on one of my first days at university,

September 15th, 2005, I wrote...

so it looks like i got me some more time to kill. there is a metal bird-dinosaur that rocks endlessly back and forth and i wonder if it is the wind or the subtle tectonic shift that creates its dance. here i am with bad hair and a sweaty disposition trying desperately to disappear. if i was invisible or even one of those girls who no one looked twice or even once at i would be so much braver. right in front of me is a little wee thing of face paint and the sun beats its waxy aroma into the air in funny pulses that only i recognize as such. what i really wish was that these goths would see, there's more to makeup than looking endlessly like weeping antoinettes all over the place. he has inched his way closer to her. i commend his attempt but it is all for naught. we always have this psychic extrasensory upper hand in the battle, which is to say, dance, of the sexes. oh come on. it's not so bad as to merit pity in your eyes. well, maybe it is, but you don't know me. if you did you'd understand; i'm a bad luck child, through and through like all that moaning old school blues. my story would be at home told over a twelve bar beat in a husky voice after downing dark beer sitting on a sagging porch by the muddy mississippi. oh but we are all cultural thieves, trading, bartering, collecting it in jars like so many fireflies. and in the end, just like those darting lights on our small horizons, hold it too long and too hard and it dies. so i leap from each nearly melted iceberg to the next, just like everybody else while the wise amongst us are building steel ships thta may indeed last forever but funding will get avro'd just before completion. and here i am fantasizing about guerrilla warfare thanks to the sentiments of aforementioned face paint which gets me to reminiscing about those long summer flag-capturing days spent with water pistols and bikes and high-pitched hollering to each other through restricted backyars like the bad-ass twelve-year olds we always were. fuck what i'd give just to look normal. and i know i know, but its so hard to study people when you're such a research project yourself. and i've got mad hair and a dark eyebrows and a funny-shaped way of being...and now the pattern of this picnic table is coming out into the wibbly shapes of my letters. is it two yet? i have no concept of time and my tummy hurst due to too much coffee all at once and no food and i think my innards are still all dried up as hell due to extensive alcohol consumption but my GOD it was worth it. what HEP CATS those kids were, all aware and aching for emancipation for this failing structure, all endlessly preparing for revolution, capable at any moment of bursting forth into utopian colonization of the new generation. i hope my clever numerical presentation inspires its use, because those cats be my PEOPLE and i've been looking for them all this time and they're the sort that would listen if i sang them my blues and would help me write it better with the strains of theirs and would turn it softly towards rebellion and make it mean more than sadness...oh i am stoned without herbal supplements most days.

-written on a picnic table in the courtyard of lady eaton college while waiting for the history departmental secretary to get back from lunch so i could get a course add/drop form.

sum pomes

percent chance

my room is two parts bird's nest
one part lighthouse
above the street's tarmac
so crumbling it could be cobblestone

now the snow is here
the houses across the way
look about 70% more
like gingerbread houses
and the stray cats
are 56% less agile

i am torn between the melancholy soundtrack of ella or miles
or the semi-silence of this creaky house
were i to hold a vote
3/4 parties would agree on nina simone
even though she hadn't been on the ballot

however
i am alone at the moment

the dog and the cat
form spheres of warmth
on either side of me
and the various items around me seem to stare

the sun sets at four now
another good reason to wake up before noon
i can already see the blue of my veins through my skin
the subtle blue of early dusk
and my skin the colour of prairie fields
my body makes no sense to me
unless i make it far far away

her body
however
is the most reasonable thing
and when i leave her
i come back to find everything where i left it
like a home

but she's the kinda girl
who'll take a statement like that too seriously
so lemme just clarify
i don't trust her anywhere
but there
in the entanglements
in the sagging centrepoint of her mattress
under a spider's nest
until sunrise and sleep
and what's wrong with that?
i think she'd find that comforting
how completely i've stopped thinking
about her
when we're not naked together
i should think she might even aspire to that attitude
in her lovers
(you lone wolf, you)

but i digress
because i'm breaking my own rule
because like i said
i'm alone now
lining up tracks on cassettes
the cat and dog still curled around me
as the saddest song in all the world comes on
and i think of all the times i didn't ask to kiss you

but outside
the world makes sense
things fall down
ice is cold
wheels go round
flames make smoke
cats and squirrels leave footprints
everything dances just outside touch
for the most part

sometimes things do touch
and we make note of the heat and weight
of the point of contact
assessing its meaning
merit
and value

