a story about eye contact


The look in his eyes reminded me of the fall; they pleaded of death with the misty admiration of life.
Slowly intoxicating green veins to shades of orange like a drug, making my spine and my lungs go numb all at once in a single glare.
He turned swiftly and broke my focus. Suddenly the noise of the fast moving crowd and passing trains disappeared in a soft hum. Everything became still, and I escaped into the eyes of a stranger that I felt I had known for a millennium. I held my breath as if something profound were to happen, As if the danty grey of his complexion would suddenly dust off and expose bits of his soul. I sneezed.


Bless you.

“Thanks” I said.

And then we started again. Weighing out moments on our hands waiting for the next break. In a moment, we passed soundlessly through a fresco of laminate dreams silently, coated by a serene sadness and a well-timed sneeze. It felt like hours until my stop would reach on the subway, an eternity with his eyes second by second meeting mine with no expression.


Now arriving at 6th Avenue Station. 6th Avenue Station.*

And in the next moment, one of us blinked; the moment passed, and we returned to being complete strangers.



p.m

today,
while waiting for the 8th Avenue train
a woman with a straw hat and a shopping cart told me:
“Today is going to be a good day for you”
and for once,
in a long time,
I believed her
I believed I no longer had to sit alone with my thoughts in my Davisville apartment
I believed I could walk down 9th to 34th and 35th and 36th and not shatter into a million pieces
I believed I could finally find myself as a whole
and not pieces:
my upper lip on Queens Quay,
or my right elbow on King,
or my grafted skin on College
no,
here, I am one
I am everything that has happened to me
and everything that will happen
I can speak uncensored at the little ******* the train with a yellow sundress
I can leave my laughter echoing across Brooklyn
and my breath floating on my favourite rock in Central Park
I can pass people on Lexington and not break eye contact –
because I want them to look at me
I want them to see me, all of me
and all I am worth
because no one knows me here
and it is so exhilarating to know that they can know me
all of me,
uninhibited
not carrying ten or eleven or twelve bags’ worth of past anguish on all my limbs
they see me here
my soul is alive here
amidst the millions
for too long I have searched for a place of solace and strength
and if you had asked me three years ago if I loved it here
I would rip my hair to shreds and close my eyes and think of home,
Toronto,
but now
if you asked me:
where is home?
if you asked me:
where are you yourself?
if you asked me:
where are you the most happy?
light blue and yellow light streams across my face
and I breath a little easier
and I sit a little taller and I say:
New York City
because on hundred year old streets
clustered with thousands of strangers
surrounded by words from all over the world
I have found myself.

I dreamt of you last night
my room was bright, bursting with sunshine
my window open, letting in sounds of a match outside
strangers in my room
but you called
"I have to tell you something
I think you're my soulmate
we were meant to meet
that sticky summer
when I burned at the sun's touch
and you beamed with your bright eyes
and I love you
and I want all of you."
and stunned I only said
"you are the same for me."
I asked how you were
and barely made out your response because the noises outside drowned you out
and I tried to find somewhere quiet
because I haven't heard your voice in three years
I haven't placed my hand in yours for three years
I haven't felt you near for three years
it feels like eternity
like time was stretched over the miles and ocean and land that have separated us for three years
and how often do I think of you
the hint of home in your voice
the tightness of your hold
you, leaning across a table to kiss every feature on my face
I was becoming myself
three years
both gaining and losing control
both seeing and shielding my reality
running to and from myself
and you were there
and I became yours
and I was safe,
finally
and sometimes when I walk
without purpose
down College
or Bathurst
or King
or Richmond
I see you
hovering in doorsteps
and watching on corners
and I hear your roots in your voice
your roundedness
and I am safe
and how I wish you could ground me now
my roots are pulling themselves from the earth
my trunk is decaying
and my leaves fall dead on the ground
I am no longer safe from being cut
all I want is for you to plant me again
as you did three years ago
and water
and feed
and shed light on me
because you were a time when I was happy
you were the broadest smile on my face
you were the lightest air that brushed past me
so when the noise from outside my window masked your voice
I ran to the closet and closed the door
because you are my reminder
that I am loved
that I am thought of
that I am whole.

