I know paradise
has never been lost
and so it can never be regained
like the moon, a one-eyed girl
in sandles running from the Marines
and the stars are her sisters
hiding in the dark bamboo,
only sixteen dressed in black
falling out of a tree at midnight
a rifle in her hands, a bullet in her heart.

(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 & ****** 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 ******* kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid ******* 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 **** 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 ******* 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.

The covers move on top of me. I roll on my side, groaning, and open one eye to scan the room for the culprit. Immediate regret. A dull grey light is spilling through the fourth story window, the kind that’s not-quite-sunny but still bright enough to kickstart today’s hangover. A camera falls from the bed-side table and the source reveals itself: Anna’s cat, a tabby, nameless and found mysteriously missing a tail near Saint Denis street four years ago. More groaning, but being more awake than not, I kick the covers off me and look at my phone. December 30th. Scared to check my texts, I’m suddenly flooded with the memory of drunkenly messaging friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, hoping they hadn’t succeeded in overcoming their weekend MDMA habit. Most of the replies went as expected: “Who’s this?”
“No one” I text back, throwing a pillow at my friend, finding an injustice in the fact that I was woken up by her nameless, tail-less cat.
“I know you’re awake.”  
She looks up, smiles sheepishly. When she gets up, the light catches the right side of her face and I can still see patches of glitter. I smile. Say, “I can’t believe this is the last time I’m going to see you.”
“I can’t believe I’m still wearing the same make up I had on three nights ago,” she shoots back.
“Always the sentimentalist,” I tease.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re coming to visit me anyway.” Right.

I smile nervously. Somehow it felt like I was breaking up with someone after a six year relationship. Not the kind where you’re necessarily in love with the person, but the kind you stay in out of comfort and because you don’t know where else to go.

11:51 AM
That morning we walked to a local cafe on Rue Ontario, the one we’ve passed by almost every Friday night for the past two years, sometimes dressed to go to the dep and argue over what mixes best with peach *****, other times wearing Red lipstick, laughing in the 3 am August breeze, cars honking and men gesturing for us to come closer (laughing, you explained to me once, if you’re from around here then you know about Rue Ontario.)

Joi de Vivre. Joy of ******* for cheap. Missed opportunities. Never realizing my full potential. My wife, she doesn’t love me no more.

Laughing.

I know what kind of girl you are.

Laughing.

*****, where are you going?

Laughing.

Frigid ****. Don’t go asking for it.

Dead pan.  “I’m fifteen, *******”

His turn. Laughing.

If you’re fifteen then I’m going to jail tonight!

11:52 AM

We order four polish donuts and coffee, sprinkled with cinnamon. “For the special occasion,” she tells the man behind the counter. Paul. I’m hit with the notion that I probably wont see Paul again either. My feet feel light, I forget my name. Forget to thank the barista as she hands me my coffee. We find a table next to an arrangement of biscuits with all the ingredients labeled in Polish, exchange stories about the first time we realized our vaginas could lubricate themselves. We exchange stories about the day we were born.

“Use protection!” I yell as she walks off. “Never,” she winks.

I forget my name.

That night she's on a flight to Portugal to be with a boy who’s just too busy to see her.

February 2, 2018
12:32 AM
But we’re so in love.
12:41
He’s just been really busy.

2:52 AM
I was so, so, busy.
Read √√

I’m sorry,
√√
I’m so so sorry.
√√


Find your friends!

Search: Anna

Location: 3,263 miles away.

February 11, 2018

I wear Red lipstick, wake up with glitter on my face. Laughing, laughing.

On the First day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me
A transwoman in her skiv-vies.
On the second day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me
Two fake *******, and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the third day of Xmas, my Dep Rep gave to me
No women’s sports teams, two fake ******* and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the fourth day of Xmas, my Dep Rep gave to me,
Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports teams, two fake ******* and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the fifth day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me
Five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports teams, two fake *******, and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the sixth day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me,
Six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports team, two fake *******, and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the seventh day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me,
Seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports teams, two fake *******, and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the eighth day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me,
Eight cheater’s trophies, seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men!  Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports teams, two fake *******, and a transwoman in her skiv-vies.
On the ninth day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me,
nine pharma lobbyists,  eight cheaters’ trophies, seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties,  no women’s sports teams, two all gender locker rooms, and a transwoman in her skiv-vies.
On the 10th day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me
10 years of electrolysis, nine pharma lobbyists, eight cheaters’ trophies, seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties, no women’s sports teams, two all gender locker rooms and a transwoman in her skivvies.
On the 11th day of Xmas, my Dem Rep gave to me
11 lost scholarships, 10 years of electrolysis, nine pharma lobbyists, eight cheaters' trophies, seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant men! Four phalloplasties, no women's sports teams, two all gender locker rooms and a transwoman in her skiv-vies!
On the 12th day of Xmas my Dem Rep gave to me,
12 preferred pronouns, 11 lost scholarships, 10 years of electrolysis, nine pharma lobbyists, eight cheaters' trophies, seven teens with breast binders, six double mastectomies, five preg-nant ment! Four phalloplasties, no women's sports teams, two all gender locker rooms and a transwoman in her skiv-vies!

