February 15, 2009

Protected: I Want To Believe

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January 19, 2009

Love Bias

Sometimes, she reaches down and grabs a hand­ful of my der­rière. I laugh a ner­vous laugh, and she chides me.

It’s a reflex. None of my girl­friends have been so zeal­ous in their pinch­ing, or rev­eled in such an act. My laugh is one of sur­prise, and a good one at that.

This is what upsets her. But how should I react oth­er­wise? I hardly con­sider this thin-framed body, a frail com­par­i­son to the phys­i­cal con­ven­tions of a man, as being sex­ual or attractive.

This is why I think she loves me.

Otherwise, she’d see me as the rest of the world sees me.

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January 4, 2009

There Is No Such Thing As Love

Let me give it to you straight, straight like an arrow.

I’ve had these words stuck in my head for some time now. Lyrics from the tit­u­lar Dears track I first heard in uni­ver­sity, back when I would go home in the sum­mer and watch The Wedge on Friday nights.

I know that’s awfully cyn­i­cal to say, but I need proof that it is pos­si­ble today.

I just wish I could accept that fact. I’m start­ing to won­der if that’s why I keep hear­ing the words in my head. It’s my sub­con­scious remind­ing me, keep­ing me grounded.

Maybe that’s why we watch these movies. Hollywood would have us believe that love exists.

It’s the same story, where guy sees girl, falls in love, and hap­pily ever after. In between, there’s always the overused plot ele­ment of the guy win­ning over the girl by reveal­ing him­self and his feel­ings. After all, this alone is enough to win any girl over, regard­less of whether she found him attrac­tive or not, she was mar­ried or sin­gle, or he was the nerd and she was the cheerleader.

But love doesn’t exist in real life, as much as I want to believe that it does.

Not for me, anyway.

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November 21, 2008

Missing Her Moments

I’m writ­ing this in my head
some­where between Belleville and Oshawa
as Leonard Cohen croons to me
on the stereo about miss­ing something.

I’m try­ing to put this
together in verse;
it’s the only way that makes sense.
Maybe because the songs he sings are too good,
or I’m still affected by the last time I had
strep throat and we read
Susan Musgrave poems in bed.

So much for swear­ing
that I’ll never write like this again.

I won­der why she ends her phrases
the way she does,
about whether her titles come from
those clever lit­tle moments,
or vice-versa.

Maybe I can fig­ure out how they do it
and I can express what it felt like to hug
her before leav­ing,
about how I didn’t real­ize how hard I was
doing it until I let go and felt her
breathe again.

She wouldn’t admit that she’d miss me
until I did it first. She had
said it more than me, last time, you see.

She had paid it for­ward,
now it was time for me to pay it back.

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October 25, 2008

Eagle vs Shark

Eagle vs Shark

Eagle vs Shark is the new Postal Service.

The movie I can’t stop watch­ing. The movie I can’t watch with any­one else.

Not because it’s painful in any way, but because it’s sacred. A movie where no one else would under­stand the way I see it. A reminder that I was adored once too, when some­one loved me beyond limit or con­di­tion. (A mem­ory that I need right now.)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

But I will leave you with this lit­tle song, if only for a short while. You need colours and can­dles in your room when you lis­ten though, and an imag­i­na­tion will serve you well. Having a make­out part­ner and wear­ing a cos­tume of your favourite ani­mal is optional.

That is all you need to know, for this is all I can say.

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October 20, 2008

Thinking Of Her

Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I think of her.

She’s lying on my stom­ach again, lis­ten­ing to my heart beat, hands tucked neatly under my body. Or she’s spoon­ing me, her arm rest­ing on the crook of my waist, with a fin­ger draw­ing dis­tract­ing cir­cu­lar lines on my chest.

Muse in grass

Sometimes we’re in the tall grass, sur­rounded by colours of life with the warmth of the sun above us. A regres­sion to a time when all I had to think about was the colour of pop­si­cle I would have when I got home from camp. How unfair that our inno­cence is taken from us when we need it most.

And I lie there in bed, wait­ing for sleep to take me as the images lead me on.

My body telling me to let go, my mind strug­gling to keep her next to me a moment longer.

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September 22, 2008

Your Interest In My Love

I’ve always enjoyed read­ing about peo­ple who are in love, but most of all when that love is unre­quited. Vivid pic­tures painted in details about a saucy diastema, the observed rit­ual of walk­ing by a cer­tain table every day to get a cup of water for paint, an unso­licited brush against a hip. Stories about awk­ward­ness, weak­ness, burn­ing desire.

Perhaps it’s because I can relate to these expe­ri­ences, or because they make me feel like I’m less alone in my own clumsy deal­ings with the oppo­site sex. Even though there are count­less sto­ries writ­ten about unre­quited love, there aren’t enough. For the few of us who are “oppressed by the fig­ures of beauty”, as Leonard Cohen calls it, noth­ing makes us feel bet­ter. All we can do is silently com­mis­er­ate with the words of those who share them­selves in this way.

When I look through my old entries, it seems like most of them are about love or a torch I carry in one way or another, and how this affects me.

And some­times I won­der if this is the rea­son why peo­ple come here to read my words.

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September 21, 2008

Protected: Breaking the Attraction Defence Mechanism

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July 9, 2008

Be Still, My Heart

Muse side face

In the dark, our bod­ies fit like puz­zle pieces — face in neck, crest in val­ley, curve in curve. I’m com­pletely vul­ner­a­ble when she lets me love her like this. She brings my guard down.

