Fifty Nine

Day Fifty Nine:  Finally

In an effort to take care of things

We brushed up on our sarcasm, our subtext,

And trailed through deep mud-ridden paths

Of soliloquy and snide responses

To truly acknowledge something rough, intimate,

And we lost everything along the way, the dirt griming our feet.

With every breath we find a new shout to say, a new way to try,

And yet we are completely out of our minds

With a lost sense of language.

Pure in every sense that language we used to know,

And yet all of it lost amongst the tree’s, in soft allegory.

Oh, lost, oh lost and insecure between each finger sits more

Instinct, more frailty,

Oh come on now losing it further a risk a jump

Off every cliff, every fall depicting a story

That we tried to hide in subtlety,.

We are too frank though,

Too frank for our own goods

So we got lost again, lost and trailing through

Dirt and shit and roughness,

So insecure?  Not anymore.

With large packs on our backs and rivers in tow

I think we’ve come across a primal and driven kind,

Those who speak with grunts, lost their mind.

Seen through screens, read through text

That although important

Can be misread,

Oh language, you are lost with us too,

Did you happen to jump?

That cliff may be safe for a limp body,

But words formed by structure and sound

Are no match for the thudding, solid ground.

So writing it seems to prove difficulty

More difficult, I find, than any other,

To inspire new, originality of the then,

So ephemeral, so organic

That within the biology of my own being I find

It grows from somewhere I’ve lost inside,

Well, maybe not lost,

But it hides from me, my own language forestry.

So, no, I have lost no mind of mine,

No language gone, no idea’s fluttering through my fingers,

But it seems that they choose a specific time to emerge

From the depths, from each and every cave,

So that although I may want one now,

It only comes when it’s ready,

When it’s ready to show it’s head above this muddy, shitty, ground.

Fifty Eight

Day Fifty Eight:  Characterisation

Focusing on monologues lately I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am a detailed writer, I love writing in the sounds a character hears or the colour of shoes they are wearing.  I have since I was young, and I think it might be my downfall.  I have recently read that it doesn’t matter what colour a character’s shoes is unless it pertains to the story, unless it reveals something integral about that character.  I don’t necessarily agree with that statement because really, I think any detail is important (as Judith would always say, it’s the little things about a character that make them unique) and so I will continue to include the tiny particular details that I love about my characters.

Take A for instance.  I’ve been working on A since about October, and A doesn’t have a super cool name or anything yet, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at her.  She is tall, tall and falls over chairs on buses and the people sitting in them.  She visits her grandfather a lot, and likes to play chess despite her not really knowing what each piece does.  She carries a calculator in her back pocket, and instead of drinking milk with her dinner she has a juice box, it’s just what she does.  She would like to find a way to prove herself, and that’s just about as much as I’d like to give away.

When there’s a character forming inside of me many paragraphs like the one above erupt at any given moment.  Today the beginnings of that paragraph started two minutes after finishing my monologue in class, sometimes it’s right when I wake up, but usually it’s when I’m around other people.  When the things that the character does, or their tick’s erupt I have the impulse to stop what I’m doing and write them down.  Same with their surroundings, which the description changes for for short stories, novels, and plays.  In A’s instance she is in a play, which means most of her ticks and surroundings can be manipulated and changed if not written correctly.  But somethinglike her not knowing what each piece on the chess board does is easy to write in, but something like her need to prove herself is harder.  I am hoping that this play turns out, as it is very slowly being written, and will hopefully be completed by June (remember my post on goals?  I feel like my first post in March will be about the summer goals I have set). 

Looking forward to Friday, only one post left which will probably be an ending poem.  Can you tell I am starving for a good insightful post again?  I miss my meaningful (in that way) blog.

x

Fifty Seven

Day Fifty Seven:  Oh My

Dear Legs, dear dear dear legs, you seem to be the only part of my body that haven’t given up on me, despite your aches and not so great knee’s or ankles, you keep me upright everyday.  Recently I have found you two to be great anchors when meditating.  Something you may not know about me is that when I meditate I use different things (or to maintain mindfulness) to get back focused on my breathing and not thinking about a bunch of things and just focusing on one.  Lately I’ve been using my legs, really noticing the features, the odd length, the incompleteness I feel with them and the absolute love I do have for them.  What, don’t you love your legs?  Just the fact that you have to walk on them everyday means you are grateful for them.  I don’t thank my body enough, really, because it does the job.  Albeit it usually gives up on me but I do my best to give it what it needs.  I eat oatmeal, and have chocolate when I think it’d like it.  But my legs never give up, they keep going.  When I’m tired, exhausted beyond belief my legs are what get me home.  This is the most bizarre thing to write, how much I love my legs, but let’s be real here, let’s be straight:  they don’t get enough credit.  Girls for one thing constantly hate every bit of their bodies, they pick something wrong with their body, or multiple things (usually tons if not everything) and loathe it intensely for a long time.  I used to hate my legs.  They’re sort of large, and silly, and short and don’t really fit in with what I’d like to look like, but after you know being with them for twenty one years now I’ve come around to them.  They’re mine, they’re cosy, and if I am nothing else I am cosy.  And not boring.  I have said it once and I’ll say it another million times:  I may not be the smartest, or most articulate, or most optimistic, or skinniest, or funniest…but I am not boring.

