grecian urge

i want to live in a house with no glass in the windows
no doors in the door frames
no carpets on the floors
no junk in the closets
no lights on the ceilings
no clocks on the walls.

there'll be white billowy curtains
let loose in blessed breezes
and cool stone tile underfoot and cheek.
and a long wide patio bleached pale in the sun
as my skin goes bronze, my mouth fills
with icy wine and the vapours tickle my nose.
on the table, a bowl each of
afternoon-warmed grapes and musky salted olives as
dozy wasps abscond with beads of nectar and oil.

the ocean is miles away but if i shade my eyes
and lean back just right it floats just below the patio ledge.
leaning forward, i see small, noisy cars edging their way
along distant cliff roads, but the sound never reaches up here.
just the creak of a bicycle chain and the flap of laundry on the line,
and once in a while, the odd strained sound of the neighbour's piano.
a mile down the track, it's a trick of the sea breeze
that you only hear every second note of every third song
between the cicadas and warblers, gaia's meditation.

an evening bath in near darkness is a favourite
a sunken tub and the dim glow of a single lantern
i run the water cool and soak as the cliff roses just below the window
recover from the heat of another day by releasing their perfume
it's a joyful but quiet celebration, day to night
we are transformed, all.
i barely dress, hair still wet, leaving wet footprints to dissolve
as i cross the little open house all gloaming
and seat myself at a heavily scarred wooden table, you facing me
soft smiles, vinegar'd vegetables and chilled grains on stone plates.
we hardly talk anymore
it'd be like talking to oneself, so easily we read one another;
so little that happens each day.

the expanse of cool bed under pinned straight gossamer netting
the nightsounds of the cliff sides and distant village and sea
a heavy book rests open, pages-down on gently rising, then falling, belly
your hand finds mine as you scribble something on a tablet on your knees
i wonder about the weather, about a tempest, about a teapot
about a rowboat expedition the next week to swim in the deep sea
about the souring dough under the tea cloth and the dwindling wine supply
about tending the small vegetable patch and sharing the meagre bounty
with a warbly little piano player, a mile down the track.

i want to live in a house with no glass in the windows
no doors in the door frames
no carpets on the floors
no junk in the closets
no lights on the ceilings
no clocks on the walls.

a common but natural wonder

they were aluminum steps, just three, the kind that dig into the backs of your knees
that odd yellow morning you left me.
there was a certain sound each footstep made on those pointy metal planes
and i sat on them a long time after you were gone,
anti-slip peaks digging through the thin cotton of my shorts and brown grass
between my bare toes
cold and dying.

just sitting there with the door wide open behind me
a queer thunderstorm morning, thirsty daisies all dayglo
the gravel spat out by your car's tires little cairns all in a row, seeds unsown
no one else was home, i was all alone
the whole neighbourhood sparse, a stray with a hungry rib cage
stopped to lick my hand
but didn't stay.

there was that long line of hemlock trees a few yards off, denoting borders between
this park and that park,
the wrong side of the conifers was where you loved me most
all that long dry summer, then again all that long dark winter
inside my tin can, inside my white trash bungalow, my hideaway, my drafty lair
our backs on a thin foam mattress
fingering a frayed blanket.

it would sometimes seem to me the hemlocks' boughs spoke to and caressed each other
soft summer wind or roiling winter storm
looking out the porthole from the far side of my bed
i'd wonder at their secret languages and loved them offhandedly
a bit like the way you loved me, as if i were a common but natural wonder
appreciated in small gusts fueled by
mortality, or liquor.

that morning the hemlocks were moving, or seemed to move, though there was no breeze
and though i was distracted at first,
with the heartache of loss and all, the sound of your last words
reverbing in my ear canals like some kind of maritime dirge
i came to be aware of the unfamilliar fluttering as something not tree-like
something decidedly birdlike
filling every bough.

in silence they sat, narrow and fat, covering every itchy inch of branch
feathers ruffled here and there
but otherwise still as the air, and watched me carefully from the hemlock trees
as if they'd always been there and always would be, all black eyes
shiny beaks, the looming threat, a rookery
bearing silent witness
to the aftermath of your retreat.

Not Waving

If I must, absolutely must, go about the business of drowning,
I make the following requests.

That I sink slowly and thoroughly,
That I slip thickly and knowingly,
That my eyes remain open,
And my throat keeps humming.

That the medium be warm and enveloping,
That it be glossy and smooth,
That it saturate every part of me,
In the swirls of my ears & tender spaces between toes.

