Dear past girl,

Looking at her photos and listening to Tegan and Sara. This is worse than drinking, than cutting. Worse than drugs. Chosen melancholy. Remembering the past makes me wish that everything existed in present tenses. Her past is just like my past. Shared but different.

It's different when you're not a person who thinks too much, who loves too hard. When you're the kind of girl who has a different hand in hers every weekend. When you're the kind of girl who wears cool sunglasses and doesn't have to hide anything under navy tights.

I am afflicted with emotions and thoughts of her. I lost the ring she gave me. I remember this as I stare at her tiny penciled handwriting. I didn't predict this aftermath. I would have been a deer then instead of now.

I don't want to apologize again. I should be long over this by now. It's the summer that reminds me of her. I know she can't have a whole season. No long ago heartbreak is worth a whole season, not even her.

I need to keep being around people, although I'm not being very social around people lately. I could talk about normal things like writing, authors, and art. Instead I'm staring into forks and at my fingernails, memorizing details of pillows and curtains.

I wish I could grab myself by the wrists and say, "This is enough," and run outside into the night. Once and for all let it go. No more thoughts that wander back to her. Sit on a sidewalk curb and feel the cold concrete under my fingertips. Breathe the night air and whisper secrets to the stars.

Every time someone says her name, or I see it written down somewhere, it's never in reference to her. It's never about her, yet I still get a guilty feeling in my chest. Just for a second I remember that I fucked it up.

We don't talk anymore, but I asked him how she was doing. I asked him if she was happy. I didn't want to know if she was dating anyone, or how school was, or how all the people that I gave up because they would have reminded me too much of her were doing.

He said she was happy, she was ok. Too busy even to keep in touch with him for awhile, but happy nonetheless. She is happy, so I should be happy too. She is definitely not sitting with her back rested against her bedroom wall writing something about me. I've been forgotten, moved past.

I should do the same and not be tempted by these momentary suffocations of nostalgia. Where memories literally suck the oxygen from my lungs and force me to think about them instead of who I am and what I need to accomplish right now.

I am:

I am:

a cutter. an artist.

a musician. a girl.

queer. selfish.

helpful. lazy.

needy. quiet.

a thinker. awkward.

sad. depressed.

lonely. tired.

changing. somebody.

a dreamer. a student.

thrifty. different.

the same. short.

fat. ugly.

human. social.

hard-working. kind.

odd. cool.

a photographer. a writer.

forgettable. average.

lost. searching.

a wanderer. confused.

agnostic. a storyteller.

a questioner. a boy.

a follower. a leader.

a worker. beautiful.

misunderstood. delicate.

strong. broken.

a lover. good.

free. ok.

missing. bound.

apathetic. clingy.

a romantic. female.

a noun. nearsighted.

dumb. a reader.

an intellectual. smart.

a feminist. an activist.

unstable. stubborn.

driven. nosey.

a wonderer. a crafter.

a deer. a papercutter.

a drawer. a graphic designer.

a friend. a sister.

a daughter. a niece.

a winner. a mistake.

a loser. bad.

open.

Letter A Blog Post Titles

[I have had many blogs over the years.

When I type in a letter to come up with a title, I get many titles that come up from old or secret blogs, or even draft posts. I thought it would be interesting to look at the titles without the posts, and wonder about their meanings. I've omitted all of the date or month as title posts, or else there would be lists of Februarys and Aprils.]

A book translated

A little bit louder and a little bit worse

A little bit of white snow in my thoughts.

A little break from you

About

About the moon

About Wednesday days and nights. Thursday mornings and evenings.

Again.

Alone. Thinking about being alone.

Art crawl

Assignment #70

Swap thoughts with me please.

Something is wrong with me today. Something doesn't seem right. It's not a bad grade in a class. The grade was better than I expected. It's not a messy room or lost things. It's not even lack of a person to hold hands with. It's not anything specific. There's only one thing it really could be, but I'm not sure that its that thing either.

I don't know what to say. It scares me because I always know what to say at the very least to myself. I always know what's going on in my head. Today I just don't know. This not knowing is making me anxious. It makes me want to go for a long walk nowhere.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm not sad, I'm not happy, but I should be happy right now. I made really nice things, I am enjoying the sun. I am writing this outside.

