Why else would it be worth living?
Month: February 2013
Here be dragons
I know why you didn’t bring me around them,
and why the ones I met were uneasy with me.
When I looked at them,
I didn’t see nurses,
paramedics,
or working professionals,
I saw children in big peoples’ clothing.
My gaze pierced their eyes like a spear,
and infected them with a seed of doubt.
It was not about the truth,
or about confidence,
because those were broken concepts
in the dull
and naive
who creates recycled dreams
that Hollywood stuffs down their throat.
You should have never walked into the
den of the dragon,
a creature so rare they are thought not to exist,
except at the edge of imaginary maps
or maps made up of imagination,
because I burned any sense of
dumb
easy
life that was possible.
You can try to heal the burns by chugging back
so many shots you forget how
your clothing came off,
or by filing yourself up with those
kids in adult clothing,
but the burns never heal and one day
you will be sitting in a chair,
alone,
or with someone you want to run from too,
and a dagger with the force of every
unrequited love
and the pain of all the lost
romances in the history of humanity
will stab you right in the heart.
You will remember your brush with
the Good and Evil,
the magnificent and terrifying,
and the one love that never heals.
I carved scars to match yours on my
heart and in my mind,
a memento to join every
other
memory of the lost
and the fallen,
a collection of pain and fantasy
somewhere between a dream death
where nobody goes anymore.
I killed him
Can you hear me?
There's something in these words
I am trying to get across to you
and only you,
or at least there is a way
that only you know me
and think of me,
this is our moment
HERE
in all of these words,
sit and read as I do my thing.
There's a scream in the distance,
but somehow it's piercing into my brain
as if it were a shotgun fired just beside my ear,
and my brain feels like it has exploded,
or at least
feels empty.
The scream is mine
it echoes into you as you read,
there is no cry for help,
and such thing as the helpless.
Are you reading this?
Girls who touched my heart
sometimes manipulated it,
because love sex and sorrow are a
two-way street
and sometimes pitchers hurt most.
Read these lines,
to all my closest friends,
do you remember all the times we
should have died or
at least given up on living,
but we never let each other?
There's someone I don't want to write about anymore and I'm not sure what to do about it.
I figured a book would be enough, but it seems there are endless thoughts,
and is it you,
or is it just me?
Maybe it's both,
that special connection between a con artist
and a fraud
where every move was a bigger lie until
it all became so top-heavy we couldn't stomach it
and especially,
we couldn't stomach ourselves.
That's the birth of the hatred that peeled us like
the salted edamame we snacked on in between
games of cribbage,
good and bad television shows,
and acting like children in the best and worst ways.
Flaying is a more suitable word than peeling,
it skinned us alive like only the most savage hunters
and the worst part is that we were both too stupid
or too self-absorbed to realize what was going on,
or maybe,
our inner con artist deceived our selves into it.
I killed that con artist;
I trekked him through the jungle and
over-grown mutant forests that surrounded my mind,
I grabbed him by the jugular and
I did not have any mercy left,
maybe I gave you my last helping.
Could the loss of the con artist be
the emptiness I feel?
I appear as a stranger to my closest friends,
and to have grown up to everybody else,
but what if it comes back,
or if it pulled the best fake death since
Sherlock?
So good that we never know the difference,
and what if I am it,
or maybe it killed me?
Forty nights
Forty nights brought no relief
and the same expectation of waiting
for the someone to walk into what was
once
home.
It was home for one,
and too big to be so,
and that added to the drama of it all.
It had been over three months of
unbearable suffering
unrestrained freedom
and the void,
and nothing changed much,
not at its core.
There was a special hatred
reserved for ex-lovers,
and it could be broken down fairly easily
even to the uninitiated whom could not
fully
understand
the feeling of loss.
It was a mixture of trusting someone entirely,
having absolute confidence in the Good,
and dreaming enough to believe in Santa Claus,
and coming home to shattered dreams
trampled on a dirty floor with
muddy work boots,
figuring out the Good is some abstraction
unattainable to humans
and seeing the one you love
unzipped themselves to reveal
a serial killer
poltergeist
or android.
