3 hours at the hospital and then we left. I fucking hate doctors."

The Zoo was 200 Somerset Street West at Elgin. This is the overdose he survived. All I remember was that I slept beside him when we were there, in a single bed. And then we left and no one said a thing when we left. We just walked out. It was at Le Montfort.

Jesse

Jesse picked a fight with me the night before Black Friday in 2021. I remember because I called in sick to Best Buy on Black Friday and got fired.

He said I was "No graffiti legend," and he just kept saying it over and over again, calling me a "stupid slut". Who said I was a legend to him? I never once claimed to be legendary. I found out later he was mad because we did too much drugs.

The truth is, I am a fucking graffiti legend. Here's his playlist:

Buying a domain and redirecting it to my blog was the coolest thing I did this year. I also just hooked up Jesse's mom with Amanda's mom for them to deal in cigarettes. That was pretty fucking cool, too.

The year is almost over and I've definitely lost a few friends this year, even though I thought I lost them last year.

I learned a lot. I became slightly more independent.

Snow

It snowed. Outside looks magical.

Crying

You are able to stop yourself from crying because you think, "You have cried enough."

Things they don't write down about death:

1. The crying gets less severe over time
2. Christmas will be happy again one day
3. The missing part might last forever but the sadness does not

Trauma and UberEats

It's all trauma and UberEats. I've been really into Sims 4 lately. Building a house for my girl, rebuilding it, and advancing her in her career. She's a serious musician now. Work picked up, it's busy again. It'll be busy for a few months til New Year's, slow down in January, and pick back up in March around Eid and March Break.

Christmas is upon us. I decorated for the occasion. I used to be The Grinch, now I'm Mrs. Christmas. That's what I used to call one of my ex-best-friends. I'm in a fight with my parents. It's fine, though. I got told I was funny at work, by a customer, a woman, who then said I was deadpan. She told me I'd do well on a British sitcom. I told my mother and we all laughed.

I love my job so much. I am so happy, grateful, and thankful to be there. I love my bosses, I'm making them all Christmas cards. My coworkers are truly the best, they're all so cute. I love my owner, he's one of the best people I've ever met in my entire life. And my GM is absolutely spectacular in every single way. Outstanding citizens, I get to work with, every single day. I'm truly blessed and I know it.

I think the only thing that matters in life is that you’re able to make yourself laugh.

Religion

I am an atheist. I do not believe in God, Jesus, the Bible, or anything like that. As far as I’m concerned, Heaven doesn’t exist and Hell is right here on earth.

I am curious about church though. I like cathedrals: the ceilings that seem to go on forever, the organ’s melodic sounds in the background. I like sermons: the good advice, the beautiful words. And I like the idea of gathering in the morning to sing and recite poetry.

I’ve never been religious but I do believe in Mother Nature, the Sun and moon and stars. I don’t believe in karma. I believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and many things in life are subjective, including beauty.

I was put on earth to smash the patriarchy, break the rules, and defy the ordinary.

Abilify 💉

I saved myself but not everyone is able to. It took Jesse’s death, rock bottom, in order to do so which is sad, if you ask me. Human existence is weird though. I don’t blame myself. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and it’s youth’s fault.

I didn’t work. Then I got a job at Best Buy and I got fired because I called in sick on Black Friday.

My new outlook includes always doing the right thing. I think Abilify affects my mood so much it’s impossible to think a negative thought. Just sitting here, glowing. Thinking of ideas. 

🌧️

It’s supposed to rain. I’ve resolved to write when it rains. It’s just a shower. It’s not a thunderstorm or a heavy downpour, just a sprinkle of water.

The rain is good for the earth so I like it. It’s the beginning of October but it was hot out yesterday. This month I see a chip off the full moon and think it’s a full moon, I love using that excuse for things. No wonder everything was weird at work yesterday. I like the moon, too, when it’s full or halved or hidden by clouds.

I am interested in searching for spooky clouds in the sky at dusk. I like the change in temperature, how cold things get. Winter mystifies me and it is up and coming.

