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.

the tongue the teeth and the lips
the tongue the teeth and the lips
every time you glance at me
the shift of the planet tips
on your tongue, your teeth and your lips.
the ends of each hair, and the ivory feet
the ends of each hair, and the ivory feet
each time you touch me
my pulse matches and meets
the ends of your hair, and your ivory feet.
the voice, the breath and the song
the voice, the breath and the song
when tremors press ear drums
gaia confirms i belong
to your voice, your breath and your song.

a few nights ago i dreamed i was in new orleans with my entire extended maternal family, and someone gave me and my girl cousins a bunch of tabs of quality LSD and we took them even knowing we had to deal with grandmothers and aunts and uncles and our kids and other potentially disapproving people. but we didn't care. and the acid had these really intricate and detailed and beautiful drawings on each tiny tab and i took two and then had to put my kids to bed. things started to get weird there. i don't remember all of it. but one aunt was kind of stuck to the wall in the kids' bedroom, kind of near the ceiling, clearly defying the law of gravity, and she was asking me for help to get her down. and i did. then my cousins and i went to a bar in the french quarter and i was reallly tripping out there. the music was really loud and the bar was really crowded and smoky and i lost sight of my cousins almost right away - they just melted into the crowd. so i decided to move to a higher seating area to have a look out over the hundreds of patrons. and as i walked up the stairs into this balconey area the lights dimmed into a reddish glow and the music softened and then silenced, and although i knew i was still in the bar, i also felt i'd walked slow motion-y into a different realm. because as i looked around at the filled tables i saw it was all women, all beautiful dark-skinned women, and they were all holding these black wooden (or maybe they were gourds?) rattles, and they were all staring at me. and each table i passed, they would all stare at me very languidly and gently shake their rattles. i couldn't tell if they were blessing or cursing me. it was very strange and i either woke up a bit after that or else i don't recall how the dream ended.

the next night i dreamed that i was at a record store (real vinyl records) and i found out that my stepdad had moved into the apartments above the store. the way i found out was this: i was browsing through the record bins and looking at some king crimson and then he was standing right beside me. he was wearing a backpack and i asked him what he was doing there. and he told me. and i told him i thought it was really shitty of him to move back to town without telling me, and also without me saying it was okay for him to come back into my life. and he got mad and walked up the stairs to his apartment. he had a friend with him, a guy i've never actually seen before. this friend was all in my face about how shitty i treated alexander after all he'd done for me thorugh my life. and i got really angry and told the guy to step off because he didn't know what he was talking about. except he didn't. and i was filled with rage so i grabbed at leon's wallet, which for some reason i was carrying, even though leon wasn't with me, which has a long chain on, attached at one end to the wallet and attached at the other end to his large ring of keys. and i began swinging it around above my head like a big old flail and told the guy again to step off. only he didn't and instead said, "so you wanna go?" and i said "yeah, i wanna go," and i whacked him a good one in the face with the keys. he staggered back and i kept swinging my flail round and round, this time to the side of me instead of overhead. i kept coming at him and he whipped out a folding lockblade and started taking swipes at me. i dodged and whipped the flail at him again, hitting him in the cheek. he staggered, then came at me, slashing. he managed to cut me across the belly, then the shoulder, then my face. i kept whipping and whipping but in my dream i just wasn't that good at using the flail. i wanted to wrap it around his knife-hand and force him to drop the blade. he kept diving in for cuts and kept succeeding. i was bleeding from a dozen wounds and my hands were getting slick with blood making it even harder to get a good flail shot in. finally as he jabbed out at me again i dodged the knife and managed to dance around behind him, garroting him with the chain. i wrestled him to the floor, my knees on his shoulder blades, my hands wrapped tight in the chain, criss crossing it at the back of his neck, and slowly strangling him to death. he flopped around under me for a llong long time. and then finally he was still. and everyone in the record store stood around me and his corpse, silent and shocked, and i realized that if i didn't want to deal with cops and courtrooms, my only option was to run like hell for the rest of my life, never seeing leon or my kids again. and that's what i did.

then, last night, i dreamed leon went over to his oldest friend's place. his friend is currently in voluntary recovery for his alcoholism, in real life, and he has been busy with meetings and balancing his new life away from his wife and family and who knows what else. anyway, in my dream, my husband finally got to go hang out with him. we haven't seen him in months and months. so he goes, but then he's gone all night. he doesn't call, he doesn't come home. i try calling over there to see what's going on and there's no answer. i am wondering when it would be fair to freak out and call the police looking for him, right around dawn. six am. i'm standing out on the sidewalk looking down the road for him, and he appears, staggering. i run up to him to see what is wrong, where he is hurt. only he isn't hurt. he is falling down piss-assed drunk and looking damn foolish, too. he throws his arm around me and i have to support his weight almost entirely. i stagger under him and try to guide him home, all the while hollaring at him about going to drink with a recovering alcoholic. and the whole time he's laughing at me and totally incoherent and stumbling, and i'm getting madder and madder. finally we arrive at our doorstep (which isn't our doorstep at all) and there are about 12 stairs leading up to the front door and i can see the back of wayne coyne's head in the livingroom window and i say to leon, "oh great. not only do you only have four hours to sleep this bullshit drunk off, you also have to walk past WAYNE FUCKING COYNE at SIX AM WHILE YOU'RE PISSED OUT OF YOUR MIND!" and leon just laughs and pats me on the back and then i can't support his weight anymore and i let him fall on the grass and he falls and just lays there, unconcious.

