you made me so sick
you made me so sick i made myself sick
with the intention of ending up in the hospital
or better yet, dead
all in hopes that i could give you a taste
of your own medicine:
layers and layers and layers of pain.

but that was one long drawn out evil endeavour
and i'm glad i didn't succeed
because life shouldn't be spent with the intention
of trying to die
just to prove something to someone else
because no matter how much death
is glamorized in this goddamned society
there is nothing glamorous
about it
and in the end you will prove
nothing

there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your head in an oven
or drinking yourself into a stupor every single night
only to forget what you did or said or felt the next morning
there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your fingers down your throat
or carving poetic words into your inner thigh
just so you can feel or un-feel something

trying to die
does not make you
a tortured artist
it makes you
a miserable soul

yes, pain is useful
to create
without it i probably would not be writing this
but it does not define you
fuck them all
fuck society
stop trying to die to prove yourself to someone
dying proves nothing

take a hammer to the mirror
it's only a piece of glass
run into an open field and scream your lungs out
cry all of your fears out of your system like you did when you were five years old
stop being ashamed for feeling things
write down what kind of person you were this time last year
then next to it,
write down what kind of person you are right now
look at how far you've come
look at how far you've yet to go
be proud of yourself
think of the people who have left you
think of how good it will feel when you forgive them
think of someone who has left their footprint on your heart
now go tell them you love them
now leave your footprint on someone else's heart
make sure you tell them you love them

you matter
you matter
you matter
you matter
i swear to God i'm not joking
i don't fucking care if you don't believe me
and it isn't going to be easy
be terrified.
be brave.

you matter
you matter
you matter

you matter.

(in the dream it is late March)
there's a light rain in Montréal & the sky
is a gorgeous, early-morning variety of slate grey. imagine the lid
of an old metal garbage-can.
everything is dismal, perfect. and quiet; even the people leaving the bars are silent.
dismally, perfectly, silent.

ghosts of old cats—belonging maybe to ghosts of old ladies who lived, say, just off St. Lau, back
in the eighties—ramble downhill, in the direction of rue St. Catherine (Saint Cat! O patron of felinity!) ,
between the legs of those spilling out from the trendy & shitty clubs.
some of the ghosts wander out into the street, flash thru car tires that would've (& have) (at one time)
smashed them to pulpy carpet on the asphalt.
(who goes to pick them up then? when the tires have had their way with them over & over?
when they are just hair & porridge by a sewage grate?)

after a greasy smoked-meat-on-rye or a nightcap at somebody's place, just off the drag,
i'm in a sodden, but warm overcoat, hands curled in the bottoms of it's pockets; mis-shapen mass
of hair plastered to my scalp; walking en bas de la montagne just past the McGill Medical Centre.
—this late, the busses back downtown are never on time.
(driver's probably having a few smokes before he starts that long tour down. full up of drunk kids,
taking one another back to their dorms, etc.)
(and what does he have, to look forward to at shift's end?
        i. a cranky wife—past her prime?
        ii. a buncha dogs—yapping for attention?
        iii. some fucking kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid fucking punk-rock down?

—it's enough to make me patiently wait.  i'll wait forever, as long as that isn't me.)

...'spose I'LL have a cigarette too. waiting
in the bus shelter on Ave. Des Pins looking down over the
football fields of the McGill Athletics Dept.
still lit up. no sun yet but
now at 4 AM a dull inch or two of lightened grey out there on the horizon.. dawn will come,

though i'd rather not face the day. all the mornings are so hard after nights like this.
bound to be hungover &
spend the day hiccuping in bed texting some girl; maybe get up
in the late afternoon t'fix coffee, toast & eggs.
sit on the balcony,
make my little guitar sigh,
and try to feel normal until i [have to] puke.

"—and who was that girl i spoke to for so long at St. Sulpice last night? how many gin-tonics did she let me buy myself, nattering on?.. probably too drunk to even get her number."
"—maybe Sean or Dylan will know if she came thru with anyone we knew.."

the bus is finally here. twenty-and-three minutes late. the back of it probably smells of
stale smoke, dim sun, and sweaty, rain-soaked cloth, absorbed from jackets into the seats—the eau du jour.
it's always a bump 'n jerk ride down the hill; bound to,
with the other handful of dumb & silent riders, drunkenly sway,
(or is it a natural compensation of the body, to groove along with the curves and stops?)
back & forth like carcasses of half-dozen slaughtered pigs
swinging on their hooks in back of a meat wagon..
(i'll end up getting on, but only for three blocks. i'll fucking walk the rest of the way home,
after that comparison. to hell with the rain.)