Baker’s hours

I’m up at 5. I shoot out of bed like an arrow, wide awake. I don’t know how anyone sleeps in past 5 am. Sometimes I wake up at 4:30 am. I call this baker’s hours. I am up and studying the earth for signs of life. I am up, lifting weights and eating oats.

I like the mornings because more things happen at 5 am than they do after 8 pm at night. My thoughts are organized this early, I feel strong. I mean: nothing’s open, no one’s up, but I like the empty, dark street.

The sun rises at 7 am in October. While I wait for the world to wake, I look at the sky, think about the hours ahead of me and try to colour inside the lines.

Inspiration

I’m inspired by everything. My past, the homeless, the weather. I take inspo from photographs I see on the internet, from patterns in nature, from people in my life.

I listen carefully for jokes at work. I scribe my demons into poetry and stories and blocks of text that go no where. I write about desperation, depression, death.

Write what you know. It’s the first thing I learned about writing. I started with who I am. I started from the beginning. I had to cover my traumatic childhood, the drug years, the medication and diagnosis, the struggle towards sobriety.

Tackling that was easy. The hard part is coming up with what’s next.

$17.60

Everything is fuzzy white carpets and instrumental beats at home when I return triumphantly from another day at the restaurant. The gym is my sanctuary and I learn new things every day. Life gets simpler after I block a girl who takes, takes, takes.

I scarf back oats for breakfast. I write facts and I’m not making shit up. I guess I’ll never know what the point is but if I’m not applying pen to paper, I won’t be getting any closer to it. My time is valued at $17.60 per hour. This is fine because I have no control over it and I don’t get emotional over things I have no control over. 

5 am

Sunrise is at 7 am but I’m up at 5, contemplating existence in my uniform.

Ginger + Diva

I used to have an interesting lifestyle, let’s put it like that. My friends were Ginger and Diva. I’d drive out to Ginger’s in the morning, she lived in Draper and we’d go to Starbucks. Diva lived there at the time. She’d be plopped on the sofa with YouTube or reality TV shows blaring from the television.

We’d smoke weed all day and lounge around. This is when I didn’t have a job. Ginger truly took care of me. She took me under her wing. Now she’s got a baby and I’ve got a hash pipe and things are different. 

I’ll forever miss them, the way things were. 

I lived at Ginger’s, too, in her spare bedroom. I spent enough time there, enough to feel like I lived there. I got a chilling call from her one day in which she said her boyfriend Cory had overdosed and died in their bed. I knew Cory, too, of course.

In 2019, I threw a birthday party for myself and invited 10 people. No one came. Except Ginger and Cory, standing there in my building’s hallway, with a bottle of wine. At Cory’s outdoor funeral, I cried and cried.

Fog

I’m not used to the cold yet but you think I would be with the way you treated me.

The flashbacks I have include Jesse filming us kissing as the drone circles us from above in the parking lot at tech wall and then him overdosing in our bathtub.

When Phil drowned, I found out when I was with my friends at the water park, and the cruel irony of it all made me cry even harder.

When the summer ends, I always think about curling up under the neon red lights in my apartment at 5:00 pm when the sun has already set. I always think about working hard and about how life often includes doing things you don’t want to do. I wonder what the point of it all is, and even though I can’t figure that out, I trudge forward.

August 24th

Today would have been Emma’s birthday if she were alive and turning another year older. The time is 6:00 am. I work at 8:30 am. I am thankful to have a distraction today: work. Tomorrow I’m off, too. Thank god for that.

Fake freckles

It’s so quiet at 7 am on Saturday morning. I put on neon pink eyeliner and dotted my cheeks and nose with fake freckles. I didn’t know it til now, but this is what I’ve always wanted to look like. I start work at 9 am and the two hours of silence ahead of me calm me down. 

Work/summer ending

After work I turn the music up to the maximum amount that the TV will allow me. I try to forget every table. How’d I get so lucky, though, to work for the creme-de-la creme of diners in the east end of Ottawa? An institution, really. 

I get treated with respect there. I’ve worked enough restaurants to know that this is the golden dayshift I’ve been searching for. I don’t take it for granted. I thank Jesus every day I get to go to work. When I’m not at work, I think about working. I talk about working. Work, to me, is easily the best distraction from my miserable thoughts that I can think of. Art is great and all, but I am consumed in my little job and it really means everything to me.

