Run child run
beckons you the sun
the bowl of sky over the grass
are waiting with palette and brush.
Run child run
away from the popcorn fun
the deceitful idiot box
that so sadly chains you in locks.
Run child run
barefoot on the pearly dew
away from the virtual fun
to the loveliness waiting for you.
Run child run
far from the cyber fun
before the setting sun’s crimson hue
forever misses you.

(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.

What do you do when finally you realize what death is? You have so much planned for the future, but never know what your fate is.
You finally realize how people would feel if you actually did it. But you're so sad and buried ssooo deep into your problems you don't give a shit. You don't care what they would say, how they would feel. It's all just a mess waiting to unpeel. You can't dig yourself out, you feel it's the only way. Cloud of judgement, jumbles of depression planted in your brain, you can't get out. Its deeper than being able to just shout. You think maybe its a disease? Maybe it's a dream? But it's real life and it all hurts more than a feen.
You start to wonder who matters and who doesn't. Put them in a list. But no one's on the list.. It doesn't make sense, you can't comprehend, so oh, go along, it's your mind after all. You follow along because you think it's normal. You suppose everyone goes through this, it's just a phase. It could be more horrible.
Cloud of judgement, memories erase, jumbles controlling your mind. You lost your chance to get out, there's no more time. You worry, stress, fight, deny. But that does nothing but fills up more jumbles in your mind.
You start to think too much, you cry inside. The thought of it all is too intertwined. You stand up and try to chop the walls down, but here comes ANOTHER thing, and turns it all around. You search for ideas, look deep in the mug. But all you can think of, are new types of drugs. You resist as long as you can, but eventually flip open that illegal ban.
You mess it up more, JUMBLES GALORE..
Suddenly...you become empty. You get so confused, all of the jumbles have finally fused. You start to feel nothing, it all becomes numb. You want nothing, than to just be done.
So you plan, plot, think, think, and think. That's all you ever do, it's what it's come down to. You're so sad, you don't have a clue. And that's all it ever is, you're just depressed, so lost in the mess.

i'm starting over,
forging my own path,
with new faces, and new places,
and nothing to tie me down.
i'm starting over,
taking a new perspective,
no more waiting, no more watching,
no more second guessing myself.
i'm starting over,
from this day forward,
i will be strong, i will move on,
and i will live my life.
i'm starting over,
and it'll be wonderful.

I am dying to know
If the way your fingers swept through mine
Was simply an accident
Or if you meant something by it
Is the way I catch you staring at me
Something I make up in my head
Because I want you to be staring at me
I sit here waiting for you to say something
Well why don’t I?
I am nervous
I am shy
I am just a simple guy
Could you love me?
I ‘ll never know unless I try
Move past my insecurities
Build up some confidence
And let my feelings float freely
Because every time we separate
And I still call you ‘just a friend’
It kills me

26 combinations of arcs and dashes:
the foundation on which
we build meaning,
names created from nothing.
Generous swoops like cradles and pointed lines
that tango in a dangerous duet.

We think:
to not employ such a terribly powerful tool
is to diminish it, but this absence only hurts us more,
leaving the waiting soul as barren as the womb
of the mother-to-never-be.

An intangible monster whose strength
stems from paradox, lighter than
a butterfly’s kiss that crashes
down in volcanic eruption. A bomb
that can never be disarmed.