Pets...

The bubble queen

Iridescent orbs herald her impending arrival, a parade of bubbles dictated by the warm breezes of carbon monoxide exhaust fumes, marching to a hundred different drums, a kooky kazoo tune. She’s the garbage pixie, the city nymph, the fairy of the polluted forests and parks divided by the scream of trains. The bubbles skim across the top of the pavement as they die, exhaling a sigh of surprise and imploding, exploding, in gasoline rainbows on the black-top. The iridescent scrying glass of city fairies, the shimmer of petroleum, heat rising off of the tracks in waves. She’s mildly amused, long fingers of breeze caressing and catching bubbles, over eager childishness, a warm breath sending them careening off down the Hanlon and over the cars for miles. Carefree, it’s been a long time, since we were. Responsibilities weight down our world. She keeps on walking, anywhere she can- after all, daylight is breaking over where she stands.

Attovan and salmonella

Having ingested roughly 300 pills of Attovan and Celexa, both by railing and oral ingestion, I did not feel so well on the bus to school. The bottle of Glenfiddich sloshing around on top of that did not help at all. And would have been an amazing high, if I hadn't overdone it. Six minutes into my bus ride, I had no clue what was happening or where I was. I puked and wasn't grossed out, only vaguely satisfied at the little sigh of shock and repulsion from the girl beside me as she pulled her shoes out of reach of my acidic puddle. I smirked inside, pulled the cord for the next stop, puked again, and fell out onto the curb. I sat there puking for another twenty minutes, before attempting the walk to school, where I could at least vomit in peace in a washroom stall. Wow. I don't remember that walk at all.... like, at all. I remember being pretty sure I wasn't going to make it, and the fact that I could barely see, or walk in a straight line.

I remember making it into a washroom stall, puking all over the floor, and having to move into another one. I have never in my life been so sure I was going to die. Think, though, I had 300 pills or so of sleeping pills and anti psychotics going through my blood stream (other than what got puked up). Lights were too bright, I actually went temporarily blind, and my heart was going 5x faster than it should have been. My nerves were shot, and I couldn't stop shaking, or puking, and my breath was like this pathetic dying butterfly on a porch light. An art teacher found me, and a guidance counselor looked at me disdainfully, and... put me on a bus home? =(! Dude. I puked all over the bus again and barely made it inside. Where I proceeded to fall into bed and stay there for five days drinking Gatorade while my hands stopped shaking and my heart returned to a normal speed.

Oh, on top of that? Salmonella poisoning from the dumbass boyfriend not cleaning the chopping block of raw chicken grease...

Well. I'm glad to look back at that and see how far I've come from being that pathetic.

Lesson to all: do not rail your prescription medications. Do not swallow them in excess. Do not drink excessively on top of that. And always, always clean your chopping block! The time you don't, it might save your life.

(Photo. That was a year ago. And SUCH a good chicken burger!)

Eurydice: Sue Hubbard

I am not afraid as I descend, step by step, leaving behind the salt wind blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Second fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb from this blackened earth into the diffident light.

Either the first or last verse (in the bold/italics) I'd like to get tattooed on the inside of my forearm, so that the words would be readable if I turned my arm perpendicular to my other arm. This poem is written on the iMax tunnel in London. The first image of London for me was coming out of Waterloo station and deciding to go underground, where flute music poured out of this blue lit cavern, and crumbling paint on the wall read these lines.

I'm Dirty, and I Like It...

It's weird living at home again.

I liked the dirty phase better.

Call me trashy. I like it.

I lived with my boyfriend. We got out food from the Food Bank. We fought a lot. And worked dead end jobs. He fucked other girls in our bed. And I slept with random punk dykes while piss drunk on Valentine's Day. Working bar nights at a fast food restaurant with a neon pink mohawk, and walking home in the snow at four o'clock a.m in a leopard print miniskirt. Trick or treating on Halloween with the deadbeats from 90 Elizabeth, my rainbow scarf stained with whiskey poured down my throat by a sexy slut. Sitting on the riverbank by the ruins of the old mill and singing 'Fuck You I'm Drunk!' at the top of our lungs, smoking out of the rainbow pipe barefoot on a swingset, sand in my pants. Lying flat out on a bench in the square, barefoot, runs in the nylons, short skirted, sky spinning, incoherent, babbling, staggering. These are the images I'll remember for the rest of my life, and remember being alive.

