Friday, July 28, 2006

Humans...are a Parasite

Just a quick update to tell you my schedule and why I'm excited for it to be the weekend.

Tonight will be my eighth night shift in a row! Luckily it won't be ghost-town around the motel. I'll have a new employee to train -a nice woman who has handy skills as an accountant, since she worked at H & R Block. She just moved from Toronto. Last night I practiced doing "mock walks" with her and having her show me the guest rooms. I would pretend to be the cheap customer, the rich customer, the annoying customer So what's the rate? What's the rate? and the needy customer Can I get some more towels a bottle of water and do you have any extra condomns? -a customer for every season, then make her suit my needs for room type and location. When we were standing outside, we noticed little things moving in the garbage can. They were sick. They were probably feeding off someone's pizza or something and it reminded me of Agent Smith in The Matrix, where he says "humans are a parasite..." in the slow, drawly/creepy voice of his. Maybe it's true. We're all feeding and festering off information, uploading our viruses to the internet.



Agent Smith knows. Posted by Picasa

Later I showed her the computer operations, electronic logbook, general housekeeping stuff and the Night Audit. The Night Audit can be confusing because it's all these reports that print out of the POS terminal and the computer. You have to give the computer instructions but they are tough to remember. Therefore, we have a list of answers to give it, which is just basically a sheet that says: "type 'yes' then press then press then enter code '098'" etc. It gets tricky because you want to make sure to do it all in order, paper-juggling, stapling the right reports to the right print-outs and marking them accordingly. Before she left she said "I didn't understand anything we did in the last hour but the rest was ok" which is encouraging. When I started working there, I didn't understand anything!!

It was good training for me to train. Tonight will be even more intense as I let her take the reins and take check-ins and reservations herself. The best way to learn, she said, is to let her "fumble her way through it" and I agree.

When she left, I had to rush to get everything else that I usually do when I'm not training someone else done.
From 5AM to 8AM I:

  • Wrote everything in the cash report into the computer or "electronic log book"
  • Made coffee and set up breakfast
  • Gave people wake-up calls
  • Looked at my notes and realized I had forgotten to wake up my boss at 3am (he wakes up at that time to go to the mosque)
  • Watered the plants
  • I thought there was a maggot infestation but realized that there were some kinds of worm crawling all over the stairs to the front door. We're these the "little things moving in the garbage can" a few hours before? They had multiplied by the thousand!
  • I spent about half an hour trying to erradicate these little beasts by spraying them with a hose. However, every time I got rid of one, more would come. They were in front of me, behind me, climbing up the walls!! They made me cringe because they looked like maggots. I didn't want to step on them or get them on me. I had no idea where they were coming from!! Guests were starting to come in for breakfast and to check out. I would smile and say "Good morning" as if it were normal to be watering the pavement and spraying the glass doors. Speaking of maggots and checking out, check out how maggots can be used to treat wounds, not that I wouldn't rather die of axe wounds than have these things crawl all over me.
  • Spent a good while getting yelled at for there being a credit card imprint missing on one of the folios then from someone who wanted to cancel their reservation but wouldn't listen to me when I told him we couldn't cancel reservations that HE BOOKED ONLINE. I gave him the number to call but he must have been an untechnological type because he kept saying "well, it says your hotel name on the site". Yes, but YOU BOOKED IT ONLINE. YOU DIDN'T BOOK IT THROUGH US. THEREFORE WE CAN'T CANCEL YOUR RESERVATION. TRAVELOCITY CAN!! Sometimes I wish people learned how to use the Internet. I had already checked someone in who, on account of booking their own reservation online for the wrong day, got angry at me because they had no reservation booked for the day they arrived. People.



My boss who I had called late for a wake-up call, who ended up already being awake came in to pester me about things being out of order. With a million and one things to do, he still expects things to be in tip-top shape. So he would go through every little detail: Make sure you keep the window open. Turn off the air conditioner to save energy. Make sure the sign for milk is up. Make sure you count all the folios. Keep the paper in the printer full. I have to be his maid, his accountant and his alarm clock. He's like a vampire sometimes. I think perhaps he has some kind of parasite living in him which feeds off of sleep and as a result, he is always awake and irritable. As a result of that, he's always willing to come in at any point and feed off of my energy. If I call any potential problems or misbalances to his attention he demands "WHY?!" then when I try to fix mistakes on my own but he finds out later he will say "you should have told me IMMEDIATELY!!" You can't win either way. During these pleasant discourses, all I can do is say "Yes. Yes, I did that. No, no one told me to do that. No, I didn't make that reservation. Yes, I checked under the bed. No, he's already checked out" and so forth.