songs are written about such simplicity
that's why it's so important
not to just go about touching things and people
so that each contact
can potentially
start a fire

or perhaps because each contact
can potentially
start a fire
i'm actually not sure

i'm pretty sure you and i could start a fire

and when it's cold like this
fires are 43% more important
and the pretty cafe girl is 87% more concealed
so i need to use 35% more of my imagination
to undress her with my eyes

but despite the pretty girls
i made this lighthouse for you

i don't even know who i'm talking to
when i say "you"
really
but i wanted to tell you
that if you fell for me
i'd catch you

this is the winter
after all
we don't see very much life
the bird's nests are empty
but it's all there
underneath
waiting



i can't find you

i can't find you
and you're all i'm looking for

because it is equally unlikely for you to be anywhere that i am
i muster my imagination
and imagine you everywhere
every corner i turn
i envision you and that smile
and the way that you'd greet me with a kiss
and i imagine you explaining how you came to be
wherever i am
and that you engineered this feat of coincidence
because you had to find me
had to
right away
and tell me that you love me
and that you're staying

this is not possible of course

in another fantasy
i wake up alone christmas morning
with some sort of trained excitement
and i mock myself as i tumble downstairs
i let the dog out and start grinding coffee beans
when i'm done the beans
i hear his bark around the front of the house
and i grumble and toss on boots to fetch him
i walk out the front door already yelling at him
and i crash into you
and we laugh and i gasp
and you say
well
you liked what i had said about having a quiet christmas to myself
and you thought maybe you could join me
and i laugh and say
that was all bullshit
i was so lonely it hurt
til you turned up
and that would be how i felt about you generally
and we would know that
so we would kiss long and deep
and it would be the best christmas ever

this is unlikely of course

i can't find you
and you're all i'm looking for
i don't even know your last name
i don't know how old you are
all i know is
i've never been more certain
that two people feel exactly the same about each other
than when i look at you
and that's the rarest thing in all the world
so even though i can't find you
you're all i'm looking for



when i first saw you

when i first saw you

i was tempted to boldly introduce myself

the way a gentleman might have

in some decade past.

i thought about the mamas and the papas cover of

"dream a little dream"

and had romantic fantasies about asking you to dance

even though there wasn't really any dancey music playing.

in this fantasy

we would dance to nothing and laugh

i would buy you a beer

all before my first poem, which you would think was best of all

in this fantasy

we wouldn't get to talk in the post-slam chaos

so it would be a couple of days before we would run into each other again

at the only

my friends and your friends would get drunk

and talk politics

while off to the side somewhere

a part of it all

but not

you and i would get drunk

and talk about how great

you are

i am

heartbeats romping together like puppydogs

fingertips flirting

eye contact intoxicating

almost impossible

we would BURST with things to tell each other

BOIL with the collective effervescence of our mutual attraction

and COLLAPSE into bouts of giggles

shudders

sighs

all sheep's clothing for the wolf of our desire

shortly after that

in this fantasy

we'd probably spend three or four days in bed

shirking responsibility

walking the dog

eating cereal with soy milk

letting the bed get irreparably unmade

our limbs so entangled

i would feel you stub your toe

and you would feel me pinch my finger in the kitchen cupboard

eventually however

the days or weeks or months or even years

that make up a love affair

would end.

even in this fantasy

we'd emerge from our reverie

to desire more

or less

or differently

to feel inadequate

or frustrated

or undervalued

or trapped

and to leave

to leave to hurt SO BADLY we would feel as though we could never feel that much again and live.

i'd probably have to hate you for awhile, or you me

we might have to make sad playlists

or sleep around with people we didn't care about

or drink too much

or start smoking

again

or watch crappy romantic comedies

or eat nothing but kraft dinner

or

or

or...

or maybe that's just me.

the point is

sadness and discomfort

...probably.

...most likely.

whatever the case

i was thinking i could risk it

i was thinking it'd be worth it

to boldly introduce myself

when i first saw you.

All that silence did get me thinking, though.

Talk can often feel like action.

Throwing words around, creating shared meaning, discussing terms and plans and possibilities and problems... But talk, primarily, is not action. It lays the groundwork for action. It can, bureaucratically in a sense, create the space for action...But all those things we talk about doing do eventually need to get done. And so much of what we talk about doing is just more talking. Especially in the kind of economy within which myself and my peers function. Words on paper, words through telephones, across the internet, words translated into other words, words to sell things, words to emotionally "fix" things, words to schedule things and manage people... Words alone become our bread and butter. They pay for our food and shelter and clothing and habits and everything else that means anything to anyone. So no wonder words get given so much value despite the fact that they're essentially vibrations in the air, electronic pixels of light, or chewed up trees covered in chemical swirls of pigment.