This reminds me of the time that John and I took a bunch of photos together. We went outside when he lived with his parents. John near the basketball court with the graffiti. I still have the photos, and I still like them, but I remember feeling so distant that day.

I thought all the photos were going to be terrible because I was feeling terrible. They weren't. Today is so beautiful and I am wasting it by feeling like this. I wish I could just shake this out of me, yet I can only think of one way to do that.

Summer vacation. I crawl into my head and can't seem to get out.

Always a ______.

Today feels like this.

Book making

Doing this was really fun.

I love glue gunning things, but it burns my fingers.

I still love it though.

First attempt, a little wonky, but a book nonetheless.

I'm going to fill it with a letter for my penpal Ryan.

Attempting version 2.0 soon with Leah for John.

Hopefully it will result in less glue gun burns.

Tutorial is here if you are curious and want to make one.

Or, better yet, make one with me.

Because I have all the things to make one.

I don't have anymore cardboard though.

Last summer

Je me souviens l'ete passe.

Quand je finirai, je te dirai,

Dans une voix essoufflée:

Je suis libre

Je suis libre

Attends-moi dans la nuit avec ton gris manteau.

Je te dirai mes idees.

Les choses que je voudrais plus que une amoureuse.

Une fille comme Vivian

Deux fleurs

Trois mannequins

Quatre romans

Cinq aventures

Six nuits je ne me vais pas souvenir

Sept jours sans beaucoup de limitations

Huit cafes sans les lectures de sante

Neuf projects d'art

Dix heurs au rêve

(et toi)

Self-distraction

Can't stop:

Writing stories

Writing poetry

Reading books

Drawing

Listening to french music

Thinking

Need to:

Study Shakespeare

Write exams

Finish school

Splitting in two. Death and Life.

Mort a dit:
Certain parts of me are dying.

I know which ones even if you aren't sure.

Different reasons for doing the same things.

Does that change anything?

Cutter, still a cutter.

Not going to vomit up everything on a platter

And have it dissected anymore.

I might do it, or I might not do it.

Might write about it, or might not.

Might be little light lines, or ones that make you cringe.

I am so obsessed with documentation,

But I'm not going to document this anymore.

I don't want it to turn into those three months

Where I said everything, counted lines, and wrote about everything that made me sad.

Killing monsters.

That's what I'm doing.

It's not the kind of thing people ask about.

"Oh hey, how's your cutting thing going?"

Killing monsters.

Killing questions.

"Was just reading up on your blog, and you said you lost a lot of blood last night."

Don't ask. Don't tell.

Funny how we reclaim phrases and words.

le fin.

...

Chere mort,

I thought I was changing. I thought I was growing. That there were shoots from seeds of life growing up among the cut, bleeding skin. That this little growth had been waiting for years to emerge. We are getting better, not worse. We wonder why we fall into these moments of sadness, but aren't we getting better? I'm a deer, remember? A deer.

Kill the bad parts, not the good ones. Rub away the dry, scabbed skin, and make room for new flesh. You have monsters, and everyone has monsters. The point isn't to kill them, but to have them alongside the other things that make you who you are.

Cut, and you will cut more. Cut more, and then you will cut even more. Cut and you will become that shaky girl again. That girl who falls to tears on the floor of the bathroom at 4:35am with a book in her hand and a knife in the other. That girl who contemplates both equally, but really knowing which one she will choose.

The girl with red streaks down her leg. Red fingerprints from trying to wipe it all away. Fingerprints that mark up beige towels and bathtubs, and aren't easily destroyed.

You don't want to be the girl who doesn't like herself. The girl who has no desire, who literally has to cut and tear feelings out of her body because she doesn't want any of them anymore. You were all these girls before.

You are ready to cope with the world like a real person. Give up your blades. Give it up. Throw them out. Give them away.

ton amie,

vie

...

Chere vie,

I am scared. I'm really scared of everything, and I am also a little scared that I am talking to myself like this right now. I don't know if many people talk to themselves like this, and it is probably a symptom of some sort of split personality or anxiety disorder. That would make a lot of sense, but it wouldn't justify my doing this.