.

                        deplorable
                     deplorable de
                    deplorable dep
                    deplorable  depl
                     able deplorable
                      deplorable de
                      plorabledeplo
                      rabledeplorab
                      ledeplorabled
                      eploabledeplo
               ­       rabledeplorab
                      ledeplorabled
        ­      deplorable    deplorable
           deplorable de plorable dep
            deplorable d eplorable de
              deplorable     deplorable

i'm staring at the computer like i
usually do,
not doing anything to it
just sitting there.
staring at it.
depressed
more that depressed, i'm anxious
and nauseous.
i haven't eaten anything in three or
four days
i haven't slept more than two hours a night
for a whole week
i go to work, my job as a sign holder,
and i read a book
or stare off into space
trying to fight my thoughts, attempting
to remain with my mind in a void.
when i'm not at work
i drink water
and i stare at my computer screen.
well, these staring contests can last hours
hours and hours, all day if i'm lucky.
without a thought.
thoughts destroy,
thoughts are evil.
i do not like thinking.
i don't like thinking because i ******
everything up recently,
i won't bore you with the details,
but i can't shake the feeling that i found
a hole in time-space
i slipped through that hole into another
universe
in which my life is ****
in which my friends don't talk to me
in which going to work is the only time
when i can have peace from myself.
it's all completely backwards.
it's a weird universe, though not
that weird.
everything else is normal.
the only
difference
is my unhappiness. but that's a big
difference.
i'm not all too sure how i got here. one
minute i'm drunk
the next minute i'm in this other
dimension. (i've got this
theory that the small
change
is because the universes were so close to
each other,
so physically close (as far as d.d. is
concerned) in fact
that they pushed into each other for a
split second,
imagine a vinn diagram,
and after that small point on the cube that
is our universe,
they intersected and were exactly the same
but just for an instant,
and when these coiled arms of the 11th
dimension moved apart,
i was pulled back into the wrong dimension.
the other matt from this dimension (the one
i'm currently in,
where my life is ****)
got extradited back into the one
I'M originally from
(the one where my life is awesome)
i don't know.
maybe he wished for that to happen.
he wished 'my life ***** so bad, why
can't i trade places with a me from
a d.d.?
and he got his wish,
the ******* *******.)
it's like a dream, lemme tell you, a
nightmare actually.
y'know how in dreams you have this constant
feeling that
nothing is quite right,
but you push that away and
continue with your business?
it's this tiny inkling that "hmm, could
this be a dream?"
but you ignore it and continue catching
those ducks,
trying to catch those ducks,
you don't know why why these ducks are so
important,
but you've gotta get 'em
and you've gotta put 'em in a basket
problem is they keep hopping out of the
basket
and running away,
SO YOU GOTTA KEEP CATCHING 'EM ****.
anyway,
this dream is kind of like that
but actually its a lot different.
in this dream
i'm living a life that *****
i don't know how i got here
and i've got this dread that follows me
that when i get the chance, i'm not going
to be able to stop myself,
i'm just going to die.
it follows me everywhere,
and i know that as soon
as i let my guard
down
i'm gonna jump in front
of a car while at work.
i'm gonna down both bottles of my pills.
i'm gonna take that knife while
i'm making guacamole
and slash my wrists
and run out into the night
and leap into that creek
and i'm going to **** in water
until i drown
bleeding
there in the creek.
that's not all.
i keep losing time.
i'm falling through the
th dimension at an alarming rate,
this has of course been happening
for a long time,
not just after i slipped through
into another universe.
this has been happening my whole life.
one minute i'm doing something
the next minute i'm doing something else
but i get the sense of the time in between
but i don't know what happened for sure.
the jumps started out huge
and continued shrinking,
like some sort of reverse big-bang
is carrying me along,
i've got whole weeks and months
that i don't remember,
whole years in fact,
that seemed to speed by or have sped by.
time jumps, i don't remember
those times, but i know they happened,
and i've got a sense of it,
but i don't know for sure.
anyway, the jumps have shrunk down.
but now they're more obvious,
now that they're smaller.
so i'll be sitting here staring
at the computer
as usual
and suddenly i'll get the
feeling that i just smoked a cigarette
(this one just happened in fact)
i'll think "man, i wanna go smoke,
wait, didn't i just smoke?"
i know i did
but i don't remember it,
it seems like no time has passed.
i check my pack and, sure enough,
there's a cigarette missing.
i go to get a drink of water,
but then i realize i have a
glass of water in my hand.
"when did i get this? just now? what?"
time jumped forward a couple of seconds.
i'm losing time.
i don't like this.
i miss when time jumped by a lot.
the gaps were so big i
didn't even notice them.
"sorry, i don't remember that."
"did you say that?"
"wait, that happened?"
"where are we?"
"what am i doing here?"
"what do you mean i didn't
come into work on tuesday?"
"what do you mean i've
been missing for three weeks?"
"what do you mean i've been
asleep for 34 hours?"
"how did the food i was cooking burn?
i literally just turned it on!"
this is my life.
this has been my life.
this will be my life.
anyway; i mentioned that other matt.
he's exactly the same as me,
except we switched places.
he gets to live in the
dimension i'm originally from,
and i get to live in his ******
******* dimension
where he ruins everything he touches.
the ******* wished for this
so he could have a better life,
the dimensions pushed in on each other...
you remember
me telling you about that right?
so yeah.
i'm going to find a genie, i'm going
to build a dimension hopper,
i'm going to jump through a black hole,
i'm going to run to switzerland
and cause the
hadron collider to have a meltdown
and
i'm going to ride the shockwave back
to my own dimension
and i'm going to go to that other matt
who'll be laughing, sitting on a couch,
and drinking a beer,
thinking about how great his life is now
and i'm going to walk up to him,
he'll know who i am the instant he sees me,
and i'm going to grab him around
the throat with both of my hands
push my fingers into the part of the throat
right below where the lymph nodes are
and i'm going to choke him.
and he's going to see the rage in my eyes
and he's going to pass out from ox-dep.
i'm going to then carry his limp
body to a bathtub
and i'm going to chain him to the bath tub
and i'm going to start hitting
him with a hammer
first in the feet, he'll wake up after
the first blow,
and then in the shins,
and then in the knee caps
and i'm going to work my way up
i'm going to hit him in that spot
in our knees that
hurts so bad we puke when it gets hit
and i'm going to hit him in that
spot we're both
afraid of getting hit in because
it's so ******* creepy
and then i'm going to pound in his ribs
and he's gonna start puking blood because
of the fracture
and them
I'm going to break his collar bones
with the hammer.
and then i'll sit down on the toilet
and just stare at him.
he'll know not to talk, since we're the
same person,
but if he does i'll hit him in the teeth
with the hammer.
then, i'll just watch as he bleeds to
death.
one living matt
one dying matt
the exact same person except one
of us is a ******* *******
and the other is a regular *******.
i will watch him bleed and choke
and puke and cry
and finally die.
and then i'm going to get a hack saw,
cut him to pieces,
put the pieces in separate trash bags
and i'm going to disperse
them across the country.
or maybe i'll just throw them
in the trash
or burn them
it doesn't matter if someone
finds fragments of him
because we have the exact same DNA and
the exact same finger prints
the exact same tongue prints
the exact same palm prints
the exact same hair follicles
we're the same.
so if he dies, whatever. there's an extra.
and that extra is me.
and i will take his place
and in the other dimension,
the other you's
will not say ****.
as i come back into the room,
sit calmly back down,
grab the beer the other me was drinking
and say "sorry,
i had to take care of that doppleganger."
you will not say ****
the these you's (the ones reading this)
will know what happened when
suddenly
i disappear under
magical or paranormal or
simple
strange
circumstances
and you all will not say ****.
just in case i'll leave a note
and it will say
"sorry, had to step out for a bit.
also: **** all of you"

