branching out, best he can.

Morning glory//raining story

The smoking section of Tom Tom’s coffee shop is full. The boys hold up plastic black mirrors and fix their make up; bangs adjust. Glass windows glide open, cars roar by. Raindrops spill down on empty sidewalks.

The eight a.m. rush runs through the counter cash. Coasters beep busy, whipped cream pastries. A bus ticket sits, ripped at the entry edge. 15:30 Cheonan, one-way.

Nevermind the weather

“It’s such a nice day,” he says from the warmth of his sweater, all tucked into the shade.

The lunchtime patio workers wear truck stop sunglasses; tuck t-shirt guts into denim shorts. We play footsie under the table. The bubbles rise up, he lights another, blows menthol everywhere.

Words float over from the other table: “They think I’m the only one that gives a shit in this town.”

They, are wrong.

The female anatomy

It’s a cycle, these girls in mothers’ dresses, powdering on noses, building empires and sewing handbags to put their names on. The jeans are passed down, tried on, brought in or out at the seams, whatever happens to be in fashion.

Ink has long been spilt on this ilk, on blogs and newsprint gossip pages. They’ve held their heads at that thirty-five degree angle since glass has been cut into lenses. One day soon they’ll push strollers, too, buy black dresses to mourn in.

There’s a certain breed of girl who dreams of becoming Lauren Conrad, he wrote. And he’s told, in the college he goes to, another breed of blonde, who spends her nights flicking through Facebook, dreaming of becoming Jaclyn Genovese.

So it continues.

*All of this, and these other thoughts, I guess, so much to tell you: There's an article I wrote on the girls at the boutique Jacflash, stars of their webby reality show, Jaclife, in the Vancouver Sun.

A few weeks ago we both fell down the rabbit hole. Rapidly dashing from school to work and back, rarely checking messages, inboxes, or knocking on doors. We've disappeared into the pages of books and between the lines of text we've written. Sleep is alone, fragmented, always ending too early. Coffee comforts the Redbull lining our stomachs; we often forget to eat.

We spin and spin and spin, not quite ourselves or others, or anything at all. Just blurs pushing past whatever it is we're trying to accomplish. But we'll get there.

Until then, Love me till I'm me again?

The birds have been waiting for me all damn year

Smells like February

Wind whipped through office towers,
rubbing sandpaper faces,
and freezing snot to upper lips.

While the elderly swept their driveways,
we dropped ash on the sidewalk,
offered no directions,
tugged our scarves tighter.

The gate was open,
lead to lazy animals,
unused pathways,
rows of graves.

The air was stiff, cool.
The feces lifted steam,
but didn’t stink.

In the end, the sun is shining

The snow is turning to rain. The traffic light blinks red, then green. He leans in across the puddle and says to me, “Call me tomorrow? I think I’m ready for the apocalypse. I just have to get groceries."

Street lies for lovers

“All the good ones are straight,” he breathes at me through the funnel of his cigarette. I nod, curl my lips, and give no details of the girlfriend I’m off to see. He tells me his friends have coupled off and dropped him downtown, where men at bars pay in compliments, fluff his self-esteem.

Life wouldn’t be worth it without the cocaine, he says. Wouldn’t be worth it without the drinks, the anti-depressants, the darts for that extra buzz. I stare at the half eaten pizza crust and downward paper plate that car tires have run into the road. The streetcar pulls up, and I step on.

Shouting while we wait

We hadn’t taken to the streets before, mostly shrugged and wrote strongly worded e-mails. To protest seemed the old college experience, the professor’s glory years. But there we were, holding signs, emptying out our lungs. The smoke and mirrors had become too common; decided it was time to shout.

No answers until March about the Olympics, the budget, Afghan detainees? Not again, not on our watch, our dime: no. The second time the joke’s on us, we said, marched with the masses.

Though the chants won’t be answered, the footsteps were recorded. The street shut down, the cameras clicked, the local Internet was abuzz. The revolution was re-Tweeted, added to information from other cities. I fell asleep the student stereotype, woke with soar lungs.

Paradise lost

With gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities.. Of depth immeasurable.. But he, with his wonted pride Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears.

...this winters wrapped under jersey sheets, us two whisper passages out an open window.