i dreamed last night that my inlaws moved back into the city, into this really swank downtown apartment. and we were staying with them for a while. leon's brother was back to living with them and he was being a grouchy pissant, and he stomped out of the place, and leon's mom said, "ugh! libras! they're all a bunch of idiots!" and i said, "um, hey...i'm a libra." and she just totally dismissed me. then leon got a phone call on his cell to go out with two other friends (one was tommy chong, and one was this guy that i only really know in a "oh i know OF him" way on the flaming lips message board), so i kissed him goodbye and he left. then i decided i didn't like being stuck in my inlaws apartment with them and no one else around so i got dressed up in this fabulous multi-layerd victorian dress that was red and black and beaded and floofy and decided to walk around downtown looking for leon. i came across this "halloween clearance" store and bought some plastic red devil horns and fishnets. then i found this cell phone recycling place, that was giving away free cell phones, and picked one. i dialed leon's cell phone number and tommy chong answered. i didn't want to seem like i was checking up on leon, so i tried to disguise my voice and said, "oh, hello, can i speak to bob?" and tommy chong goes, "what? huh? you wanna speak to leon? he's indisposed right now." and i said, "no, no, not leon. bob." and he said, "yeah, leon just went into this cat house...you know...to get himself serviced, if you know what i'm sayin'." and i was really shocked and hurt and hung up.

i dreamed that i was walking through stanley park on a beautiful sunny day with my mom, and there was some kind of comedy festival going on. and all the men i had a crushes on when i was the ages of 12 - 18, like dan aykroyd, and robin williams, and steve martin, and william hurt, and jeff goldblum, were there, meeting and greeting their fans. i waited and waited and actually got to talk to dan aykroyd, and he was wonderful. he hugged me and held my hand and was charming and sweet and funny and encouraged me to talk to him and we had a great conversation that lasted a long time. and i came away from that feeling so good. then we met robin williams, and he was exactly the same! he actually hugged me and then held on to me. in a very loving and sweet and safe embrace. and he kissed the top of my head and we talked for what felt like hours while he waved away other fans and engaged my mom nicely and we were so star-struck and i felt so comfortable. i didn't want to leave, and both robin and dan agreed to come back to my house after the festival was over to hang out with us all. i felt so pleased and excited.

then we went for lunch and four out of five of my uncles were there. and they were just like the celebrities. they held me and kissed my head and talked with me and loved on me and lavished me with love and attention. like i was the most important girl in the world. like they cherished me more than anything. we had a pleasant lunch and i was sad when it was over and we all had to hug goodbye, but they, too, promised to come to my house later, to sit around and...well...i don't know. admire and love me more, i guess.

then i had to split up from my mom for some reason and i ended up at this other place, a kind of hotel, i guess. and my stepdad was there. and i got a bad feeling in my stomach. he had just come back from a trip to japan and had brought me souveniers that he wanted to give me. we sat at this table in a reception area, a lone table, and he was showing me videos and trinkets. i remember there was one really weird video of japanese people running around tokyo and singing about how much they loved "soya cream! soya cream!" and my stepdad thought i'd like it since it was about soy and not dairy. he was trying really hard to be nice to me, to win me over. over his shoulder i saw two blonde young women approaching us, they were wearing aprons and uniforms, so i knew they were employees of the hotel or restaurant, whatever we were sitting in. one of them was carrying a cream pie. yeah, the kind that gets used in all those movie pie fights. i could see they were planning to pie me! however at the last moment i dodged and they pied my stepfather instead, who laughed and laughed, and i realized that he had been planning this pie fight all along...that he had thought it would be fun and that i would enjoy it. instead i felt creeped out and really not like i wanted to be in a pie fight with my stepdad and two young blonde hotties. i managed to pick up the pie plate with the remnants of the pie in it and toss it, violently, at the waitress who had brought it over initially. i then got up and ran. i knew, without looking behind me, that my stepdad had another pie to through and that he was coming after me. i tried yelling at him to stop, that it wasn't fun, and i didn't want to participate, but he just laughed and laughed. i came to a set of stairs that i had to run down and even though i went as quickly as i could, it still wasn't fast enough. my stepdad took the stairs three at a time, laughing the whole way, pie in hand, and he caught me right at the bottom, and smashed the pie into the back of my head. and all i could think was how upset i would be to go home to all my loving uncles and all the loving, funny, comforting male celebrities that would be there, covered in foam and crying, because my stepdad wouldn't leave me alone.