So this will be the end of my elogated night shift stint. It is time to escape this virtual world and get out of "the matrix". I'll go to a "Jack and Jill" which some of you big city types may not have heard of. (It's like a fundraiser for a wedding. AKA "stag and stagette"). We're all getting together to party and camp. I've got a brand new tent! I'm going up with my friend who will be deejaying so it should be a nice little vacation from parasites, both the worms and the humans.

Have a good weekend!


----------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: The worms, maggots, or WHATEVER they were are gone. (Thank heavens!) Was I hallucinating? No, the owner saw them too...at least I think that was the owner. Strangely, tonight they have all disappeared. In their place are several other insects, including a beetle that is peculiarly camouflaged to the exact shade of paint decorating our doorway, a desert sandy yellow. I pointed it out to a Zoologist and now he won't leave. Come to think of it, I remember seeing a sparrow make the discovery and snack away at the worms, eating its fill. More sparrows caught on to the treat that the first was getting and joined in, until there were five or so. Could they have possibly eaten them all? There must have been a lot of them. Otherwise, I would expect to see dead bloated sparrow carcasses lying around. The incident was reminiscent of scenes from Stephen King's The Dark Half. The sparrows are messengers from the netherworld, ushering the worms off to another realm. Ah! The circle of life! Interestingly, The Dark Half is also a story about a kind of parasite that lives in the brain of a boy. They find out that his tumour is actually his less developed half, or twin brother, fully equipped with hair and teeth of its own! I remember seeing this film when I was about eight and it has changed me permanently. The plot is very implausible, however, it is true that they have found tumours in people with cells that are differentiated to the point of forming teeth or hair or even extra organs!

Do you have a darker half?

Read another review of The Dark Half here.


Movies

Monday, July 24, 2006

Spies! Damned Spies!

The end of privacy is near. Read here about how companies are starting to follow you around wherever you go. We might as well start tattooing barcodes on our foreheads. Slap a tag on me and call me Sally!

There are eyes in your fridge, in your basement, even in your pocket! Proctor & Gamble are aiming to hold a patent to track customer's habits. Viagra pill-poppers are already reported to Pfizer when they buy a bulk-pack of sexual performance enhancers. I don't know if it's scarier to be stalked by marketing researchers or William Shatner. Through radio-transmitted signals, more and more corporations will be able to tell when customers are buying their products, when, and how often.

But people don't like to be toyed and tested like little rats in a cage, the evil scientist wondering: how big a dose can we give them before they go beserk? Leave us alone! we say. Or, perhaps, to quote the late Pierre Trudeau, the statement "what is done between two consensual adults behind closed doors is none of the state's business" (or anyone really). This resonates with our Canadian psyche. Companies like Benetton have already suffered economically since customers were peeved off at the thought of being monitored by spy-chips and promptly returned their clothes.

I've always thought that an invisibility cloak would be handy, or perhaps a ring of Gyges. However, fiction aside, privacy is something hard fought for. With the internet, anyone can be a celebrity in their own homes. We try so hard to be popular. Is privacy passé? Maybe not. Most of us still think we deserve the right for a little down-time, alone.

Side note: Speaking of Viagra (sildenafil citrate) and making things more attractive to customers, branding is always relevant. If you want to make a product a hit, you've got to give it a good name and you've got to make it pronounceable. No one wants to go around asking for citalopram hydrobromid (for depression), methotdrexate (for psoriasis) or loratidine (when those darn ragweeds are making them sneeze). With this idea in mind, the folks down at Pfizer were commissioned to come up with a generic name for the drug Viagra, (used for men with erectile dysfuction). They came up with several but the one that tested best on the focus group was mycoxsifailin.

News Reviews
Philosophy

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Me So Tired


I don't read horoscopes, but I glanced at one this week that warned me not to push myself too hard, too fast. I don't think there's any chance of that. Working the night shift as usual and recovering from my celebrating has left me feeling exhausted and blasé about things in general. It's funny, right now I wouldn't even really be that concerned if we were in the midst of WWIII. (I'm also too tired to know whether or not I'm being sarcastic).