If I must, absolutely must, go about the business of drowning,
Let it be that I suffocated in you.

mardi gras!

so i had this dream that i was at mardi gras in new orleans and it was really hot and sunny out so everyone was wearing short-shorts and bras and beads and face paint. we were following this float that had beth ditto and the gossip on it, blasting out a wicked rendition of "on the prowl":

I’m a firecracker on the 4th of July
I’ll make your mama beg, I’ll make your daddy cry
I’ll walk a million miles for just one piece of your pie
I’m not a stranger, darlin’, so don’t you be shy,
I'll give you something that you'll never forget,
We're gonna do it till we're both outta breath,
Come on darling cause you're making me wet,
So give me something that I haven't had yet,
I'm gonna treat you right, just let momma take your hand,
You betta hang on tight
I'm gonna treat you right,
Gonna take you home tonight,
It's gonna be better, darling, than you ever thought it could
I'm gonna give you something that you'll never forget,
We're gonna do it till we're both outta breath,
Come on darlin cause you're making me wet,
So give me something That I haven't had yet.


the float turned down this alley way that was really just an over grown dirt road. the ruts were deep and jagged and uneven. the grass was knee high. i was marching and dancing behind this girl i used to work with at the fat chicks' clothing store and she was wearing these high-waisted bright red shorts and i remember thinking how enormous and gorgeous her ass looked in them.

suddenly from behind us there was a loud honking and we turned to see this ridiculous Hummer-type vehicle trying to drive up the dirt road behind us. it was painted in lurid reds and yellows and clearly would not fit through the narrow space. my old co-worked and i started yelling at them to turn around and go back, but the driver wouldn't let up. we just scoffed and turned around to follow beth ditto again. suddenly there was a horrible noise behind us and we turned to see that the hummer had hit a ditch too hard and turned onto it's side.

we walked back to see if we could help the driver out. it was ronald mcdonald. we climbed up and pried the door open and yelled at him that he was a complete idiot and to get out of the vehicle, but he was unconscious and bleeding from a wound on his head. my co-worker said, "there's a mcdonald's a block away, you should go tell them their guy needs help." so i took off.

when i got in the mcdonalds i stood in line for a long time. finally i got up to the counter and who was the person working the till, but robert fuckin deniro. i said, "holy shit," and he just looked around nervously like he was worried i'd rat him out. i said, "you're...you're..." and he put up his hand to shush me. "yeah, i know. i know who i am. what can i get for you?" this was the last till, at the end of the counter, so there was a little gap where you could walk in behind, so i did that. wounded burger-shilling clown completely forgotten, i hopped up on the counter and put my arms around his neck and put my lips near his ear and said, "you don't really wanna be workin here during mardi gras, do you? you wanna earn some beads the hard way?" he turned completely red and swallowed hard and nodded. THEN MY ALARM WENT OFF. ugh.

new ideas about why we dream.

last night i dreamed i had taken LSD and was running away from home. instead of causing the normal feelings LSD causes, it gave me the power to control how gravity affected me. i was bouncing like an astronaut on the moon, down fields of grass and onto a big ferry. i saw this guy i've only met once, in victoria, and he was on LSD too and told me to follow him off the boat, leaping across the water, and led me to a restaurant where my huge number one crush was working as a bartender. huge number one crush and i flirted crazily for a while while crush fed me vodkas. then we had a playful wrestling match in the 'lounge' area of the bar and i got flipped on my back and we started to make love right there in front of everyone and i was so happy, i used my anti-gravity LSD powers to float us right up to the ceiling.

snow day

this morning, the sky faints pink, watery yellow, blue
and this damp cloth is pushing spilled coffee grounds around the counter.
i'm listening to a forecast that i'm totally numb to .
outside, my sparrow heart is trapped in a snowbank, fluttering softly and cold.
she was blindsided by the flurry of white from above
but i have no sympathy because she had warning.
the boughs had been groaning all night.
i'm washing a dish now, i've washed it twice, tinny radio news
has a flat effect on my face, i can't hide this broken rib much longer.
i keep pulling at the hem of my shirt, stretching it out, fatiguing it
the rib pokes out anyway and it aches purple, it aches black.
no amount of careful movement, no amount of gentle prodding
puts this rib back in place, it just burns there halfway between my gut and heart.
hey! you didn't owe me anything! and who would have been surprised,
everyone at that movie asked for a refund because the ending was so cliche,
and the starring roles were taken up by plain people
with predictable lines and worse, the camera work was shaky. amateurs.
the glamour was steam on the lens from the humid air
not the memory of some perfect night
not memory of compulsion nor the dimming of light. just hot air, all hot air.
i can't bend right
to sweep now and i hear the snow plow coming! oh, dammit.
i run outside to rescue my sparrow heart, deep inside i am tender towards her
even though she is stupid and careless and needs to be
taught a hard lesson. just not today.
i'm on my knees in an icy bank,
i'm scooping up handfuls of snow with raw red hands
it feels colder when my skin is hot from dishwater
and at the bottom, on patchy dead grass, there she lies still now,
still as an icicle, feathery chest lifts.
one glowing hand yanks at my shirt hem, it hurts as it pulls on a rib.
the other hand deposits her in the pocket of my spattered apron,
next to the crumpled movie ticket stub.
heat from the oven will revive her, i think.

