November in Quebec.
Almost winter, dull wet snow
And clothing never warm enough
To keep the dampness out.
Nothing like Dallas it seems
Where, even though the television says it’s cool,
She wears a light-weight suit of pink and navy blue
And matching pillbox hat.

November in Quebec.
On a day that seems to go from grey to grey
And grey all in between,
We sit in heated classrooms
With the first damp smell of mothballed wool,
While black and white New England nuns,
Banished for their sins to northern, foreign cold,
Talk about their hero (and now ours)
As if he were alive:
Alive enough to step up from the grave,
Alive enough to kiss the snow-white blonde,
Who squeezed into a dress that shone like freezing rain
The night she sang her birthday tune.
I watch for tears from the widow’s blank-stare eyes:
They don’t show through the sheer black veil
That drapes her pillbox hat.

It’s ’64 and winter in Quebec.
The ground’s so hard
That grandma has to wait for spring to lie down in the ground.
I think of her as if she were alive:
I feel her hold my feet again,
I see her smiling at the door.
On this sad and sunny day,
In my grey wool coat and matching pillbox hat,
I watch a dark brown box get rolled away.
Looking down at the new white snow and my new red boots
I blink and blink and squeeze my frozen tears behind my blank-stare eyes  
And think I might be Jackie.

when she was four she tied balloons to her wrist.

they always rose, she knew. balloons always found the clouds.

she sat in the grass with her legs crossed and fastened string after plastic string to her arm, and until her hand turned blue she waited

waited to rise.

when she was ten she smashed a hold in the frozen water across the street.

water always carried people away
it ran when they couldn't run themselves
and frozen water,
she figured,
would be slower--
less harsh but it would bring her far from home all the same.

white and blue as the clouds she'd longed for,
they pulled her from the frigid water
six miles downstream

even fastened to a hospital bed with 'suicidal' harshly painted on her soul
she knew she didn't belong

when she was fifteen she joined the party,

older kids were swallowing their sorrows and threading out their despairs in a pitiful drug-induced slumber

and she watched with a syringe in her hand, as read to join them as she was to die.

she was born to die.

and so the needle in her arm and the tragedy on her breath was enough to help her rise.

and as her eyelids turned back to icy blue and her identity was wiped clean she felt a pressure against the crisscrossed skin of her wrist

and as her mind followed her heart out of the world she would have sworn it was a black balloon

that carried her to oblivion.

Hey,
You,
Still have my heart?

Yeah...
Need that back...

There is magic in these delicate little beginnings
where half the challenge is reaping the winnings.
Perhaps the choice is not half bad and the troubled waters ahead are nothing to fret about.
I've been thinking of a time when things were so simple; the lapses in time when your body and mine filled the empty space;
this is what carefree moments must resemble..

"What do you mean I'm using you?"
We are all users of something and living is never nothing.

Our conversations always so shallow,
the surface disturbed; everything underneath left hallow.
Your little gestures, gracious and fair.
left behind trailing whispers: "Don't worry. I'm here. I care."
My eyes took in every passing glance,
My feet frolicked through the shrouding wisp
Chasing seductive whistles, gone and past.
You..
I..
We didn't dare the distance over mountaintops caked in snow.
Then came Spring; she bested the seasons when she dressed the naked trees again
Nurtured fertile seeds
Singing mother's lullaby: "Grow, children, grow!"

I couldn't see the face of reason
just receding numbers,
counting down the steps we danced to.
The tune sickened me;
my breath grew short;
my hands did tremble.
The tears were warm but your eyes were not!
"These are not the moments we resemble!"
Was it wrong to tell you those words when things felt rehearsed?
My head to your chest, your heartbeat against my cheek..
The chorus of your voice, cordially versed..
The sight of the slight curve sculpted perfectly with tender lips,
creating a smirk that melted every part of me, from feet to fingertips.
These little junctures in time never come that simple.
We carry on living, but this is the moment I resemble!

"What time is the right one and why and when and how is it ever wrong?"

"In truth, and truth is the sad tune of a song, life always goes on."

I'm sick from misplaced words and those you chose to make your fist;
the impact I felt and the resentment that grew from this;
the regret we've both worn and exchanged through a kiss..

"Words aren't always everything but they can take so much!
They've withered my heart and defiled your touch!"

But those little moments were so simple
When we could bask in the company of each other
and time danced on without disturbing two happy lovers.

These delicate parts I remember them clear,
they've become the memories I hold dear,
Thinking of you now my heart does tremble;
Murmuring a secret for no one to hear:
"These are the moments we resemble."

What awaits me? I long for things unseen.
I have no certainty that there will ever be an 'end', yet I dare not believe in forever.
How do I know this is even real?
Are these words even real, when nothing feels real anymore?

I'll tell myself otherwise, but I know, I'll try and convince myself something,
which is furthest from the truth.

How do you find hope in a world with no certainties?
I've found I'll never be found, I'll never stop searching.

I glimpse your eyes staring at the shadows in my soul
Seeking to calm the wildly rushing storm
Keeping my heart out of control
Unable to keep
The beat
Pulsating whole

I stare into eyes seeking to calm the storms
To make my heart their own
Leaving chambers once cold now warm
My heart begins to pulsate
To the beat
Of a song, it's always known

Buried longings softly rush, to be finally freed
From this heart out of control
Once a half now pulsates complete
Your eyes chase shadows
Calming storms,
My heart
Returns to whole