What the fuck am I doing?

Nothing.

Not doing anything important.

Not doing anything meaningful.

Cutting feels safe.

Cutting feels strong.

Cutting feels like it will protect me from everything.

It is running away, while being right here.

I know this is very sixteen year old girl of me right now.

Twenty somethings shouldn't cut themselves.

We should have grown out of it by now.

I don't know who I am.

At least I knew who I was when I was that girl, those girls.

Those quivering, crying, bleeding girls.

cette fille,

mort

...

[And I could continue writing this forever. I feel very post-modern right now, and strange. I don't have the time to keep going, and I wonder how I even made it this far in writing all of this. I always question myself by talking to myself. I need to be around other people more. All these inside my head thoughts aren't good for me. Yet, when I get home, I put on music and go in my room and think. My restless thoughts and lack of concentration are becoming an illness. I must try really hard to be social in the next few days.]

Collecting memories of recent past

Maybe a musician 65/i365

Saturday April 24, 2010

When I was in high school, a boy's guitar teacher gave him a lot of these guitar picks. Women's breasts in orange and black tiger striped bikinis.

"Can I have one?" I asked him as he showed them to his guy friends and offered them to them.

"Why?"

"Just because."

More glamourous 66/i365

Sunday April 25, 2010

Coming home from being away for two days. Feel unkempt, unshowered, and aware of the too many hours I have spent in these clothes. This picture makes things seem better than they were. That the light really looked that beautiful, and that the little droplets of rain clinging to the bus shelter were little stars, not reminders of puddles. Waiting for the bus.

Not a fan of history plays 67/i365

Monday April 26, 2010

Reading Shakespeare. Exam tomorrow. Finishing off the last scenes of a play I don't like. I never could get into the history ones as much as the tragedies or comedies.

Reminded of dreams 68/i365

Tuesday April 27, 2010

Same sweater that I always wear. As I sat here studying, I suddenly had a sense that I had relived the same moment before. I had been here in a dream that I forgot. Second floor of the student centre. Someone was walking around. A tall woman with short dark hair. That is all I remember. It gave me shivers.

Not writing, but being a writer.

Tried writing three things this morning.

A poem, a part of a chapter of my book, something on here.

Each its own failure.

I'm no Bukowski. I haven't had enough women to be Bukowski.

I'm probably dehydrated. I'm probably always dehydrated.

I can't get in the habit of drinking things that aren't coffee.

Trying not to drink coffee today. Fell asleep studying instead.

Dealing with being an introvert today.

Not that today I'm particularly extra introverted compared to usual.

I'm the only girl I know who gets more distracted by blank paper than conversation.

There is a book I want to see in the research collections. It's about Virginia Woolf and bookbinding. I need to read more. I need to study.

I feel like a writer who doesn't write anything important.

(I wish I knew where this was)

Tiredness that can't be slept away.

I am tired. I have a tiredness that has nothing to do with the amount of sleep that you get at night. I feel tired in my chest, in my heart. Tired of waking up. Tired of going to sleep. Tired of writing things that no one reads or cares about. I am tired of having so much expected of me. I have moments where I am very awake to life, but right now I am just tired of everything.

I can't even really explain this to you. You aren't really listening, and you don't understand. I just thought that I should tell someone that I am tired and have them know how I mean it. I am tired of second guessing myself. I am tired of pixels and papers.

One day. Just one fucking day I want to disappear. Twenty four hours of being gone. No family. No work. No projects. Stare at the sky on a patch of grass in a generic location. No text messages from my mom telling me to go home. No calls from my sister yelling at me for not texting my mom back.

I want to feel nothing. I don't want the day to pass slowly. I don't want it to pass quickly. A day of not doing things. I mean, I not do things and do other things. I don't write a paper, and write an anecdote instead. No anecdotes, no papers, no things. I know I could do this for an hour, but doing nothing for a whole day might be tough. I don't even want to watch a movie. I sometimes do that on days where I do nothing. No movies, no reading, no absent-minded web browsing. I want to do nothing but lie on the grass, then probably a floor, and then maybe a bed.