i have had this dream before. several times before, actually. in it, we remember that we have two more floors to our house, upstairs, behind a built-in bookshelf, sort of 'diary of anne frank' style. we don't know why we keep forgetting about them, because they are fantastic floors...better even than what we normally live in.

in this dream the topic comes up because we are talking with the children about how to re-arrange their sleeping quarters (this is happening in real life - julian wants to comandeer the rec room in the basement and astrid wants to take over his larger bedroom upstairs) and i said, well actually there's a top floor to our house that has a beautiful, beautiful attic bedroom with a big window that lets in lots of light. do you want to see?

of course they do! they are shocked we never brought it up before. i'm shocked that we've been forcing guests to sleep in the basement when all this time we had some beautiful rooms upstairs.

misha pulls open the bookcase and the children are wide-eyed at the staircase in behind. it's wide, and there is natural light pouring down from the upper floors because for some reason they are more windowed than the floors we have been living on. there are two upper levels. we begin to climb the staircase, and i note that the wallpaper and carpeting there are a bit tatty, but not awful. there is the sound of wildlife directly ahead of us and i wonder if we left a 'sounds of nature' tape running the last time we'd remembered to come up here.

the first floor we come out on is a luxuriantly decorated library. it looks straight out of a victorian better homes and gardens. floor to ceiling bookshelves lined with all manner of hardbacks. overstuffed antique chairs here and there. even a small wet bar tucked into a corner with a large mirror behind it, reflecting the scene back at us. everything is wine coloured velvet and mahogany and big lush plants. i hear the sound of a fountain. i look up and there is a glass dome in the ceiling with daylight pouring through. a butterfly floats past astrid's nose. we are all standing and spinning around in wonder at the room we had above our house that was apparently too good for us to live in. i begin to walk around, tracing my fingers here and there, joy and wonder filling my mind, my heart, every muscle. suddenly i recoil my hand as it touches something rough and scaly on one of the little intricately carved side tables. i look more closely and there is some kind of odd lizard there. small and dark blue, almost black. i summon the children and misha over to gaze at him with me. he has a large frill around his head, spiky. his eyes are mere black pinpricks in a sort of squat face. he regards us balefully when suddenly his tongue shoots out and he captures a butterfly with it, a butterfly at least half his size. we shout in surprise and then watch in morbid fascination as he attempts to eat it. its wings struggle against his mouth, against the air, against death. astrid is both horrified and philosophical: "poor butterfly. but lizard has to eat." the butterfly is gone in a few big chomps. and then even more suddenly, our little blue lizard is attacked by a larger lizard that had been camouflaged amongst some of the books on the table next to it. this one is a chameleon, i tell the children. its mouth is huge and wide and it seeks to devour the smaller lizard whole. the smaller lizard puts up a big fight and the children beg us to stop it because it is so brutal. but we don't, we just wait patiently. the bigger lizard has no teeth and his mouth seems too soft to do any real damage to the smaller lizard but in the end, we hear a critching sound indicating a crushed skull and the small lizard stops struggling immediately. i can't watch anymore. i turn. birds are flying around the glass dome above our heads and landing in the potted trees and palms around the room. i realize this is not only a library but some kind of self-contained ecosystem. how had we been living underneath such a marvelous thing for seven years and not visited it every day?

i continue on towards the next flight of stairs, the one that leads to the attic bedroom. this one also has plenty of daylight streaming down, casting dramatic shadows and showing me that the wallpaper here, cornflower blue and cream stripes, is also tatty and neglected. i move from the victorian botantist library upwards into a country house's attic. it is spotlessly clean, with faded blue-painted floors and whitewashed walls. centered under the peak of the roof is a huge round window, from where all the sunlight pours in. on either side of this window are double beds, blonde wood frames and thick mattresses, made up with warm handmade quilts, feather pillows, and crocheted throws. each bed has its own little white night stand that holds a reading lamp and a stack of books. there are small framed pictures hung around the room. a wardrobe at the opposite end. wooden chairs on spindly legs near a desk with a roll-down cover. at the foot of each bed, a chest. on top of each chest is propped a doll that looks to be made of raw cotton and stuffed with straw, its face painted on in raggedy-anne fashion. it is so quiet and bright. no sound floats up from the library below. i can hear my own breathing perfectly.

i walk softly across the faded blue floor to the window, expecting to look out over the parking lot of our townhouse complex. when i get there, though, i see the view is of a vast meadow, filled with waist high grass and tall yellow flowers. there is a hill that curves down and away and i suspect there is come kind of creek or river that passes by the house just beyond that slope. even further in the distance i see a swatch of trees, deciduous trees that don't belong here in BC at all. i put my fingers on the glass and wonder how to get out there. i know that if i walk back downstairs and out our front door, it really will just be our old townhouse parking lot. this bothers me a lot, and i wake up.