I tried to keep active and play some badminton yesterday with my neighbour Trash but then I just wanted to vegetate and watch Corner Gas, which of course, is always a good cheer-up, even if it takes up what little crumbs of time I have before work when what I should really be doing is attending to the basement, which is groaning for a vaccuum.

What I do best is sleep and dream, which is so enjoyable, well, until I'm woken up by the sound of church music being played on the piano upstairs, or until my alarm clock radio turns on again (and I just set it ahead another fifteen minutes). I'm so lazy for some reason I can't even change the dial from a Polish channel, so it is even more alarming to be woken up to incomprehensible language at such a high volume.

But anyway, although I didn't end up getting to see "The Truth about 911" which was a disappointment, I got to hang out with MadameRouge, Jimmy, Toobusyliving and others on my birthday. I also recieved some wonderful gifts in the mail from Frothonthedaydream, including a CD with silly songs, a postcard and some gel flowers to stick on my window. Aren't blogger friends so virtually squeezable? My sister Wein-bean gave me this T-shirt of one of my great Canadian heros.


I may not be pushing myself too fast this week but I will be going to some interviews and considering moving to a new city -an opportunity that has been proposed by a few friends. Being old now, I'm sick of the same routines and ready for a change. All in good time. Sometimes the turtle wins the race. I must be that turtle.


sleepy

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Celebrating 25 Years of Greatness


A quarter of a century ago, in about the same amount of time it takes for a time out in basketball, I came through the curtains onto the world stage. I burst into the sun (though shaded by a tree). With a quick swipe of a jack-knife, my father severed the cord attaching my mother and I and I was, for the first time, an autonomous organism and distinct noun. I'm sure I was happy to be held -I don't actually remember. Though soon enough, I was whisked away in a picnic table cloth and driven to my new home.

Now the time is hard to imagine and it's speeding up! I know that this is but a cameo in the story of life itself but I hope the next 25 years will be as interesting as the first. So far I've made a good run of scattering myself around, seeing things, picking up rocks, finding useful things and disposing of what isn't, building fires and resting in shaded areas, picking up old habits again. If I've learned anything, it's that most things change. I owe my inspiration to all those that have taught me, joked with me, kept me in check, sat with me, questioned me and been my friend. I owe it to those that have come and gone and those who have stayed throughout.

Since that moment when I started, however blurry the lines may be, it has been a celebration of greatness, or at least that's a frame of mind. It is also all the small failures that reaffirm the importance of living well and the lesson of living once. Being born at a party, I was born to party and I'll do it til I die. Memento mori. With age though comes caution. Funny how we learn from mistakes after we've made them.

As it becomes increasingly difficult for me to remember names and as the telomeres of my DNA run out of pigment for my hair and protein for my skin, I will remember faces, words and deeds, if not through the functioning of my brain, at least through the yearning of my heart.

I also look forward to meeting all those that I haven't yet met. There is always something to look forward to! It is written somewhere, neither here nor there, that our fates will cross. One of the best parts is that none of us know if, how, or when...or why.

But even those of you that I may never meet, you will affect me indirectly. The world will form a new set of eccentricities, idiosyncracies and rules to defy everything I previously thought. Perhaps cell phones will go out of fashion or Australia will migrate to the northern hemisphere. Before I rot to dust I want to make it good, to watch children grow and old ones make glorious exits or graceful departures.

With you help, I'm sure we will.

PS-Happy Birthday to Jimmy

As for the song of the day, Crazy is it because it strikes me a good theme song about losing one's mind but gaining one's perspective. "Maybe we're crazy. Possibly...Think twice -that's my only advice." True words of wisdom! It seems a song about gaining wisdom from chasing your dreams and realizing that they'll always propell you farther into something you never expected in the first place. It's the Socratic conundrum: the more we know, the more we know we don't know.




General Announcements

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Shall it?

This morning the sky leaks red, sun streaming through the freshly windexed glass onto the marble surface of the front desk that I guard, where newspapers are ferried, reading "war".

I have stood there throughout the night, like a good king's man, watching the silent reports spit their numbers. The Auditor never gets involved directly but watches over. This is what the dead and the inert look like, I think. Numbers.

But the numbers I read have had no life attached to them in the first place. My job is not heroic, despite what I otherwise think. These are sales reports. The real story of life and death can be told by the sun, as it moves from one side of the sky to the other, it's yearning, burning, blazing, jealous, death. I am just the man who recieves the message.