My foot hurts but the pain makes me alive. Outside looks like a jungle. The vine in the backyard snakes around the fence and the flowers stretch towards the sun.

Meanwhile, at home, my feet are bare and the balcony is hot. The sun makes things sparkle. A guy leaves his number on my car and I tell him I don’t want a boyfriend and I’m asexual. He leaves me alone after that.

Jesse

I crushed on him for 10 years before we dated for real. I met him in 2011, we dated in 2021. He was Chelsea’s roommate. Chelsea was my friend from elementary school, my drinking buddy. We knew each other in grade 5. He was dating a girl at the time when I met him. I don’t want to mention her name. 

Things Jesse taught me:

1. Don’t spit on the ground
2. Don’t put up with bullies

It is important to note he was obsessed with me. Once, I left him, because he was still dating what’s-her-face, and he said, later, “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I knew you would come back to me.”

I have never been more in love with anyone and it absolutely devastated me when Jesse died. I miss him. All my old poetry is about him. He called me his North Star once and I wrote it into a poem.

Friendship

You cannot take away from other people because you think your problems are worse.

Things I learned about ending a 15-year-long friendship:

1. You need time alone to grow

2. Being honest with yourself is important

3. It’s okay to feel a little sad about this chapter in your life ending

4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries

5. People can have their opinions but you know how you feel

Summer 2025

The wind smells like flowers. Corn and cherries are for dinner. The summer hits with a heatwave, the hottest I've ever seen it. After that, it rains and the temperatures return to normal. My parents take off for the cottage in Quebec and I'm home alone again. They take me off the door at work. One day I look at the schedule and my name isn't on it. I'm a server again. It took 3 years to get here. I'm proud of the work I've done.

I walk around the mall with my headphones on, listening to some whining boys sing about tragedy and heartbreak, my favourite tracks. I adorn myself with sparkles and fake lashes, thick lines of make-up, highlighting the beauty mark I have near my eye in slick black.

People bug me but there's nothing I can do about it. I bide my time in the mornings and look out the window for signs of life. This summer, my intentions are to protect my boundaries and grow.

Bruises tell a story. Mine are of self-expression and divine self-care. The ghost-girl I dance for is my little sister. Every time I dance, I wish she could dance, too.
I choreographed this routine because this song reminds me of you. Don’t let it go to your head. But then again, you think you’re better than me, so why would it?
Grief moves through the body in an electric way. First I feel fat, wet drops of tears coating my shoulder-blades. Then I feel myself trot across the studio, grab a pole with all my strength, and fling my body across the room in a motion that leads with my hips and everything sparkles as I spin around and dizziness doesn’t exist.

I feel the floor again beneath my clacking 8” heels and land on my tip-toes. Still here.

Clown painting

She used to have this clown painting. She painted the perfect face of a clown, it was yellow and green. It had a big red nose and jagged teeth. I took the painting with me to Montreal and lost it there, it was stolen. I’ll never forget her signature at the bottom, her full name. It is the one thing I regret: losing that clown painting.

She Said She’d Haunt Me

She used to say she’d haunt me. This was before she died. I didn’t know how much death might hurt. That I’d feel my skin being ripped from my bones. It is instant and slicing and death never goes away. But I see her flip-flops, the purple Gumby ones I’d saved, one of the very few things I have left of her, and I think how proud she’d be of me now.

Ghosts

I watched a cloud overtake the sun as I stared up at the sky in a baby pink velvet mini-dress I got at Value Village. I adorned my right ankle with a thin silver anklet before setting off into the day.
That morning was all silence and the scent of gasoline escaping from car’s exhaust pipes. The hot pavement scorched the bottoms of my feet as I scampered in-between lawns. 
I was trying to take a photograph of a nearby cherry tree when a summer wind blew a Jasmine-scented floral aroma in my direction. I inhaled deeply and bent into another position for the snapshot of the pink tree. 
In the late afternoons, I used to come to this abandoned swimming pool and watch the boys skateboard in the emptiness of it. The small pools of rainwater made the skateboard’s trails look like glitter in the sun. Once I found a mixtape at the ledge of the pool. It was labeled, “For the ghosts,” and we listened to it, over and over again. Trying to make sense of the track-list, trying to summon a ghost.