That is all, thanks legs.

x

Fifty Six

Day Fifty Six:  Just Getting to the End

Oh boy, she seemed to really get upset at that.  He spoke slowly and she just responded in that way that really wrong way that no one wants anyone to respond.  That way where her hands fall to her sides, and her mouth stays tightly shut, eyes close, only one tear, and a deep breath.  Opening her eyes she looks back up at him and nothing changes not even her breathing, but her mouth opens slightly and she replies “well it was good while it lasted, right?”  And you may ask why this was the wrong response, why this compliance is undesirable, why he felt so short-changed, so low, after those words were spoken.  It was of course as if she had said nothing at all, because the minute he let those words fall on to her ears and those hands fell from his he knew that maybe it was not the right decision on his part and maybe he regretted it instantly but that was one decision that could not be retracted.  He reached for her, or he might’ve if she had stayed put, but she turned and left.  No good-bye’s, no see you later’s this time, because when those words are empty they stay that way.

Staring after her he breathed in, and out, and looked at his empty hands where hers just were, and he wondered why those things that he said had been said, and why they were so easy to be said, and why every love song describes love to be so hurtful and hard, and why everyone in the world wanted that one thing that tore you apart.  It tears you apart and that’s just it, it makes a strong man fall to his knee’s praying for her to return.  He didn’t fall to his knee’s, he would never claim to be strong, not after this, not after that, or her.  One tear?  No, not now, later, maybe not at all.  He stared after her, those words were simpler than he thought they would be, and now it was over.

But does it end?  Does the love go into the universe, dissolving like sugar in water?  That’s just it, there’s so much love in the atmosphere that it suffocates us into making stupid decisions.  There is so much love in the atmosphere that with every breath it clouds our minds so that judgement…judgement becomes unclear.  His mind was clouded by so much more.

Just trying to describe a feeling here, again, cannot WAIT until FRIDAY when I can start writing things that are meaningful to me again.  If I write three poems for the rest of the week don't hate me.

x

Fifty Five

Day Fifty Five:  Shake it like a Polaroid..

Let me go.  I’m fine.

That short break between beats of the heart is when maybe not silence but some kind of peace rests for a moment, enough to acknowledge its presence.  Peace, in any shape or form, is more of a rester instead of a rough-houser.  It is more important to make peace known than to really shake things up with it.  Picture peace as the park bench on a spring day, open for conversation, breath-taking views, or just a moment of serenity amidst your busy day.  It lives within us all, it is just getting in touch with it and not embracing it but giving it the time it needs.  Like every feeling or thought peace deserves just that rest.  You deserve that rest.  Enough to just bring it over yourself in order to keep going through that day, through the motions, in order to get by.  Maybe that’s just something that comes with being me, or living with what I live with, but I take in peace everyday if I want to or not, but enough to recognise that I deserve that peacec that has come to me.

And not everyone has it.

Let me go, let go of me, I can do this on my own.

x

Fifty Four

Day Fifty Four:  Rain is a Good Thing

Once upon a time Diana existed, and she really liked hefty cups.  One day Diana was spalunking in the Guelph when a very hairy and moist ant eater danced sweatilly.  The Diana’S best friend named Jedidiah fermented along and tried to lactate heartilly.  In order to cut the day, Jedidiah and Diana procreated together.  They both massaged pustulatedly.  The end.

This was a mad lib I wrote and a group of lovely people (Becca, AJ, and Judith) all filled in the randomness as can most likely be seen.  It's hard writing oneof these, so, it's an experiment.  And resulted in a ton of fun phrases!

x

Fifty Three

Day Fifty Three:  The Rough Duckling

Lost in a puzzle box for a puzzle you no longer belong to

Slowly counting the ways to escape, but these boxes are air tight,

Bullet proof, and rough.

The only comfort is there are lots of pieces surrounding you,

Holding you in place.

Suffocating in a shattered glass fashion:   innocent gasps underfoot.

Nowhere to turn but up, the only way you know,

Up to “heaven’s boulevard,”

Where they’ve promised a release

But no garaunteed escape.

Voluntarily, greedily,

Pressing your hopes upward:

“Please get me out of here,

Please let lightning strike this roof this time.

Please cut a hole in the cardboard cut-outs.

Save us.”

But in all, you are a selfish piece.

You may look the same, but going up is the illusion,

They want you to stay just where you are.

x

Fifty Two

Day Fifty-Two:  The end result

He sat in my lap like he used to when he was little and I made him pinky swear that he would always hug, kiss, and spend time with  me even when he grew taller than me, drank beers and lived on his own.  He promised with his half toothy grin half Jess-I’m-watching-according-to-jim-let-me-go grimace.  I leaned backwards and accidentally fell off of the chair, to which he fell on top of my face.  His shoulder collided with my nose, and I pinky promise you that tomorrow morning there will be a bruise.  He changed the channel after I got up to the wedding show, put his arm around me and rubbed my hands.  He got me water, and when I offered to change the channel back to his show he said I could watch mine.  He may not fit into a bundle in my arms anymore, but that sensitivity and lovingness will never go away.  He’s bigger and awkward now, and it’s hard for me to come to terms that as much as I want to I can’t protect him from the hurt.  I try to with Riss but I can’t, Kyle just keeps growing, keeps seeing and hearing and learning, he knows more about itunes and google than I could ever know, and he doesn’t know how to handwrite but can type on a touch screen faster than any of my friends.  He dances in the shower to Macklemore and still begrudgingly shares his chips with his almost-nine-years-older oldest sister.  He’s my little bean, my little boosh, Bub, an assortment of the names I’ve come up for him since he was born.  I still hug and kiss him, I still tell him he’s special, and I never want that to go away.  He’s my baby brother, and so so so special to me.

