ballad of the reluctant stalker

i stood outside the store and knew i wanted more and
worried either way how it would look
either i'm alone in how far gone or you have come along or
maybe we're both crazy, by the book.

i saw your empty face or your overflowing gaze but
ducked behind the corner before you caught me
i breathed in kind of hard and wondered and walked far and
talked myself way down, out in the alley.

what would you have done and could we be alone and
i wonder every moment if i'll lose you
they say "lay it on the line" or "once in a lifetime" but
i need to know you feel the same way i do.

and every single word and all the vows or curses and
how many times a day do i cross your mind?
i know your eyes so well and i look for ways to tell and
i feel i'll always come up short and from behind.

so i stood outside the store and i knew i wanted more but
i couldn't bring myself to wave hello
instead i walked real fast and left my breath upon the glass and
willed my heart to lift, slow, and go.

one afternoon i dreamed i was crouched against a marble wall in a bright white room. i couldn't open my eyes completely because it was so bright. i could hear voices coming through air ducts or vents or long hollow hallways - two people talking. one had a distinctly female sounding voice but the other was so garbled and multi-hued i could not tell if it had a gender, or not. i got on my hands and knees and crawled along the icy marble floors towards the voices. at first what they were saying was indistinguishable. but as i grew closer i could hear more clearly what their words were.

"has she woken yet?"

"not yet."

"she should wake, if she keeps coming so near, we'll have to include her."

"there are other ways."

"i don't believe you. you are always laying around in your deceit. i will try to wake her. she is too small for this."

i kept crawling and crawling, my eyes squinted shut against the light but open enough to make sure i didn't bump into any pillars or walls. i could feel i was naked, the air was frigid. i needed to see these people who were talking. i had the distinct impression they were talking about me.

as i rounded a wide corner i the change in air flow/pressure and the dimming of the echoes told me i'd come upon an enormous chamber, which was where the two were talking and also was the source of the incredible white light. i couldn't summon words to ask, i could barely open my eyes against the brightness, but i looked across as well as i could to see who they were.

"she's not awake. she's here. see there?"

the woman sighed. i could hear her stand up and walk towards me but still could not open my eyes completely, the light was coming in too sharply. i was shivering. i could sense/feel that she was a giantess as she approached me. then her form seemed to tower over me and i was dwarfed in her shadow. i looked up to see the most terrible and beatific face. her body was naked, so enlarged and solid and round. her hips were impossibly wide. her breasts did not dangle at all but were enormous and full as if ready for nursing infants. she did not speak directly to me at first.

"i knew we waited too long. now she has seen."

"there's nothing for it."

she leaned over and looked sternly at me. "you aren't supposed to be in here," she said. i could not form a response to tell her i didn't know how i'd gotten there in the first place. "wake up!" she shouted at me, and while her voice was angry i could hear it was affected, not genuine. she was trying to frighten me, scold me, like a child. i felt like a child. and despite her pseudo-furious demeanor i wanted her to pick me up. to press me against her solid, rolling body. i ducked my head low, trying to show respect, and did not speak. the other voice boomed as he also rose and came close to me. "girl, insolent!" the being shouted. this voice was much more serious and terrible. i didn't want to anger either of them really, but i had to look at the other giant as i had her. i took advantage of being in their engulfing shadows, the light dulled enough to see, and glanced up at the creature quickly. it was part goat. the head and hindquarters of a huge goat with twisted horns spiraling high towards the vaulted ceilings. a torso at once both male and female, with strong hard abdomen but swelling breasts, and muscled arms with deep rich fur. in it's left hand was clutched a gnarled staff of dried ivy wood. it was blaring at me.

"no sanctuary here!" it roared, "no sanctuary!"

this voice terrified me so much, i prostrated myself at their feet. i still could not speak to them to ask why or who or where i was. i felt at once scared out of my wits and desirious of their attention and affection. suddenly, the goat creature banged it's staff against the floor and the sound of the wood contacting the marble was impossibly loud and echoed so deeply through my body i had to cover my ears and curl into a ball and yell, but my voice was drowned out by the noise, and then i woke up.