I guess I would have to walk to these places which would be doing something. I just want to do as minimal things as possible. Calm my head and my whirring, churning thoughts. I don't want to have to listen to someone talk. I don't want to have to pretend to care about something, or actually care about something. I don't want to offer advice, the advice that I always rethink an hour later.

I'm just tired. So fucking tired and no one gets it.

Yesterday

Woke up at 6:00am. Caught the bus to downtown. Had some time to kill, so I got a coffee downtown that was too sweet. I caught the bus to work, and worked from 8am-4pm. I worked with someone who texted at the front desk. Not to say that I am the most diligent worker of all time, but this is usually where I draw the line.

I made the mistake of not eating. Too many ideas, and all I wanted was more coffee. By the time I was done, I was hungry and angry and didn't want to go to a party. Work ended at four, and John would be home by eight, and I didn't have a key to get in. I go to the one place where you can sit for four hours, and have nothing expected of you. Not even expected to look clean. Off to Jackson square arms full of bags and books and notes to John and Ryan.

I write in Jackson square. Sore feet and exhaustion from the day. Still feeling bitter. Very very bitter. Hating work, hating school, hating the party that is to come, and feeling slightly bad about being angry to the last three people I saw. I write half letters to three people and work out a new art project.

Short haired girl in a hat beside me. Wearing all black, and looking like I feel. (Although, I'm pretty sure I looked how I felt). Too tired. Too bitter. Too angry to stay there for long. Everything in Jackson square closes at six. Can't even buy a coffee, not that I should have bought another one.

I go outside and see a girl I've seen from downtown at least three times. The kind of kids that hang out, and walk around downtown without actually going anywhere or doing anything. Their lives are full of drama in their little groups, and chosen homelessness. Back of her black sweater says "KICK ME" in white writing.

I get food and take it to the rooftop of Jackson Square. Climbing up the stairs, a little girl of six is playing with her older sister who is at least 17. The little girl pushes her to the wall and her sister says "Ahh Aieesha, Tegan's trying to arrest me." I smile.

I go sit on the grass outside, and eat. It's not a nice evening. Cold. Cloudy. Kids are playing beside me. Fifteen year olds laughing and smoking. Hanging out in their trendy clothes and expensive shoes that their parents bought them. Lying back on the grass and staring at the clouds I feel old. When did I get this old?

I see stairs that might lead directly inside, and I head towards them after I am done eating and reminiscing about the past. I see a wallet near the stairs in an unkempt garden where people just throw their cigarette buds. Two abandoned photographs of a little black girl make me stop. Out loud and to myself I say, "Oh no, that's so sad."

I climb into the garden and pick up pieces of this girl's life. Makeup. A wallet with no cards. Flowers for Algernon the book. Homework questions for Flowers For Algernon. A pink bus transfer from April 21st 2010. My heart breaks a little when I see a Sarah Bardwell business card from when she used to work at the YMCA. I pick up everything I see and put it in my bag. I will document this all later, I tell myself.

I get a hold of John and go to his apartment. I show him my things and give him my gifts. I hope he likes the gift that is in the process of becoming something. Matt comes and the three of us escape for dinner. I forget how much I like Matt, and how good they are together. As we are walking, I think that he looks a lot like Andy Warhol or reminds me of someone who looks like Andy Warhol. Mostly, I like the sound of his voice. This is how I know I like someone and can get to know them.

The party starts. I am asked to play. I play "You". I'm singing it like I'm singing it to the person it's inspired by. I try to play the song I learned for Carly's birthday. The cover I worked hard to learn for a few days. Carly drunkenly talks over me as I'm singing. Tells me not to play it. Doesn't want me to embarrass her. I stop mid song. Didn't even get to the verse.

"Happy fucking birthday," I say and crumple the sheet in her chest and walk away and pack up my guitar. Julie and her girlfriend tell me I played well. That they only came to see me play, and were leaving. I am too mad to really accept the compliment but say thank you anyways.