It’s the way she makes me happy with­out try­ing. The way I’m filled with ten­der­ness every time I feel the warmth of her skin against mine. The way her exis­tence gives me hope for the rest of the world.

If I chose to fall back on old habits and kept my dis­tance to pro­tect myself, I wouldn’t know this inef­fa­ble feel­ing. I may get hurt, but it’s worth every moment I can be next to her.

Maybe she’s right, and I’ll feel dif­fer­ently by the time it’s nec­es­sary. Until then, there’s no use in fight­ing it.

Not that I let myself fall for her.

My heart never gave me a choice.

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June 27, 2008

She Treads Softly

Had I the heav­ens’ embroi­dered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and sil­ver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, William Butler Yeats

She knows how much I’ve fallen for her.

And by giv­ing her my heart in such a way, she’s shar­ing the bur­den. The last thing she wants to do is hurt me, and she thinks her­self self­ish for want­ing to be held just so. But I know what I’m get­ting into. I know the risks.

So I told her not to hold any­thing back, because there’s noth­ing she can do, no bound­aries we can define, to make me love her any less.

There’s no point in deny­ing our­selves the joy of what we have now. To be lying next to each other when we talk into the early hours of the day, bod­ies pressed against one another while the morn­ing light washes over us, is worth any chance at being hurt. We can deal with the inevitable later.

So she treads softly, on me and my heart.

And rests her head on my chest when I hold her.

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June 17, 2008

Lysergic Bliss

u.make.me.happy

There’s a ten­der­ness that reaches deep within me, and bur­geons forth to paint the world an intox­i­cat­ing spectrum.

It’s a world where every song is a jour­ney, every chord is more dul­cet than the last, and I don’t want to, I need to dance.

It’s not a sim­ple feel­ing. There’s so much to con­sider — new real­iza­tions, unfa­mil­iar ter­ri­tory, ques­tions of fate, unre­solved pro­pri­eties, inevitable change — that it’s all a mix of emo­tions unlike any­thing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. But who says that life has to be sim­ple? All I know for sure is that I love her, even if she doesn’t love me the same way.

And for now, I’ll wear this smile like my heart on my sleeve.

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June 15, 2008

A Bittersweet Indulgence

Our bod­ies burn like flames in an oven, so we kick off the cov­ers. I slip my arm around her waist and press her body close to mine. She holds my hand to her chest, fin­gers wrapped around fin­gers, legs wrapped around legs.

The morn­ing light comes in blue and soft and sub­tle through the win­dow, and the stars begin to fade.

I want to hold her like this under a tree in the sum­mer and pass the time in her com­pany, alive to every moment we’re together. I want to hold her like this when the cars and streets are buried under snow out­side, so we may truly know what it is to be warm and com­fort­able. I want to run my fin­ger along the soft­ness of her face, so I may learn every land­mark and fea­ture, and never for­get. I want to read to her my favourite books on lazy Sunday after­noons, so I can take her to where they’ve taken me. I want to feel her breath against my skin, the breath that gives her life, and me joy. I want to wake up to find she’s not away in another bed, but next to me, lost in slum­ber, for there can be no other such sim­ple happiness.

This is where I’m per­fectly con­tent, lost in a moment when time has stopped and noth­ing else matters.

But I know it won’t last for­ever. She’ll soon be gone. I won’t be the one to do these things with her, the one to love her the way she was meant to be loved, the one to love her as deeply as she deserves. There’s no use in think­ing about it now.

I’ve fallen for this muse in my arms, totale­ment, ten­drement, trag­ique­ment.

The one who inspires me to cre­ate won­der­ful things, to make beauty as I see it in her, so that oth­ers may share in this feel­ing. If I had a mil­lion words to describe her grace, it still wouldn’t be enough.

I could be sad, but I’d rather be happy instead.

So as the sun begins to rise, I indulge myself a lit­tle longer, and hold her closer before drift­ing off to sleep.

May 21, 2008

The Idea of Love

While my mother always made it a point to stay involved in my life (to a fault), it was never because she loved me. She’s not some­one who’s emo­tion­ally intel­li­gent enough to under­stand what love is.

She just loved the idea of a son, some­thing “nor­mal” peo­ple have.

Which is why she tries to cling to me so des­per­ately, even when I try so vehe­mently to avoid her. It’s the same way that some men or women only love the idea of mar­riage, instead of their spouses. They’re rela­tion­ships based on all the wrong reasons.

Realizing this has made me won­der; did I ever actu­ally love my girl­friends, or did I just love the idea of love?

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May 11, 2008

Love is a Bohemian Child

Quand je vous aimerai?
ma foi, je ne sais pas,
peut-être jamais, peut-être demain,
mais pas aujourd’hui, c’est certain.

One day, he dis­cov­ered that she loved him just as much as the day she left, and that every new man she sought for com­fort was just another attempt to replace him; he was unlike any­one she had ever met before. But there was noth­ing that could be done; the pain had left him cold and unmoved.

So enough about love, he said, for love is often fickle and unrequited.

And it’s only being on both sides of such an idea that allows him to accept this.

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May 10, 2008

Love is a Rebellious Bird

L’amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle,
s’il lui con­vient de refuser

Suddenly, he came upon the real­iza­tion that her beauty unin­ten­tion­ally entraps men, who are then led to their down­fall by their own mis­guided ideas of love, and that he was sim­ply another one of many. Not that it mat­tered any­way; to force such things is futile.

So enough about love, he said, for love is often fickle and unrequited.

Tu ne l’attends plus, il est là!

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