Tearing off the wing of an angel.

In a still very present past, I’ve fallen pregnant…

Fallen, yes. I crashed, plummeted. Appalled and stunned that Mother Nature screwed me over.  As if I thought my uterus was a dusty old organ that had lost its capacity to create over time.

Now accustomed that my bleedings disobeyed the moons, I was taking a brisk walk on a just as much of a brisk afternoon, when my boobs sounded the alarm. I stopped. I touched my breasts, palmed the sides, weighed them, while I got catcalled and honked.

No.

Ho, no!

No no no! I sit on a concrete block to give me time process. I remember the night probably responsible for the Maculate Conception. I lie to myself, deny, justify and put in perspective. No. I can’t trust my gut, or my breasts. A pregnancy test will know better than me if I’m knocked up.

The two small lines on the stick are giving me double fingers. Procter and Gamble are positive: «Congratulations! If you don’t stop the course of action, you’re gonna be a Mom!» What to do? At an age when one is almost a Grandma, can I afford to give a little brother or sister to my adult son? Do I have the heart, the mind and the wallet to do this again?

The answer is no.

No.

Oh, dear God, please, no.

I make an appointment at the women’s center. In ten days at 8 am. Ten days is very long. That leaves time to feel things happen inside. I alternate between:  “Do I keep it?”, “Do l tell the guy?” and “Do I have the balls to deduct this expense from my taxes?”

A-Day comes. I am so lucky not to live in a city of rednecks who protest in front of clinics with pictures of pseudo-foetuses drenched in ketchup. No. I am greeted with kindness and regards. Everywhere hush and whispers. People are roaming on the tips of their hearts. It smells of love with a faint scent of demise.

In the waiting room, some women, some girls. We avoid eye contact. There is a sense of discomfort, a kind of shame at having been “had”.  I’m the oldest and the youngest isn’t more than fifteen. Poor little trembling thing. I would take her in my arms, but her boyfriend is rubbing her back, baseball cap lowered on his guilt.

When they call her, the pimply one remains, hiding behind his cell that he is asked to turn off. He nervously takes a Martha Stewart magazine and pretends to be interested in the making a sweet potato pie.

It’s my turn. They offer me a special herb tea and some breathing techniques for the pain. Or, if I prefer: drugs. I opt for total numbness. I am not lectured, but I am advised to be careful next time. Yes, I messed up, Ma’am. I messed up bad. I won’t do it no more, cross my ticker and hope to die. Let’s go! Get that thing out of me before I get attached!

Naked from the belt down, I lay on the table, feet in stirrups. Like at the dentist, I am asked to «open wide». I spread. I get… prepped.  A needle pricks my wall. It’s a bit painful and I panic. I don’t want to suffer. I am calmed and comforted while a machine rumbles Agnn! Agnn! Agnn! Agnn! Agnn! Agnn! A sound of utter doom.

Each step is explained. I’d prefer not. I play brave, fingers joined on my thumping plexus. I look up to the sky, with a fleeting thought for Jesus shaking his thorn crown with disappointment. Just when I think the sound of the machine is unbearable, the vacuum kicks in.

Shhhrrrrrooooogggglllll !!! It slurps my insides like a gruesome Hoover and I see pink slush come out the tube. Oooh, forgive me, tiny one, forgive me!! I close my eyes on the horrible gurgling that follows.

They reassure me they’ll be done soon. There is only the curettage left. It scratches; it pulls; it tugs and it cleans. Despite my efforts, a tear runs down in my ear. One of the nurses strokes my hair. I am told that it’s over. I get up on my elbows, dazed. And I don’t know why, but I want to see.

After a slight hesitation, they show me half of a peanut explaining that this is the embryo. Then, they show me a small transparent film welded to my almost baby. It’s the amniotic sac. Looks like the wing of an angel.

I am brought to a recovery room. There’s the girl and her boyfriend. She’s crying a river. The young man consoles her as best he can, head down, tail between his legs. Again, I am offered herb tea plus some oatmeal cookies. Thank you, but no thank you.

The days that follow will be filled with successive waves of relief, emptiness, sobs, blood and back to relief. I made the right choice. But it is impossible for me not to think that I’ve killed a piece of the future to save mine.

An abortion is a necessary privilege. But it would be outrageous to think that this is an easy solution for us. On all the faces, that day, there was an infinite sadness in front of ultimatum. From now on, these girls will ponder from time to time: “Today, he or she would be two…  five…  ten years old…»

We are free women. It’s not for others to decide how to take life in our hands…

… Or how to survive with death on our souls.

 

Putting on the passenger brakes.