a letter to myself:
(a reminder, rather),
I know it feels as though you are now in the trenches
the mud clinging between your toes,
the walls too inevitably high to scale,
the rain beating and pouring down on your body,
and you see everyone above the surface hovering,
watching you as you try and clasp the sides of this hollow grave, frantically trying to escape
and you want to just lie in the mud and have the rain drown you until you are nothing
but you must remember this:
you will be fine.
And I know it feels as though you have been butchered, gutted and cleaned
ready to be thrown on the grill by he who so carefully flayed you open over time and space
only to have all your guts and bones trailing behind you, and thrown into a stock *** to boil away
and I know you miss his furrowed brow
and his incessant organization
and his frigid room
and you want him to call and say
"go to where we met and I will hold you and not say anything more than I'm sorry and I want you and you're all I see"
but remember this:
you will be fine.
And right now, I know you want to cover yourself in paint
all colours, but especially red; Tabasco to be certain
and slather it on until all the marks and scuffs disappear
until you disappear
and you want to refuse to let it dry; apply layer upon layer of every shade of blue from sky to navy;
from lime to forest green,
from sunshine to mustard yellow
and all variations of pink,
and your brush becomes heavy because this paint is caking your skin,
a cast of plaster holding your true self in
until you are as frigid as a statue; you are clad in stone
immovable and impenetrable;
your shield
but please remember this:
you will be fine.
One day someone will see your statue in a square or a park,
the sunlight beaming off your sheen,
and will see past that paint:
the layers of Tabasco
and emerald
and ocean
and canary
and pink
and see you
because you are a light
you are the last piece of pie that you know you shouldn't have, but take anyway
you are a phosphene that never disappears, even when their eyes are open
and he or she will approach your statue,
in a stance of utter uncertainty and self-doubt
shoulders hunched, spine pulled in and face blank and wanting
and will see you
and will take a chisel to your stone
and break off the layers
reduce them to dust, surrounding your pedestal
brush, blow and wipe it clean
and they will suffer from the heat and labour
but they will see you
and they will chip until finally you emerge
that light
and all will be gathered in that square or park
and as you look around you realize that they are the people you love the most
and the person who has broken your mould, your shell
is the one you love most of all: you.
Because you look in the mirror and you love you
you want you
you need you
and I know it's dark
and I know there are drills and hammers and saws
and I know when you sleep you are erased
but remember this:
you will be fine.
you are alive.
you are here.
you are better.
you will rise.

sweater
sweet
"you taste it"
sweet
I feel it with you
as I am enveloped in this sweater that
smells
feels
tastes
breathes
like you
comforting and warm, like you
woven and fragile, like you
itchy and scratchy, like you
like
you
if I could wear this sweater forever I would
to be held by the very fabric that has hugged your person that has hugged me
that I long for
that I think of as I remember that this is the first thing I put on after you felt me
all of me, with you
that this was the first thing you let me have, and take
that this was what you trusted me with
your Christmas sweater
what I put on for reassurance
that you want me and need me
what I put on for safety
when I feel like I'm losing it
I'm falling now though
in this sweater
backwards into that ocean
and I'm scared, sweater
that as days pass he loses me
that his image of me fades and drifts away
that he forgets the sound of my voice
that my touch on his body has evaporated
sweater, I want to hold him as he does me
this image in my mind of his smirk
his lanky but grand stature
his sturdy hands and brittle nails
his smell of Old Spice
his blonde bed head
I want to hold it all
and I want to hear it all, sweater
how he used to light everything in his path on fire as a child
how he owns a mug with his face on it as a little boy
how he lost it all to one person, like me
sweater I can feel myself falling
I'm losing my balance
I can't stand
I'm trying to protect my heart because I'm afraid to let it go
but a part of me fears I already have
and it's lost
in his arms
bare and bleeding
and yet here I am
wearing his sweater
alone and yearning.