On our arms we display our hearts

Our sleeves are the embraces when distance prevails

x

Fifty One

Day Fifty One:  Into the Fire

Last night we walked into this pub in Toronto where I immediately ordered a pint of my London beer and chimed my absolute love for the place and she kept turning behind us because there were two attractive men seated further into the bar. We ordered to Big Ben Brownies, and when they arrived (carried by two attractive bus boys) they were actually the biggest things in the world.  I was not embarrassed, Id eserved this massiv brownie from walking through the tundra-ness that was Toronto for the past two days.  It was freezing and windy and just all around gloomy and we walked for like three hours average every day anyway.  What troopers, definitely digging the freedom that is Toronto on an everyday basis.

I think what I like best about Toronto is that it really is its own culture.  You walk downtown and you get the people who don’t even apologise when they run into you on the street.  In non-Canadian terms, you enter the real world.  Then you leave those streets and come onto the people who apologise, who actually smile, who are genuine and are everywhere.  I have too much faith in people I think.

There is this Bruce Springsteen song (lol) actually an entire album called “the Rising” that I really like.  Whenever it pops up on my itunes I let it run through because it really calms me down.  It reminds me of my last trip to NJYC, which brings me to the next point:  NYC.  We are planning a trip, and I am sincerely hoping it all works out.  I can’t wait to keep adventuring for the rest of my life.  I want it to be just full.

I am determined to live a full life.

I also can’t wait until I can write proper blogs again.  Eight days.

z

FIFTY

Day Fifty:   Hunt.

No intention of triumph

But mostly cold snd small

Weak attempts

Of anunderstanding

Short tempered, little confidence

Lulling into a light slumber

Of lecturing mouthes for a cause

Glazed over eyes, short sniffs

Of interest

That exhaust shortly after beginning.

And among all of these

It becomes clear.

It:  the stench of disinterest,

Not quite but almost failure.

x

Forty Nine

Day Forty Nine:  Tragically

Go home, he said, go home and leave us alone.  I don’t like leaving anyone alone, so it just makes me curdle my anger inside.  Can that be a thing?  Curdling?  Pent up?  Drumming out?  Checking out?  Is it okay to always check out when things get borig or tough or insecure?  Security is never a sure thing though, it never seems to come when I need it.  You’re supposed to trust yourself that you’ll take of yourself, that yourself will be..well, yours.  Those days come along when you don’t come through, what then?  Should I just let myself break?  I shouldn’t let anyone break, let alone…  Well, is it possible to curdle?  To curdle against the stream, to maintain a steady heartbeat around these..swimmings?  Is it philosophy to write your own stories?  Own words?  Is it Shakespearean to try a little?  In other words, unheard of?  Am I really alone with myself?  Is it possible that within all of these thoughts, these…obscurities within me I have compiled an other?  Have all of these dreams, these conversations, not been with no one but been with myself?  Are we ever really left alone?  Can we ever really leave?  “Left alone.”  Stupidly fumbling for the keys, the password, the last straw.  Is it to painful to really see that although everything around me might be balanced I just might be a little off-kilter?  I am tied to the fact that maybe I am never by mself, left to be, just left to be among.

x

Forty Eight

Day Forty Eight:  Her.

She was determined, and strong, but doubtful and challenged herself everyday to do better.  She didn’t know what was quite right yet, or how to please people, or how to play the system to fly too far under the radar, but she was noticing things that were crucial in the learning process.  She was smart, smart enough to know what she wanted to do in the future and smart enough to get her act together and make good choices to lead towards those necessities in her life.  She confuses love with the need for a body, but she loves love, and loves everyone, and cares too much about the people around her, and is caring enough to let herself hurt for those people.  She is confident enough to stand up but not necessarily at the right times, but she is learning.  Right now she is willing to learn, and that is the important part.  She is quiet when it comes to her rights, she’ll learn to stand up for those too.  That’s just it about her, she’s learning, and I love her for it.  I don’t know what I would do without her, I tell her everything, and we fight and we are fine right after.  We are strong together, compassionate together, and make eachother stronger.  I am such a beter person because of this girl, and I’ve known her for her entire life  I remember the day she was born, and I was so excited to get to play with a new baby but all she did was cry and sleep.  For a while |I thought she was a doll, that just cried and slept, and then she began to crawl, and notice the cat and the colour of my eyes and the flowers in the garden.  She knew how to swim, and jump and swing on the swings.  I told her about Joseph and the Beatles and she told me about Barney, and the things that were important to her.  I will never forget the day that I taught her her first dance lesson, and there we were in our leotards in pigtails on the front yard, and her laugh.  Her laugh alone makes me want to laugh everyday, it makes me want to be a comedian just so I can hear it.  I love her to the ends of the universe, and I would do anything or her.  In the shower I write her wedding speech, and tell her how proud of her I am.  She is my sister, and she is one of the most amazing people in my life.  She’s not perfect, but she is so much more.

x

Forty Seven

Day Forty Seven:  A Hard Place

Beams in smooth shades of particular

glass doors, intentional shatter

Around fences trunked with amber holds,

Through Clausta-formations in the shivering depths.

Stuck in all sense of the word, immobile death.

And so just, and so smart,

And so persuasive in the dark.

In to what honour, to which, in which it boldly shows

That not only is there something creeping but something more

Mold, frantically peeking

So that in every hourly check

The dank space epitomizes shallow breathing,

Loss inducing shortness of it all,

Something like panic, but gripping.

If we all came from a shining light

How come it dissolves before our eyes?