 For many miles now, I’ve been walking from one place to another with a great shame that eats away at the metal of my pedal. Yes, I must confess : I don’t have my driver’s licenses.

At my age, It runs my battery down to see that a smart girl like me has to beg for lifts to get where the subway doesn’t. It’s humiliating indeed. But it seems that my humiliation has never been stronger than the terror of getting myself on the left side of the fuzzy dice.

I’m scared. A fear that clogs my engine and keeps me stalled on the side of the road for no good reason. I’d like to say that it’s because I saw the head of a cousin explode on the dashboard of the blue Chrysler of my childhood, but I would be lying. No. No trauma, no nothing. Just a foolish and unexplained fear.

I watched my life pass by as a passenger, forehead against the window, the pylons making my subservient eyes ping pong endlessly. I remained in neutral, unable to grasp the stick shift of my fate and kick in high gear. It’s as if I expected that some kind of father would yell at me : “Come on, get in! I’ll show you how it works!”. Or a mother would shout : “Let’s go, we’re getting your learner’s permit, I’m sick of lugging you!”. But that never came because, because, because the wonderful wizard of was.

So, like a paraplegic of the reasoning, I remained parked in the paved driveway of my existence, still waiting for something or someone to make me start my engine. Well,la-di-dah, champ! Here’s a button to pin on your retarded racing hat!

What do I fear? Losing control ? Dying ? Killing? All that stuff, and looking like a fool. I drown my carburetor with stress. What if I ride like an old lady with hazards on from here to eternity? I have so little sense of direction that I get lost exiting the bathroom in restaurants. It promises on the way to Wall Mart! And I’m the kind of ditzy girl who puts Polysporin® on her toothbrush, for sure I’ll end up in the ditch!

In short, I boosted the negative so much that I’ve decided it would be better to continue my journey, knees in the glove box. To give you an idea how my headlights are on low beams: I started cycling at 32… Yes, 32 years old!! My Lord and Savior, it’s a miracle I know how to tie my shoes. What kind of hitchhiker’s karma did I stick under my windshield wiper?

But for months now, my fan belt has begun to run: If I can drive a bike in the streets of Montreal and the steep mountains of Quebec, I can pilot a car!! I’ll get my cards instead of a boyfriend or a cab. I will kick my funk to the curb and hop behind the wheel. I keep repeating that “Fears are smaller than they appear” and I get pumped. I look in the rear-view mirror and visualize myself on the saddle :

–“ ’the hell … ? Why won’t she start ? I plugged her all night ! ”

–“Ah, man … How expensive is the go go juice these days ! God damn !! ”

– “Ok, I’ll have to call you back, the cops are on my ass…”

– “Did I just miss my exit… ? Maybe if… ? Woah, hold your horses ! What’s your problem? Geez!”

– “Holy fuck ! It’s a one way !”

And my all time favorite :

– “Come on, bitch! It’s fucking green !! I’m going somewhere now and I’m going somewhere fast, so step on it !!”

Vroom, vroom, vroom! Mip, miiiiiiiiip!! *Give finger*

Yeah.

Can’t wait.

Full moon throttle.

I don’t know what it is with that shaft of sun bouncing on our satellite, but that does it for me. When the moon is full, I ware-wolf and writhe, hungry for the elements of sex. Fire, water, earth, air. Lust, fluid, flesh, breath. Yes. It’s under the orb of light that I’m the worst.

Or the best. It depends.

Depends if I’m in love or if you’re just there to calm my cravings. On these nights, my tide is high and I’m foaming at the shore. I want you to eat me with your eyes, I want to grab you, to trouble you. Yes, I’m looking for trouble. Let me take you by the collar and pardon my French. I will inhale your warm sighs and your smell will turn me on, whether Cologne or stale sweat.

Let our teeth collide, it’s okay. Anyway, I will bite your lower lip while I press your body to the wall with my pelvis. Yes. I will trust my hips against your groin to feel the blood flow. I will undulate like a feverish Scheherazade. I’ve been copulating for thousands of years and it has always been good. Even when it was bad.

I will slide my fingers in your undies, and if you’re a man, seize the opportunity. If you’re a woman, I’ll make a grand entrance. I’m going to firmly take the pulse of the situation. I’m too famished for you to hesitate.

Your turn now. You’re dying to touch me, right ? Striptease me or rip everything off and make me goddess. Forgive my elbow when removing my shirt, I’m flustered. Yes, swallows my breasts. Cup, pinch and back to my lips so I can suck your soul…

Let me bow down, prostrate on your organs and let my tongue take your measurements. Tickle my nostrils with your pubic hair or prick my nose because you shave, I don’t give a damn. I will lift up my eyes to yours and gaze while your face betrays pleasure.

