A Broken Crow

we used to have dates in the hospital. i would bring a movie and treats from the outside world. we'd close the door over and ignore the phone. sometimes i would crawl in next to you, carefully maneuvering tubes and wires. i would rest my head against your chest and listen to your heart beat - soft, percussive, a watch ticking underwater. those were the nights that i would stay there all night with you, crumpled on the warped cot, listening to the drone of machinery mixed with regular breathing. i remember waking up to the feeling of your hand against my cheek, my neck. you would reach across in the dark and stroke my hair, and i would pretend to be asleep for fear that you might stop. those were the nights that you would tell me, over and over again how much you loved me. how special i was. how lucky you were.

(i fucking hate past tense. you are. i am. we are. i do. you will always exist in present tense to me.)

a grief counsellor called from the hospital today, but i didn't want to talk. i'm not ready for anything constrcutive yet. i'm still destructing. i can't pick up the pieces until they're all laid out in front of me.

tonight was the st. pat's fashion show and it seems that i've returned from the throngs of disorganized, gum popping minors relatively unscathed. they bought me flowers for helping them. aw.

i had a mini-spa day in my own apartment this morning. i had a long bubble bath. i tried out my new expensive, exfoliating mango scrub and scratchy scrubbing gloves. i also used my new ginger-cinnamon body cream that makes your skin go hot and cold at the same time. kind of tingly and numb, but in a good way. i gave myself a pedicure, but not a manicure because i play guitar and therefore manicures are dumb. it wasn't a bad way to spend time alone, i have to say. especially since i was listening to my new cds. The Kinks - are the village green preservation society, and Joni Mitchell - Blue (a fucking classic. if you don't have it, go buy it right now.)

(when i go out, i leave the christmas lights on for you, even though it probably runs up the power bill. you used to nap on the couch under fleece blankets. every so often you would wake up and smile because the lights made you feel warm.)

missing you makes me miss my friends that i don't see often enough. being separated by school or work or distance never bothered me before, but all of a sudden, there are holes in the fabric big enough to put my fist through. erin comes in four days, mike comes in a week. i can't wait to see them. hey sketchbag, let's drink jager until they kick us out. let's walk home screaming theatrics. let's watch The Warriors at four in the morning.

(because most of all i mind these nights alone. when the social outreach retires to its own bedrooms and everyone has another set of arms and legs and lips except for me. sleeping is sleeping next to you. living is living for you. i don't know what to call what i'm doing now, this strange suspension. all the pressure that builds up before the levee breaks.)

Today was productive.
I delivered some old essays and forms for my reference letters to two professors.
I put in my form to get copies of my transcript.
I paid my eastlink bill.
I cleaned my apartment. again.


(I bought mini, rainbow christmas lights to hang in the apartment because you would have loved them. I'm trying so fucking hard to get my life together, despite how wrong it feels sometimes. If you could have seen me this morning, you would have been so proud.)

two months now.
i still watch the door like you're going to come through it. i wear your sweater and i touch your things hoping that they'll reveal something new. i wonder if i'll ever be able to write about you without writing to you. i wonder if all of my stories are destined to be yours.

i had to leave last night. the conversation had inexplicably turned to hollywood mustaches, and i was about to tell someone that you owned a t-shirt with tom selleck's face on it, but i couldn't. i was stuck on the inability to refer to you in the past tense, and the impossibility of calling you anything other than my boyfriend. you'll never be an "ex" anything. that negation suggests something completely untrue. our relationship didn't end on its own terms, so where does that leave us? where does that leave me? what happens to the stories now that the person i'm in love with is dead? how can i talk about you? how can i not talk about you?

i'm not well today. i have to work at the killam tonight and it's going to destroy me. i'm not fit to be with people.

my mom took me to a spa this morning, to have what is referred to as a "salt glow". basically, this entails stripping down nude while a strange woman exfoliates your entire body with a blend of salts and then massages you with ginger-cinnamon body cream. despite the semi-public nudity and the rubbing of grit into my skin, this was strangely satisfying and very relaxing.

...and let me tell you. i am a delicate rose petal. i am a little silk bunny. it's a fucking tragedy that there is no boy to enjoy how soft my skin is right now. who wants to come touch me?

also, i booked my shuttles to and from sydney after christmas, i should be arriving on December 27th, sometime in the early afternoon. booyah.

if this were simple, it wouldn't be true.
because i need you. all of you. together and on your own.
each of you understand some different, but together, it's almost whole. almost.
he got me. he saw me. he finished the picture.

(i want to tell you how much i miss you and i can't. i want to tell you how much i regret not kissing you that day while you still knew what was happening.)

at first it was him, peddler of love and hope. he came and filled my chest with light. he had me briefly in his hand and i was ready to be whole.

but then she, beautiful cynic, tortured saint, called in the darkness that waits in the wings. she reminded me of emptiness in minor chords. a voice that haunts and teeters on the blade of a knife. i love you the most, but we don't believe in such silly notions anymore, do we? we have lived and we know better. we all lose in the end.

the night was for forgetting. the night was for whiskey and candles and whorish lipstick. i am garish and cheap in the light so keep me in darkness. i danced between speakers and laughed a laugh that was not mine. i looked for you in the crowd because i always do. your face is a beacon. it is a key to something i'll never be able to open without you. seeing your name sucked the air out of me. i sat in the bathroom, my fingertips pressed into my eyes, biting down into my palms, heaving. no. no. no. it's always going to be this. those seconds when everything is suddenly in the room with me and i'm crushed under its weight. those little surprises that should feel good but rip me open.

i got home, soaked with rain, heels bleeding. i curled around you like a question mark. i clutched at cold metal and tried to remember warm skin.