Clumsy Hearts

Good evening all...

Its Tuesday night and I've been in bed since 7pm. My long weekend kind of blended over into the week, so tonight I'm in recovery mode. My heart, body, and mind are all spent. So I'm coining this week the "Irresponsible March Madness Blowout". I'm sure it will only get better as the week continues... or worse depending how you see it. Work was so epically awful today that I cried on the phone in between calls. The worst part of it all was trying to eat at the same time. Needless to say, it was messy. Thank goodness for a kind coworker who gave me Skittles midway through the morning or there was no way in hell I was even going to make it to lunch.

Which leads me to today's topic; timing. I am the queen of bad timing.

Example a) I meet an incredibly good looking girl (who we will call S) for the first time who happens to be a friend of a friend. So I tell my friend while S is the bathroom exactly what is going through my head (which is something to the effect of omnomnomnomnomn *drool*). My friend promptly tells me that S has just ended a long term relationship with a girl she almost married and is moving her things out in two days. This is incredibly bad timing. Oh, and it turns out I know her incredibly recent ex. Yeah, not good.

Another annoying habit of mine is that my heart does not seem to understand that people who either a) don't live in the same city b) don't live in the same country or c) don't speak the same language (while not total dealbreakers) are generally not suitable long term partner material. I have done this more times than I can count on both hands. Hell, I even moved across the country thinking that this time it would work out. The result; getting dumped in a new city two weeks after moving there and knowing almost noone.

In conclusion; I am clumsy, I have bad timing, and my heart is a gypsy that knows no borders. All of this equals long term singledom. Which is ok most of the time, but every now and again the loneliness feels like hot water on papercuts.

Here's a poem about it.

M

Bad Gypsy

I wonder if I will ever be the girl
Who has good timing
Or the woman who doesn't trip over cracks in the sidewalk
During a serious conversation
About someone else's god

It seems like I am fate's plaything
For unknowingly self destructing
I just don't these things coming
And my friends tell me
It's better when you're not looking

But they haven't yet been witness
To the shocking glory
Of a person who stands five foot two inches
Tripping over a strangers dog
While holding an ice cream cone
And hearing the sound of a toddler screaming
In a sticky mess of Rocky Road
This life has left its share of embarrassment
Burning in my freckles

All I can say
Is that my heart doesn't seem to understand
Borders or geography
And time and time again
My feet never seem to be in the same place as it
Maybe its just an excuse to keep the backpack
On the lower shelf waiting
To never commit to fully breathing

I'm discovering that maybe
I'm more of a romantic than a gypsy
But tonight,
I'm laying against the imprint your fingernails left
On yesterday's abandon
Wondering

If i will ever be the girl with good timing.

About Being Brave

Happy Thursday ya'll.

I hope your week has been mostly smooth and Friday comes and goes quickly like ripping off a band-aid. All my nine to fivers- you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes that last day at the office feels longer than the whole week put together.

As for me, I'm free starting tonight! I'm headed to Ottawa (or as I like to call it, "the cottage") tomorrow to perform at a fun*raiser for CanAid Africa at UofO. Grateful to be getting on a bus and getting out of this town for a day. I just love being in motion way too much and my feet get so very itchy. And on that note...

I want to take a quick minute to acknowledge and show support for all the students on strike in opposition to tuition hikes in Quebec. Its a brave thing to not only stand up for what you believe is right, but to unite and organize in a peaceful way. I`ve seen pictures of what downtown looked like, and oh how I wish I could have been there. My question is; what will it take for this or any government to listen to its people? What action is most effective? I don't know, but the photos from today's march brought tears to my eyes.

Which leads me to thinking about how easily I can sacrifice my truth depending on the situation I'm in. I'm going to take a chance and be very honest here, knowing a couple of my coworkers may read this. If they do, I'm hoping that they will understand my fear in keeping myself fairly anonymous in this regard at work and respect at least that.

Its no secret to anyone who knows me that I'm queer. I am attracted to people, not gender. That being said, I am attracted more often than not to female gendered folk. I'm very open about this. In fact, I'm damn proud. And yet I've been working at this new office for over a month, and I've conviently omitted this in socializing and speaking with my colleagues. I've spoken only about the relationships I've had with men. The office is overwhelming hetero-normative, and in my workspace I am the only woman surrounded by men with very large ego's and somewhat misogonystic views as far as I've gathered.

My justification is that I don't feel "safe" to come out, or feel like I may be further ostracized. It may not be true, but it always feels so real. There are other factors as well, like the fact that I'm covered in tattoos and don't drink or do drugs. When everyone goes to smoke their joints on break, I hang out in front of the building feeling like I'm missing out. Juvenile, yes. But no matter how old I get, I still seem to be willing to exclude, change, or shadow my truth just beneath the surface in order to be a part of in situations where I'm uncomfortable. This is a part of me that makes me feel like a coward, and it's not something I'm proud of, but its something I think everyone can relate to even if we cant admit it sometimes.