We will collapse on the ground or do it on the bed, the couch, the steps, the kitchen counter or on top of the washer, if your calves can bare the cramps of being a bit too short. Shag me, snag me and take me whole. I will wrap my legs around you and hold on to your shoulders to keep from falling. Let me ride you and test the legs of your Ikea furniture. I’ll make myself heard by your neighbours, I’m afraid.

Then, let’s take our time, almost at a stand still, so I can impale myself just right. I’ll put my hand on your throat. Maybe force the corners of your mouth with my thumb. You’ll grab my rump and churn until I growl clenched jaw obscenities.

Spit on your dick and let’s go Greek, I don’t mind. Tear me up or caress me, be tender or mean, but don’t leave me indifferent. I already forgive you if you blast and spill too soon because you’re young and inexperienced. I will also excuse your nose bleed on my back because you’re old and badly react to Cialis.

I will sit on your face and pin your arms under my knees so you can rest a little. I will pull your hair, if you have some. I will scratch your neck, if you wish so. I will whisper encouraging dirty moans while licking your earlobes, if it turns you on.

I’m ready, I’m easy. I’m messy, I’m yours. I need you to bump and grind, screw and nail, rock and roll, slap and tickle. I’m a cat in heat that wants to lion her head against your chin.

Come on, fuck me or worship me, but make that pain in my marrow disappear. Fill and fulfill me. If the stars are aligned well, I’ll probably squirt like the Bellagio in Vegas, you’ll have to change your sheets. Finally, sweaty and satisfied, I will fall asleep with your semen as a rejuvenating cream.

If I’m in love, I’ll stay for coffee and more, half a sugar, a cloud of milk. I love you. Me too. It was wonderful yesterday…

If not, we’ll meet once in a blue moon. Don’t miss me, I should visit again. Maybe…. After all, I’m like silverware, I’ll tarnish if it don’t get polished from time to time …

Yes, it’s the mornings after the full moon that I’m the worse.

Or the best. It depends…

A day in the life of a professional procrastinator.

7:00 am: My alarm is taunting me to get up, get up, get up! I squander time by making small circles in the air with my arms. I bubble my saliva. I smooth my cheeks, smooth my pillow. I rest my eyes for two minutes.

8:00 am: Wake up, startled. The dried slime glues me the pillowcase. I look around the room with an half-closed peeper. I scratch the crunchy granola on the corner of the other. Today, I’ve got myself a deadline. Come on, let’s get a move on! I persuade myself, motionless.

9:00 am: I facebook until the coffee whips. I email and surf the insipid web growling and stretching. I open my work to be done. Definitely another cup of joe before anything.

10:00 am: I toil, swinging my leg.  My toenails look like guitar picks. I jab my claws in my calves trying to get me to punch a clock. The hell with it, let’s get the clipper. Well, might as well take a shower…

11:00 am: The keys of my keyboard cliquety-clack in a silence that my neighbours are destroying with audible conversations filled with nothingness. Ok. I’ll put on music to cover their yakety-yaks.

Noon: I realize that I’ve been raspy weeping with Billie Holiday for at least three songs while my cursor blinks on my document, awaiting orders. I throw my paws on my lap top and boom, I block. Well… shit.  I grumble some kind of appetite. Guess I’ll make myself a cucumber sandwich.

1 pm: I come back to my writing den with cucumbers and Scotch. I place the expensive bottle above the bookcase, out of the reach of my tippy toes. Push it further, making it unattainable. I splosh mayo on fresh bread and slice the cucurbit. Stare at nothing for a bit.

2 pm: I check again if facebook has anything to say. Twenty minutes later, I realize that it doesn’t. Enough! To the dough winning, now! I read what I have done so far. I get discouraged. Dorothy Parker I’ll never be. The blues are making me dark. I turn off the stereo. I notice the dust. I grab a Swiffer.

3 pm: OK! Let’s go! The job won’t get done by itself! I day dream an elf that would liberate me from the didactics and allow me to be just creative. I would call him Watson. And feed him chocolate with fleur de sel … I sigh and force my hands into writer’s hooks. GO!

4 pm: I progress. But as slow as a torture. I feel like smoking a cigarette.  No.  No ifs or butts. You’re not a cliché, you’re not Hemmingway. Dense sentences are dancing on the monitor. I feel I’m putting back the idiot in idioms. I sense failure. I rest my forehead on my fear disguised as laziness.

5 pm: I hesitate, doubt, shilly-shally, wonder, grovel, linger, muck about, fuck around, drag, skepticize, criticize, vagabond, delay, labour, struggle, slave and slack with a vague impression of production. But paragraphs are shelled as an apathetic and indolent rosary.

