Fender

Last night in my dreams I revisited my unearthly city.

Things were getting active, a thin carnival air afloat like a banner between the college and the station.

Busy congregants, rainbow flags, milling and dispersing, froth drawn in lattes. 

Long-haired white boy with a battered Jag, southpaw girl in black, fingerpicking. Some unruffled breed of left coast mood.

A few blocks west, in the heart of the old city, place is older than the pope—leaden roofs, water spots on the ceilings, stone and brick facades begrimed, soot and mildew conspiracies lined up to dare to undermine us.

Forever betrayed by AWOL landlords.

Christ. We stopped in the road before we got here, stock still in a surge of brown sludge while we blinked and tuned our instruments. A cloud of wasps swirled overhead until they selected leniency. Moved on. We both did, all did. Found our niche, learned our secret selves, cried witless sidewinder love amid indica dreams, released livewire doves above a field of cranes, serial killers, statistical umbrellas, effluent, cupping in our stigmatic palms our entire reassembled DNA. 

"I love you, material girl."

"You total sap, ethereal boy."

Make a well with your hands and hold the liquid sun. Dispense its dewy gold in ways you see fit. I will swallow what you offer, nod when you make demands, bow to you. To it. You are my receptacle, and I am now your spout; clasp this sacrifice and erase all doubt. That which unfolds within is doubled without. It's lucid, doxxed, subservient, a shaky route running beside the oxen, battling chromosomes, rewriting countless pages, horns… flippant, ardent, genetic, recurrent. 

The library in Swift Current. Remember that? A late Saskatchewan afternoon in fall. The sun dipping low, no phone, no laptop, a need to communicate. Our poet of the prairies gone, will anyone remember this if I forget to draft it?

He killed the living fuck out of himself, didn't he? Long before discarding him, I envied him.

But yes. Things got tense, went south-southwest. We found a cabin deep in the trees, a dubious escape hatch. You laughed when I said I'd keep us warm, but I kept us warm, foraging for kindling, sparking a flint, building a fire from twig to branch to trunk. The bullet in your midriff worked its way inside, and however much you tried to laugh, I saw the panic in your eyes, the blunt and obtuse dimming of your light. 

Without you, I am nothing. Don't die. Please don't die.

You died.

Love and disappointment, fond planetary light and its chill shadow, will stalk us to our last reluctant breaths.

I swept the parchment monarchs and the fallen hummingbirds, built of them the driest pyre. Alone, I found the edges of my city once again. Staggered into an urban patch, a battalion of grime, a place where grunge once thrived that now approximated ruined, tearless hives. Designated merciless, a spice-bound nest. What and where are you? By whom are you condemned or damned or blessed? The place you lived has been abandoned, echoless, and always I must clarify your plans and glean your schemes, and come at last to rest. 

Ten Minutes

A ten minute writing exercise we did on BlergPop.

5:10 p.m.

The light outside is pale and delicate but the sky is oddly dark. There is nobody in the street. I hate the sight of that yellow house with the stupid giant Monarch butterflies on the side. But the branches have light green frosting, the instrument of nature tuning itself for the spring crescendo.

There are sounds above my head, footsteps on hardwood floors, happy married sounds. I can’t resent it. I just can’t bring myself to.

My keyboard is so dirty. I can’t actually believe how, all of a sudden, I can objectively see the ingrained dirt of food and drink spills, splashes. It’s disgusting.

What will I eat tonight? What is everyone eating? What are they eating in Paris now? It’s past one a.m. there. Maybe someone is drinking from a great litre stein filled with lager on the Champs Elysees. What about Marseilles? That is the France I would prefer right now, the smoky, jazz-filled night. The seediness around the next corner. Danger.

We have divided this world into arbitrary parts. We guard these artificial lines like they matter. They don’t matter. We shoot at others across these lines, if not with rifles with words. Harsh words. We blame in place of accept. We have all done this. When we fall victim to it, we pause. If we are not cowards, we learn to do it to others less. Most people, however, are cowards. They pass on the hurt instead of saying “no,” gently “no,” we’ll stop that here. Erase that line. Step across it, friend.

I have less than three minutes to finish this piece.

What would I like to say?

The outside light flattened out, became an old faded photograph. I don’t even hear a single dog barking. It’s as if I am trapped inside something from the past that can’t get here, can’t find its way to the present and is fading away because it knows something it can’t impart, as if in possession of some terrible secret it is doomed to keep to itself.

And now, the last minute has sounded. It’s all over.

5:20 p.m.

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David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.