little lady

what's it like to be so tiny?
with bean pole wrists and a long curved neck
like all the great poems describe?
a featherweight waist and martini glass breasts
what's it like to be so very,
very small?
the chiseled jaw-line and aquiline nose...
are your eyes really that big or is it
illusion as they perch, doe-like, over
high bones on gaunt cheeks?
and those ankles!
they could break like glass, like sugar!
in those teetery high heels
after only one gimlet
("but a double!" you insist).
i wonder how it feels to be smaller
than every man you meet
would i be (more) afraid, or would it be nice
to feel big arms around me
and to know i could be easily carried home
if i did fall down in those
impossible stilettos. those
twizzly shoes from a shop that
looks like a bright delicious candy store
from the outside looking in.
i think about those slender fingers:
they would be chilly, if they touched me.
rings would fall off if you didn't get them sized
and your thighs must never rub together
so your jeans don't grow thin in patches there.
your jeans could last your whole life!
probably everyone thinks you don't eat or throw up what you do
eat and maybe that annoys you or maybe it thrills you
but either way you
know this is just how you were meant to be.
so tiny. a silhouette of a bird creature.
silky soft and leafy light.
folded up in a window sill,
apt to take flight.

in my dream last night, i had a job in an office, i think it was at my mom's school, where she teaches. and i had to work late one night, and misha was also working, and while julian was ok with watching astrid til i got home, astrid was pissed that she was going to miss her evening theatre class. after much finagling, and talking it over with misha, we agreed that she could take the bus there by herself and then afterwards take it to my office, and we would go home together. i was under the impression that it was in our neighbourhood when i agreed to this and astrid kept insisting that she knew the way because daddy had brought her on the bus several times before that.

however, when it got dark outside, and the office clock said 5:00pm and it was time for me to go and she still wasn't at the office, i started to panic. i called misha and asked him exactly where the class was and to my surprise he told me it was in richmond (which involves riding the skytrain and TWO buses from our place). totally freaking out, i wandered from cubicle to cubicle telling people what was wrong and they either scoffed at me or acted uncomfortable or ignored me. i felt frantic. i kept saying, "i didn't even give her a cell phone so she could call me. i just let her go out there by herself. i'm a total idiot. should i phone the police or wait a while?"

then mom wandered in and i told her what had happened. she immediately told me to call the police. i was standing at the top of a stairway and there was a wall-mounted phone right there. mom was on the top step holding on to the handrail. i picked up the phone and started to dial when i heard the office door down below open and astrid was there, crying. my mom turned around and ran down the stairs and i hung up the phone and tried to follow. astrid was saying, "i hurt my knee, i hurt my knee, i want mommy," and my mom was clutching her and carrying her up the stairs saying, "don't worry, baby, we'll get you all cleaned up, it's ok, you're ok," and a bunch of people were crowding around and i had to shove my way past them all.

mom had astrid in a bathroom and was filling up a bathtub with hot water and undressing her. astrid was crying and holding her knee. i started crying in relief to see her and her little scraped knee and was about to embrace her when one of the other women said, "stop. stop touching her, stop cleaning her up. the police will want her to go to the hospital." she said it in this very weird, calm voice. i looked at her and then i looked back at astrid who was now stripped down completely and saw that it wasn't just her knee. her vulva was bruised and swollen and red and there was blood all over her. she was still rocking back and forth saying, "i was running and i fell and hurt my knee, mommy."

my mom realized what had happened at the same moment i did, and kind of doubled over and said, "oh god, oh god, oh astrid, oh god." i put my hand on mom's back and tried to reason with her to keep her head, to not let astrid see how upset we were because she'd clearly already been through too much and we had to be strong instead. but seeing my mom fall apart like that, and seeing my daughter all pale and shaken and clearly in shock and understanding what must have happened and knowing it was my fault for letting her go out on her own like that, well....i closed my eyes and tilted my head up to the ceiling and howled in anguish.

letter to a former lover

an integral part of my beauty is my size,
the shape i take in your eyes,
the mutual-attraction surprise
when my hips-no-tize.
i trapped you in my thighs
and you sighed
'oh my'.
and i thought i'd feel more on guard and jaded
when it turned out i'd been berated
by a predilection unabated
since your desire was fated &
heretofore unsated;
you were only casually frustrated by
such a fetish unrated.
so what, who cares, if i'm only flesh for your eyes
and toes for your lips and
hips for your kiss
the spirit incidental, unmissed
just fractionated bits,
sectioned, unwhole
your stolen glimpses
of my fat eclipses:
the dionysian side of an apollonian life.

i dreamed i was watching a reality show about people training to become chefs. and one of the contestants, a young guy, in his 20s, was diagnosed with "a very rare but very aggressive form of adrenal gland cancer" only a couple of weeks away from graduation.