The buck stops here. Or, rather, the break. Gone now are the days of parental basements and sisters' couches, reality TV and microwaveable meals. No more sleeping until almost noon or drinking through winter weeknights. It's back to class, to the slate, the clock, and the filled calendar.

I'll fill in the blanks of the interim tomorrow. Right now my stories are on.

The pissing race

So he’d gone to such-and-such-a-school, traveled here-or-there, come back tanned or learned, hair parted in a new direction. She’d married, had a kid or two, worked a bit, put on some winter weight.

Graduate, post-graduate and doctoral thesis research. University is not for her so it’s off to coastal college. He’s becoming this-or-that, she’s on her way to one place, another. One bought a big house, another a condo, a third talks up an apartment.

Nod, pause for effect, speak again. Wait your turn, listen attentively; make eye contact and smile. Leave room for failure, lie a bit, mix anecdotes for maximum impression. Tell different stories to persons over 40, mention newfound business savvy.

Show off ringed fingers, pull out photos of grinning children; collect bathroom paper plaques, war and drinking stories. Remember husbands beat boyfriends, mistresses are kept secret, fiancés linger large.

And before you go, pull it out and measure. But worry not, there’s time to grow. We’ll see you again, same time, same place, next year.

Highway number three

Still have that heavy foot as you speed down those yellow dotted lines you’ve followed so many times. Farmhouse blemishes dot the snow and sky blue sky stretches off the horizon, over the car, back into empty snow-covered prairie. The pedal presses down, tires spin and the car stereo breathes the words, “Live through this, and you won’t look back.”

The permanent pageant

And of the women in that city, all those dance floor blondes fought for the smallest crown. They stored away slim bikinis for weekend trips to beach house boredom, suntans and nights spent liquored up on borrowed booze. Later they’d find dive bar DJ boyfriends, photos on the web. Grow out of prep-school uniforms and up into parent’s past.

So they battled on to new cities, new dance floors, won larger crowns. But nothing really changed, new blondes dyed in their roots. And though they only hold such competitions in small towns and seedy suburbs, each year one girl rides up that airport escalader,

Miss Winnipeg.

Inside the clock maker’s home
Photo: Dale Reimer, '05

There is a house down a road and in that house there is a room. Half submerged, the view out its two-top basement window is a flower garden sill. Stones separate that dirt from grass, which grows out towards a sand-covered drive and highways further still. And in that room there was a bed, which now folds to a sofa. On that leather-bound present tense the man sleeps, all fat with moments past.

In a city far, far away, on a street dotted brick-brown, an apartment stands five stories tall. Come snowfall there is a room that sits in this stack of boxes, cold with turned-off heat. The fridge is empty, fan still; shoes sit on racks without a place to go. Bills pile high on top books and paperwork lost and found.

But before the plants brown and start to die (as they do each December) the mail arrives, the door spins, and into the hole the key turns.

He always returns.

Penile economics

*Photo: Pinups mag

It takes more than a head shake saying, “I’m not that kind of boy.” to throw them off our scent. Still, we find ways; believing fiercely that in the homo-caste-hierarchy we are the owners and not the owned. When sprouting silver turns us into foxes we will become more than our twenty-something selves. Until then, we call ourselves buyers not sellers; send steely glares, push back drinks and sneer, “Nothing’s cheap.”

Everything may suddenly go wrong

Head full of pennies and an empty Advil container, weeknight television vacations. Morning meetings, afternoon coffee, hand in assignments. Drag it out, pull your cigarette, ride the bus home from work. Four walls, one bed, no food in the fridge, and canvas everywhere. Deep breaths, open window, close book and let the night fall.

Watch words jump around the city, end up in photographs and tattooed on knuckles. Drop your shoulders, stare at the pink paint stain on your shoe and repeat the mantra.

Stay calm.

Looking back into the trees

And so we stayed indoors all weekend, at bars and on couches, dancing time and sobriety away. It felt like winter already, as we’d retreated despite warm weather and smart blazers to be worn. Jackets were traded in for cotton, stretched around sleeves and bathtubs and hair and toes. And as conversations ended, the street window whiplash of cars sped on and on. There you sat editing photos, full and hungry, waiting for the cold.