So... heres a short poem. It's about internalized homophobia, and it's about struggling to be brave enough to share ourselves fully with the world around us and the ones we love.

Love and light.

M

The Courage To Hold Your Hand

One day I will ask you to find me moon dust in a wheat field on the long prairie drive to your mother’s farmhouse and you’ll reply that we’d have better luck in a lake made of jello on the outskirts of never-neverland, but you wont say no.

Two months later I will leave for an eight week tour. At the airport, you’ll give me a sparkly pendant on a silver chain and tell me that I am the only moon dust you will ever need. I will kiss you knowing two things; that public affection terrifies you, and that I am not coming home.

72 days and one missed flight later I will mail you a letter stamped with a Seattle Space Needle postmark. You won’t open it. You wont need to. The next day you will walk by my apartment and see two men moving my belongings into a truck. You will recognize the painting of two women skinny dipping that you gave me on our first anniversary, the clock that always kept you awake at night and the couch we never sat on.

48 hours later, you will see two women holding hands on St.Laurent and try to remember the last time we’d touched in public before the day I left but you wont be able to. You will mail me a letter that says only;

“Please forgive me, I hated myself more than I could love you.”

Only then will I fully understand how much you loved me.

A Girl Named Air

Hey everyone,

This is my last day as Poet of the Week on MSPGV! I have to say, its been an interesting exercise in pushing myself to write something every day. I'm really grateful for it.

Today I finished a poem I have been working on for over 6 months. This, my friends, is a huge deal. I've been trying to write this story, and I just couldn't finish it. I would stare at it for hours, asking myself how it ends. Because I don't know how it ends.

I don't know how any of this will end. I just get to live every day and do the next right thing, keep the hope, and enjoy the sunny days. Oh how I love acceptance Sundays. Everything just seems so much easier.

So here's the poem! I had a little problem with the blog not letting me space things properly, so I apologize for that. Technology sometimes gets a little unruly, just like I do!

A Girl Named Air

I once heard someone say that if the walls of Alcatraz could speak
they would shed ashen tears for all the evil which was carried inside them,
and I've never been there,
but I bet if these downtown alley dumspters could speak
they would tell you stories

Of being plentiful forests for midnight foragers,
3am urinals for the drunken wanderers,
and dented canvases for the renegade Van Gogh’s of this city.

And they might tell you about an 9 year old girl named Air,
weaving silently through backdoor mazes
Searching for pots of gold in her make believe forest
she whispers to them sometimes,
tells them about a father who taught her dodge unmarked vans

Never trust anyone in uniform

Or believe someone who says they will help

She’s learned to hide so well

even her daydreams can’t find her

She tells them that on these nights,

When he's praying on his cardboad cot,

too sleepy to take the stretchy band aid off his arm

She has to come hunting alone.

Cuz these nights her belly is so empty it feels like there are snakes

weaving figure eights in the shrunken core of her stomach.

And she's become friends with them,

the hunger has become her companion

Since the day her momma clutched her chest and turned blue

Like her favourite crayon

Cold, like the snow they used to play in after school

That day, the lights on the cars were so bright

And she watched through folding closet doors as men dressed in black

Zipped her mother into a plastic coffin

And now her daddy's been glued to the memories of his love

Been performing exorcisms into the concrete floor

Praying to the chalk outline

And Air’s never been afraid of ghosts

But now she thinks she is one

Because mamma lives inside her eyes

and daddy can’t look at her anymore

But tonight; she’s gonna find herself some sunglasses

Sing a lullaby or two under the blinking street lights

Pretend she still believes in Santa Claus, Disney movies

And birthday wishes come true

In the last phone booth on Second Avenue

She tells the operator

She wants to call heaven

As the snow falls around her

She knows she will leave her father soon

And not everyone gets a happy ending

But remembers that she was named after

What cannot be contained

There are places within her

As strong as the walls of Alcatraz

One day,

She will open the lock

And tell all of her stories

While the wind reminds the dumspters

Of a little girl named Air

And the streetlights dance

Knowing she found her way through the world.

Empty Hands (Lazy on a Saturday night)

Today I cried, alot. I'll be honest, some days are just like that. It was a good kind of crying, the kind you've been holding in for days or weeks and it just comes flooding out. And oooh did it all come out. Once that dam breaks its hard to reel it in.

I also did some window shopping and had lunch with a friend though. That was great.

Then, I rode a bicycle without brakes from St.Henri through downtown Montreal home to the Plateau (which was as scary as it sounds).

Needless to say, it's been a rollercoaster of a Saturday.

I could probably write something more involved than this, but I just don't have it in me. So here's something light, simple, and maybe more truthful.

