I'm not sure how these things work,
but we seemed to come together
through conversations and mocking arms.

My life had an affair with me
for seven years. No one knew,
as I loved the mundane.

******* in the air, body in the water,
quietly, we inhaled through our noses.
After the army, we stuck together.

Me and the mundane
put our arms around each other,
and of course, one thing led to another.

The mundane became my coffee,
daily, unremarkable, commonplace,
and perfect every time.

Really, what business did anyone have
making our love about them,
when we were interested in nothing but ourselves?

Hiding in the bathroom
until my fear goes away;
fear of what
absent minds think of me
between their grubby socks,
bad hair and alcohol.

I could have been alone today,
counting the minutes
of self-enforced bed rest.
Maybe taken a little time
to organize my thoughts,
made battle plans of how to cope.

I've felt the air too long,
I think I'm oxidizing.
I str e a  c    h
my thoughts to transparency
so I can see right through them,
analyse the funny creature
behind it all.

I wish I knew where to sit,
place myself strategically.
Fake mingle,
mouth dry with vapid sentences.
I couldn't stand it though
so instead, I've locked myself in.

Old papers always
had conversations with me.
The leaves would talk forever,
if I let them.
I never had to turn left
at the end of the hall.

The light pollution
from the lives of little people
in the big city
reflects off the lowriding clouds,
the same way my knees reflect
in the little puddles
from the big rains.

It hurts my eyes to look up
without sunglasses,
hurts my lips to think of tasting
the subway oil that
drip
drip
drips

I speculate at the transformers,
part automatic, part people
in their pre-ripped jeans,
learning to get their Ns
to drive themselves away,
yarn trailing from their sweaters
like parade float streamers.

Citizens run so fast
to catch the early train home,
freefalling down the stairs  
breathing in the exhales
of the other racer’s exhaust.
Marking their triumphs
with participation ribbons.

The pacific pants at toes,
a puppy that only occasionally misbehaves.
Impatient for attention,
waves wagging back and forth,
up the imitation river,
past the downtown.
Kicking the sea wall with it's gravity boots.


The geese are on hiatus
until they can take back the city.
Making the drains overflow,
creating their own habitat,
they’ll strut their haughty markings,
distinguished from orcas,
away from any saline nonsense.

Were we to retrain the population
to turn blind eyes,
we’d be much more efficient,
stop wasting time contending
to society’s obsession
with documenting itself.
But then, what would we do all day?

Creating light pollution
must give immediate gratification.
Once all the lights are turned off,
the influence won’t continue,
creating a lack of permanence,
making our need to be remembered
seem trivial indeed.

Up and down strange alleyways,
We ride our bike into fences,
knocking over garbage bins,
spilling out all pretences.

Look at the side of my face as I speak,
my mouthed syllables’ suit.
Recognize the shapes I am known to make,
hear my clubs on mute.

Short runways are carpeted tarmacs,
take offs for toy planes.
Neon flags guiding us to square landing strips,
ignoring shin splints and ankle strains.

It's much too late again,
I'm in the bathroom practicing ****** expressions,
locking them into muscle memory
for my future confessions.

Let’s repeat the same mistakes,
until we have them perfected.
We’ll loop our lives,
what's not a refrain will be rejected.

He is who you want to see at the airport,
half asleep, pastel sweatshirt half zipped.
Half length shorts ending just above the knees.
Eyes matching the green and blue abstract swirls
patterned into the carpet to hide passenger sick-up.

The background to travelling japanese circus photos,
they’ll look back in their scrapbooks,
past the ponies on the baggage carousel,
see him waiting for the delayed international arrival.

Stiff legs tread quietly down grey hallways,
stringing a stickered suitcase along moving walkways,
thoughts caught between continents, in escalator’s teeth.

Tiptoeing over the hot coffee spilled like oil,
the taste of morning breath clinging to the back of the throat,
chalky as chilled ashes, abandoned and unswallowed.

When the taxis are cold and the day’s been worn out,
before it’s even begun; patchy fabric stretched over toes
rubbing thin on the inside of your shoes,
he’ll circle your head like a daisy crown.

To hold the tiny scars on his broad shoulders,
traces blemishes like a mine sweeper,
would be like orange juice at 40 000 ft.
Intimate in a way only TSA agents know how to be,
looking for explosives behind the ribcage, to the left.

Turn the kitchen sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on, walk to the bathroom. Take socks off. Turn the bathroom sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on. The whole procedure had been finely polished into a smooth six minutes. Exactly. Justin’s day can now begin. He finishes his normal routine and leaves the house. He checks the gutter. He’s not checking for anything specific, but it’s sixth in his morning ritual and must be done.

Today he found something. There’s a girl, passed out. She is wearing an excessively short turquoise sequined dress, with matching stilettos. Justin was at a loss. The gutter was not empty. Should he call the police? He took her shoe. He ran. Six blocks later, he stopped. He was In front of his favourite coffee shop. It was an intimidating place, with a tattoo and piercing service offered, while you wait for your coffee. He liked it because the address was 666. He was worried the police he hadn't phoned would be searching for the stiletto he had stolen. Who would have known he would turn to a life of crime? Just earlier, while the bathroom sink was on, he had been thinking of complementing the local parking officer (the one with the limp) on his ability to write tickets. Now here he was, holding the glittering fruit of his crime. Maybe he could return it to the young lady. She seemed nice enough, from what little he knew of her. But what if she questioned him? Best have an excuse prepared. He could say he saw a spider climbing into it. His chivalry had saved her from a nasty bug bite. No, he couldn't pull that off. He would pretend to be a poet, that’s what he’d do. Poets are known for being strange. So he set about writing her a poem.

Turquoise like the rain,
off you go, down the drain.

With a dress, short like our fleeting existence,
that could really do with some more distance.

I took your heel to 666,
left you a poem in the mix.

Justin was in fact quite proud of his apparent literary side. He rejected -yet again- a discount on tattoos, and left the coffee shop. He walked back to his gutter, Finding once again the girl, passed out. Slipping the stiletto back into place on her foot, he looked around guiltily, double checking the police hadn't followed him. He went inside. He went to bed. The next morning, he forgot to turn the kitchen sink on. He didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on. Didn’t walk to the bathroom. Didn’t take socks off. Didn’t turn the bathroom sink on. Didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on.

Today I felt myself dissociateing,
I tried to avoid communicating,
look towards the ground.

When I talk, I never make eye contact,
or else I find myself distract,
forgetting how to be an undercover extrovert.

Today we shared a silence,
born between conversing violence,
as one topic broke to another.

My eyes picked out your stare,
that common brownish pair,
which slid into place around me.

The understanding pass,
as if I were made of glass
and you could see every ticking gear behind my skin.

You held my glance as one might hold a hand,
gently, delicately, without demand.
I felt safe within your eyes.

Comfortable in the bridge of your nose,
a hammock where I did't seem to impose.
For the first time, I'd be happy to meet your eyes again.