Red: the colour of fire, the colour of alarms, the colour of fury. It all explodes and unleashes then splatters and putters out in one. Last. Breath.

Bombs burst over Lebanon in a place where Jesus never set foot -Beirut. There were Jews buried there. Now there are bodies buried everywhere -Gentiles too. It was "hallowed land" but now it serves as a place where spirits are freed too easily of their bodies, where innocent victims feel the wrath of hostility, of a scare-tactic negotiating strategy for someone else's soldier and nothing is holy enough.

In vain, sailors try to take the terror train. Fire against fire. With a home-made missile they get sunk in flames.

I come home to my mother. We are lucky to have that. I write a letter. I sink deeper into my exhaustion. She prepares me something salty in a glass.

What is there to be done besides quietly sipping it in? Shall it be just another day? What was it and when did it start anyway? It is, after all, like any other day, for me. This all started before I even got here.

We drink a bloody Mary.

Poetry

Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Truth about 9-11




Photo Source: David Sky

This should be a nice week of dinner and the theatre. On Wednesday July 19 there will be one of two screenings of "the Truth About 9-11" at the Eglinton theatre at the corner of Bathurst. This documentary most likely will reaffirm or bust some of the conspiracy theories and myths about 911 that I've heard since the tragic catastrophe happened and since we've had four years to dwell and speculate on it. Does plane fuel burn hot enough to melt the structure of the Twin Towers? Was the whole thing rigged? Are most of the alleged terror suspects alive and doing well in foreign countries? Find out this week! It is playing at a opportune time, just after Bush threatened to shoot down North Korea's missiles with his ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) system and now that Israel and Hezbollah are at war. (Is this still about Shallit?) Bush is just sprinting to the end of his term!

Lauren Bush is HOT!! ------------------------------>

And in local news, it appears that although I haven't a job in my desired field of study, nor have I been having an especially pleasant time doing it considering I work almost exclusively the night shift, which leaves me exhausted and somewhat psychologically unstable, my role is merging a bit in the right direction. I have been offered some opportunities to do some PR writing for them. I took the initiative and wrote some case studies and direct mail campaign letters on their behalf. My boss was impressed! I had to explain that I couldn't "make up" testimonials because the purpose of the testimonial is to have actual customers put forth a reaction, not issue propaganda, but this is good. We're learning the do's and don'ts of PR here folks! It's a learning process on both sides. For my part, I am learning not to put the motel into chaos and apply myself to new projects and duties during the night shift.



General Announcements

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Bill Gates: 1955-1999



While I was searching for a picture that would be appropriate for the post below, I found this site, which is dedicated to the memory of Bill Gates. It recounts his assassination in LA in 1999. Find out who killed Bill Gates and why. One of the many questions about this whole conspiracy is how a man who is dead could write a book entitled “Business: the Speed of Thought” when he is apparently dead. Some of the people I know went to see him lecture at Waterloo University as recent as last year. How could he be dead during the launch of Xbox, when he appeared on television and elsewhere? The question is: how do you know that that was Bill Gates? You don’t think the man who built Microsoft from the ground up could outlive himself through technology? It all seems like a hoax. Many people are apparently still in denial about this fact since they are so addicted to Windows but if we are going to remember him for the life that he lived -both his capitalist exploitation and philanthropy, it would be healthy to accept it and move on.

Silly

My Baby Shot me Down

We were in a retro cottagy place playing games on an old commodore 64. A weekend cooped up inside, lying together on couches cuddling and listlessly watching the screen while others played the game and adjusted the contrast. I felt like I had been there before in that cottage. I felt so much like I had been there that I told someone I had. “It’s such a coincidence!" I said to one of the girls. "I didn’t know it until now but this used to be my aunt and uncle’s cottage.” Then I wondered how often this cottage was rented out and who actually lived there now. They were all pretty girls but plain in a way. I didn’t recognize any of them but it was as if I didn’t NOT recognize them either. They just seemed comfortable. She got up from the bed and I watched from behind as she pulled up her thong which had somehow gotten tangled around her knees. Then we were in a section of the cottage where their were jacuzzis and white tiles and candles. It smelled like incense and chlorine. Suddenly some Japanese women came out from a staircase and seemed to be in a daze. They would pose in various dance positions and scream to us but they were in some kind of trance. They told us there were evil spirits and they would move their hands through the air as if pushing charkas and invisible energy.

