A Broken Crow

so it's the end of day two of fundraising for St. Pat's fashion show. i've visited over thirty stores on quinpool and downtown and met with mostly positive feedback. the majority of stores want to take your official letter and get back to you, but a few places are willing to give right away. here is what i've scrounged up in two days:

One green gem stone beaded necklace - $15.00 value (Bead's 'R' Us)
One Gift Certificate for two waffle cones - $10.00 value (Dio Mio)
One Gift Card for coffee and snacks - $10.00 value (Timothy's)
One beaded bracelet and belt set - $23.00 value (Black Market)

it's not a bad start, but i need a lot more. if anybody has any pull at all with any retail or service location in the city, please help me out with some sort of prize. i will love you forever.

i can feel you sleeping next to me. i can smell your skin on the sheets, no matter how much i wash them. when i dream, you're alive and i can taste your kiss on my mouth.

sometimes i still catch myself rushing to get home to you if i've been gone during the day. my step quickens and then i remember that no one is waiting. i break my own heart every time.

jesus.
wretched.
fucking.
pain.

there are no words anymore.

Blablabla would everyone be quiet
The machine has come between me and my love
It's hopeful but doubtful for tomorrow
so pour me up another before bed


Lady love has only seen me crying
and the nights are for forgetting who I am
but singing is always easy when you're drinkin'
so pour me up another before bed


If you would take and embrace me in your arms
I would stay and dedicate my heart
watch you go when the day breaks
so pour me up another before bed
pour me up another before bed

i cried so hard last night after i got home.
i wanted to be sick. it hurt so much i wanted to be sick. and now i'm up and preparing for another day at work. i put on my make up and i pretend, all the while i'm writhing in my own fucking skin because i want so badly to not be me.

fuck this. i'm so tired of being fucked up. this time i didn't do it to myself and it isn't fair.

i'm working until 5:30pm and i'm going to the HotShotRobot cd release party at stage nine tonight. join me if you want.

it's been over a month now since you left.
the insomnia seemed almost managable until i started covering shifts at work. in three days, i've had less than eight hours of sleep. sometimes i spend hours just staring at ceiling, thinking about things i'd like to say to you.

(do you know that i used to believe that love was strong enough?)

lately i'm having trouble hearing people. sometimes i feel like i can't see clearly. maybe i'm just not listening. maybe i'm just not really looking. at night i wander around our apartment touching your things and in the day i'm numb and detached. it's not my hands that perform those tasks. it isn't me standing here. this isn't really my life.

(do you know that i thought my love would save you?)

all of these thoughts are unfinished, like us. all of my words are broken.

i don't know anything anymore.
or maybe i know everything and it's just that there's nothing worth knowing.
i don't want to smile anymore, because you made me smile the most.
i don't want to sleep because i slept next to you.
i don't want to cry. i don't.
crying only leads to sleep and sleep to waking up with a realization that feels like a sledgehammer to my stomach. i hate this. i hate this world without you. it's dirty and cold and sick.

i can set aside a part of me that's only for you. i can mark myself forever, but it won't bring me any sense of closure. it doesn't make me miss you less, it makes me love you more. i don't know if i can keep my promise. the days are slow and the nights are so dark. so dark.

i got my tattoo today. it was painful and cathartic, and took about two hours to complete. my tattoo artist, kyle, entertained giselle and i with stories of steroid abuse, pro wrestling, being a make-up artist on movie sets and taking acid with james cameron. when i admitted to liking the feeling after the first half hour, he accused me of being one of those girls who likes to be spanked. i laughed about this and when the work was all finished he cracked me good and hard once across the ass. it was pretty hilarious. i got the impression that he might do this to alot of girls, because after he spanked me i heard someone from out at the front desk yell "that was a good one!". all spanking and acid stories aside, kyle did some beautiful work and i couldn't be more thrilled about it. i'll try to post a picture of it soon.

