so far, keeping it together's been enough
i have realized that one of the things i hate most is people who cant take care of themselves. i cannot stand people who cannot deal with their own problems and take care of themselves. i mean physically and mentally. i hate having to parent people and i hate when people expect that there should always be someone there to parent them. people who will let themselves fall apart out of laziness or ambiguity to situations and decisions. it really fucking bothers me to watch people falling apart. and i dont know what to do to help. and this is when i start to see my father in me. i do what i think i can to try to help. i have a certain amount of patience and understanding. but there comes a point where i cant baby you anymore. where you have to take a stand for yourself and if you don't, i will leave. i just get angry. sometimes i really dont see how you can't just pick yourself up. i cant watch. you arent listening to anyone and i cant watch you being stupid anymore. i will detach from you because i don't want to be your parent and i don't want to watch you fall apart. because it frustrates me. perhaps at the root of this is... i hate feeling helpless. and people like this make me feel helpless.

i am horrible for this, i know.

how many times have i tried just to get away from you
sometimes i really just enjoy simple things. the small pleasures. after kickboxing today i had a really long, hot shower. and i spent an enormously long time air drying. i proceeded to spread my towel on my bed and i sat there putting cream on. and i was clean and dry and moisturized. and it was probably the highlight of my day.

today i was wearing my new undies (thanks petrina and vanessa) and tanktop and i really felt like baking. its frustrating that i only have this little box of a room to prance around in my undies. i really hope my roommates next year dont mind that i would really rather just be in underwear most of the time. and if they walked in on me in the kitchen baking cookies or something in my knickers... they won't cringe. i hope we can have the kind of house that does that. because i am partial lately to underwear. just underwear. lounging in underwear. and im not being sexual here. trust me. there is nothing sexy about me in underwear. all the flab and stretch marks. clothes are sexy. underwear is bare and truthful. and i am prefering that right now.

fuck. i really want to bake in my undies.

i am so cool.
so my water was warm and instead of walking the 3 steps to put it in my fridge... i just open my window (which is right beside me and doesn't involve leaving my desk) a crack and sit my water on the ledge. i just remembered it and was pleased to find it nice and cold. and i smiled at my lazy ingenuity. ok, its not ingenius at all. fuck you.

valentine's day (really rough)
trance. tired. on feet. people surrounding.
if i fell i would have been caught.
two girls sitting. she brushed her hair with her fingers.
braids and skirts. me staring.
flash to story time in grade school
"play with my hair" i would ask.
light shon on them and she swayed her head.
hair tangled within palms.
to my left she tuned her guitar.
in heels with diamonds hanging from her neck.
she made me nervous with her confidence
she made me want to be her with that voice.
bent over. i could almost see down her shirt.
to my right they kissed.
one of those couples that you can't help but stare at.
how two people so beautiful could have ended up together
she kissed her and i watched.
i smiled and thought about how nice it is when there is a succession of moments that seem to make perfect sense. i tried to capture it all to write it down later. i know i didn't do a good enough job.

stars show
"this one's for lovers"
*pause*
"its also for the people who hate everyone... we need you. everyone's a fucking asshole... that's obvious."

2 dollars please
we listened to the poetry
and i wrote my own in my head
i watched the brave people stand behind the microphone
and i rested my head on the bar
funny how i didn't realize until then that you were beside me
your back was turned
you never turn around to meet me anyways
i sighed a bit and stared at your sweater
i stared at the back of your neck and wondered what you'd do if i touched you
i realized it wouldn't happen like the poetry
it wouldn't flow and make sense at all
i thought about stealing your wallet just then
riffling through it and keeping it in my drawer
my underwear drawer even
but i just rested there
staring
knowing you'd never turn around anyways

every moment's a little bit later
ok so i just realized how happy i sounded below. and you know what... im not always going to be happy. i don't want to sound perfect you know. because im not. and i wont pretend that i am. thats all i wanted to say.

o man
twenty. half way to 40. a third of the way to 60. im not a teenager anymore. and thank god for that. my teens were what they should have been. i did everything i could have wanted to do and more. i had drunken park nights. i had crushes and insecurities. i counted stars. i wrote shitty poetry. i hated my parents. i pierced myself. i dyed my hair. i made friends and lost them. etc., etc... i learned what i wanted to be.