6 pm: I discover that time has split and has left me with a deadline, chin resting in his palm, tapping his impatience on my desk.  I am facing the void with vertigo of feat that foils my fire.

7 pm: I freak a little. I dive in, ignoring my distracting alter egos ready to dangle time consuming pleasures. Shhh! Mommy is choring painfully but surely. Nothing will stop m … Crap, a call from abroad. It might be important.

8 pm: I panic. My neck is crooked above the screen that illuminates a face probably stuck between frown and lip biting. The idea of not finishing on point and lose my good reputation compels me to go into a spawning hubbub.

9 pm: I bad trip. That’s it. I won’t be able to finish the damn thing. I back burnered my sinecure and they’ll finally discover my usurpation of an expert hack. I will lose my contracts and will have nothing else to lose but my time. Oh, the irony.  And now my brain springs into imperative mode. The dam is opened and the flow rages. I dash, muses between teeth.

10 pm: I write. I rewrite. I erase. I carriage return. I control save. I see the light at the end of the mouse. I will get there despite partial paralysis of my right buttock sitting on my formicated left foot. I glance at the perched bottle. I pull my chair up to it.

11 pm: I go back one last time on the text. I let the burning amber massage my aches from the inside. I dip my USB key into the slot of my thinking machine and backup. They’ll receive it all for tomorrow morning as promised. A click on the trombone and I trumpet “send” aloud.

Midnight: I chow-down on a blowout. TV mouths as a lame dumb ass in the back ground.  I should do my taxes, laundry, see a friend, go the doctor for my thing. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll have a second. I yawn all uvula out.

1 am: I youtube lullabies like a bedridden foetus. Glad I overcame what seemed a rugged and inhospitable mountain. But tomorrow, I’ll start over again. Tomorrow is always the busiest day of my week…

 

My father, the mad man.

“Schizophrenia with paranoid delusions.” The lady doctor drops the diagnosis, her features pinched with that «I’m sorry to tell you» mouth. My father takes my hand with his long and dirty nails. He squeezes hard. Me too. I am thirty years old, he’s fifty. We both realize that, now, I have to be there for a father who abandoned me.

Very young, it was over with my mother, but he came by. Handsome, so tall and charismatic. He would belt out a folk song strumming his guitar, sitting on my tiny chair, his velvet flares worn at the knees. Then, one day, he didn’t come back.

So I sublimated.  My dad was a famous Irish singer, with his touch of auburn hair, his proud forehead and that arched nose cutting the air as he sailed for glory and adventure. I waited to be of age and of strength to go ring at his door. He opened, as handsome as I remembered.

I enter his apartment. It’s dark, it’s dirty, it stinks. My father is breathing hard and sweating profusely, his eyes wild. Discomfort comes and plays Twister with my gut and my stomach. The stranger in front of me is amazed of how we look alike, how well I speak English. He then tells me things that I recognize as lies, fabrications. I share a coffee in a dubious cup, synthesizing my 15 years without him. I give him a picture of me and promise to come see him again. Once on the pavement, my heart beats punctuate my disappointment. Mad. My father is mad.

We try to bond, awkwardly. But I’m damaged and aloof. He is flayed and fearful. It makes for vertigo ridden conversations. He is mainly a recluse, having pushed away family and friends. I sense that I am all he has and my instinct sounds the alarm. I move away from the drowning man. To save my life, cowardly.

He calls sometimes, wishes I would visit more often. Elusive, I make excuses. I forsake the one who has left me. Until the day I receive a visit from the police. My father ran almost naked in a park, prey to obvious distress. I’m not surprised, but riddled by painful guilt.

They put him under medication, under psychological counselling and under my care.  I’m with him to appointments and I look after him, but keep my distance. I offer many fudge-sicles under the sun, trying to cheer him up, but his life is dark. He feels overwhelmed and so do I.

From time to time, the hospital phones to tell me that he has had a fit, was picked up, and placed in the psychiatric ward for a few days. I bring him clean underwear, socks, Ferrero Rocher. I’m so sad for him; I believe that there is nothing to do, that he is broken beyond repair.

One January evening, six years after his forced return into my life, I get a call. Am I my father’s daughter? Yes, I answer, what has he done now? They inform me that he is dead.

My dad … Mon papa … Me Da … I am both relieved and shattered. Relieved to announce to his family, I barely knew, that he passed from a heart attack, standing in the street, rather than by hanging himself in despair. Relieved that his suffering is finally over. And relieved to no longer be responsible of the insane.