the show went on and on, and showed him going to the doctor, and breaking down in tears, and having to leave the dormitory of the school, and then had him going to some sort of cancer support group or something. and he was a kind of a big guy, on the heavy side, and one of the show's producers said to him during one of their private interview moments, "you do realize that you could have prevented your cancer if you'd actually taken care of yoursef. if you'd not let yourself become so fat. if you'd listened to all your family and friends and teachers when you were a kid and not been so lazy and gone and gotten exercise and everything, right?"

and the guy stood up from his chair and said, "what all those people did to me, the way they treated me, from the time i started to show signs of being a big kid, was not teach me how to take care of myself in a loving way, ok! they didn't teach me that! they taught me to hate myself! not to love myself. and how can you 'take care of yourself' when all you can feel is loathing when you look in the mirror and that's all reinforced by every person in an authority position your whole life! i didn't give myself cancer just like i didn't make myself fat. if anything they're as responsible for my current situation as i am. and you, sir, can shoulder some of the blame as well, for being a hate mongering exploitationist." and he totally just walked off camera and the voice over said he never came back to the show and they couldn't find out how he was doing anymore.

and i remember i was just laying on the couch watching this in disbelief and laughing and crying at the same time. i woke up feeling really fired up. sometimes it pays to have a smarty-pants subconscious.

i dreamed that julian went missing for the better part of an afternoon and evening. we suspected he'd taken the bus to the wave pool so i went on a big hunt for him. he was supposed to be carrying his dad's cell phone but he wouldn't answer it. it took forever and i was becoming frantic. just as i was standing on a street corner begging people to help me, my cell rang. on the other end was julian, only his voice was deep like a man's. i asked him where he'd been, and told him how worried i was and why didn't he call us? he said he was busy. i said, doing what? he mumbled something and when i asked him to repeat it, he wouldn't it. then it dawned on me that he'd gone and had sex with someone. "BUT YOU'RE ELEVEN," i cried. "not anymore, mommy," he said, in his big man voice.

*shudder*

two

dream I
i was living in a co-op townhouse situation and was having trouble with one of the other famillies that lived there. a single mom with an impossible number of children (8 or more) of varying ages from infancy up to pre-teen was being very irresponsible and neglectful of them. one day one of the kids knocked on my door and said there was a problem in their house and could i come help? so i walked over and she directed me upstairs. i went into the one of the bedrooms and there, propped up in the corner like a kind of oversized doll, was one of the older girls - 9 or so - dead. the smaller children were crawling all over her lap and combing her hair and putting gold lipstick on her. she looked kind of like an egyptian queen or something.

i became very enraged. no one could tell me how she died. and the mom wasn't home (of course). so i decided i would hunt her down and began walking down towards a shopping centre in the area. as i got nearer, i had to cross a very busy highway situation and there in the middle of the road was a shopping trolley with another one of her kids - this one not more than 2 years old - just sitting in it, abandoned, and crying hysterically. i rushed over and picked him up and pushed the cart across the street. i then stormed all through the strip mall looking for her. i finally found her in a hair salon getting her nails done or something. i shoved the baby into her lap and started yelling at her. "your oldest daughter is dead and your younger children are in danger and you're here getting your make-up done? what the fuck is your problem, lady?" her demeanor was flippant and uncaring and i wanted to smash her face in. instead i pulled out my cellphone and started to dial 911. then i woke up.

dream II
i was in the lounge area of a huge fancy hotel (i think it was called 'the regent'). i was sitting at a table, naked, and seated across from me was naked jeff goldblum (shuttup). i slowly came to the realization that this was some kind of swinging sex club thing happening, and he was my date. it was very exciting! i got up to get myself another drink from the bar because the waitress hadn't been around for a while and jeff said he didn't feel comfortable standing up "right that second" (again, shuttup). when i got to the bar, i was ordering my drink, when i heard a woman behind me say, "look at that disgusting fat cow over there. who let her in? i thought this place screened their participants. the quality of clientele is really going to shit. god, seriously." and her friend said, "yeah, ew. who feels like fucking when you have to look at that beforehand?"

this infuriated me. after i got my drink i turned around to look them in the eyes. they were your typical tight bodied bleach blonde LA aspiring actresses. i stalked (and jiggled) my way over to their table and said, "who are you two to talk, you scrawny bimbos? you WISH you could make your fake tans look as good as i make my fat look. if you were smart you wouldn't try to pick on a woman twice your size, either. you're as dumb as you are talentless."

they threw a few more insults my way as i walked back to the table where jeff was waiting for me. he was furious.

"you're not just going to take that from them, are you?"

"what?"

"well, they're still over there, looking at you and snickering and pointing at you. you should put a stop to it once and for all."

"you really think so?"

he nodded.

i thought it over for a couple of minutes. then i downed my drink in one fell swoop, stood up, and walked back over to their table. only one of them was missing. her compatriot said, "you got a problem, fatty?"

