it's been years since
we sat in the sunny kitchen
of our apartment on Main Street
above the bar
and i lined the window sills
with spider plants
and ivy
the yellow curtains from my mother
the old ones from the house in nfld
made the light the sunlight
that much brighter in the room
we'd sit in our camping chairs
covered in a sheet to hide the canvas
and from there see the hallway
where i painted
bald-headed men and women
with big eyes and skinny necks
that you thought were cancer patients
i always said
"you don't have the vision
to see the art in them"
it's been years since

your name is in the bible and i am libel to fish for the letters wearing my fathers sweater out of my alphabet soup the recoup period is two weeks and i'll come quiet and meek to your door but you don't live there anymore so i'll stand and i'll call to no one at all

the beautiful stories are rising above the disappointing ones, the ones that leave the sentence hanging that leave the suspending feeling behind the aftermath breath

the story

the stories i want to have them at my fingertips on the tip of my tongue beside me inside me to spill out and for that spill to paint a picture in its mess paint a picture of me in the mess that it makes and for the same words over and over but in a different order to mean a whole new thing.

i am quiet because my computer at home is slow and i ran out of ink for my printer. yes it is the technology to blame the technology if it wasn't i'd have to blame the rain/ the cat/ the phone/ my eyes can't read the screen without my glasses.

the stories. everyday is a story but some i don't want to repeat cause maybe i'm the minor character, the screw up, filling in the blanks for someone else's glory story glory that's mine but i don't feel a part of - the formula character clown/ maid/ queen/ thug/ virgin

pictures tell stories and stories create pictures on the camera and in my mind behind my eyes. this is a picture and a story and a feeling and a moment stuck caught repeated.

at the podium

we will get him all figured out and polished and ready the apple on the teacher's desk and then there will be me and all my attention and focus and nit-pick will be on me no one else to iron me and then what will i do i will miss it the wisdom i have for him isn't the same wisdom i have for me the sentiment is the same but the words no the words they have to be modified mar-ified so that i can hear them so that i can listen to them understand them fully in my heart in my belly it has to come from inside out i've got to feel it not just rhyme and dance

when its my turn to figure me out me up at the podium talking about me i have no idea what i am going to say

it will not come until i call it practice my words with my hand over my mouth feel the vibrations of my lips against my palms my warm breath words sounds it will not come until i know what it looks like until i can reach out with my eyes closed and touch it and know that i have arrived it will not come until there is space enough for it not just standing room but a bed and a quilt and a pillow and a cat in the centre to keep it warm it will not come until i know i can forget and it will still find me come up behind and find me in the day in the dark in the camouflage

so sensitive even the light burns

the mondays and the jekyll and hyde of the sun and the gloom the fog and the clear the snow and the wind against the still and the silent

there are things to be done but they are just mountains not words not clay malleable in my hands

i will be happy when the sounds are in my mouth
i will be happy when the grass is green
i will be happy when he is with me beside
i will be happy when this is an aside, the footnote to a much longer piece

there is no such thing as happy when