Forty Six

Day Forty Six:

Once upon a time there was a moose who likes to drink a looot of juice.  There was once a popsicle caught in the wind, it melted, dwindled it did, then I thought "ha-ha--ha-haÈ because the popsicle did thaw.

That was Ceara s story contribution to todayès post.  Here is mine:

So there was this one girl who sat on my bed and she drank a lot of the beers, and then she talked a lot about falling on her ass.  I laughed a lot at these stories, we drank a lot of beer together.  Memories, fourteen years, that one time we sat on a curb and ate pizza.  Friendship is like a pirate ship, we did all kinds of things while sailing.

x

Forty Five

Day Forty Five:  ;

But I can’t remember when I started to learn all these things, I remember just knowing things.  I remember just knowing that my hand was a hand, or that the red light means stop.  I just know them.

But why?  How?  It seems so much deeper, neurological, or should be.

Not everything needs to make sense.  Or at the very least not everything always needs to make sense just to you.

Are you going to step off the bus now?  I’ve been waiting five minutes.

Like I was saying, how did I learn to step?  I can’t remember the first, maybe someone does but I doubt it.  I remember always stepping, but never how it happened.

Step off the bus.

And  into what?  The dirt?  I would’ve much preferred to step off into some concrete pool of heat, instead of this dust-bin you’ve brought me to.

My hand’s in front of you, just get off the bus now.

Now tell me how you learned.

Learned to what?

Learned driving, your stepping, breathing, tell me exactly how you learned.

Take my arm we can avoid these bushes, to get down to the lake, to get down to the group=

Or how to blink because I’m sure you do, to blink and to smile, how did you learn?  I can’t remember how I learned, I don’t even know if this is a smile, is this a smile?  Is this blinking?  Am I stepping?

Further and further behind.

What?

I said we are further behind with every blink, step, and smile, can we go now?

You haven’t told me anything!

And I don’t need to.  You need to take my arm so we can get on with the group, so we can get on with this day, so eventually I can drive you back home and I can finish my day, and sleep.  Now take my arm.

Take blinking for instance.  I’m sure it is sensational.  To at one moment see the sunlight and then to not, I can imagine it being very…sensational.  Is blinking sensational?  Or is it just like nothing?  Do you blink because your eyes are heavy?  Or does your eye just feel like closing at that moment in particular?  How does one learn? 

How we learned isn’t important it’s that we continue to do it, now grab my arm.

I think you’re missing the point.

I think you’re missing this class.  You want to learn?  We should get down to the lake.

If learning how isn’t the point then why bother?  Let’s just get back on the bus and you can describe to me your first thoughts, are they sensational, too?

There’s a scene stuck in my head and this is the closest I’ve gotten to getting out, first time I’ve tried in a while and it came out…not so great, but it’s me trying to get it out of my head atleast.  I am hoping to keep trying eventually, it’s getting harder and harder to not write blog posts and keep writing creatively everyday.  Good thing I chose the shortest month in the year to do this..I’m so clever.  Alright, bed.

x

Forty Four!

Day Forty Four:  Him.

So lightly touched in your ever shine

Despite all darker brooding

Chronic is your style,

Any Jungian faces you put on

For me, persona means less

And more everyday, I struggle to

Identify the little things about you.

Even when I assume we are broken

We are not.  We are us.

Sometimes I assume we are more than…

In the best way, in the way that

Every coffee smiles back,

And every minor struggle

Propels us further into what I’ve grown to know as

One helluva crutch, a lean-to,

A Fort against the mass of depressing

Bullshit that is our everyday.

Never mentioning those sentimentalities

That we both assume regularly anyway,

That “Hey,”  I’ll be there,

Just a press away.

z

Forty Three

Day Forty Three:  Anecdotal

Have you ever had that one moment when time freezes in your mind and you see whatever situation you are sitting in before you? Not quite like an out of body experience, but the evening slows, and you see the things around you differently for a moment.  This happened this evening as I sat at a dinner table with three very good friends, a glass of wine in one hand and some witty quip in the other.  I looked over at my friend Ben who was probably taunting me about my major and how it is different than his (Human Kinetics, if you are interested…or, that’s what I think it is, he loves anatomy…) and then at Jude, the birthday girl, laughing along and enjoying her break.  To Hailey, who I hardly see at any given time during the semester so it was wonderful to chat with her and enjoy this time.  Looking at these three people, enjoying conversation, and time froze around ,e.

The table was in complete disarray after our eating everything on it, and the wine was just about to be finished, and cake was mentioned, and then it happened.  I think I blinked maybe once, and nothing was moving.  The Wallflowers stopped playing, and the laughter ceased into hazy smiles on their faces.  It was a “candid camera” moment that is akin to those nineties home-video style birthday video’s we used to have, where the camera is askew and everyone seems to be mid-sentence.  I breathed in once, just once, blinked again, and it was gone.  It was a photograph printed in memory inside of me now, and it tells a story that I just needed today.

This week has been stressful to say the least, but it is looking up.  As of 2:30 pm tomorrow I will be ready for reading week, having finished (for the most part) my pre-break projects, and I will be heading to the Bullring to meet my lovely roomie for a spinning class and then home for some finishing touches and then most likely a wine and House of Cards Filled evening.  Life is beautiful, and sometimes we forget about it because it hides itself from us with all of this clutter and mess, this disarrayed but involved reality that we are all living in.  I encourage everyone to stop, breathe, and take a minute to appreciate all that is around you.  I don’t see much, but what I do see is fabulous.

x

Forty Two

Day Forty Two:  The Day I Realised

They’re so small,

And just too small, too clustered

For anyone to notice really,

But that seems to be everything these days,

Small changes, miniscule in nature for others,

“too small to notice.”