Some couples dressed in leather and fishnet came with their plastic toy guns and sat down at the picnic table. They looked like they were straight out of a Tarantino flick or something. I thought it was all an act but I wasn’t sure so I joked with them about “watching out that I didn’t get shot” to ease the tension. Looking at the stranger with a dark black mustache, a leather red shirt and black cowboy boots and his girlfriend –both dressed like people out of a super hero comic, I hoped they weren’t actually here to fight. But they smiled and seemed to like my joke. Their expression was as if to say “you’re alright buddy.” Now that they were gone, I took the gun and pretended to shoot the Japanese women who were dancing to the theremin music, ridding the bath house of the evil spirits. It really was as if they were hypnotized because as soon as I pointed the plastic gun at them and said “bang bang” they started falling and would grab at their sides as if they had been shot. Others joined in the game firing and firing until all the women who had been dancing and “ridding the place of evil spirits” were lying on the floor. The music cut out as if someone abruptly ripped the cord out of the wall. Later we sat down in another session and I talked to an older man who was darkly tanned about how apparently everyone was dying right now. “It’s the thing to do these days,” he said. He reiterated to me about a friend who decided one summer that she was “just going to make billions. She just started digging and that’s where she is today.” Fascinating! So this was the secret to money-making! I wanted to get in on the conversation so I told him: “Another idea is to be a funeral director. I mean, tell me, I know they do a lot of different things but what do you need to do really besides coordinate with the families that are dying and preach a good service to them?” It seemed straight forward but I left that place without ever remembering that I had gotten an answer from him. I was walking out in the sun, presumably home. I felt like I wanted a cigarette but I didn’t have any.

Then I woke up and realized that it was all a dream. The sun was almost down and in a few hours, I would be due for the midnight shift.

Sleep Deprivation

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Music Video of the Week



Rihanna's beautiful song about having an affair is heart-wrenching, well composed and honest. I couldn't sleep -not because I'm guilty of having an affair but because my pattern has been thrown off again. So now I'm watching this. I have another ten hours that I have to stay awake for to do the night audit. Let's cross our fingers that I'll make it. I don't even want to think about it but because I think too much, my thoughts stir and hence no sleep. No sleep for the wicked!

The choreography of this video, the shots and subtleties are especially appreciable. For example, I like the furtive looks, how she moves very seductively and how there's a sense that someone is always watching, that she's judging herself in the mirror and making emotive gestures of dying on the piano. She's a great actress!

There is a layer of interpretation that is like she's having an affair with the music and the pianist playing it as well, which I found clever. He's kind of hidden in there -the unassuming betrayer. I'm glad that a musician has done something as bold as making a statement about one of society's social ills -a secret that's been kept too long.

We all have little affairs with temptation, bad habits, poor lifestyles or people but because this is Writings of Faith I'll encourage you to make your relations holy. Keep your relationships loyal, build trust and do not be Unfaithful. Good things come to those who stay true to others and to themselves.

Sleep Deprivation

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

France Socs it to Em!


Sorry Portugal. You played well. There will be other World Cups. 1-0. It hurts doesn't it? Go soak your wounds in salt. Hey now! Don't get footy with me!

I don't really know much about soccer except that I used to play it. Being a defenseman, I would boot the ball up the field and hope for it to drop in front of my own players. This is called an assist. Am I being pedantic enough? Ok, so I'll admit, I didn't have to deal with the logistics of scoring directly but I did it once by accident from center line and that. Was. Golden. However, watching this game I learned something really important about soccer: To win the game you have to get it IN the net. Strangely enough, it doesn't count if it hits the outside. Do you see how this works? I guess that's why Beckham is so popular -he's practiced to be precise. I think maybe some of the players on the Portuguese team thought it was kind of like volleyball where you try to hit if OVER the net. Nope, the rules are a little different. Think in.

Anyway, best of luck next time. I'm out to get Frangled. Now that it's all over anyway I think it's worthwhile to pretend it never ended at all!

Go Germany!!!

General Announcements

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Laundry Warfare

Ruined! All my beautiful white dress shirts have been ruined! I pulled them out of the laundry to find blotches all over them -all because of a brown shirt that I had so carelessly thrown in. How am I to look professional in them now? I look like I've been scuba-diving in sewage!!

