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.