But they are new all right, all right there

Haven’t gone anywhere, haven’t lost anything,

Sitting on my shoulder, like new friends…

Quiet ones of course, because as much as they

Seem to try (or maybe I’m imagining)

They are having a hard time

Communicating.

Some people’s pop on their noses,

Others fall down the chests,

Arms and legs,

Dripping from every pale orifice,

And mine are stuck right there, just there,

Maybe here or otherwhere’s too,

But these ones are clear and new.

Prompt:  Find something new about yourself and write a poem about it.  I did.  They’re these freckles that popped up after Italy on my shoulder, there’s maybe three, I can’t really see them that well but man am I proud of them.  I only have one freckle on my face and it’s at the tip of my nose, otherwise they’re randomly singularly scattered arbitrarily around my body…  I envy those who have freckles, they’re so characteristic, so delicate.  I want more, please.  Alas, prompt week continues.

x

Forty One

Day Forty One:  ONE

If it were anything out of the ordinary no one mentioned it, not even a sound but the bubbling on the stove could be heard about the wind outside.  A clock ticked in a far off room, but other than that nothing.  Nothing significant except that there was a large cereal box opened on the counter, two flecks of the grainy, sugary stuff beside the box, and spoons.  There were spoons all over the counter, surrounding the box, and no hands to hold anything of the like.  The spoons, sitting quietly amongst the other kitchenware, did not know why they were there either.  It was something of a peculiar case of losing, finding piles of spoons with no users, no purpose, other than just to be.  Would it be insane to suggest that the holders of the spoons were lost too?  Lost in the use of spoons?  A cupboard, sitting under the counter sneezed. 

The spoons froze.

Another sneeze, and a sharp inhale of breath, and a small hand creaked around the door of the cupboard, prpping it open.  Two feet fell on the floor, and out came another spoon.  A little girl’s eyes peaked from around the door and eyed the counter above.  Holding a spoon in her teeth she smirked quietly, as if trying not to wake something.  If she moved just once more she would for sure disrupt all solidity in this kitchen at this moment.  Stopping, her too-little teeth slipped, and the spoon clattered to the floor.  The spoons were silent no more.

This month has turned into me trying to get writing prompts out.  If you want to follow along today was think of a situation you were once in in your grandmother (or equivelant’s) kitchen and hyperbolize it.  Go on now, do this with me this week.  Go on.

x

Forty

Day Forty:  YOLO

There is this pile of snow outside of AJ’s apartment that I really just want to dive into.  I don’t have snow pants, I don’t have mittens, but I jump in and attempt balance anyway, this pile of snow ladies and gentleman is taller than him, in short, taller than me.  I want to make a cubby, to dig a hole out of the middle and sit in there.  When we were in seventh grade we used to have to go outside in the middle of winter for science class and dig a huge hole and take the snow from that hole and make a “quinzee” out of it, to the point of a small igloo, and if the teacher could fit inside (a massive man) and light a candle for a minute we passed.  This is an insane project, but super fun when you’re thirteen and get to play in the snow for hours during school time, during class time, for a class.  I want this again.

It has been insane snow lately, and it just reminds me of when I was younger and my grandmother used to take a shovel in the backyard and dig a fot for me, pour water and put cardboard so that I would have chairs and a sofa to sit on made by snow, and these forts would last weeks.  I would come home from school and run to the backyard and play house, or play with my imaginary friends, and gramma would watch from the window above looking out from the kitchen making sure nothing collapsed on top of me, or that it wasn’t getting too cold.

This snow is nothing new to me, nothing out of the ordinary, if only out of the ordinary for winters lately.  There hasn’t been this much snow in a long time and it is refreshing.  Today it wasn’t even tedious, it wasn’t windy or cold but the sun was melting most of the snow from the roads.  Winter boots as high as the knee’s are still necessary, but for the time being we weren’t stuck in a blister of a blizzard, and everything was serene and walking.  Perfect snow shoing, snowmobiling weather.  I wish I could snowmobile still.

I remember when I still lived in Mount Forest there was a specific day when my neighbours took me on their snowmobile for approximately two hours to an old farm where they made us pancakes.  I was maybe five, and it was such a great evening.  I don’t talk to those neighbours anymore but I wish I did.  I miss the small town feel on winter days, walking is a challenge.  Even walking in Guelph is a challenge anywhere you want to go is covered with very steep hills.

I like that about today, about the past few days:  it has been a challenge.  Things have been a bit different, but it has been worth leaving the house for.  I think that’s all I have to say about that.

x

Thirty Nine

Day Thirty Nine:  Productivity

   Underneath it seemed

Like every moment was passing though something like

Five hundred years,

That throbbing in the back of the head,

The ache between and through each eye,

As if, as if someone had completely

Mistaken my place for one of freezing pain,

Is it ferocity if it is unintentional?

Is that a static feeling?  Ferocious?  Rage?

Upbeat in what I thought as something new

But alas I remembered, this comes once every so,

Popping fresh balloons of nerves

And turning each cause into a symptom,

It’s not pain it’s just another one.

So water fills the glass and empties again

And each time it happens I believe it will leave,

Again, and again, returns, bi-annual, bi-monthly,

Bi-weekly, bi-daily,

Repetitive motion-sickness, plagued by good intentions,

And the inability to create a cautious, intentional end.

How tempting it is to tip every bottle all the way out

Into the palms of my hands

And into every stream I could compose,

And yet I let it seep through, forgetfulness of mine,

Triumphant and trusting that it will seep every time.