twenty. sure, i dont have it all figured out. sure, i still have the tits of a 13 year old. sure, i still feel angsty. i'm still counting stars and writing shitty poetry. i am still piercing myself and dying my hair. and i hope to spend more drunken nights in the park. but the point is... more than ever before, i like who i am. i like what i do. and i dont think ive felt this confident before. (ok, i have lapses... but still... everyone's allowed a lapse once in a while)

twenty. its the beginning of a new decade in my life. and i've always been a sucker for a fresh start.

twenty. its me knowing what i want. im at a point in my life where, perhaps more than ever before, i know what i want. this is what i want. im all about the means. im not afraid of the path. ive kind of stopped looking up. im driving with my eyes on the ground right infront of me. this is the road i picked and i damn well don't want to miss it by looking out over the horizon. and maybe im naive... but im twenty. and if i can be naive about certain things... im damn well proud of myself.

twenty is a pretty word the more i look at it. like whisper. or pantry. or even kooky.

twenty is hot.

i don't like girls the way they are
so shave their legs
and make them look like movie stars
then we can pretend it's natural
- my man pedro

sometimes, in a certain light, i don't recognize my own hands. they look too big, too old... like they belong to someone else. they move on their own and i decorate them with rings and polish. but my fingers are still crooked.

the bedroom lights burn
there is no more quiet here
squeeze me forcefully dress me up and shave my legs
forget me yesterday
for beds squeek
and you are what i am-just harder

tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
me - "so why'd you transfer from ubc to mcgill?"
him - "i didn't like it there."
me - *nodding with disappointment at the shitty reason*
me - "you really need a better story."
him - "i know."
me - "let's try this again... so why'd you transfer from ubc to mcgill?"
him - *thinks for a moment* "well, i developed this really bad heroin addiction in vancouver and i came to montreal to get clean."
me - "so how come you don't have any track marks on your arms?"
him - "reconstructive surgery."
me - *impressed with the quick thinking*
the conversation continued along these lines and ended somewhere when i commented that i thought i was his grandma's coke dealer in scarborough (his grandma actually does live in scarborough though).

and presto, i had a more interesting conversation than most people at that bar. i think its a really good judge of character... to put someone on the spot and see if they can come up with an interesting lie/story. its one of my favourite things to do... request stories from people or request better versions of shitty stories. there's lots of people that wont play along... and they are the people that i do not want to talk to. maybe im just tragically sick of the usual conversation with strangers. but seriously, i find that this way of conversing just makes things flow a lot easier. and i get to weed out the stupid people who don't understand how great stories are.

i'm gonna take you where your body will rot
i'm trying to write a paper on taoism and confucianism while listening to the misfits (i am feeling dark and angry, ok?). perhaps this is why i am finding it difficult to write about harmony and music.

dear me,
i think i could make it with you. make sure to wear that top hat your grandpa was wearing in that picture in the summer. people don't wear enough top hats. promise me that you will always laugh at me when i trip and fall and you will paint my portrait with that set of watercolours in your attic. you know the ones. i want you to write a letter to me dated 20 years in the future. i want to see how much i'll change. and i hope you make spelling mistakes. let's drive to san fransisco and pretend its still the place it was. let's drive to vegas and sit in at a cathedral all day and watch people get married. let's sit in the desert until we feel like we could die from heat. then we can stuff our faces with slurpies and pee on the side of the highway. we could drop acid and work at a diner for a couple of months. to pay the bills we don't have. we could learn how to drive a truck and get in on the secret trucker scene that i am sure exists. we should write novels and smoke cigars and be the bums that everyone dreams they could be. maybe not everyone, but people like you and me. we could hang out at laundromats watching people fold their clothes. we'd take polaroid pictures of the spinning loads. and leave them there so that people can see what they were missing while they were off having coffee and running errands.

let's see what people miss. and let's be naive enough to think that no one's ever done the things we'll do or say the things we'll say. im losing that naivety you see, and i want it back.