can't even begin to imagine
how painful it must be to have ended up with him

at 20 what could i have ever known
besides what i thought was good looking at the time

it's so interesting how the woman he ended up with
is also a CPA

but he wanted to be an artist and never had the right stuff
i kind of knew that, even then, but i didn't know i knew

still know nothing about art, i like japanese woodblocks,
pagodas and cherry blossoms and round bridges have a lot to say
in all four seasons, they always something easy to say,

but at the time i liked magritte, i bought some books.

talked and talked
kissed and kissed
i told everything, being young
not knowing what to hold back

he did not tell me everything
or about his wife and other girlfriend
but i found out later

she followed me around for years
she believed everything he said, but loved him so much
she enjoyed being cruel.

sadly, i sat beside him
as he drew, i knew but did not know i knew.
nothing that he drew was important, it was all a boring waste of time. i was too willing to put up with it.

the last time i talked to him was the day before 9/11
he told me i would leave him, i pledged i wouldn't but ended up telling him to ******* and never talk to me again because he apparently said something else i can't remember now.

i had come home from work after cutting a filthy muslim man's hair. i remember being disgusted at the shampoo bowl and not knowing i was disgusted.

the next day the planes flew into the towers. everyone on the sylvia plath mailing list starting screaming and crying about we shouldn't be hateful to muslims as all the news footage showed the hijab wearing women ululating in the streets.

years later, julee was still following me around. laughing at me but begging for information. any information. "what kind of clothes did he wear". she asked other questions, but i can't remember now. i never answered her. it was ridiculous.

he and julee had gone on some fifth dimension rampage which I laughed and laughed at.

he ended up with someone else though, kind of ugly with her thin face, tries really hard,  but a CPA just like me. julee is an artist though.

no one else is on this train
you most likely masked up for it
like a good boy, like a very good boy
who voted for trudeau every single time

once there was still time
you downloaded all the mp3's
a man who never becomes a man can
before he passes his deadline to become a man
so never becomes a man

alex chilton and all kinds of richard hell
yeah, a few of us even took it all off back then
but the day became another day
and then another day

and one day, your good day
was making $40 CAD on a baseball card trade
not just a hobby, but an investment you had said
in-between downloading your mp3's and briefly pledging your soundtrack love
to woman after woman before changing your mind

then, even that day was over
none of the girls who became women worked out
not a single one

forever proud to be a canadian
who voted for trudeau every single time

now you're just reduced to tweeting
"you don't get it, you really don't get it"
when your dear weak leaders are mocked

the tariffs are coming, the tariffs are coming
to your  jeet conquered country.

Winter, winter mornings
What you going to promise, promise me
Winter, winter morning
You might have been the diamond
Wasted like a diamond,

Wasted love
Untasted love

I am walking all your blocks
Onward to hopeless
***** passing ***** by
An asbestos blanket to wrap the homeless
A man who knows his worth
So falsely

The cold is painful
There's a ditch with my name in it
The sun shines so brightly

Please don't see me, you see so kindly
Your kindness kind of gets to me
I still have some things left to lose

(I didn't like me once I met me
Time numbs until it doesn't
I was but then I wasn't
It wasn't too much to ask
Just too hard to be

Your kindness kind of got to me,
I didn't think you could help me
I still had some things left to lose
Your kindness kind of cut through me).

how can we survive the
hard swallowed grey air,

we’ve fought too long for this blank stare
years of orange and white umbrellas foretold it every morning
heart sinking, rents and housing prices rising
we didn’t guess they would **** all the chickens

the car has no driver and the driver has no car
they taxed the gasoline and the milage and blacked out the electric grid
the vain wheels spin and spin so obsolescently
such futility always hard at work in South Lake Union

could have/should have never happened, but it happened
cities built on ones and zeros
cities fall on ones and zeros
sanctuary cities burn on ones and zeros

who knows what He wills when  He wills
but there are fires rolling down up in those hills
how the flames aim
word on the street spreading  like wild fire

crowded, crowded streets, and too too many jeets
the car has no driver and the driver has no car
butter a forgone luxury
india a forfeited humanity

no one likes what they are bringing
the tea kettle boils without whistling
bobby womack is singing:

“oh how i long for the daylight
because the sunlight makes my burdens light”.