Garden State

There are construction workers filling in a forest with a neighborhood behind my parent’s house this summer. There are large machines and it reminds me of Garden State when it rains.

My coworkers squabble and I tell them they’re like my parents, trying to be funny, but they probably thought it was sad. Which it is. But it’s also kind of funny. I mean, you have to laugh. That’s how I look at it. Life is funny. One second you could be up and the next down. That’s just how it works.

In the stunning early morning silence I practice gratitude and mindfulness and study such things on the internet and in magazines and try to become a better person. Who I am doesn’t bother me anymore like how it used to.

Love

When I say love ain’t shit I mean it isn’t to me. I don’t mean to say that Jesse was a bad boyfriend, he wasn’t. It means maybe I don’t need the type of love that’s always shoved down your throat in your childhood in stories. I don’t need to have a boyfriend again. Tried it and it wasn’t for me. 

Music

Jesse made me a playlist on Spotify before he died. He titled it “Harleen Quinzel”, and in the description he wrote that I was the love of his life.

Sitting here listening to it now, I feel guilt and regret. The first 2 songs are my songs. The opening song is Fake Love by Daniel Jang, who is a violinist and the entire song is strings and keys and when it fills the room and all that’s left of Jesse is the stupid tattoo on my wrist and this playlist he left for me, it eats me alive.

The next song is from a band I kept a secret from everyone but I suppose it doesn’t matter now: Her Space Holiday. And the track is, “Something To Do With My Hands”. That one cuts out quickly at the end and the next songs are all Jesse’s picks.

“Play this when I’m gone” comes on and the irony doesn’t escape me.

I guess I know what love is, then. And it ain’t shit. Here's it:

20 years

It’s been 20 years since my little sister, Emily Grace, was killed in a car accident. 

Here is proof. The car on the left is the one in which my mother’s mother, my grandmother, was driving, when she fell asleep at the wheel and also died on the scene.

I was in the passenger seat. My foot was broken. I woke to my grandmother whimpering, “Someone help me, get me out of here,” I heard her die. All I could say though, was, “Where is my sister?” 

When my parents arrived at the hospital in Quebec that day, I got the answer. “She’s in heaven, with grandma,” My mother said.

I was 15 years old. This happened on August 2nd, 2005. I called her Emma. She was 13 turning 14 in 22 days. Her birthday is August 24th, 1991.

She was funny. We used to walk 15 minutes to Chapters with our girlfriends Kelsey and Hannah every day, and we’d talk about everything. We’d discuss death, even. Emma said she would haunt us on the toilet so we’d jump up and get pee everywhere. One of her famous jokes was, “What’s the matter, Grandma? You piss your Depends?” For anyone who doesn’t know, Depends are adult diapers.

My grandmother always called her “bold”.

I never wanted sympathy. I learned that I’m truly alone. I’ve come to the final step of grief: acceptance, and I’m happy and well-adjusted. I’ll never forget her, though. I posted pictures of her here, in case you needed proof she was hilarious.

ETA: I know I post that car accident pic too much, but I can’t fucking believe that happened to me.

Spring

Other than critiquing pole videos of myself and listening to a triple emo playlist Spotify made me on my birthday after choosing a variation of emo for every category they suggested, I haven't been doing much. At the end of every day, I rip my eyelashes off and contemplate existence.

This spring has so far been epic. Lots of rain. The hot weather is just arriving now. Finally I opened my window. This is probably my favourite time of the year. I love how sunrise is at 5:30 am. It's my favourite thing about spring.

Beautiful

It’s beautiful: even when it’s raining, even when it’s snowing for the millionth time. It’s beautiful and there’s no other way to look at life if you ask me. If I wanted to think a negative thought, the mood stabilizers would prevent it. The doctor upped my dosage three summers ago when I was acting erratic after Phil passed away. 400 mg of happiness. Once a month. Injected into my arm. At the outpatient clinic in the Montfort Hospital.