There are some fairly prominent scars on my arms from mixed drinks, blood and whiskey, blood and Colt 45, and a heart shaped scar on my ankle. My boyfriend has a large circular brand on the inside of one wrist from a searing hot beer bottle, a scar butterfly on his upper arm.

=/. I've pulled myself out of this, and I miss it. Now I'm dirty without a crowd, free without adventure.

Damn deadbeats.

Lilies in my hand

We meet up by the fountain, nudity a part of the downtown core, a naked, green copper family in the middle of Saint George's Square. The punx are around, hackey sack rebounding off of Doc Martens and Chuck Taylors, guitar cases open with a smattering of change inside. Mohawks, dreadlocks, and pet rats on shoulders. Guitars, hackey sacks, and half drunk forties of Old English.

We're walking along the tracks in the late afternoon, cicadas humming over the traffic passing us on Edinburgh and Yorkshire. I've got a handful of lilies and snapdragons, escaped from downtown backyards and growing among the weeds and trash of the tracks, pansies pressed between the pages of a heavy leather journal, sachets of lavender flowers, leaves of lemon balm. We can see downtown from here, the trees meeting in a canopy over our heads, the roofs of buildings visible at the end of a tunnel. City Hall, the market, in dying light. Train whistles echo from down by the lumber yard, drawing closer, so we move over to the disused side of the tracks, and I bow with lilies in my hand to a passing freight train. The conductor blows the whistle at us, smiling though, and we clasp hands and carry on. They're building a new in building at the lumber yard; we sit on the concrete ramp facing the tracks, weeds and grass growing up through the cracks. After a good shag in the building, no trashier than we ever are, we move back toward the downtown core, dusk. Short skirt, ripped up tights, Doc Martens and an over sized wife beater. Trash. We both smell like adolescent boys and Old Spice deodorant, sweat, dust, and musky plant smells.

Sitting by the river, it's dark now, we watch bats flying low and catching bugs. There's something in the water, a drowning bat, that the others are going cannibalistic over. It's like a first date. I have nothing to say, and he seems like a stranger to me. Accusations of trying to be a filthy traveler punk arise at my thoughts of heading to Halifax and P.E.I post birthday. Yeah... because ya know, I've spent my entire life trying to belong to a subculture... not. Just because I'm not doesn't mean I can't travel like one.

Bag full of pig iron and driftwood, a vase full of lilies, and snapdragons wilting, falling out of my ponytail. Why can't every day be like this?

A modest proposal

I walk along in my usual fashion, head down, awkward gaited, hands in pockets, hunched shoulders. Quickly, dodging people in Roseberry Park, taking some small amount of pleasure in the stares my outfit tended to evoke in small town England. I get some amount of pedestrian road-rage when a man on a bicycle nearly runs me down, and avoid shouting and cursing lividly, regain composure, and turn to walk on, when I realize he's dismounted from his bicycle and is standing in front of me, blocking my path. This is strange.

Maybe he's just in my way. Inconsiderate jerk. I sidestep. But he stops me again, and says, 'Hello!'

(What an original line.)

'Umm... hi???'

His face is earnest, dark and industrious, modest silver glasses, short cropped, curly black hair.

'I see you walking here every day, and I never stop you before. Too shy. I tell myself, if I see her again, I stop her and talk to her. And here you are!'

(Vaguely creeped out, here.)

'You are such a beautiful girl. I watch you every time you walk through the park with my Polish friends. You wish to come and picnic with us?'

'Actually, I'm just headed to Gregg's for some lunchies.'

'Oh well...'

There was about fifteen minutes of flattery from him after this, and flirting. He asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I said yes, back in Canada. A gleam in his eye.

'All the way in Canada... well, that is very far. If you ever want just some fun...'

He gave me his number.

And then went down on one knee.

And said,

'You are beautiful girl. You don't have visa. If you want, you can marry me, and stay.'

Yep... it was pretty romantic.

Needless to say, I said no, and continued on my way. But it's nice to know options exist.