Eleven Syllable Escape.

Passing you by – your feet sinking deep into downtown pavement, eyes fixed to shell toed shoes counting careful steps – I barely recognize you.

Thin hair drops in limp lines from scalp to shoulder, spreading greys steal strawberry shine from lengthy locks, locks which used to compete with the sun. Your mouth is exploited by sad lines, deep imprinted tears in sallow skin dyed the color of nicotine. Matte mouse eyes skitter about tired lids, the whites yellow, the yellow fissured with splinters of bloodshot stress.

You’ve widened since I saw you last, hips a spill of squishy surplus, button and jeans fighting to stay together.

Turning, wizened fingers wrapped in paper thin skin reaching for my shoulder, your mouth a cracked red raw O, you say: hullo, girl. How’s your pretty life?

A sideswept chasse and I miss your grip, my hesitant smile a defensive apology for your attempted touch.

Again, you say: how’s your pretty life?

I scrunch my eyes, look you over, try to find the you I knew way back when you used to smile and shine, your packaging still smooth and store-front sexy, your laugh like rushing water, gurgling, bubbling.

Good, happy: I say.

Fidgeting hands smooth a hand-knit tunic over threadbare jeans as you chuckle, the sound of desperation like wheezing sand paper. Yeah, you say. Me too.

You flick a fired butt, the ember grazing paper skin – a quick ignition close to setting you aflame, your widened rack a torch.

Awkward pause, a beat too long, and I think of all the things I’d like to say:

Remember when we sat up all night and laughed until the moonlight cracked to let the dawn in?

Remember sitting on the kitchen floor in the first apartment we shared, eating spaghetti off one green cracked plate, red sauce splashing linoleum only we were in charge of cleaning?

Remember the friends, the drinks, the parties, the fun, the fun, the fun – the fun that poured so easily out of you, the unstoppable, beautiful fun?

Standing, your shoulders a horse shoe slump, I cannot find the you I knew way back when; the hardened turtle shell is hiding the you who used to be and so I don’t say the things I’d like, but instead say:

Great. Okay, then. Was nice to see you. Take care!

Faux enthusiasm, an eleven syllable escape and you’re gone from my memory again.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Again.

I wake up in last night’s clothes, sticky with sleep, on the living room floor again; staring at the stained stucco roof of the old building where I’ve planted my urban life roots, I feel that familiar pang of regret start to turn my tummy, a tumble dry cycle of jumbled emotions slicked with the hangover grease of one glass too many.

The early morning sun streaks the tasks of another workaday week across the wall – an hour and I’m late again; a grumble escaping cracked lips, I drag my wrinkled jeans, my addict genes, down the hall to the bathroom stall and wash away last night, astringently cold water making make-up heavy eyes sting black tears.

Stepping out of last night’s tired clothes, I pull up today’s panties, pink with shame, but forget to change my socks again; a quick glance in the mirror and my habits are an obvious expression: red nose, bagged eyes, ruddy cheeks, creased forehead.

Checking my wallet waiting in line for a dose of wake-me-up, I count the cash left over and am thankful I didn’t spend it all again; fumbling with the creamer and the sugar and the headache, I nearly miss the bus and spill medium roast all over the hand I forgot to wash the bar stamp off of before leaving the house.

Licking ink and coffee off the backhanded skin that slapped me with the realization I’m too old for this shit, I plough into a blue shaded bus seat and catch the reflection of a little girl growing the worn lines of absent memory and feel that old familiar sting sneak up the length of my oesophagus again; bitter bile biting at my throat, I choke it back and close heavy eyes and silently count the stops until I arrive at work – just on time, but not all there.

The click-clack of a life wasted on an ergonomically adjustable keyboard sets the tempo of a day behind the desk again; the formulaic process divided into billable hours when, at the end of the day, I go home, hit the bottle back and start all over – again.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

In Somnolent.

Holding sleep in the palm of my hand, I pull closed tired joints, each knuckle choking one more hour.

A hint of night light paints dancing wolves on white walls – the snarling silhouetted pack surging forward, pulling back: a sympatric shimmy, tree leaves making me believe I’m being hunted.

A sway in starlight and the man enters my room. He’s been here before, the stench of his dark trench coat a familiarly sticky scent of dank earth and rusted blood and dried skin.

The shadow bird perched on the closet door quavers: he has a knife, little girl. Be careful, little girl.

Heart knocking ribs, crouching under covers, arms clamped to wobbly knees, eyes pressed closed, sharp blows of breath heave heavy lungs – puffing away shadow puppets playing amygdala tricks.

A negotiation between conscience and imagination, the wolves retreat and the bird stops singing but the man, the man draws his blade. Refulgent metal catching moonlight, his silver sharp tongue licks slick shank.

On theatre walls of bedroom late, drips of backlit blood run a slippery wash over white paint, soak into threaded carpet, rise past dusted baseboards, spill over well-worn chair covers, splash into dresser drawers ajar, creep to the edge of the bed and, lapping at bare phobic toes curled, stain sheets, a blossoming claret bloom spreading over pillow shams, dying nightgown hem.

It’s been days since I last slept.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

The Jackhammer Waltz.

Machine gun rattle, the jackhammer bullies each one of my slippery dream thoughts hard into the spring-wet pavement. Sunlight vibrating the length of each rat-tat skips through the cloudy window. It is morning and I am red-wine dry. Smacking stained lips, the sheets shush and rustle as I turn over and over in the covers – a twisted game of hide and seek.