Go to Tim Hortons. Something happens there that changes me. The story that is only meant to be told aloud. Feel like a queer feminist superhero. I no longer have room to feel really bitter or upset with anyone. Come back, and see Terra Lightfoot as she's coming in. Walk Nesreen to the bus and tell her the Tim Horton's story. She's the very first to hear it with all the swearing and the heroism. I don't pay attention while we go, and get momentarily lost trying to find 42 Caroline on my way back.

The rest of the night is a spectacle other people's drunkenness. Girls loudly talking about birth control. Dropped baked goods, spilt drinks. Elliott Smith covers, songs from broken up bands. Terra Lightfoot plays softly on the couch. The green second-hand couch that has a hundred stories now has a hundred and one stories, but don't all couches?

In John's room listening to queer stories. Adventures into the sketchy gay bars in Toronto, white trash camping stories, straight gayness. Stories that intrigue me more than they should because they are the first kinds of stories I have ever heard like that.

Kieron, the British exchange student comes back to the party when he left ages ago with Alaina. Lost her to some girl at a club or some friends. He wasn't sure which. He sits on John's bed and I tell him and Matt and John my story. It is past 3:00am, and there is still singing, and Carly is still loudly talking and on top of this all she has to work tomorrow at 8:00am.

The rest of the party people leave, John and Matt leave, and I steal John's bed. Kieron takes the couch, Jeremy and Carly in his room, and I go to bed thinking about all the things that have happened.

50 Things I am thinking at 3:09am instead of sleeping

1. I hope Carly doesn't mind that I intend on wearing her blue poka dot skirt tomorrow.

2. I have single-handedly ruined all my hopes for ever getting into grad school.

3. I have to catch the bus in three hours, is it worth sleeping?

4. How many other people are thinking the same kind of things right now?

5. Why do people tell me that I am smart, when I feel so stupid most of the time?

6. I have ten overdue library books, but I don't want to return them because they are like a part of me.

7. I forgot to text John happy birthday.

8. I don't want to get old.

9. I feel like I'm stuck in a mixed panic and apathy stage of my life that results in creativity yet unproductivity.

10. Unproductivity isn't a word because my browser's underlining it in red.

11. I need to write four letters this week.

12. I need to stop dreaming about professors, but I can't tell my subconscious this because it doesn't listen to me when I do.

13. If I never accomplish anything in life, does it still make the life I lived meaningful?

14. Who am I working with tomorrow?

15. I hope the bus isn't late.

16. I can't read on the bus anymore, and I don't know why.

17. How long can I hold my breath for?

18. Will I ever publish something?

19. If I fall asleep now, I will likely have to rewet and redo my hair.

20. Why am I so afraid of the idea of the queer scene, queer bars, and queer community?

21. The class I learned the most from, I will get the worst grade in.

22. Come to think of it, the class I will get the best grade in, I learned the least.

23. Why does my breathing feel funny?

24. I am nervous about at least six things right now.

25. Did I just hear the car door slam?

26. I want a cat because I can love a cat very much and that is normal.

27. I stole one of Carly's pens from downstairs.

28. I have been thinking about just stopping being queer, and becoming whatever I am becoming, but when I try I can't.

29. I didn't cut myself today, which is a really good sign that things are looking up.

30. I didn't buy or make anything for lunch tomorrow.

31. I hope there is time in the morning for cereal.

32. What is Sadie Benning doing right now?

33. In my head I just ran through the list of everyone I have thought of in the past day, and wondered what they were doing.

34. My sister said having a wall of post-it notes would be scary, but I think it would be fascinating.

35. I wish I was the pear.

36. The pillow is telling me something.

37. Is it unusual that most of my close friends from high school have never really dated anyone?

38. I wonder how Bob Dylan would feel to know that he is on a poster in my room.

39. My blankets are soft

40. Go to bed already

41. Yes you can get coffee in the morning.

42. It would be much cheaper to make coffee at home, but most people who know you discourage you from drinking it, and you never wake up early enough to even make tea.

43. Bah

44. There is an odd high pitched ringing in my left ear that just disappeared.

45. Why do I care, or why does anyone care what I am thinking at 3:09ish am?

46. I wonder if there will be any cute grad students tomorrow studying the works of Anais Nin which is something I dream about often.