Is that the condition of a splitting mind?

Thirty Eight

Day thirty Eight:  I don’t share

 

  This with a lot of people, I won’t be doing it any justice, and I’d appreciate little to no comments on it.  It’s an important addition to what I think this blog means and contributes to me…  Again, this is incredibly hard for me to share.

You walk through a light mist, the sun shines through it so that the light touches of water that reach your face and arms are cool but the sun maintains  a comfortable temperature.  The tree’s around you provide short breaks of shade from the sun, casting shadows and light all around you.  You are bare foot, the ground underneath you feet is either a hard, moist clay or completely dry sand, depending on your mental state.  As you walk it is easier to breathe, easier than it has been in a long time.

You hear nothing, which is peculiar in such a calming space, until you reach the end of the tree’where a soft murmer of rushing water begins,  and you see a large waterfall falling into a pool of water a few feet away.  The water in the pool laps up on the shore as if on a beach, but instead of sand it laps onto a light hardwood floor.  Sitting just out of the water’s reach is a large arm chair.  It is the most perfect arm chair you could ever imagine, and it is empty.  You watch for a moment, breathing, again, easier than even before.  The sun is dull here, dull enough that shading your eyes is not necessary.  There is a light breeze, but it is still warm.

As you approach the chair you place a hand on the back, it is cool, no one has sat here in a long time.  Running your hands over the arms you think…nothing.  This is just absolute comfort, and nothing more.  While sitting down alight breeze hits the back of your neck, just cold enough to wake you up a bit.  This is enough for anyone to never want to leave.

In the distance you smell a campfire, burning on its own just far enough away to get no heat but close enough that the noise of its crackling can be heard along with the water.  It is neither day nor night, but just a limbo between, and if only it were real life, then you could stay there forever.

The best part of this place is that it doesn’t leave, but lingers behind you waiting for a time when you need it most.  If the images don’t come vivid enough, you just add another breeze that wakes you up to the place where you are, or should be, in every deepest, intense point of meditation.

xQWQ

Thirty Seven

Day Thirty-Seven:    Pentameter attempt

Ah I think a spell is what I need

A plague a breech of tight security

For  two weeks it seems to be indeed

A locked up heart that seems to be for me.

In what can be described as being freed

I catch and tease each thought and pleasantry

Of course I toss and turn the loving greed

For me, for it exceeds reality,

But please oh sir for you I give the deed

Of great amount of space for you to be.

If not at best I’m sure I’ll take the lead

For you for me our love a violently

Dissolving faith in what we were a “friend,”

I hope to please me this will all but end.

If this is the worst thing I ever write I don't even care, look at me trying to write all fancy, it is not great, but it's a first attempt, and I think it's hilarious.  I am SO COOL.

Thirty Six!

Day Thirty Six:  Writing Rampage 101

Caution:  I let myself have a bit of time and go nuts here, so, well, it’s lovely for me but probably less so for you.  My apologies in advance, enjoy it anyway.

The huntsmen.  The hunt men?  The hunting men?  The hundred acres they hunted, underneath the bush, hunting men underneath the bush crossed hundreds of acres before finding the targets, prior to finding, pre, before mounting they realized that beyond this bush, beyond those mountains, was so much more.

The hunting men drove on, amidst the dogs and deer, until they could see in plain sight that before them laid their targets.  Not outlined, not running red with clarity, but they were there.  Was it something about the desire that drove each of them forward?  The deer played thoughtfully around them, and yet the hooves remained still in the flourish of the target.  The target.  Target?  Desired?

The desired was something so much more than what it was meant to be, but only in the eyes of the hunting.  Such a passive thought it is to be hunting something that is unrealised to you.  As if while suiting up that morning the hunting men thought to themselves they were going to shoot anything but deer, or in most of their cases simply nothing.  Is hunting that important to anyone, really?  Or is the validation ofs the shoot satisfying enough?

International craving of desire, the hunt is a crave, a thrive, a desire for…well, desire.  Sometimes it is a chase, sometimes it is something more of a hunt, pathologically tracing the footsteps, counting the prints, attempting to use every touching smelling scent to incorporate into their desire.  As if there was anything else for a hunting man to do but hunt with his whole.  Is a being true without a sense?  Does a hunter who loses his senses a hunter no more?  Or a being at all?  Senses define, senses dispel mysteries, senses deduce desires.  Is the desire in front of behind?  Arms outreached, you’d think the bows would have dropped.

In the short grasp of any hunter’s span of attention lays a target, but in these cases the deer played beside their horses’ feet.  Do hunting men hunt on horses any longer?  Or is this a lost image?  Have bows been replaced?  Have desires changed?  Is modernity passed all of these things that although I no longer hunt I hold dear to me?  Is a hunter a hunter without a sense of weaponry?  What is hunting if not looking for the end?

The funniest thing about a hunter is that they never admit defeat.  They never surrender.  A hunter is a hunter through and through, even when finished hunting those desires remain.  Would it be selfish to assume that although I’ve never hunted in my whole life I can only wish to be desired in such a way that I imagine hunting would be?  Or perhaps I have hunted, but more in such a tempting way that I haven’t even noticed.  Is it possible not to notice?  I think the bow would give it away.

So would the mountains, there’s always something getting in your way.  Is it not nauseating to think that with full bellies of thrill-seeking lust a hunter mounts in order to defeat?  Cause a crushing blow to some other’s hunt?  Is hunting even a competition?  Or would it be better stated as something of a triumph over the last hunt?  Depends on the desire I think, but then again, I don’t think much like a hunter, I think more like the playful deer.