it started with me walking down a dark street, lit with a lonely halogen streetlamp, the light yellow and sallow and shallow, not penetrating corners or shadows or shrubs. i felt i was being watched, and hastened my steps. i got to my house (which was not my house at all) and walked up the few stairs to the front door, key in hand. i lived on a cul-de-sac, and the blunt end of it was to my left, and there were no houses there, just overgrown bushes and weeds and a small hollow through them into darkness, a path that i knew led to a vacant lot beyond. i could hear someone in that dark, brushy hollow. they were coming towards me. it wasn't the sound of twigs snapping due to footsteps or talking or even breathing. it was the sound of a little radio controlled car bzzzing along in the dark. my hands were shaking and i felt that if i didn't get in my house, and then lock the door behind me, whoever was maneuvering that r.c. car through the dark growth would get me. and get me good. so of course i was trembling so much i couldn't get the key in the lock, and my breath was coming so hard and fast and my heart was beating so hard my vision was shakey, and the r.c. car was sounding nearer and nearer and i got more and more panicked, when finally the tumblers in the lock tumbled, the door swung open, i glanced to my left at the dark hollowed underbrush and the r.c. car had just appeared at the apex of the muddy path and was about to whine down the slight, dirty slope onto the pavement and towards me, and i slammed the door shut, and turned the deadbolt. there. safe. i pressed my back against the door and looked around to get a feel for "my" house. i was alone - no family. it was dimly lit, only one lamp on in the whole place.

the layout was completely different from the townhouse i live in. i went into the kitchen and it was the kitchen in my grandparent's old house, before they condo'ed themselves. i looked in the fridge and it was my grandparent's food - processed cheese, white bread, old school hot dogs, soda, popsicles. i left the kitchen and walked into the living room. there was my mac. i sat down and decided to check my email. there was the email from my stepdad that i have yet to reply to because i'm still angry. then i went to my yahoo account and found a message from a mama - who, as far as i know, doesn't actually exist - named nicky. and in her email she tells me all about how her long, beautiful hair is what has made her crazy, made her hurt her little toddler son, samuel. and how she figured out that if she shaved her head, all the bad things she did and does would go away, and her son would be safe. and there were pictures there, of her. before she shaved her head and after. and she was pretty and had interesting eyebrows and the pictures were all webcam quality. probably over a dozen of them. the final pictures, she obviously made a kind of top knot out of all her beautiful long hair and then just shaved off most of the sides and the back. on the shaved part she had sloppily shaved her name in big block letters, from ear to ear, across the back. then she took the topknot out and let the remaining long hair fall over the shorn parts. it looked terrible and i cried. in the last picture she was blowing me a kiss and i could see the top of samuel's head. i cried and cried, but didn't know what else to do. i couldn't think of anything to write to her. i didn't know where she was. all i had was this email, these pictures.

i found my way to an upstairs room, like a den, and there was leon, sitting in the dark, on a pulled out sofa bed, watching television. i could hear that laurel was somewhere else in the house, crying. i said to him, "why is laurel crying? why are you ignoring her?" and he said that she had been doing this all night, refusing to sleep, saying she was scared, and that he was sick of her playing games surrounding bedtime. but i could hear that her crying was different than the crocodile tears she occassionally sheds when she's feeling she's not getting enough attention at bedtime. it was desperate sounding, scared. i said, "where is she? i don't know our house tonight. everything is weird?" and he looked at me strangely and said, "where we always put her to sleep...the basement." and i got this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and walked out of the room and down the stairs to the main floor, and then found the closed door the basement, where i stood and could hear laurel's very terrified-sounding cries. i opened the door and called to her, "laurel, laurel, come up here, mama's here, come on up," but she either couldn't hear me over her own tears or else ignored me. i did not want to go down into the pit of blackness, but forced myself to take a few steps, feet dissolving into murk. she cried and cried. "laurel, come up now, mama's here, please come up for hugs and cuddles," i said, voice wavering. crying, crying...then suddenly, no crying, and as my heart stopped, her small face appeared out of the darkness at my feet. her eyes were dark, liquid pools of terror, water simmering in the bottom lids. "laurel, it's okay." she said nothing, and instead started to climb my legs, as if i were tree and she were monkey. it felt revolting and scary, almost like she wasn't really my daughter, but was instead a kind of wild animal with perhaps-not-innnocent intentions. she scrabbled up my body and held tight around my neck with her legs wrapped around my waist, and wouldn't let go, not talking, and no longer crying, just clinging. and when i touched the back of her head, to stroke her hair and try to comfort her, even though she didn't really feel like my daughter, it was wet...thick, wet, stickiness. before i could look at my fingers, i woke up.