because so help me god,
i will find him
and i will eat him.
fin.

p.s. i feel a bit better now.

My revelation is clear now.
I got rythym. Now.
See.
                                            Seven days to an orbit.
                                            Or mere cochance.
                                            Seems like a weekend thing too.
****
                                           Inspiration seems to kick off her
                                           Frilly lace and slides quietly under satin.
                                          Heat check. Why?
Perception is reality no?
Saturation and release ?
Skull duggery.
Mind miner.


Alchemist at work.
Iron pirate. ?

At any rate it feels like 7 is my lucky #.
Ahh. Sleep dep.?
Mayhap.

When you walked away you took my heart with you.
You ripped it out and only left me broken peices.
peices that wouldnt fit.
you took the memories of love and hate.
you only leaft me pain.
he tried to fix the peices that you left behind,
but you had the major ones.
he knew dep down that i truely did love you.
you only left me peices.
you lesft me pain.
you left me sorrow
you took my love away
you took my ability to trust

you took my heart when you walked away from me
took took my heart and only left my pain ,my missery,and my sorrow.
but you left me one thing
you left my ability to love
thank you
thank you for leaving

thank you for an education
for making me overqualified
and dissatisfied.
  
thank you for giving me
the art of argument
so i can be the best  
copy girl  
for dep prep
after which
Michelle tells me
"it's fact, girls
are naturally
bad at math."      

i remember why
- and i'm grateful.

Lingering past expiration dates,
the fridge smells
and you ****.

Black clouds don’t lift,
they loiter, intruding,
circling the drain.

De
press
i
on.

delighted
delighte
delight
deligh
delig
deli
del
de
d
de
dep
depr­
depre
depres
depress
depresse
depressed

The occupiers

Faro is a beautiful coastal town with a marina
and wonderful blue waters, it is an old city with
historic buildings and an inner wall where
the army and rich merchants lived, but there is a problem
you can hear it like swarm bees long before you
see them; rats are building a city in the ancient
the sewer system and get sunlight through
the storm drains, not to forget they a have an army to,
vermin come ashore from long boats, established
a colony thrived and married into the local rats.
At night thousands of them come over ground
and clean the city of waste, the sanitation dep,
has little to do in a town with no litter, but how
long will it takes before the vermin are strong
and ready to expel the humans?

PS. This scribbling was never meant to have political
Connotation.