47. I hope I don't run into my professor tomorrow. Any of them actually.

48. I need to work on my narrative voice

49. Sandra needs to come to the party.

50. I hope that I can play at least half as good as Terra Lightfoot because everyone really likes her music.

Practising (Waving Flag cover)

Carly's cover I hope to play semi-well tomorrow night.

Fuck self-doubt.

"Enjoy your body and use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own."

-the sunscreen song

Fuck you self-doubt. 63/i365

Friday April 23, 2010

I'm sick of feeling shitty about my body. I'm sick of caring about the scars, the stretch marks, and the fat. The eyebrows that I always forget to pluck. Fuck it. Not that I'm going to become a slob. I'm working on all these things simultaneously, but I'm not going to hate my body in transition. Fuck the world if it thinks I'm going to.

Other things:

Shoes and messy rooms. Story of my life. 57/i365

Saturday April 17, 2010

Visits with dad. 58/i365

Sunday April 18, 2010

Much too tired for this 59/i365

Monday April 19, 2010

Waking up into empty rooms 60/i365

Tuesday April 20, 2010

"Wear something nicer."

"What's wrong with what I have on?"

"Well we're going out for dinner"

61/i365

Wednesday April 21, 2010

Closing the lab for the summer means I will have to find other places to take photos. Which is probably a good thing. 62/i365

Thursday April 22, 2010

About the moon

The moon is the moon and you are not. Admiring such large things always leads to songs being written. I've been told that people can't be the moon, and when you say that someone is, it's raising them to a position of false superiority which only grows your own inferiority complex.

The thing is, people are moons. They exist as moons. People love them, people admire them. People go out of their way to acknowledge them in a busy room, or on the street. You are just one of those people. No matter how bad it hurts, you're one of those people who acknowledge the moon too. Just another person who nods and walks by.

You can live with that. To the moon, it has a galaxy. To you, there's the moon. It will never understand what its like to walk around the world with a head full of ideas, and to dream of it some nights. It doesn't get it.

That's ok, you tell yourself this. You never really deserved the moon anyways. You always knew this. When those thoughts were running around in your head, you knew this. You have too much hope for things that only happen in books.

So, you're probably going to write a song. Or sing that one you already wrote with more meaning behind certain parts of it. It's going to be just like any other song, or anything else you make. It's probably not going to be original. It won't be cutting-edge. You're writing about the moon, not a self-invented sub-culture.

You'll get over the moon. It takes some work to think of other things instead. Can't help the dreams, but they fade. So too does everything that was once grand. Grand feelings for grand things fade. The moon is just a rock in the sky at night. It is only beautiful because of light.

Tell yourself this enough times and you believe it.

Still.

Gave in.
Missed it.
I can pass this off as an accidental slip in judgement.
Or
It's starting again.
Cutting.

I know.
Same old shit, right?
I can still get away with it.
You just have to be careful when other people know.
Like buying gauze and medical tape.

I know why I did it.
Because I'm scared of not doing it
And my other coping mechanisms suck.

Shouldn't feel like I have to cope with life.
Should just be able to live it.

Should be an interesting few days.
I have that guilty feeling again.
I forgot what that felt like.

Feel a little nothingness again.
I forgot what that felt like too.

I simultaneously want this
But I don't want to go back to how things were.
I've worked so hard to get here.
I'm a deer, remember?
Deer don't look back.

I look at the new lines.
I always do this.
I look at them and honestly think of how they make me feel.
Sometimes
I feel like a coward for doing so few
Or I feel stupid for doing so many.
Or I feel like a hand who is attached to a foreign body it hates.

Now?
I don't know.

Once the ball is rolling

Welcome to Thursday morning. I want to hit stop. I want to stop everything that's happening right now. Hit pause, walk out of frame, and come back to this all in six months. No, nine months. I need to get pregnant with something that's like a baby, but really just a good idea that will be born out of my hands, or my mouth as a piece of music, or art.

I made that movie. I made that animation. I left those notes. I showed people the movie. I showed people the animation. Everyone saw those notes. People still see the animation when my mom makes me show them. They all go quiet. Every single one of them goes quiet. I know what they are thinking.

Professors. I wonder what they are thinking too.