The next day, I get to his apartment before his sister and brothers arrive.  The place is disgusting, I’m used to it, but without him in it, it’s worse. I take a good look, as I never really dared before: The blankets nailed to windows because the light prevented him from sleeping. The walls covered with fabric and cardboard boxes to muffle the sounds of “neighbors” who were talking all the time and too loudly. The whatever picked up in the trash and now trinkets. The garbage bags stapled to the floor because it was raining all night in his head. And in a corner: a child’s sled … My soul squeezes and my heart falters.

He had recovered it for my boy. He wanted to take him tobogganing on the Mont-Royal near his place. I always found a reason for my son and my dad to not see each other too often or too long. My father did not get to play with my son. And the shame of him became the shame of me.  The remorse still gnaws at me to this day, overwhelms me whole.

The small sled leaning on the dirt and residues screams the horror and tragedy of the situation and I crack. I collapse on the Glad trash bags. I weep for failing another human being. My father did not die of his mental illness. He died of the isolation that it brings. He died of a real tenderness deficiency, a lack of hugs, soft words of encouragements and love. His friends and relatives have neglected him because they were powerless in the face of madness.

I wish he didn’t let go of my hand when I was little. I wish I didn’t let go, later on. I should have gotten help to cope instead of managing alone. Now, I’m left with only regret and sorrow.

I cleaned the grime and sorted his possessions for days. I kept some of his paintings, his guitars, his journals, his baby shoe cast in bronze, an old baseball and some of his ashes. And I often re-read the last few sentences left on his old typewriter, just to remember his essence, the texture of his spleen, the smell of his ailing.

«Hanging on by the very skin of my teeth

Winter is coming. I should visit my mother. Maybe next week.

I’m making job appointments, not keeping ’em.

A new wrinkle in my life.

My Place is imperfection, always a dangerous time.

I’m hearing voices and noises from my neighbors.

The knives are sharp and the gun is loaded.

We will see if my landlord fixed my thermostat.

At least, my typewriter works.

The music starts to get peaceful.

I must rethink Many Things.

I have a virgin canvas and must find a way to break down and write a song.

I am so old, the World Has Changed Beond recocgnition

And my spelling sucks …»

 

May you rest in peace, me Da, and May I find a way to live in peace.

 

 

 

 

Time to feel the moist.

It’s time for hot steamy weather. Time for damp washcloths on the nape of necks and makeshift fans. Time for sighs, moans and groans. Time for heat wave nights where we spread ourselves, making angels on top of our sheets. It’s sticky, sweaty and the streets are filled with screams.

Yes, it’s time to speak loudly outside. To swirl the scorching smog with our suddenly erectile bodies. Time to buy a small cotton dress and cherry red lipstick. Time to seek the patios, the men and the cold pitchers of beer.

This is the time for picnics with family and friends. In freshly mowed parks, Frisbees are thrown to the unleashed dogs and fines are given by pigs. It’s time to air the guitar and ventilate the lungs. It’s full of joy and laughter and barbecue smells.

It’s time for Monet greens and Van Gogh blues. The time for happy luminosity, that feels great sunshine. It’s time to throw our heads back and offer our throats to the God Ra. It’s time for butterflies, time for petals.

It’s vacation time. Time to become impatient at the border, to get angry at the children in the back. This is the time for mileage and spending.  It’s picture time and pee-pee time and time off and for the last time leave your sister alone.

This is the time of amplified sounds. Time for cicadas and flip-flops. Chirping and screeching and wailing. Yellow helmets whistle girls, white gloves whistle cars. It’s mower, woodpecker and jackhammer time.

It’s time to sweat. Salty pearls that mustache the lips and calcium the armpits. Hairs curl, computers overheat and menopauses swelter. It smells of musk, spice, feet and ass.

This is the time for celebrations, fireworks and pyre. Piñatas, raffles and the gay chatter of toddlers. It’s time to honour the flags and kiss the brides. Honk the soccer goals, bargain the garage sales and crowd the festivals.

It’s time to go to the countryside. Pitch tents, pick raspberries and gather lantern flies. It’s time to scratch the bites and cream the peeling skin. It’s time to hike, kayak and twirl at the end of a rope to plunge into a lake, naked.

This is the time for passion. Humid souls that mate until the wee hours. Couples who howl at each other in front of the disco. This is the time of engorged moons. It’s time for evil forces and feverish crimes.

It’s time for the splitting of the skies. The fresh cooling wind created by a tropical silver shower. It’s time to sprint, to take shelter, to get into a wet t-shirt contest. It rumbles, it flashes, it suddenly pisses down hard and good.

This is the time so longed for. It’s time to revel in it. Because, not tomorrow, but soon, it will be the return of the dark times, the return of the somber times. The windows that we have to close and the woolly clothes.  With all the shudders and the chills of yet another of our proverbial winter.