There was the cheapest
and deepest-cutting
feeling of betrayal and emptiness,
but maybe that wasn't down to you
and maybe that's just
life.
To everyone whom I have spent a night with
Love does not happen in a
Set space or time,
Sometimes it happens in one
Small
Seemingly for fun alone
Moment
And sometimes it spans years or decades.
It holds me alike either way
And I find myself reflecting on
Everyone with whom I have spent an evening
More commonly these days
And much more fondly.
There was love
Even within other love
And maybe there always will be.
Surely, there always will be.
We watched Harper reelected,
Consummated years of built-up lust,
Snuck away to your jeep,
Frequently tents or spent time laughing in a tent shared with a friend,
Spent time as three in a shower for two ,
Exchanged pictures or videos,
There was no limit to the fun.
The fun ends they all say,
But maybe they never experienced the fun that I had,
Or they didn’t understand that this fun
Could be built and sustained by two and two alone,
Granted you had the right two.
Australia,
Newfoundland,
Quebec,
British Columbia,
Taiwan,
And of course Sudbury,
Thank you everyone and everywhere.
Life is much less painful and gruesome
When a bed is filled with two or three
than when it is one,
And there have been tens of twos.
The wind and you
I hope the cold
Windy nights
With the heavy
Wet snow
Rip at your face and hair
Throw you around the sidewalks
And age you worse than the sun.
I hope the cold air seaps into
Every window
Door
and crack in your room
And reminds you of the cold
Lonely
Empty feelings
And the hollow men that inhabit that space now.
I hope they make you happy,
And that’s the worst insult of all.
The poor Quidi Vidi dead
There’s a cemetery on Forest Road
As romantic
Old
And atmospheric as one could ask for,
but it has become crowded.
The dead are now squeezed between a superstore
Penitentiary
A parking lot
And roads.
The bright lights,
A mark of any city,
Invade the sleep of the dead
Constantly illuminating their resting places
And as the lights get brighter
Due to increased innovation,
The dead lose more ability to sleep.
Progress always marches over the bones of ancestors
Sometimes it is unintentional,
But it is always stupid and soul-crushing.
Thoughts on a bus on a snowy February evening
I don’t think about it anymore,
Or that’s what I tell you and
I’ll flash a trademark smirk out of
The corner of my handsome face to
Sink the hook in for my lies.
I’m harmless in love and life but
Don’t think you can walk away unchanged
I change everyone I touch and
Mostly for the better
Although the void that comes from
My absence
Can be life threatening
and possibly insatiable.
But isn’t that life?
A series of holes we try to fill with
Whatever fits in
Hoping something stood the bleeding or
At least slows it down enough for us to limp on.
Sometimes it works
At least temporarily,
And we hobble along like wounded soldiers
Or drunken idiots.
There’s no medic or stomach pump coming
And like mercury,
The pain and wounds never stop accumulating.
Some of us are tougher than others,
But what’s the harder,
More courageous choice?
Do we limp on and eventually be put down as old dogs
Or
Choose a time to bow out of the tragicomedy?
Living on fumes
You will break upon my shores,
Rocky escarpments and impossible climbs,
Only meant for the hardest of climbers.
I am intoxicating,
All-consuming
And you will love me.
I feed on the affection of others
Despite my high affection for myself,
I worry about starving.
I will not tear you apart or leave you hollow,
I will leave you full.
I live life at too fast or a speed too often
And I eat through fuel like a metropolis,
Eventually the fossilized plant matter is
All gone
All consumed
And then what happens?
I guess I leave or you do,
After living off fumes for too long,
Or maybe we learn to live on less.
Transitions of need
There is a transition between
can not live without and
could not live with,
then and now.
The first time is before
the break
and the next time
is the aftermath of it all.
There are only ever
two massive shifts
and then the love dies,
which is to say the passion
goes away but it can still
play on your heart strings
and beat you up on lonely nights.
But,
It no longer owns you.
Andy Veilleux 