I scrubbed them with Didi Seven and a toothbrush. They turned from dark brown to orangish-yellow and now they are back in the laundry with bleach. I can only hope that they can return to their former selves but the prognosis does not look good. I had already thrown them into the dryer without noticing. I fear it's too late. The stains have already set!

Luckily the offending spots are mostly in places where they can be covered by my suit jacket but the whole affair is still so tragic that I am contemplating hanging myself on the line. I should have done so to the clothes in the first place then at least I could have noticed something sooner and acted. I have made a big mistake. I should never have mixed colours. Perhaps with people it works but with clothes, never. It's a case of simple segregation. How foolish I've been!!

General Announcements

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Two Sides to the Surface of the Sea

We learned how to swim before we could walk and I always preferred to use my hands to move, holding my breath and savouring the bubble of air in my lungs lasting just long enough.

Now that sense of navigation doesn't serve so well for nautical feats but it keeps me out of the deep. Considering my compass was set to your turned-off beacon, I am now a castaway.

How long it's been since I've seen stars so clearly, although I realize I am peering through a film and as always it's like my brain is starving for oxygen! They are ushers of the universal elements, these little twinklers. As guides they are too far away for a biped.

The more I drink of you the thirstier I feel, the more I need to refer to the exterior world. I've found a fountain, a reservoir of memory, depraved and debauched, especially now that there's not a drop of you left...My tentacles reach out, a reptilian instinct flaring, limbic system wavering like a pendulum, body in a toxic shock, destined to swing back, programmed to hunt you through the remnants.

The hair of a jelly fish that is baking in the sun, quivering, destined to die, abandoned by the sea, still stings.

I've been straining for that test of strength, struggling against the tide as the waves of time take you farther and farther from my shores.

A rat on a raft in a storm in what serves as a crocodile's dorm.

The Herod's of circumstance force us in baskets to ride oblivious of the current, save for the chance observation of lilies and thorns to snag our flesh before we get sucked under.

Whether to wear ourselves down, fighting gravity and time, wearing concrete boots, paddling towards delirium, chasing the dying light at a surface we can barely see through a foggy pair of goggles in an underworld full of smothering laughing jackals and blubbering drunks, full of megalomaniacal kings choking on their own blood, sinking ever so slightly, then dropping like anchors, just as they seize the throne in a coup d'etat, just as they ruin themselves before their third birthday, vassals licking salt and stealing fish, just to escape the bigger one that's eating them. Whether this is a choice, whether-

They are diving for diamonds, searching for submarines in what is everywhere enemy territory.

They say that what goes up must come down. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Take me to the place where I can bathe in your listless affection, where the moon dips its face in the canyon and we sleep, one organism, under a blanket of mollusks. I will wrap you in seaweed and call you my water baby. But then I will want you to assure me there's no bottom or top, no meniscus or major highway. I will want you to tell lies, pretending that I cannot make out what you're saying when I suppose I orient quite aptly alone after all. I can't hear. I see only bubbles. The viscosity causes illusions and space bends like light. We are not communicating as separates. We are not communicating. Sky and sea are twin sisters caught between sitting on your knee or cuddling under your armpit. But which? Our pupils are a mirror of our minds and your pupils harpoon me with their vacancy. I am suspicious there is something else behind. My obsession with your movement locks me onto you like a hook. There is no predator amphibian or broken shell clam, just me. Somehow I fear my own aggression could lead into a trap of my own undoing. There is just a seamless flow of rhythm, but I am at one edge, you are on the other. What creates a vacuum in one space is enough to crush a man or pull him apart.

I want to enclothe a slipperiness of skin, where the sweat just slides off my back and I can draw myself slowly to you, where your breath beads against the roof of my mouth, where we share air and there is enough to well up inside us, spurting out our nostrils, where we can be carried into the wharf and not dash our ribs against the rocks or raging rapids. Afterwards, we can shake off the sand. My heart would be like a pool of dancing minnows and your smile would set them free to go coursing through my veins, in an alternate dimension.

Instead of floating I've been forced to dry up the stains since time washes away all the rain and I can't remember exactly what happened before the thought of us went down the storm sewers but that was a long time ago when there were many fish in the sea, before someone let the hate leak in.

© Copyright Sir Barrett 2006


Poetry
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