"where's your friend?"

"she went to the powder room. why?"

i ignored her and walked into the ladies room. just as i opened the door, the woman i was after was walking out. "what do you want?" she said. "to kick your ass," i replied. i only meant to rough her up a bit, scare her into shutting up. for some reason i had a handful of those tiny, multicoloured, crumbly wax birthday candles. she was backing away from me, up against a wall, and i threw a couple of candles at her, that hit her in the face. she said, "what the hell, what are you doing?" i suddenly grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her. then i smacked the back of her head against the wall. to my surprise, it made a very wet cracking noise and she slumped in my hands. i let her go and she slid downwards, leaving a smear of brains on the wall behind her. i'd killed her. weirdly satisfied i shoved the rest of the birthday candles i'd been holding in my hand into her gaping mouth. then i walked out and back to the table.

"what happened?" asked jeff goldblum, "did you beat her up?"

i nodded, the shock setting in. "yeah. and...uh....i think i actually killed her."

he choked on his beverage. "you...what? you killed her?"

i nodded again, taking a sip from my own drink. "not on purpose. i banged her head against the wall and her skull just cracked open. i didn't mean to."

at this point several of the other naked patrons were listening to our conversation. one of them said, "well, good for you, honey...she was a total fucking bitch."

other people started to clap a little. her friend stood up and said, "hey, look, i'm sorry about my friend, she had too much to drink. her behaviour was inexcusable. i don't blame you all for hating her. i just went along with what she said because she was such a bully."

i looked a jeff. he was very amused by everything. he said, "well, we need to do something with her body." the bartender said, "we can keep it in the walk-in cooler for now?" he and jeff walked into the women's room and came out a moment later dragging the corpse behind them. it left a trail of brains and blood behind it. jeff came and sat down with me again, put his big hand over mine. i was shaking and in shock. jeff said, quietly and leaning in over the table, "you know, christa, i think too many people know about this now. we're going to have to do something about that."

"wh...what do you mean?"

"kill them too. kill them all."

"seriously?"

he nodded.

he stood up and made a small speech about how we need to actually move the body down into the basement of the hotel. and since we all agreed that the world was better off without that type of female in it, we were all partly responsible for her death, and therefore partly responsible for hiding the evidence and protecting me from the authorities. everyone agreed, and put on their clothes, and the trek down to the underbelly of the hotel, with the dead woman's body on a make-shift gurney (kitchen trolley, covered with a table cloth).

when we got to the basment, jeff opened up a pair of double doors and lead us all into a huge storage area. it was filled with junk and clutter and old furniture and shelves covered in useless stuff. before i knew what was happening, he'd grabbed a small woodcutter's hatchet from one of the shelves, turned on the bartender, and began hacking him apart. "come on, christa! now! do it now!" people realized what was going on and a woman near me tried to run away. in desperation i grabbled a pair of rusty scissors and went at her back with them. it was hard to stab with them, especially as they became slippery with blood. people had made it back to the double doors but somehow jeff had locked them. it didn't take long. we cut everyone down. it was a gore-fest. both of us were drenched in blood. the only other people left standing were a pair of teenagers, one girl and one boy, and jeff allowed them to live because when they'd realized what was happening they gleefully began to help us.

i sat down hard on the cement floor and started to cry. jeff came over and said, "look, i know it's hard your first time."

"i just feel so guilty and sick, i can't believe i did this."

the teen girl smiled lovingly at me and said, "everyone feels that way at first. don't worry, you'll get over it."

the boy said, "yeah, you'll feel better tomorrow. don't worry. i threw up the first time i killed someone but in a couple of days i was totally over it."

jeff helped me stand up. he put his coat around me and helped me step around all the bodies as we walked towards the door. "let's go up to our room. i'll get you into the bath and tuck you into bed. don't worry about a thing. i'll take care of you." i let him lead me away from the nightmare.

suddenly i was in bed with him. the sheets were white, we were clean, the sun was shining in through the sheer curtains. he was brushing my hair back from my forehead. i was talking to him about an interview i'd read where he'd been talking about how important your appearance is in hollywood.

"do you really believe what you said? that people who aren't conventionally attractive can never truly be movie stars?"

he nodded.

"so, me? i could never be one?"

he shook his head.

"well, that's stupid, and mean! and uniformed! look at....look at philip seymour hoffman. he's not attractive in a conventional sense but he's very successful!"

"oh, the rule doesn't apply to men, at all," he laughed.