It could be worse. I could be drinking straight whiskey and doing drugs, but I’m not. Every day I am thankful to be sober and mindful of my existence. I can breathe, I can see, and I feel like myself again.

Fake plants

Every plant in my garden is fake. 

Jesse Larocque

Tomorrow would have been Jesse’s birthday. I am forever changed by what we went through. I love you, I miss you. I do this all in memory of you.

No one will save you

At some point, you have to take control of your life, no matter how bad your childhood was. Blaming someone else for your problems never works. I would know. Running around doing nefarious things on the streets taught me that you only have yourself in this world. No one will save you. Barely anyone helps you. You’ve got to help yourself.

Driving

I have cat-like agility when it comes to driving. I like driving. One of the jokes we have about driving is: we’ll drive to IKEA (which is on the other side of the city) during traffic so we can talk the whole way.

One time a bus driver stuck his hand out the window and told me to slow down. The fastest I ever drove was 160 on the way home from Toronto. 

One time a lady got out of her car at a red light, walked up to my car, and asked me why I drive so crazily.

I drove drunk only once. I never got caught but I did smash into someone else’s car and had to pay for the damage.

I got sued for $1 million dollars after rear-ending someone on Ogilvie. Insurance covered it. I had to go to examinations for discovery. After that, my father and I spoke with the lawyer for our insurance company and she said it was a bogus claim. We never found out how much he got in the end.

Sadness

Sometimes, when I think about the restaurant that I work in, sadness overcomes me. Sadness from all the secrets from the customers, the workers and even my bosses. It consumes me so much I cry. There is a lot, but not much I can be specific about, but it all amounts to a lot. A lot of sadness, that is. This is a rare occasion, on which I think about it all and cry. In fact, I think this might be the first time. It’s unsettling and discomforting. I’m soft, in the end, even though I may look tough.

Safe, healthy

A lot changed. I chopped off all my hair. I got a new tattoo. I feel like a newer version of myself, one I like better. The winter is coming to an end and the clocks spring forward today. 
I’m still schmoozing tables for tips at the diner up the street. They asked me why I liked it so much there. “I was a waitress without a restaurant,” I explained. I’m still posing on my crooked pole and taking photos with the self-timer in my buzz-cut and boots.
My boss grabbed my hand and told me to slow down. I applied her advice elsewhere in my life, as well as at work. It has helped me. 
My apartment is so beautiful at 4:45 pm when the sun is shining right through the window. I never take days like this for granted. It feels better than anything knowing I am safe and healthy.

Nice

That's what would of done you in: expecting acceptable commentary from someone who looks like they don't know how to be acceptable in the first place. You have to hold your tongue. If you can't think of something nice to say, you don't say anything at all.

Love

When someone tells me they love me, I don’t care who it is, or what our relationship is, I always tell them I love them back.

Day 1

Somehow, I lost myself. It happened sometime after high school ended and it lasted for a very long time. I am not uncomfortable in my growth. It makes me uncomfortable to not grow. Today is day 1. 

Government

While Donald Trump is yelling about tariffs on the news, I am furiously building my second ever greenhouse in Sims 4 on my laptop from the corner of the room, seriously doubting the goodness in the world. Politics never interested me. As far as I’m concerned, there is little to nothing I can do about the state of society. It’s not the government’s fault your life is fucked up, something I learned early in life. Not in Canada, at least.

Winter

Statistically, Ottawa is the coldest capital in the world. Tons of snow is crippling the US, where people deny climate change, but there's barely any signs of winter here. Ottawa's notoriously colder than Toronto, too, which is on Lake Ontario. The time I spent in Toronto, the winters were mild. Now the winters are mild here, in Ottawa, which bodes well for me. I like winter, especially a mild winter. The cold, fresh air makes me feel alive.

2024

This is what I learned about myself last year: I do have bipolar I. I did experience mania and depression before I was medicated. I don’t want to fight over it anymore. I have come to the realization that I must accept my diagnosis. In doing so, I have become curious about the disorder. Usually when something’s broken, I say, “it gives it character.” I’m not broken, though, just different.

Mental illness

In my opinion, everyone has mental illness. It’s just the degree to which it affects you.

Now dry your tears and go to work. Because that’s what people do.