Could it only be enough to want

Do reasons portray necessity

In such a demanding moment?

True enough there is only one hunt

And that is for the final desire,

The thrill, I suppose, that only true

Desiree’s contain, deep inside all

Particles that driving force enough for

Reasons, so insignificant within the today’s.

Craving one too many hunters, I must say,

Standing witness to those complaints virtuous of

A hunter’s chase, they crave the speed,

They crave the desire, but offer none in return

So empty, so empty and steaming hot

Because there are no negative passive no’s

For those who believe that they deserve that desire.

Desire for themselves, though, for them to be desired, that’s all.

Could it be a complaint though?  Those of us

Remaining in the dark?

Lost in this hundred acre wood, are we?

Could we announce ourselves as the hunters?

Or, in turn, reduce ourselves to those wanting the chase?

Bi-regular, bi-triumphant, bi-annual,

Trust me there’s more to it than bi-anything.

So understanding all of the everyday thoughts

Contains focus, more than I care to suggest,

And with all of these nonchalant

Are we lost in the physiology of attributes

Once held so low, so low compared to those of the flesh

Could it be that we all desire just one comfortable moment

Is it painful to feel all of those things at once? Is it..binomial

Transient, your translucent meanings amidst your darkness,

I’m lost in the hundred acre woods,  the robin boy has left me to shame,

Is he hunting?

after writing and looking this over I realize that it's not cohesive, but to be fair this is a first rough, and this is my own blog for me to try to express my own writing, this is how I begin writing anything.  I get all of the idea's that I want out of my head, and then sift through them later.  

x

Thirty Five

Day THIRTY five:  Finally got the day right. EXCEPT NOT.

Once upon a time there was a staircase, which was not seldom used but frequently passed through, but only by one kind of people.  A segregated staircase one might call it, and that staircase lived in Massey hall.  It was dark wood, and winding, and noisy, but had enough character and memories to last a lifetime.  It was the kind of staircase that would make you miss the people in your life that you have lost.  It was the kind of staircase to evoke the first time he noticed you, or the last time you saw her.  Is it possible to love a staircase?  Not to sound too much like Brick from Anchorman here, because I may or may not just love the entire hall, but that staircase man, I’d live on that staircase if Michael wouldn’t get mad about it (only those select Massey-goers will understand this reference, because it is intensely hard to miss Michael on any given weekday morning in Massey Hall).  I love that staircase, and this is no projection of my love for anything else, anything but potentially the theatre department in general.  I thought this acting class would turn me off of theatre completely, and it has probably done the opposite.  Whenever I take a practical theatre course I am thrust into the theory again, fall in love with new playwrights and styles, and eventually write a new play.  I’d really like to start one, maybe tomorrow?

It seems as though February is turning into half writing, half anecdote month, well by golly I can fill you up with anecdotes until your heart’s content!  What does that even mean?  Maybe I’ll do Mon-Wed-Fri writing, Tues-Thurs-Sat anecdotes, breaks on Sundays?  Why do you people care, this here’s my country, my discourse, get your own.

It’s only been a month and I already love this blog more than any other class this term (with theatre theories running a close second).  This has got to be a good thing, right? 

x

Thirty Four

Day Thirty-Four:  Wait For it

Something about this sound that happened everytime I walked, everytime I lifted my feet to hear what was underneath I could hear…something.  It was not distant, but closer than I dare accept.  Acknowledging these footsteps it seemed to break itself into a run, dodging tree’s, a force part of my body but then again not.  That feeling when you watch yourself from above, separate from your being, but at the same time the adrenaline still beating through your veins.  Adrenaline:  the pushing force to remind you that you are alive.  The footsteps beneath me, I could feel everything but the clay slapping underneath the fingerprints I left that were ingrained in my being.  If I could leave my prints anywhere it would be here.

I remembered seeing this place somewhere when I could see again.  It was a place that was always dark despite the weather, always damp despite the temperature, always crowded despite the company, and always silent despite the noise.  I remember tree’s, but sometimes I think I made those up, too.  Just like the footsteps beneath me I knew they existed somewhere, but it might not have been in that exact moment, or state, that would embrace reality to those thoughts.

So beside me, the tree’s that were neither there nor not, sat still as I passed, passing like ghosts through the mildew and fog, or no fog, but some sort of heavy ache was setting in.  The air passing through me as I passed through it, we accepted eachother and acknowledged, yet again, that passing was just a part of the right now.  The passing of my feet, the tree’s, the wind.  It was all past, as if the present passed by so silently it never existed.  I realised then that the present was a ghost of the passing moment, all in all we were never quite present, but always passing something.

Watching my back my psychological state eroded as I passed by the rest of the tree’s, the rest of the ghosts that reminded me only of Duncan, of triumph, or a regicide unknown to most in these tree’s.  So distant today like other days, I let my feet carry me further into what I knew would comfort yet discourage my senses from travelling onwards.  Could these feet even immobilise themselves?  If I tried, but was that will and power in me?  Enough to take a step back?  To elope my fears to my everyday notions of normalcy?  I was about to teach my own feet to assume complete contentedness:  to forget my mental abilities and float onward to what could only be described as the new prints of my life.