Calluses from holding placards.

I am apolitical, lazy and cynical. A perfect citizen for our government. Sheepy and quiet. I vote when they make me believe that it counts, strategic at most, without much hope. I’m Generation X. Self absorbed and unaware on purpose. No future and fuck the world.

October 1970, Montreal was on the verge of a civil war. I saw it all from my high chair. The grownups were preparing the revolution by polishing their clubs, a joint at the corner of their mouths. I have flashes of loud demonstrations, sitting on the shoulders of adults screaming their displeasure of society as a whole. A lot of red and black banners, a lot of single stars on green berets.

Very young, I jabbered words like “proletariat”, “solidarity” or “anarchy.” I knew The Internationale as well as the lyrics from Sesame Street. “«C’est la lutte finaaaaale, groupons-nous et demaiiin, l’Inteeeernationa-a-a-a-leu, youkaïdi, aïdi, aïda, taratatata!!» Well, I knew most of it. In French. Anyway, the Quebecois hippies thought I was the cutest thing.

I learned how to identify the RCMP quickly. I was sent on the sidewalk to pretend to make mud cakes. They were easy to recognize: a big mustache, mirror glasses, leaning on a blue car. You know the video from the Beastie Boys, “Sabotage”? Yeah. Exactly like that. They were not even pretending to read the newspaper. They looked directly at my house. Some of them took pictures. I just had to get inside and yell, “There’s two of them in front!” and people in my kitchen would flee hastily through the back yard.

I watched my mother paint “Neither virgin nor whore” on brick walls. I remember the smell of vinegar and pepper spray on the shirt of protestors. I remember the posters of Che, the fist in the female sign, that little red book. Around me, all hands bore calluses from holding placards. To revolt was normal, necessary, as long as the pigs rule!

I learned how, if you want to stay chained to a fence, you put a metal tube around your wrists, it takes a very long time to be sawn. If it makes a click sound and tin can echo in the phone, it means you are tapped. If you use an eight-inch nail to fix your protest sign on a two by four, when the cops arrive, you just have to pull the cardboard and whack away.

I also learned that going to jail for your ideas makes you a hero but you can’t go swimming in the States anymore. Not until you get the Queen’s pardon, many, many years too late. I learned that being a rebel involves dangers and sacrifices and I started to kinda hate insurrection.

Being the daughter of activists meant that there was always something bigger and more important than me. The Mission before us, the Mission before all. As a child, I wished “raise in arms” meant “to be taken at arm’s length making airplane sounds” and not “At midnight, we’re taking down City Hall!”

My parents were of all struggles. My mother helped feminism advance, fought for the rights of workers and those of the poor. She was against this and for that. She was a great one. A rebel with all kinds of causes.

And I? Well, as soon as I could do nothing, I did. I ran to the comfort of my navel and didn’t get out much. With the occasional signing of a petition and a button with some shitty slogan on the lapel to give myself a good social conscience.

Today, my son is in the streets. Each image of tear gas in the faces of barely pubescent kids; each riot with whistles and sirens soundtracks; each impatient stick against the bridge of a scarfed nose, my heart gets heavier. Not so much by anxiety, though I worry for the fruit of my loins, but by repentance. Had I not given up the fight, this generation would not have to claim as much.

I still remain filled with a sense of Whatgoodisit? I have a feeling of helplessness before the colossal. Because, after all, we don’t have to complain if we compare ourselves to other countries, huh? Huh?

It’s that sort of thinking that keeps people muffled: bread and circuses, hockey and chips. And I stay on my ass while austerity eats away at the leg of my sofa, my salary, my retirement and the future of our children.

So what?

So nothing.

I just wanted to apologize to my parents for not having continued the battle. To my son for letting him fight to get back lost social benefits.

Because many of my generation did not want to challenge the oppressors and end corruption. My generation preferred to suck its thumb while missing mom gone trying to change the world.

A letter to the one who thinks I’m the one.

Dear man that wants to love me.

Just to say that I appreciate it. A lot. I’m not an easy woman to get along with. If I were you, I’d give it a minute or two before offering your ticker on a silver platter.

I took such a long time to mend my raspberry tart, I can’t have you take a bite and risk you chocking and spitting it back. I know that you’ll tell me that you are not like all the others. You’ll tell me that you’ll do me no harm, so crazy you are about me.

Fuck you.

They all were once madly devoted but I still found myself curled on the floor, writhing with  my angina pectoris, or kneeling, riddled with guilt, with tears of my sweetie rolling down my fingers.