"Do you identify as a lesbian yourself?" Andy asked me that yesterday morning. Can't you see that I'm trying to find a visual language for something I can't say to everyone quite yet? Forty years of being out out out asking three-months of self=acceptance about being something that is really fucking scary. Coming into an identity and what that identity means.

I know that this would be easier if I hadn't been cutting. If I still didn't want to do it. I can't watch my movie anymore for the triggers. Fuck. I swear too much now.

I have so many option right now. I need to finish my animation, and chuck it out into the world so that it can find where it belongs. It doesn't belong on my computer. It didn't belong in my animation class. It doesn't really belong in this city.

She'll do that. What will I do? I'll send her with the necessary paper work to all those little festivals, and make sure she looks pretty enough to be looked at seriously. Even if nobody wants her, she'll be ok because someone will always appreciate her.

No, but really what will I do? I asked Andy if coming out stories were cliche. He said they weren't because everyone still has a little soft spot for them. Everyone always likes hearing them.

I could make a coming out piece. A personal piece. I could do that, but I'm not sure how. Writing, video, animation. I could just tell people, but I feel like that's going so awesomely lately.

What am I so scared of? Am I scared that I'm really not queer, or lesbian? Aly, Aly, Aly, Aly. You've felt different all your life.

Remember that day when Carly fell asleep, and you stayed up all night talking to that girl who was your sister's friend. You walked down the street at 6:30am in the morning, and went running on the track, and then walked back home again. It was just friendship, but you liked her. You liked her so much that you couldn't go to sleep even when you wanted to that night. Because you knew it would be just you and her, and you always did seem to like people who are too popular. People who are too difficult to steal away from other people for a few minutes.

Remember that feeling in your chest when your best friend would talk about the boys that she liked at church camp. Brian and Jason. Jake and Thomas. Generic boy names like that. The boys who didn't like her, the boys who were fakely her friends, and would never be her boyfriend. She liked them so much, and it hurt you that she liked them more than you. The camp that stole her away for six weeks in the summers when you weren't working and weren't too busy to have a social life.

Remember that girl. The girl you were never going to come out for. It was only an accident. It was because you said you like boys, but someday in the future you might date a girl someday you know just to see how it is, right?

Remember when you sat on that blue chair in the old computer room when you were fifteen. You sat on it, and you were so relieved to say, "I'm definitely not gay. I mean I can't be. I just can't be gay. It's too hard to be gay." And you thought about the word "lesbian" and that you didn't really like it. And that it just wasn't a word that described you. You were so much better off realizing this so soon you thought. Over and done with. Simple.

Remember in high school how you loved cutting. The thing that sucked your desire for everything else in the world. Still, you managed to be fond of that girl so far away, and that teacher, and the girl whos name you won't admit to drawing hearts around in your notebook that one day in art class when you didn't even know what you were doing and someone had to point it out to you. You looked down at your notebook, and it was her name, and not a boys name. And you explained it by being absent-minded.

There were boys. The boys in elementary school. Those two boys in grade nine you might have liked. The boys you tried hard to like. Remember when you were talking to your friend on MSN, and you said, "I might like E." And she got all excited for you, and gave you suggestions, and then you realized that you liked her more than you liked him. And the real reason you were telling her wasn't because you were overcome with a secret desire for this boy that you absolutely had to disclose to somebody, but it was because you felt like it was normal to like a boy. You thought by talking it over you would suddenly grow an immense, overpowering attraction.

Maybe in five years, you'll find a guy you like. Maybe ten. You will date, and then you will have kids or something and get married maybe. But listen, you and I know you've never written a song for a boy. There was part of that song that was inspired by John, and that song you just wrote him. That's it. Every other song is about that girl you couldn't come out for, or your grandparents. There was that one song about the boy who died in your grade. All the new songs are about girls. You don't purposely do this I know. It just happens when you open your mouth, the words seem to fall out the way they do, and you know who they were inspired by, or for.

We could go with it, or we could not. We could sit on the chair in your room and say, "I'm definitely not gay, I'm definitely not into girls." And then we could find a guy. Try to like one like we like girls. In that all-or-nothing young way where we stare at the ceiling and only think of them. Where every song you listen to is a story about you and them together. When you like someone a little too much, a little too hard to be normal.