SIX MINUTES LATER:
(Avenue Des Pins still—4 blocks closer to downtown)

directly in line now with McGill campus via McTavish; this way i can
cruise down thru the silence of the main drag having a couple smokes drinking beer
(copped a 40 at a Dep before i left St. Lau—frosty under my arm enshrouded by brown paper.)
& be left to my own thoughts for fifteen minutes 'til i get to Sherbrooke
—i adore that fifteen-minute stretch down thru the jumble of
student associations, clubs, faculty offices, administration buildings, resources centres & the like;
all contained in the same red bricked, white trimmed victorian monster, multiplied threescore
on either side of the lane; all built in the early nineteen-hundreds, all acquired by the university in one of several expansion initiatives in a decade i won't bother to guess at, it doesn't matter. you don't care..

midway down the hill i stop and go sit on the verandah of one of the buildings,
the graduate studies in math offices —
cccrack that forty.
sit there with the sun JUST barely splitting the seam of the horizon feelin'
like the lyrics from a Sun Kil Moon song. nothing more or less.  
"off to a good start," says i.

I breathe you in like dry air,
exhale your memory,
so soft, so light,
it glides off my lips like last summers
flavored tobacco,
I miss the way things used to be.
I have a sadness in my heart,
rotting away all traces of
what I once was,
I am erasing myself,
I believe.
living beneath the shadow,
of stale promises,
and old secrets
Regret pulls me deeper under these waves
every fucking day.
Sliding under barbed wire fences,
and looking out at
space,
I could of sworn,
I was invincible,
but I will have to find
new armor,
that will never smell as good,
as your cotton t-shirts,
and faded blue jeans.
I am sorry if I hurt you,
but you will never know
how much you have hurt me

Painted American woman stands strong
on every corner weeks after
bombs landed on Pearl Harbor
How can I hold her in my arms
if the ground beneath us is trembling?

This country is filled with oppression
misunderstandings and hate
But isn't their still love?
The blue on our flag reminds me
of her lovely eyes, and the red is the blood
I would spill for her fair skin. Isn't this love?

I can't walk down the street
without seeing old Uncle Sam's
determined finger pointing at the
squint eyed japs and their wet fangs.
They say he's the enemy, Kill the enemy!
Kill!

I will fight for the painted American woman
I see her everyday on my lonely travels
and wrap her hair up,
staring into the clear sky
praying that every bullet that
is fired towards  me will perish
and fade away

I fight so I can sit in the front with her
drink and share the same water as her
I kill to hold her hand in a free world
while this country is unfair, I'll die for
her and a new tomorrow.

4:11 am - The nighthawks are starting to resemble pigeons.

Train station is deserted.
An employee checks the bins as the tunnel fills  with the ringing of a distant bell, heralding the arrival of the morning train.
42  minutes till my train.

I can smell the acrid fumes of the Ferny Grove train.
The behemoth pulls away-
empty.

At least I'm not existential anymore.

There is an installation of a coffin made from old bits of railroad,
"Not everyone makes it across the tracks"
This reminder of mortality is strangely fitting in a place of transit.
The true face of memento mori is  shown.
Remember that you too will die, and everything will come to pass.

It's times like this that make me wish 'The Sound of Silence" was never written.
For its perfection in this moment comes as a burst of pure divine bliss.
The kind you wish would never fade away. But inevitably does.
And all we are left with is a memory of that bliss,
everytime we hear the song (after the first time).
As if we are recalling the curves of an old lover from the shadow of yesterdays gone.
Dancing beneath our fingertips, always out of reach.

Memory is never as divine as the moment that burnt it in.

----

4:29 am - It was ephemeral.

The trainyard announcer has a cultured voice.

----

4:41 am - I fear the muse has left me, beauty fled.

DEAR GOD - PLEASE LET THERE BE A CAB AT THE STATION FOR ME.

Selection 11 gave me the water i desired.
11 minutes till the train.
D.O.B. 11/2
Aquarius,  11th  sign of the Zodiac.

Will I see the dawn rise from the train?
There is no light at the end of the tunnel from where I sit.