I’m not sure I’m made for the coupling game. At first, it’s easy, we see our future in the eyeball of our soul mate, we swoon, and we spoon, breathing at the same rate. We believe in the thing like we’re fifteen, like in the movies. But then, through cuts, scrapes and scratches, we chip away the good and the beautiful only to leave sorrow and pain.

I fear you’ll try to change me as others did before you. Small things like the way I behave, talk or do the dishes … Your hobbies and habits will become mine, or worse, you’re going to convince me that you want the person I am, only to prove me wrong with blows of veiled criticism and disapproval.

I’m afraid we will accept each other’s way of doing to buy peace, abdicate and transform our personality. Or worse, our idiosyncrasies will drive us to yelling, all veins out, about silly stuff such as how to fold napkins.

What if I never get little tender notes from you, or worse, you lay on me of kilometers of rose colored prose until I gag?  I abhor nothingness, I loathe excess.

I fear that our sexuality will perish and only blood or famine will linger in our sheets. I’m afraid of losing the flame or to get burned. My skin still remembers relationship where I cried poor, or worse, rape.

What if, over time, our hearts pour out all affection to fill with resentment, blame and doubt? What if we get to spew vile poison so badly that we’re left shaken to the core? What if we eventually say so regrettable words that I am forced to slay what is left of us?

You’ll end up leaving, tired of me and my deep-sea journeys, or worse, I’ll plant my claws into the flesh of your chest, pecking wildly, then fleeing while your gaping thorax is rotting on the shore.

Don’t tell me not to be afraid, that we’re the same, that we’re meant to be together! Don’t tell me that, because you’re going to make me believe, you asshole!! I already hate that you’re filling me with hope. You’re there thinking you can approach me with that perfume of golden promises? You want to put your hand on the barrel of my gun and let my guard down? I fear you! God almighty that I fear the pain of love!

It’s not because we found each other that I have to lose myself, understand? I easily feel trapped and am ready for terrible violence to keep my throat from feeling the noose. If I were you, I would go on my way, I’m too much work.

Do you know why I love you? Because the scars on your soul are similar to mine. You’re tempting me. I want to succumb, to let you in…

Bastard.

There. I said I love you. In front of everybody. Are you happy?

No … probably not … Something in the tone, perhaps?

Yours, for now…

The «out of her wits» girl.

Killing time and zombies.

It’s on a warm summer day, sitting on a burnt orange and avocado rug, that my love affair with video games began. My cousins were going berzerk in front of the big tube TV in the living room. On the screen: little white bars and dots. I try the thing, without really understanding why there is hysteria around me. Pong!!! Pong!!! What the hell?

It doesn’t take five minutes, I’m hooked. Look at all that futuristic technology! Had I known what was yet to come in terms of realistic graphics, I would have creamed my Fortrel shorts on the spot.

To win and conquer through a machine! Goodbye marbles and plasticine! I found blissfulness in triangular pew-pew-pews shooting at rectangular aliens.

I didn’t have a console at home. I had puppets and Chia pets. So, as soon as I could get my hands on a few quarters, I went to the corner’s greasy spoon and ate ghosts. The feeling of that ball in the palm of my hand and that «Waka waka waka» in my brain until insane…

I was introduced to the arcades in the years of crimped bangs and Toni perms. That’s where my allowance came to die. Ha… the sounds of my adolescence… A melodious cacophony where the beeps, the pows and kraaashs were back vocals to coins that clinked and acneics that growled.

I’ve always had a weakness for flippers that gave me that famous trust that will make me popular among my prospective lovers. I also loved holding that plastic gun, making a badass move off the screen. But I hated the cable attached to it that broke my momentum. I drove cars, threw coconuts, hit the punching bag, my smile transformed by the black lights in a Cheshire cat grin. Half of my gastroentitis were caught by touching all those clammy controls.

When Kurt Cobain made me tie hunting shirts around my waist, the beige computer finally joined my everyday life. A gift from my mother for my studies. Still no Nintendo, like most of my geeky friends, but settled for floppy discs to fight dragons that glitched or diffuse simplistic bombs on a canvas of gray bricks.

It’s really in the era of g-strings out of jeans and duct tape against terrorism that I started my obsession. My addiction was exacerbated by two catalysts: a nerdy son and an engineer of a husband. Then, the pixels multiplied. The resolutions increased tenfold and so did my pleasure. Boxes of happiness were connected from the telly to my veins and X, X, A, LT, X, B, Y!!!

I gave myself small doses by dragging a game boy in my purse. Only the true ones will know what it’s like to have a Korobeiniki or Overworld theme ear worm. This was a time when my eye twitched continuously after having spent far too many hours in the sewers of New York.

