Tag: goodbye

with me through victories and every time I stumble

We are all china barely mended,
clumsily glued together
just waiting
for the hot water and lemon
to seep through our seams.
– Toby Barlow

He walked from the apartment in the direction he always did, like a recording of the life we used to have, and with a pause and a wave, that achingly familiar wave, a chapter of my life slipped behind a corner and shut, as firmly and finally as anything ever is. Goodbye like a relationship on fast forward, my cheeks so hot it looked and felt like sunburn, my hand still splayed on the chilly glass of the balcony’s sliding door. I was supposed to be finished crying for him, but he is moving away, back south, family matters, a phone call from his mother, an inherited house, and his name remains holy. He hurt me terribly, but he is not a terrible person. We were in love once. Probably are still. The worst thing about losing my wallet was losing his letters. Sometimes that is all that matters.

Once upon a time we were beautiful, a miracle, stronger together than the sun, living incarnations of joy, swimming lions against the storm. I named him, the power of sharp teeth, the domesticity of myth, and he crawled into my heart to sleep, safe and warm, and so, more importantly, to wake. When he betrayed us, it was like he’d chewed his way out. Such a surprise to discover him there still, even after so much pain.

In it to win. We talked a little about it this evening, what we used to be. The french man on the bus who gave us a speech about how nice it was to see people in love, the girls at the sandwich shop who openly cried when informed that we’d broken up. He claimed his responsibility and apologized once again, forgiveness, that tricky thing, welling up like clean water through the barren places he left behind. “Of course,” I said, “it is so very good to see you.” I only wish he’d been by sooner, when I’d asked him to, after I took both of his hands and said, “Life is too short to stay afraid of me or of hurting me.” But instead he put it off, and now it is too late, another piece of home flaking away, he has to leave.

“You are beautiful,” he said, “Thank you for everything. For being you. You are amazing. For bringing me back to the light.” He will be gone by the time I return from my trip, so I will think of him when my plane takes off, maybe picture him behind the wheel of the moving truck, marveling at the beauty of the drive, solid as my faith, as our understanding of each other, as he drives toward his chosen exile, an endless, sunny suburb with his family, as both deathless and lifeless as only California can be.

if I were related to James Burke, it would be illegal for me to seduce him, which would shameful


the brothers ire
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I just gave my copy of Pattern Recognition to a stranger on the bus. I struck up conversation with him because he’d been hassled by the police while we were waiting. Trafficking, I figured. He looked the type. White sports clothes, white glass stud in his left ear, had that attractive young latino look going for him. Perfect black goatee and perfect black hair, though hidden mostly under a bandanna. He asked what I was reading and I told him, inscribed my name and phone number in the front and handed it to him right before he had to get off.

Today’s been busy. I got up a little early but got out a little late from playing phone tag with one of Cale’s friends. She’s been kicked out of her house and I offered my apartment for a few days or at least as a little storage space while she gets her feet under her again. It’s tough to come home and find the locks changed. I understand. My mother’s boyfriend stole my keys once and would hang up when I phoned. Slight differences in essentially the same situation.

Late, for once, was alright though. Raphealla had already been scheduled to open the store for me today so I could hit up the Office Of Vital Statistics for my Change of Name application. So after my back and forth with a crying Chloe, I plucked my ferret out of bed and went down to the Bureau and picked up my form. There was an unexpected line-up, but nothing deadly, just enough to instill me with nervousness about the whole thing.

I brought my ferret because a student of Alastair‘s needed one to map for wire-framing. That all went without a hitch. Skatia was picked up from Hypatia at around 4 o’clock and returned sometime around five:thirty. The students, an Italian couple, were very nice about it and loved him dearly, in spite of the fact that he slept more than he ran around to give them footage. After work, the barflies at the Waldorf, including James, the bartender, adored him too. Spoiled him rotten even, as apparently he has a taste for beer and pecan pie. I’m going to bring him back for visits on quiet nights. It’s a surprisingly comfortable place to spend time. I would never have guessed.

However, I knew full well that the strip club that Mike picked in New West for his Going Away To England Birthday Party tonight is notoriously terrible. Mugs & Jugs it’s called, and the name, I think, explains almost everything. It’s full of tacky lights, atrocious rock music and inhabitants whose parents drank when pregnant. We had an alright time, some of the girls displayed such amazing feats of anti-gravity on the pole that we actually watched them for more than five minutes at a time, though we didn’t get Mike as drunk as everyone had apparently promised him. Nick tried, it’s true, but he was barely slurring when Rick and I, the last ones standing, brought him to the Skytrain. I waved goodbye from the opposite platform then had to go back to get my William Gibson book, Pattern Recognition, that I’d forgotten at the club, dodging vacous drunk skater kids to do so.