"so it's sexist, too!"

he nodded. "but don't worry, babycakes. i would never want you to be a movie star, anyway. your beauty is too special for that sort of vulgar career and lifestyle. no. i like to keep your sexiness and gorgeousness to myself. all those skinny bitches are on coke and speed and don't know how to cook, anyway."

and then i climbed on top of him and we had amazing sex.

the end.

two nights ago i dreamt that misha and the kids and i were in an office building downtown. i'm not sure why we were there or what we were doing, but when we tried to leave, police in SWAT team gear told us we weren't allowed. they were blocking the glass doors with their batons out. i peered over their shoulders and saw that they had put up big sandbag barricades around the centre court of the office building, surrounding a man sitting on a bench. the man was wearing a trenchcoat and a hat with a floppy brim and he had a big suitcase next to him on the bench. i demanded they tell me what was happening and one of the cops said that the man's suitcase was filled with enough high powered explosives to destroy everything within a mile radius of him and they were trying to talk him out of doing it. he told me to take the kids and go hide behind the big counter in the building's foyer with everyone else.

for some reason, though, misha insisted that we leave immediately. he said that it was stupid they weren't evacuating us out the back way. so the kids and i followed him down a dark cement stairway and into a parkade under the building. suddenly, though, the suicide bomber was behind us and started chasing us through the darkness. i was trying to urge the kids on but astrid fell behind. i stopped and turned and saw the man grab her, pick her up, and throw her as hard as he could against a wall. she fell and i screamed and ran back towards her. the man didn't try to stop me. astrid was laying on the pavement, totally still with a blanched face and closed eyes and her legs at weird angles and i knew her back was broken. i woke up in horror.

so this morning i had a very strange dream. i'd woken up to my alarm but hit snooze and immediately drifted into that half-sleep state i tend to hover in once that happens. i felt that i might have been awake, even, but of course i wasn't. in the dream i was laying in bed in the dawnlight, and i decided to masturbate before i got up. i reached down inside a cloth bag that was next to me on the bed, which contained my vulva. i remember thinking how strange it was that i'd cut off my vulva and stored it beside the bed instead of just keeping it attached to my body. anyway i started to masturbate and i could feel every pleasurable sensation even though it was seperate from me. however the creepiness of it was preventing me from really enjoying myself and eventually my thoughts turned to wondering how i was going to keep my vulva from decomposing in the cloth sack and how i was probably going to have to see a doctor and possibly even end up in a psychiatric facility because no well woman would actually do that to herself. these thoughts (and other, even more disjointed ones) finally made the attempt at self-pleasure totally impossible and i could not achieve climax. so i folded the little bag up and put it away on my nightstand.

i went into the bathroom and when i looked in the mirror i was shocked to see my entire lower body was covered in blood. so the amputation had been recent, maybe even as recent as last night. strange that i wasn't in pain. i wanted to take a shower but the water was turned off due to some plumbing problems. i didn't seem to be bleeding anymore so i decided to just get dressed. the bed was totally stained and soaked in my own blood. i couldn't wash anything, though, it would have to wait. i wondered what i would tell misha.

then astrid woke up and to my surprise she was only two years old. she was very crabby and overtired, like she hadnt' slept properly. i kept trying to talk to her like she was seven still and she just wasn't getting it. i wanted to tell her to stop acting like such a baby and get ready for school but she just threw herself on the floor and had a tantrum. i decided to ignore her and tried to get her brother up out of bed. he was already awake, though. i went downstairs and it was time to leave, we were late. i told the kids to go outside and wait by the car. when i got in the vehicle, and before the kids could get it, it started to move without me turning it on and in fact i was half outside it. the emergency brake wouldn't respond and i was having trouble getting my legs in the door to operate the foot brake. i was rolling very quickly at that point towards a parked car. my mouth was full of something (toast? sawdust?) so that i couldn't warn anyone on the street and i knew i was going to ram someone or something. i woke up before that happened, though.

invitation by omission

early autumn rain caused her lips to bloom succulent
and her limbs to cool and soften as petals unedged.
gossamer drapes gently swelling and shrinking
and releasing wafts of her faint perfume lured you;
she had all the windows open even as the air turned chill.
all the fat rain drops on her window sill
smeared and slick under your fingertips as you
smuggle yourself in as a thief
would attend his own funeral.
gladly die a thousand little deaths there, dear
smother under her downy covers and drown in honey hot
in relation to (and defiance of) the turning season.
there is no love like the love of your murderess,
languid summer days fading: panther-like, undressed.

i had the most terrible dream last night. i was having an affair. i was meeting the man at some kind of sex club where he'd rented a private room. when i got there, we started to have sex right away but soon another man came into the room and tried to rob us. the man i was having the affair with went completely beserk and murdered this other guy brutally, right in front of me, and then ran away. i pulled on all my clothes and walked out of there going holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. i didn't want to tell anyone what had happened because the fact that i was cheating would get out. but i also knew that it would only be a matter of time before the cops came looking for my lover and me. it was actually a really terrible, terrible feeling.