So if words are not action, what is? When I try to understand action very simply, I think of growing food; planting seeds in little furrows in the dirt, watering them, treasuring them, protecting them into fruition. I think of building houses or shelters; collecting wood or making cuts with a circular saw, measuring things, the sound of a hammer or a power drill. I think of cooking food to eat, teaching children how to cook or build, how to take care of themselves and others... These things do require speech if you're doing them with others... Which is how these things are done, generally. Some even benefit from writing.

When I think about "doing" something, however, especially when I push myself to ask what I WANT to do, deep down, I think about words. I mean, I would love to learn some of the skills affiliated with the doing of things. But to be honest, that's out of my survival instinct, and out of a need to legitimate the amount of time I actually want to spend with WORDS.

Why?

The very root of me knows how hollow they are, how powerless and small and pervious, so why am I so drawn to them? Why, when I feel anything at all, am I driven to write about it, to record it, to understand it through language - a language whose heritage and functions and meanings I also have huge ethical problems with - so much so that I get lost in my own damn words?

As this writing soothes me, so too can I become aware of other things that words have DONE and can DO.

The tricky thing is that line between making something happen, and doing something. If I give a speech that leads to 12 people storming a government building, stealing the acts of parliament and setting them alight, have I done something? If by their symbolic action of torching what are basically more words, 300 people decide to start a squatting cooperative in an abandoned building (or an occupied building, for that matter), 500 decide it's time to leave the country and 2000 people decide to buy the paper the next day, 2000 more than would've before... whose words have done what? The acts of parliament have power, my speech had power, those who acted to destroy previously existing words had power, and now the newspaper has power. No, words can definitely act. Words can definitely do things... But it still comes down to action. Word are a part of that.

I guess.

Ugh. But do you see what I mean?

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about... Wish I knew what you were.

by any means

the problem with the lifestyle I’ve found myself in is that it is the cause of my revolutionary politics. As such, I can’t dismiss my educational history or my position of privilege as unnecessary or unethical parts of my being, because they have led me to where I am. What I can say is that the way I have come to my politics has been a series of happy accidents and a great deal of arduous unlearning, a process I am still and will always be undergoing. What I’d like to offer as well here is the idea that where we come from – our positionality – can be a tool. When we rebel, we must remember that we are rebelling as much against ourselves as the system that created us. Knowing that we came from the very place we now find repulsive can be inspiring of a reflexive state pf being necessary to continue the internal revolution. Julia kristeva discusses the need to be in a constant state of revolt – discomfort, interrogation, anger. we need that within ourselves, towards ourselves, just as much as we need to maintain that towards the state, the institutions, the structures of control. with this in mind, however, it is also important that we accept parts of our past as a part of the path we’re on. we have a responsibility to that past, as much as we may feel we have overcome it, challenged it, changed it. we may be completely different people, believe different things, live different ways, but we once lived that way, believed those things. as we progress, we must remember that past self in a sense to remind us that we are never not learning, to remind us that others too can learn and change, but also to take responsibility for that person, and how they might have used and abused their power or their position. through this self-analysis, we can come to see the structures that have given us privilege and power over others. as people who have benefited from these structures, it is OUR responsibility to destroy them. they must be destroyed completely. to ensure that we have the strength to do what is necessary, again, we must maintain and cultivate our disgust at these systems of inequality and violence, and at our past selves. we must simultaneously maintain the memory of ourselves, while destroying all that made that person possible. in the process of this destruction, think about the things that led you to where you are, the things that tore your blinders off, that enlightened you, the things that made you uncomfortable enough that you had to change. think about these things as ingredients in the creation of a better path. nurse them even in the present. as you destroy the oppressive forces in yourself and in your world, think about what it would take for a new set of eyes to grow into anarchy, to avoid taking the privilege of existing systems, to understand the importance of avoiding systems altogether. what did it take for you to see? how would a child grow up without these systems that you grew up with. without imagining the eyes of a child, we’ll resort to the habits of our own parents. this cannot happen. the family is the first institution that must be destroyed, but we cannot destroy the concept of new life. we must find a way to educate without institutionalizing…