My lips aren’t afraid, only the words trapped behind them.



Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I leave today, it makes me feel like the sound of rain on pavement. I wonder if I can hold onto this place. I wonder if when I step on the plane, I’ll be able to breathe. I will sit next to a window and consider what options I had while I fly away from here. This was no vacation, this was touching flesh into gold. There was nothing unconquerable, my only pains were usual. Small situations that always start late at night. These streets have transmuted into a home. How did I fall so quickly? How did I let go?

Quietly now, come upstairs. Quietly now.

Every tapestry, when unwoven, will come down to one thread.

I miss you.

If I had the chance today, I would not hesitate to say yes before it was too late. My honour can stand up to life’s offers of warmth now that I have vision and the capacity to give up my fighting. I have turned my back long enough, it’s not crippling to pull your body into mine and ask you to tell me stories, it just feels like it.

forgive me if I want to chew out your eyes


Photo from Underground
Originally uploaded by Frankie Roberto.

Yesterday was a long test of my breaking points, from every trying direction. An exercise in self immolation. I had put all my energy into preparing to put Matthew on a plane, I had nothing more. The bomb blast in London was not as shattering an event as it’s perpetrators were perhaps hoping for, (nice of them to choose a date which makes sense both sides of the water, I thought, very considerate), but they have managed to wash our increasingly small world with justified concern.

At work I checked my e-mail, the early morning having been spent on a death grip attempt to hold onto my last vestiges of restful sleep then by airport checks, is this going to delay his flight? Change his flight? and was informed that an old friend had died. A pilot from Hope had a heart attack and didn’t make it. He was a good man, watching out for Marrissa and I when we were much younger and more liable to sneak off to the other end of the airfield at night to watch the stars fall down and sip at Chetan’s family stash of Sweet Cherabim apple cider. I’ve been absent there for a long time, several years now, but I’d known him since I was ten.

The next letter was worse, a discovery of trust violated. There were other things in my in-box, a few girlish letters I was happy about, I’m pen-pal-ing someone like I promised, and that’s pleasant, but they were all overwhelmed by one tiny note. I had to excuse myself, leave my desk and sit instead on the floor of the lavatory with my head on my knees. The day I put my love on the plane should not be the day my trust base is assassinated, but it was.

This was where I began to be disturbed at my ability for composure, at how quickly I’m able to simply eat what’s hurting me and continue, as the day before was less than great as well. In fact, every week lined up since the beginning of May has had tiny shattering disasters scattered about within it. I’m half as worried about myself as what’s been going on, because I’ve no clue what to do with stress. I’ve no one I may talk with, no hobby that vents anything. No outlet. At first it was tucked away in small corners of my mind, goading me to cry when I was tired and alone, then I began to find it in my body, I would tap on things and flick my fingers, pressing my hands into fists and releasing them over and over. Now, I don’t even know now. My teeth are stones, my tongue contains acid, and I am so very careful not to let it show. Someone said the other day that I’m going to die of machismo, and they might be right, but I don’t know any other way. I only want my hands to stop shaking.

I was controlled by the time Sandi came to pick me from work. We made small talk successfully in the car on our way to Matthew and I even managed to laugh a little when we arrived. He was packed, his entire life in a giant black suitcase open in the middle of the floor. The rest of the apartment looked exactly as it always does, a hotel room set-up with a futon instead of a bed, all the personal touches looking committee approved. Even under the crushing weight of Matthew’s departure, I was glad to leave.

The airport was simply that. A hiatus place, where the food is merely something to do until enough time has passed and the people aren’t real, but props with which to make meaningless conversation. I’ve kissed three people goodbye there now, though never when I myself was leaving, only when I was being left behind while they continued their lives without me. he’s been here too Part of the reason why I haven’t applied for my passport again is that I know if I have one, I won’t say goodbye and leave through the doors, instead I will walk up to a counter, any counter, and buy the cheapest ticket possible rather than return to Vancouver proper. That’s dangerous behaviour and it’s good to have a yoke for it.

A baggage handler smiled at me fondly when I saw Matthew off. He looked over and you could read in his face that he thought we were sweet, our kisses seen with nostalgia. I wanted to hit him, but instead I turned away. I found something to take with me from the kiosks, a tradition of mine to keep balance, a mental koan of departure, and caught buses back to the office.

After that was my first day of work at the chocolate shop.

I was half an hour late but my supervisor decided to mark me down as on time anyway, my co-workers are the most friendly people I’ve ever worked with, (if a shop were to be run by the people who stay at global backpackers hostels, that might be similar), I must have had a quarter pound of chocolate and a half pint of ice-cream and gelati, rounding it off on my way home with a frozen chocolate dipped nanimo bar, and I still came home depressed.

The next five weeks are going to be long.
I wish I knew how to let people be nice to me.