Maybe you will actually genuinely like a boy. Maybe he will make you crazy, and fulfilled someday. And that's ok if that's the truth. If that's truly what happens, then go for it, and embrace it. But right now, you need to embrace who you feel you are becoming. Your truth.

Dream 9: Queer cartoons in a movie

Thursday April 22, 2010

Dream 9: Queer cartoons in a movie

The dream was completely like a cartoon. Everything was fully animated rotoscoping. A woman with bob-length blonde hair was at a community centre talking to a man at a desk. She wanted to know if there were any queer-related events she could go to.

He mentioned that there was a queer cruise, but she didn't feel comfortable enough. The woman agreed to go to a movie night at a theatre. The woman decides to sit in the front row because there's no other room for her to sit anywhere else. She's nervous and anxious looking around behind her. In the second row of the theatre is a row of children eating popcorn, dangling their legs on the seats.

In the back of the theatre is a busy queer/lesbian woman who also has blonde hair. She is wearing a grey suit, and she's talking on a cellphone, as if she just came from work. She's wearing sunglasses. On the phone she says, "Yes, there's nowhere for me to sit now, so I'll have to go to the second row."

She comes to the second row, and the woman in the front row and the second row lock eyes for a second. The woman in the front row nervously turns around. The woman in the front row looks like a stay-at-home mom who is still trying to discover herself. The business woman sits near the kids, but the kids aren't hers. She's in some way related to the family.

She takes off her sunglasses, and pulls her hair up into a high 80's looking ponytail with a big scunchie. She unbuttons her jacket, and sits cross-legged, and crosses her arms across her chest. The blonde mom, keeps looking back at the woman, and the woman smiles, and slowly leans forward.

Off to the right, one of the moms of the kids says in a half loud whisper that she shouldn't be flirting with that woman.

The business woman looks at the blonde mom who's turned around, says, "Oh she's still" and moves her hands back and forth as if to motion still in the closet.

The blonde mother is nervous, turns around anxiously and stares at the screen for the rest of the movie. She wants to like the blonde business woman, but she can't let herself. Her lip quivers in the blueish light of the screen which reflects across her white animated face.

James Street North Mornings

Waiting for Dave to open his store,

I document the mail that will go to Texas

And take capture this street on a Wednesday morning.

Places seem like different places depending on the time of day.

It's as if I have never been here before.

Bonjour Corbeau

I can't even collect my thoughts enough to write them down.

It's like my mind is holding its breath. Breathing for a second, then holding its breath.

When it breathes there are a hundred things it thinks about for less than a hundred seconds.

Then it holds its breath and I stare at a word for three minutes.

Then my heart beats fast and I think about deadlines.

Ultimatums, deadlines, endings, and beginnings.

Important people, important words.

Birthdays.

I can't go back to where I was before.

Can't go back to it.

Is it wrong that I think so much of it?

The things we think we are really over, but aren't.

Reminded by carrots, by cutting fucking carrots.

It's not the thud of the blade hitting the wooden chopping block.

It's the wet, slick sound of metal splitting open flesh.

Carrot flesh, which is just plant cells.

All the same.

Flesh that is flesh that reminds you of your flesh

Really can't go back.

Your mother knows because she told you she knows.

She overreacted about that papercut on her finger, and accusingly asked you if you had any bandaids.

Because she saw the empty ones on your floor.

She would know exactly what those tiny flecks of red are

That cling to the edge of the bathtub.

She would spot the splotches

On the laundry she steals when she tells you she's never doing your laundry again, but does it anyways.

Evidence.

"The second you stop, it moves from the present to the past."

"Just don't do it anymore, and its like it never happened."

Thing is,

It did.

I also like where I am right now.

I like that I am building up myself into a person who does things

Like art, videos, projects, music.

I printed off more than fifty photos of me today.

Fifty photos of a person that people are going to look at in a shoebox twenty years from now and wonder about. Make me seem more beautiful, and profound than I really am.

John would be mad at me right now

if he knew how much Tegan and Sara I was listening to.