how I fall in love:
unexpectedly and uncertainly
usually under the guide of wine or whiskey, depending on my mood
drowning in a blur of voices and bursts of bright lights
an aura surrounds you; something jumps out at me
tattoos, or a woollen hat
a remark is made,
obvious or otherwise,
about your person
I can’t really see you clearly but I can tell who you are
your eyes are bright
rimmed with red, just like the amber Jameson you’ve downed
but they shine
you shine
I fall backwards into the ocean that are your eyes
I am smiling
when you hold me, I m e l t,
blend into you
I feel stable and erratic all at once
afraid to disappear completely into you
but wanting so much to
your arms are warm, humble and all-encompassing
you hold me
my tongue finds your both inside your mouth and out
it freely expresses how much I need
for once, we are speaking the same language
of patience and comfort and ease
and although I feel free and easy
inside, I race
my heart and thoughts
am I in love with you because you are in love with me?
afraid to
wait,
to give in to your attention to detail to the shape of my body moulded against yours
to the unease and confusion that plagues my mind
to the baggage I am carrying on all my limbs as I am lifted into your arms
to me and what I want
I can’t give you everything just yet
there’s a lock on what I will save until the perfect moment:
when we are laying in bed
yours or mind, no difference
and that secret or feeling or thought is pulsating, vibrating, screaming to be said
and because you are warm
and bright
and a knight of valour
I will say it
all of it
and I will fall backwards into the ocean that are your eyes
and allow myself to be saved from drowning by you.

this room
a room with a view
towering coasters littered with fireworks
a suburban landscape that grew
eighteen years
for a while I thought there was no view beyond these walls
these four barriers that hold
all of me
where I g r e w
eighteen years
from a stumbling child
with pink bows and sturdy white iron
so small in a space so large
I couldn’t fill it
I couldn’t find myself within it yet
this sea of pink frills
but
I curled up with a book every night from what I remember
and I wrote in my first every diary on this bed
and I listened to that prized stereo over and over and over
and as I blossomed this pink palace faded
change
i
changed
so that pink was torn down
and replaced with blue
and green
and purple
and for a while it remained bare
I remained bare
but as I g r e w I was marked
graffiitied
plastered
a rejection here
a death there
I was no longer solid; plain
like these walls, images appeared stuck
who I should be
where I should go
what I should wear
and soon all I saw were these walls
and myself within them
they spoke to me
sometimes in pain
other times in anger; frustration
this cave and sanctuary was my only retreat
writing on the same desk from my childhood about love lost and dreams unfulfilled
I sat in a closet covered in fabric and lost myself in stories
I dance alone facing a mirror, scrutinizing every angle

who was I?

within these walls I found a path
an acceptance
a moment well received and earned
I finally cried tears of joy
new steps, new space
new paint, remove old
images stripped away
from these barriers
red, white, brown
calm
these “barriers” slowly became
arms
they held me
during times of struggle and self-doubt and stress and fear
and I still looked in that mirror and scrutinized
and I still yearned for more of a view
and I still lay broken and heaving in this bed
but I also
g r e w
I left and came back changed one irreplaceable July summer
and
I spoke freely and bravely through the mouth of my pen
and I
smiled brightly at his face on that screen
I g r e w
eighteen years
these arms, once barriers, once only walls
hold everything
all of me
and to leave is bittersweet
for I want to stay
and curl up in this bed
and see my past selves
sitting there with me
to remind me of where I’ve come
I want to sit at that desk and hear
the incessant drumming underneath my floors
I want to hear my mother call me down for dinner
and my father’s hearty laugh
but although these arms hold me
I know they are letting me go
eighteen years
letting me go
to keep on
g r o w i n g
to return changed
but to still see
myself.

I trudged through the snow in the middle of the road to get home today. If you had voicemail on your phone, I'd probably leave never ending messages.