Inexplicably: I recall the cool river air that bathed us as we lay naked in your apartment,
the smell of cigarettes on our skin, the evening peppered with
scurrying, fighting possums
that danced upon your balcony.
I recall being inside you.

(Then I imagined you being eaten out
by a woman
her lips inside yours,
her curled tongue
inside your hot, bald
golden cunt.)

And I came.
Warm and glorious
my children of pleasure
caught in a latex coffin.
Your heaves of pleasure pushing against my chest
with the rhythm of waves.

----

4:46 am - On the train.

Fluorescent lighting is the devil.
Everything is garish yellow.

We  pull up to the station near where you lived.

Your blue  rose lives in a Chinese vase
and no longer smells
of Marlene Dietrich.

The ways I do not comprehend and will probably not 'til the end of my days
but in truth
there is this,
A kiss
is a mountain of gold that unfolds like a rose
and those who are fated to live life without such
are the ones who would not know much
about love.

Nothing stands above the heavenly touch of lips upon mine
nor can wine or whiskey diminish
the lustre that lays upon each kisses finish
and should you not fall upon this way which is open to all
then you have my pity
as I watch as you fall
for what is it that is not
but a sweet kiss then forgot and only remembered
in the slumber of old men where the dreams are oft painted
with the taintings of youth.

Kissing each truth as presented tasting the fruit
when fermented
getting drunk and demented by
unrelenting desire
that the lips set on fire.
Fleeting.

And on meeting these musings
accusing myself of an understanding I lack
I go back for one more kiss
to decide if I did miss
the mountain
the fountain
the rose.

old makeup spilled on my floor
dirty clothes strewn on my floor

You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on.

Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror.

I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a magnetic swipe.

For the past six months,
I have had less than four hundred $
combined in checking and savings,
and that number dwindles by the day.

I have no groceries,
but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles,
and I was handing pills out like treats and candy.

(but they are needed, much and every day)

Where did all these bills come from?
Money is paper, but it means things.
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.

Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, time, and the store's six blocks away.
We can subside on government cheese, beans, and the fiery licks of whiskey.

I pout on my throne of dirty cotton, thinking
"I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price!" I sigh.

It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare
and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would,
smashed over a the front of your mother's blackest cat.

"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents, given as allowance!
I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"

I crack open my father's checking account with that swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.

(I prove I love him, and he loves me in this way)

Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money, until our lips are pink.
They must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)

I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
"Como ca va, darling? Comme si comme sa. . ."
I lick my lips, put on red lipstick and then blot,
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.

We go together. You and me.

Lying on the floor, holding hands, in vinyl bliss
listening to the crooning of sweet Francoise Hardy,
and the addictions of the near-dead soul of Lou Reed

You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
from expensive French cigarettes
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
burning money all along the way
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic

(I think it adds to the glamour)

We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after

I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little cocaine
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur

And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)

I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,

just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
and keep pretending,
until I die, or overdose, or something.

Treasury  Casino - 2:30 am

From my seat in the smokers section
I can see the Brisbane eye,
the river,
and the  performing arts center.
Streetlights  are mans answer  to the cosmos

"Everything you can do,
I can make better."

Once it was said that we were made in God's image.
Now we can safely say that God was  made in our image.

I am in a quiet place of the universe, the night stretches on
visible through the stately
wonderous
walls
carved of old wood  and sandstone.

I am in a suede armchair, winged for pleasure.
The ceiling in this room is twice as high as an ordinary room.
Circular steel balls hang down like a path of bubbles
left  by a leviathan.

My water was poured  with panache.

Let me set  the scene for you:
I'm in the  Treasury Casino, this building was once the QLD state treasury, it never changed really.
Sitting next to  window that overlooks the river, a glass of water sits to my left. The room is the size of a double garage, maybe bigger. The floor and ceilings are made of old wood, the walls are decorated with a transparent gray fabric that remindsme of smoke. An old marble fireplace sits in a wall studded with tiny lights that resemble stars or candles. Above me is a series of hanging circular light fixtures that resemble a trail of bubbles left by a leviathan.

This room was designed for,  and houses opulence.  
The TV plays Eminem.

Peter Garrett dances like a Parkinson's sufferer.
And looks like Disco-Nosferatu.

We have  killed the night
and neon power
and infomercials
rape the romance
once held
by late night solitude.