then somehow i was sleeping at the top of this multi-story circus tent, on an air mattress, with misha on his own mattress next to me. we were out in the woods. it was probably four or five stories high. early in the morning the big top tent started to fall down and we fell with it. but we were safe because of the air mattresses under us. the fall took a long time, it was kind of like floating. i was worried about the poles hitting me on the head on the way down.

then i found a notebook julian had been doodling in. it was full of porno he'd drawn. i didn't quite know what to make of that so i just put it back where i'd found it.

then i was naked in the woods, behind a puppet show screen. and there was a strange naked man behind me. we were putting on an adult puppet show. he was having sex with me while we performed and the audience had no idea. his penis was a very strange shape. sort of flattened and rigid and thick. then i awoke.

wiping the sheet of morning dew from the inside of the windscreen put beads
of water on her palm and streaks
of oil on the glass
and didn't quite clear the vision of the road anyway.
smoothing out the hastily hand-crafted map
you'd written her the night before the residual water
blurred the ink lines on the paper and stained her skin blue
so it looked like an old prison tattoo
and she felt tough.
the car wasn't running great but she gunned it and chunked it
steadily into 5th
and followed your smeared directions perfectly over
a dawn-kissed highway, pavement still chilled from night
a bridge, or two, over fog banks and lapping rivers.
arriving with her jacket pulled up tight
around her neck she threw your paper to the floor of the car
and swung out of the door onto a path
to the place you'd directed her
without understanding completely
the arms she fell into that morning
provided the last comfort she'd know or need to know
for the rest of her natural life.

last night i dreamt that my old pal and former roomate, chris d., was sitting on a couch with me, watching t.v.

we were eating snacks and conversing with the t.v on in the background. it'd been a couple of years since we'd spoken and so it was a lot of catching up. he was telling me he'd just moved back to vancouver after being in victoria for six years. he and his partner had broken up and he was trying to start over. then we were reminiscing about when we were roomates in north burnaby and how that all went down. what a dramatic time in our lives, he said. i nodded knowingly. we should hang out again some more some time, he said. i replied sure! he said, we should have like, a naughty night togehter. i froze with a chip in my hand halfway between the bowl and my mouth.

"a...a 'naughty night'?"

"yeah...you know. where we're naughty."

i put the chip on my tongue and chewed thoughtfully. "what do you mean? like, go out and vandalize stuff? or..."

"no no. nothing illegal. more like, you put on some lingerie, i wear my boxers. and we bake erotic cupcakes and read, like, erica jong out loud to each other."

i couldn't believe my ears. i nearly choked on my chip trying to hold back my laughter - more from shock than disgust. i mean, i'd always dug chris and thought he was hot and funny and sexy (and once he'd even gone in for a kiss and i didn't exactly resist, but it ended there) but it'd seriously been YEARS since we'd seen one another and already he was asking me to get sexy with him? so i was trying to not snort and i said sort of wryly, "yeah, and we could, like, watch porn together."

"YEAH!" he said, as if the idea hadn't crossed his mind. "WE COULD!"

we ate more chips and watched more 'price is right' for a while in silence.

then i said, "if we could find porn that i actually enjoy, that is."

"hm," he said. "it's difficult to find stuff that you can enjoy is it?"

"i'm sort of picky," i said.

"have you found anything at all you like before?"

"oh sure. there's one actress i really like. i think her name is spring? i can't remember. i'd have to look it up."

"you...you go in for girls?"

"sure. sure, yeah. certain types of girls."

"you're more fun than i even thought possible," chris beamed. i was suddenly in a kissing mood and moved in for the kill. i figured after this conversation he wasn't going to mind a little make-out session. to my surprise, though, when i started to put my lips on his cheek, he pulled away slightly and looked uncomfortable.

"oh. no naughty?" i said, feeling a bit embarrassed and confused.

"not NOW. on naughty night!"

"oh."

i stood up from the couch then thinking i needed to clear my head. i walked from the room and into another room just down the hall. it was like an office cafeteria with sandwich and coke machines. i decided i wanted a coke and put my two dollar coin into the big glowing red machine's slot. chris came in behind me at that point and my coin seemed to get stuck. i got mad and hit the machine. chris came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. but i was obsessed with getting this can of coke. the coin fell out and i put it in again but no coke came out. i hit the machine again and a bunch of coins fell into the "return money" slot. chris's hands were moving up my body from behind, grabbing at my breasts. i was scooping the coins out of the slot and laughing, "there must be twenty bucks here!" i hit the machine again and suddenly it was like a slot machine, coins and bills pouring out the place coke cans were supposed to be coming out, just gushing. i slipped from chris's grasp and got on my knees and started to use the skirt part of my dress to gather up the hundreds if not thousands of dollars from the floor and the machine. i was so excited. money was pouring out from my dress and still coming out of the machine. i tried to stand up, lost my balance, and then chris steadied me.

"i think i'm rich!" i said, breathless into his sly face.

"you're also not wearing any underwear," he smirked.

then i woke up.