But my life exceeded today, so maybe just this week.  Yes, the coming future would newly refresh my prints of this week.  The thing about the present is that it is always fleeting, always following behind you closely, puffing short breathes behind those footsteps that sometimes we regret as a reminder to you so you never forgot.  The clay below, and everything around, breathed in deeply as if to signify a change that although I couldn’t see from above would soon become clear to me as “almost there.”  Destinations are precarious when travelling by foot and not by head.  Or heart, for that matter, but at this point I was clearly just flesh and flattering myself with intimate, mid-rate insufficient “thoughts,” or what I could only describe as such.  It would turn to be something more of a memory, but sometimes I forget memories as much as I forget what happened at breakfast this morning.  Duncan, the past’s partner, blowing cool streams of light air on my back, as if the wind had held his hand this whole time and begrudgingly given him agency again.  As if Duncan would be able to allow anyone to wash their hands from this.

So it was the woods then, I realised, that were embracing me and taking my feet.  This was no longer mine, and as I wandered through the thick brushes I could feel pulses of those “thoughts” returning tomy body, as they had vacated the moment my feet took hold of my will.  These “thoughts” returned rapidly, overflowing and preventing any…  Should it be so easy?   Should this following become any clearer to me?  Is it possible to stop?  At this point, I was forgetting Duncan and moving forward, seeing my life reflecting in the forest beside me.  Not as old as I felt as well as not as alive as I meant to be.  The relevance of these steps was still fleeting  my consciousness as much as I could allow.  Or was it allowing when the possibility never arose in the first place?

X

I desperately want to write more of this but I think I’m going to leave it there and take some time to form what I want next, this is sort of my writing style, usually I use less grammar and punctuation and more words, usually my writing is brimming with mentality and obscurities, I tried to cling to sanity and clarity in this one, although this might just become the month of me developing a great story for myself.  I wrote all of this today, and it doesn’t seem like much and I should write more but I don’t think so.  Gosh, it turned out so good, thank god I was so worry.  I think it’s the Arcade Fire backtrack, note to self:  write more tomorrow.  Kthanks.

Thirty Three

Day Thirty-Three:  Nostalgia

Dreams.  Is it so hard to understand them?  Dreaming reminds me of painting, did I create these or are they just thrust into my head, bound to take hold atleast five minutes of my subconscious REM cycles and intrude into my solitary, private thoughts.  Dreams come into my mind and float back out again, but most of all they seem like not to be mine.  There was this dream about the back of a door in a room that was painting red with…soft.  Soft seems to be the only word to describe a lot of things lately.  This paint was soft, and it was touchable, but it turned, once I touched it, to something unfortunately very disturbing and I did not want to touch it anymore.  The thing about the dream is, you don’t decide what you want, and so I touched anyway.

Could it be that something deeper is trying to deliver a message?  Or is it possible that these dreams, these uncontrollable passages into imagination and..cruelty(?) are there for a private entertainment?  I couldn’t decide if I woke up two hours earlier because emy dreams were so vivid, but then again, I’m plagued by night terrors, where every single dream I have deteriorates my resolve and I wake up crying or panting heavily.  I may not always be running, but there’s always that fear from my dreams.  Sleeping is one of those intensely private moments of one’s life, but my dreams seem to sink in to my consciousness too, unescapeable.  Which leads me to believe their uncontrollability.

Last night I dreamt that there was a large clear water pond that I lived beside on a small red arm chair, and there was a waterfall somewhere off in the distance.  It was always daytime, but when it was time to sleep all of the bad things were visible, and therefore impossible for me to rest.  I woke up terrified, there was something I did not want to do happening, like logical thought virtually escaped me, and not only did the danger of this dream engage me..it didn’t feel like a dream, needless to say.

I do not analyse my subconscious from my dreams, as I remember most, but I do look at the things I was thinking about the day before and see them reflected in them.  Not really a look in the mirror, these dreams, but more through the looking glass.  Lengthening those thoughts to something stranger, un-solved, less than the thoughts of the day but more…intricate?  I would have to say that I do not fully understand why I dream anything at all, it doesn’t help that a lot of them include people I know or things that have happened before.  I have a hard time defining reality.

That’s why I included this today, because I could not tell you if that painting I saw the other evening in a dream was from the day or night.  Something so un-understandable really frightens me.  Leads me to believe that despite all of this dangerous, terrifying content, my dreams could potentially lead me to a new semi-novella.  I wrote one a couple of summers ago off of a dream I had, and thus intend to try tomorrow once more, here.

x

Thirty Two

Day Thirty-Two:   Island Sand Castle Dreaming

A freezing falling feeling,

Something like a trip, a mis-step

But it could only have been prevented

In a lost southern world, one with no

Ice, no drifts, no white-outs,

No weather-stays other than those of temperate

And useful measure, could it be?

Could it be something like a dream?

I sort of hope not, more of a mis-step.

Ankle deep in what could have been sand

But turns lovingly into a frigid bear trap,

Dragging the powder through the states, through the motorcar’s hums,

And alright, it took a while to warm up again, because

Amidst all of these dreams, these

These soft spots for raybanz these overflowing miscarriages

There was one or two wishes that this blanket,

These hovering layers, had come a month before.

Fingerprints melt not what the ice covers, but what I could touch

With only it just, just the tips.

So this fall, into a stranger’s car,

Between a curb and a wrm place,

Beside stumbling words, no conversation,

How is it that speaking is easier before?

Was easier before we knew so much?

So cold, so trying but not to be empty,

But to be serene, silent, still.

The firsy day I  am to embark on this writing month.  I hope that there will be a profound short story entry sometime soon, today just felt like a long poetry day.  I usually prefer my poems to be short, but I think this month for of like a challenge.  Blog posts should have writing and then a lovely little blurb like this below.    Persistence is the key for this month, to keep it up,   Sending lots of love on this frigid weekend, x