Empty Hands

There are nights
When I would rather watch
Grey's Anatomy
Than talk about my feelings
Or write a poem.

Maybe this is apathetic,
Or not 'artistic'
Or lazy
But honestly
Today was a damn long day
And there are times
When being 'deep'
Just means being honest.

So this may be the most honest poem
I have ever written
On a night
When all I want to do
Is take a nap
And let the world go by.

A New Way To Be

Hey ya'll,

Its Friday!! Boom shack a lack! The downside of being a poet; the obligatory 9-5 paying job. Ohh how I long for the months I didn't have to sell my soul for money. But the rent has got to get paid!

Oh yeah and its spring! That's right, its daylight savings weekend. Its warm outside, the sun was out all day and everyone looks just a smidge happier than they did at the beginning of the week.

Here's my poem for the day. Only two more left! Obviously I'm still going to post new poems here after this week, but maybe not everyday. A girl's gotta breathe ya know? Enjoy and party safe tonight.


A New Way To Breathe

Tonight
There is a frantic kind of energy
Sending sparks down my spine
And I wish I could say
That its been a long time
Since I felt this way

It seems
I am a person who feels everything
Just a little too much
Because I remember a time
When I chose to feel nothing
What I have learned is that
Knowing how you don't want to live
Only means you have to find a new way to be.

I am still trying to work out a balance
Find the right kind of give and take
Love and be loved
Conflict and resolution
There are battles beneath this skin
I wish I could expose
Trust has never been my strongest suit
This armor
Has become like second breath
Like sixth sense

Tonight,
I am trying to surrender
What I could have had
And what may still come
With what is right now
And the cavity in my fingertips
Is aching for a lover to touch
I am pressing them against the unknown
And praying for clear sky.

Moins Feministes?

Happy International Women's Day!

I think, as a rule, all women should get the day off work today. Imagine what would happen if we all went on strike. It would be like that show on that reality network where all the women left town together for a month (I have absolutely no idea what the name was but you know the one I'm talking about...), except on a global scale.

Call me crazy, but I bet we could get some change done then!

Anyways, enough of that rant.

On another note, I managed to write a poem today during a smoke break at work. Its going up pretty raw and unedited, but it was inspired by a headline I saw on the subway this morning on my way to the daily grind. Enjoy friends. Oh, and how excited are we that tomorrow is Friday?! I know I am. *Takes a giant deep breath*

Moins Feministes

This morning
A news headline asked me
Why there are less feminists today.

Where did they go?
Is the movement buried in the same graveyard
As scrunchies and Pogs?
I'm only left wondering
If there are no feminists
Than where have all the women gone?

Why is the media so eager
To say there is no more need
For women to be radical
When we are still shamed
For the cut and colour of our clothes
For the gender, numbers, and frequency of our lovers

When the world "slut" is still said lightly
As a "joke"
And not given a second thought

Friends,
We still live in a world
Where women's bodies are considered public property
Where boys are still taught
That women are just too emotional
And scientists still examine
The differences between our brains
To prove that men are, in fact, more rational

So my question today
Is not where have all the feminists gone
But why are they still trying to convince us
That the change is over
That we have everything we asked for
Because we can vote, drive, and work.

When every day
Girls go missing along
forgotten stretches of highways
And 1 in 3 are abused
Before the age of 18
How can they tell us
That we no longer live in a chauvinist society?

All I know
Is that today
Its time to celebrate our sisters, mothers, lovers, and friends,
In hopes of the day
When gender won't define
How safe someone is treated
Or where they can go.

Preconceptions

Today was a little bit hard, in terms of my job kind of took over. What a stressful day! But anyway, here goes nothing... #3 of 7. Please feel free to leave me feedback in the comments section.

Preconceptions

Since I was a child
I've had questions punctuating my footsteps
Like a drummer drawing a map
On the baseline of a high note,

I've wondered
Why my head always feels
Like I'm hanging upside down on a tree branch
Whey they always called me a dreamer
Why my mother always told me to be careful
Walking to the corner market and back
I do not recall
My brother's being told this

I wanted to know
Why noone called me pretty
Wearing overalls and skinned knees

Why 'tough' and 'strong'
Were only words to describe boys
Why my mind learned to associate dresses with weakness
It was implied
In the subtle disapproval of my calluses
And my ambivilence towards dolls
That my gender should determine my personality

So I wondered
Why god would give me legs to run
Hands to work
And a mouth to speak
If I was meant to be small, still, and silent

I couldn't understand
But I knew that my pulse rested in my heart
And there were answers to be found there
So I listened to the drumming of instincts
And found a path along the baseline
Of its high notes

Here, my callused feet and stained hands
Are blessings to be seen,
I am pretty in my dirty jeans
I am strong in my sundress

I am more than my anatomy.