my family, including my mom, and my friends, were all in japan together. it was the end of our trip. we were lost in the airport and couldn't figure out which gate to go to or when to board because all the signs and announcements were in japanese. then my mom figured it out and that we should have boared like a half hour before, and that the plane was leaving. she totally ditched me and my kids (liam was only about 3, and laurel was an infant) to run on the plane while i was trying to decide if i should wait for leon to come out of the bathroom and my friends to come back from the food court. i spotted one of my friends, and was yelling at him to hurry so that we could all get on the plane, when suddenly the japanese authorities grabbed him and told him he was under arrest for possession of marijuana. they were dragging him away as he was yelling at me to tell his wife where he was and what was happening and i started trying to fight with the cops to let him go but they pushed me just as they were getting in an elevator with him and i fell, holding on to baby laurel. as i lay on the ground, stunned, a strange man came up to us and tossed a little black gadget with different coloured buttons on it and some flashing lights and i realized it was a bomb detonator/device thing. i panicked and threw it as hard as i could away from me, got up, carrying a kid in each arm, and started running for the doors outside. but before i could get out, a huge explosion erupted from the gate where my mom had just got on the plane. i was thrown out through the plate glass windows, just as three more huge explosions rocked the airport. glass and chunks of cement were raining down out of the sky on us. i found myself laying on a cold, rocky beach with sparse patches of snow all around. i was cut on my hands and face and bleeding but my kids were okay. i was terrified that more explosions were going to happen and we'd have nowhere to hide, so i got up and tried to find a good place to cower. there was a rickety wooden boardwalk running along the side of another building near the airport. it was about a foot and a half off the rocky, snowy ground, so i squeezed under there with both kids and lay there, waiting for whatever was going on to pass. i guess i was in shock. i saw lots of people wandering around on the beach, bleeding and crying. i started crying too, as the realization that my mom and my friends and husband were probably all dead now and i was alone with my kids in a foreign country with no idea of where to go for help.

then suddenly i saw leon! he was walking along the beach, totally unscathed, yelling my name. my tears turned from grief to relief and i scootched out from under the boardwalk, yelling for him, too. he saw us and dashed across the beach towards us and picked up both the kids and kissed me a million times. i was so relieved and happy and tearful and upset. leon said that it was no big deal, we'd get to the canadian embassy or consulate or something, and they'd take care of us. we just had to find out how to get there. we saw a public transit bus pull up to a stop near the beach and ran towards it, yelling. the bus driver let us on and before we could even ask where his bus was going, he started pulling away and going up this HUGE mountain road. leon said, "hey man, can you let us off, please? we don't want this bus after all." the driver totally ignored him and kept going up this enormous cold mountain. leon started yelling, "come on! don't take us to the top! this is NOT the way we need to go! we don't want to have to walk all the way back down with our two little kids in this weather!" still the bus driver ignored him. leon went apeshit and started swinging around on the bars and kicking at the windows while i attacked the driver, punching and kicking at him. then i realized he was a crazy japanese android with no emotions or even the capability to discuss anything with us. he took us to the top of the snowy mountain, opened the doors, and ejected us, totally impassionate about it. we all sat down in a snowbank, me still bleeding everywhere, and cried.

boy

boy, would you like to come on my couch?
yes, i bet you would.
and in 25 minutes we could sum up
everything in our lives that is good.

boy, would you like to speak into my hair?
yes, i bet you would.
and in a single afternoon we could smell every smell
every scent, every vapor the heart says we should.

boy, would like to drink wine in my parlour?
yes, i bet you would.
and in a lost weekend we could taste every tannin
in chocolate and berries and the tender flesh of wood.

boy, i'm lost and i don't think you can find me.
no, i guess you can't.
and in less than a week i can rebound and reverberate
every last word, sentiment, every thought you've lent.

i knew as i fell asleep last night listening to the sound of tires shrieking against pavement, and the inevitable, gut turning "WHOMP" and the blasting tinkle of bursting glass afterwards, and then the sirens and crying, that i would dream something strange. it's always strange when leon isn't beside me in bed while i drift off. and it was strange. in it, i was in a bar, and met philip seymour hoffman, and we fell in love. and i went to his house with him, after some drinks, and it was a little crappy mobile home in a vacant lot surrounded by gravel. and i fell across his messy, man-smelling bed and he worshipped me and i loved him intensely and with all my heart. then a gang of teenaged boys ran through the vacant lot, coming for us, to destroy and burn what we had built in the few drunken hours we'd known one another. philip handed me a sword and we fought and killed them all. severed heads and limbs. dragging bodies into the underbrush. hosing blood off our clotheshandsshoes. wondering how we would ever get away with it. and then the sick realization that i couldn't stay with my love. that i had to leave philip to go home to leon and my children. and he cried and touched my cheek and told me he'd never willingly let me go.

somehow, i ended up back at his home several days later, in the daylight, with his sister and friends. he was missing but nothing in his house was gone with him. everyone wanted to know who i was, if i had anything to do with the dead bodies of teenaged boys they'd found buried in the gravel, why i had been there at all, why i brought my big purple-y/brown bowling ball with me that day. it was because philip had told me we were going to go to the ten pin one day, together, when i was ready to be with him.