all of these places were ours and now the room is full of smoke and i'm sweeping my hands through the empty spaces of where you should be. tom's won't ever be like it was. tom's won't ever be tom's, but something else. something unfinished.

i got so drunk tuesday night. i walked home in the rain and collapsed to the floor upon opening my door. i wrapped you up in your ramones sweater so i could hug you without sharp edges and cold metal. i slept without dreaming.

yesterday i went to another funeral to support a friend and cried about only you. i wonder if it will always be this way when there is death. i worked until close at the killam with only one minor incident. "it wasn't YOUR boyfriend that died was it?" "um...yeah." a line up of fifteen or so goes dead silent and stares. nice. i walked home alone to the apartment full of empty spaces, so obvious that i can designate which places are something and which places are nothing. if i curl up inside the empty spaces, for a brief time, i don't exist and then i can sleep. our bed is the largest thing that isn't. a soft amorphous lump of non-being. it is a vaccuum, big enough for two, and full of no one.

working last night wasn't as bad as i anticipated. it was nice to feel normal, even if only for a few hours. i even caught myself making witty banter with some of the customers. at least, i thought it was witty. i worked with a cool punk chick named liz, and after talking all night we decided that we should probably be friends. halfway through the night she looked me right in the eyes and told me she was a lymphoma survivor. i had an overwhelming urge to rip my own heart out of my chest and hand it to her, but the feeling past and we had a really intense conversation.

on the whole, today was good. tomorrow is something else entirely.

my tattoo appointment has been made. fresh ink on thursday afternoon.

The apartment feels hollow. Like it's been carved out. Is that you I see out of the corner of my eye? Is it your voice that startles me? Am I wishful? Am I crazy?
I need things to fill my time so I've given myself a hefty task. I must listen to every one of your cds, watch every dvd, read every book. I'm too terrified to move beyond your life. I have to absorb as much as I can and take it with me. So far I'm on my second book and I've made my way through the bulk of your punk collection. You were never one to buy a cd based upon its potential sum of listenable hours, or repeat enjoyment. No no. Your collection, I'm discovering is less about owning "good" music, and more about owning "important" music. Music that held a kind of historical relevence or cultural weight. Already I hear the counter argument. Yes, of course many cds can be both important and great. Many Bob Dylan albums fall under both of those categories, as well as The Clash, Blondie, etc. But what about The Sex Pistols? It would be impossible to argue against the importance of "Never Mind the Bollocks...", but it can't be denied that they were a marketing ploy made up of guys who could barely play their instruments. So the album is iconic, but is it any good? "Ill communication", for me, will always be a better Beastie's listen, but it will never, arguably, have the impact of "Paul's Boutique". The more I sift through your collection, the more I realize that historical significance made up a much larger percentage of your purchases than any band currently enjoying mainstream success. Did that make you elitist? Or did you just have a much bigger picture in mind? For someone so mired in the past, you knew more about "the scene" than most of the people actively participating in it. Maybe you couldn't sing any of the songs off the hottest new band's debut cd, but I'm banking that after the first few bars, you could pull out a cd from the depths of your collection that is the root and justification of that new band's sound and existence. (Tell me now, is there any justification to be found for Panic! at the Disco? Let's hope not.) Is everything derivative of everything else? Will I find one little slice of the musical pie that won't force me to say "gee, that sounds just like..." You've left me a hedge maze to crawl through. I might not make it out alive.

Also, I alphabetized the cds. I hope that's cool.

words cannot express the gratitude i feel for everyone who came out to Iain's Memorial Celebration last night, and everyone who helped to make it happen. The CS Society worked their asses off all night and did an amazing job.

Special thanks to Andrew, Jeremy, Mike and Mindy for bartending, to Mark and Dave and the team at the Info Desk for getting all the technology up and running, to Jon and Geoff for setting up the sound equipment, to Norm for letting us invade his building, and to Seamus for being on his best behaviour (don't think I haven't heard the stories).

The tally for donations to the Canadian Cancer Society was somewhere around $600.

Iain would have been proud.