Today, during the era of the emoji poop, I’m on my own and console myself with my own console. I’ve got the control non-stop and loving it. I wear whorish leather armor or dress as a radioactive pin up downing Nuka Colas. I can start my life as I see fit, as often and differently as I wish.

I mate with the arcane mage and create damage before I reincarnate into a bike that rages as in engages in metal cages. I’ve got mad fowls on the throne and wild Animus on the couch. I don’t care about a mere arrow to the knee; I’m the Queen of Blades! If steel wins battles, gold wins wars. I suffer and I survive with no Gods or Kings, only man… or workaholic orcs… Because it is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.

When I grow old, if I have enough mana left, I dream of wearing a virtual reality helmet before I finally meet the boss. Wii!!! Saint Server Admin, I wish for an old folk’s home run by Ubisoft!

All this to say, that RPG passion is personal. Be lucid when ludic. If I do not bother you with how I kill my time and zombies, get the fuck away with your Candy Crush requests.

Otherwise, I can easily prove that video games make you violent…

“Finish him!!! »

 

To sleep, perchance to dream…

.     

Insomnia. Not the one that makes you interesting in conversations, no. The real thing. The infamous hamster. But on steroids. Not getting to sleep as if it was a tradition, a form of Art. From one night to another. Until I finally faint, mouth agape, clinically dead zonked.

As a child, I rocked myself from one side to the other, my head in a pillow, until exhaustion. I didn’t care having to go through the painful hair combing sessions at dawn, so strong was my will to get me some z’s. I wanted to saw wood so bad, I had to literally shake the thoughts out of my head. Do-si-do around, do-si-do maybe I’ll fall!

With the thought that I was afraid of the dark, a strip going from my room to the bathroom was lit like a disco runway. My parents added some background classical music to calm me down. A perfect setup for a groovy waltz with my imaginary acquaintances. Yes, acquaintances. They weren’t all friends.

As an adult, I swallowed pills from time to time, just to turn the knob to “off”. And down goes Alice in that muddy hole. And up goes my corpse, face bloated, confused with some pennies residue on my tongue. Did I sleep? I guess I did.

Sometimes, I stopped fighting and simply forgot about getting a wink. In the dark, I listened with my eye wide open to the wailing of sirens; the Chinese water torture of the drip in the kitchen or the scratches and moan of the nasties. Other times, I watched infomercials enough to want to buy the God damn miracle mop; wrote my delirium, scoliosising over my computer or, if I was really desperate, tried to knock myself out with an Emile Zola novel.

Yes I tried relaxation techniques, breathing, all those things, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Results? No.

Then, I added myself a man on my mattress, and it was all the princess and the pea could take. How can I forget the presence of someone breathing down my neck while he becomes a backpack of clammy skin? Many have witnessed my metamorphosis into Gollum when their cock came to ask my tailbone If was sleeping. It wakes us from our precious sleep? We was almost to the splendiferous and it wakes usss?? From our preciousssss ssssleep???

A baby got thrown into the mix and I was done with total rest. Yes a child, now a man, he’s magnificent and my hero. Anyway, with this baby, Morpheus packed up his things and left. A mother is too much on the lookout to get to snoring. What if my kid starts walking, fork in hand, to the toaster while I’m drooling on the pillow? No. Being a mom means losing deep sleep until the toddler is old enough to go to university.

I accepted that I was condemned to join the dark circles club; that I just didn’t have the snooze gene and that my sheeps were destined to hop from here to Pi.

But, today, because life is like a box of Kleenex, I now live all alone, on my own, with no parents, no little one, no husband, no sleeping pills or chamomile tea. I do what I want, without disturbance and I sleep like a sheriff now. I’m not napping; I’m blissfully comatose for hours. Praise Saint Melatonin, I’m Healed! I sleep so well, I wake up just to really appreciate how well I’m sleeping.

In a pitch black room with plugs that tickle my eardrums, I lay or roll around, uninterrupted, in my docile blankets that shift to the whims of my trance. My peepers carrousel behind my eyelids and I whip the ass of my dragons with a mighty quill. I dream. The kind of chimera that repairs and restores. As for that hamster of mine, he’s still as muscular, but he’s become diurnal.

Regularly, I fall between a man’s sheets. I bury my head between his shoulder blades or let him interlock his knees with mine, but before I leave for Slumber Land, I have to dig a canyon between our bodies. And now, it’s impossible for me to share my crib systematically. I need to hit the hay on my island, isolated. Maybe someday, I’ll divvy up my bed more often. We’ll see. I’ll sleep on it. But for now, it’s no.

After all, having someone at my flank keeps me from some serious cradling…