I share my first cup with the construction workers four stories down – leaning against the coerced chain link fence, it bowing under their weight, they raise their indestructible faux-titanium travel mugs their wives and girlfriends wiped out and refilled just that morning as a half hearted cheers when I step out onto the balcony.

“Morning boys,” I mutter, sticky morning breath swirling steam above the lip of my pink mug.

Skyscraper blue glass bounces stretched rainbows of Saturday sun across tired city streetways. A lineup trickles out the door of Money Mart, weekend tired warriors rubbing grubby mitts across crinkled foreheads, eyes squinting back early light, creased post-dated pay checks shoved into flannel shirt pockets.

Trundling traffic takes corners with less urgency. The lights shift slower. No one honks.

Like the sound of wind chimes tickling the backdoor of grandma’s house, the tink of green glass shimmies up the drainpipe. The calculated sorting of glass versus can has begun; the tchick-tchick of shopping cart wheels on winter-worn back alley pavement a race of rattled metal over uneven cracks.

Batonning the fan-belt crescendo screech, I conduct the moving echo of sirens cascading up and down, up and down. The concrete symphony swells and wanes on the dew-wet lips of wind, a compliment to the bellowing chorus of construction holler.

Keeping rhythm with the smacking steps of flip-flop clad feet, the song of spring has arrived downtown.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

Bite my Thumb.

I toss the butt of my cigarette on the lawn of the Fort Knox Methodist Church and bite my thumb at God.

My mother – she did not raise me to be spiteful, but I am angry for no reason.

Frustrated at the sun shining in my eyes, I shuffle another smoke from my pack and fumble the lighter from my pocket as I cross an intersection without looking both ways, causing a white rusted work truck – gas cans and loose wrenches slamming to the front of the bed – to come to a quick stop.

I am immortal on days when the wind is just right and it’s not so cold and the perfect tune pumps through the cheap ear buds I bought on sale – the same ones that, if not sitting just-so, shock my ear drum with enough electricity to make me swear out loud on the street corner – the days when I understand, you and me, we’re not so different.

Of course, your past, it’s not quite the same storyline – yours is glossy pictures and sappy songs and saved birthday cards and glowing memories.

I am jealous – mine is cocaine hangovers and morning after bruises and tear-wet pillows and “I’m sorry” two minutes too late.

Your new girl, I bet she’s pretty – after school special pretty, all blond hair and cute giggle and pretend morals. I bet she’s popular – teen magazine popular, all Friday night parties and saved lunch room table and doting offers: “let me, babe.”

I bet she’s boring – wet cardboard boring, all uninterested in learning, experiencing, living, laughing. I bet she’s easy to please – bobble head nod: “oh yes, if you want to. Oh I don’t care, only if you do.”

The doormat I wipe my feet on.

**

Down on the platform waiting for the train, we are all performers.

I pop my coat collar and stand wide legged, straight backed and take inventory.

New shoes and old coat, he paces back and forth checking the time again and again – a big rush for the long wait when, at the end of the date, she’ll say: “let’s just be friends.”

Androgyny perched on the edge of the bench fights the urge to cross legs, ankles, fingers – stay cool.

Hardass twisting bent baseball cap left, right, 180, 360, he can’t remember which train’ll get him home.

Student, lonely nose shoved in book, salty fingers shovelling cheese chips between raw lips, nervous mouse eyes jumping back and forth and back again, she’s wondering if she’ll miss her favourite late night true crime drama.

The train blows in and we all scatter – our performance interrupted by life.

**

Shambling away from my stop, I walk head down against the wind. When I run into you I nearly knock you over, my shoulder a solid thump against your chest.

We head into the bar.

The awkward hello: a crisscross of words over the liquor lacquered table, the shine of our consonants bouncing off bar grubby pints. We are thirteen again – second guessing our intentions, wondering if he feels the same way she feels the same way I feel. I am inspired to walk right out the door and not look back because I don’t want to see your puppy dog eyes when I say the words: “it was just a phase.”

You and me, playing the game, we smile and pretend nice – we are sharing our bucket and shovel in the sand before lunch even though I want to push your face into the rotting shore seaweed and make you say “give.”

You hug me and you smile and you say: “I promise baby, we’ll always be friends,” smirking the same way you do when you tell your new girl behind closed doors I am the worst thing to happen to you since your wisdom teeth were pulled.

We order another round. I drink mine down fast, before you even sip the foam from the lip of your glass.

In the morning you’ll remember the fragments of my smell, the shine of my smile, the ratty shoes with the frayed laces I wore. You won’t remember my clever conversation, my witty comebacks, my biting, bitter laugh. You’ll remember the score and the fourth glass and the impossibility of us having such a good time.

I’ll only remember the awkwardness lurking dark and weird in the corner, the one I believe I created.

xoxo
M.L. H’art

Conversations with Dad (Canto II)

Choking its neck, his plump red-raw fingers – small flaps of torn skin pulled loose around the cuticles – curl tighter and tighter. He tilts the bottle to his lips, a light amber trickle dampening his beard. Swallowing loudly, a gush of afternoon-warm beer swills in his gullet; taking pause to catch his breath, he pushes wheezing stale air through the last of his teeth – only three calcium soldiers stand stained, nicotine and alcohol pocking their once strong enamel armour.

Wiping a paw across a wrinkled brow, his white widow-peaked hair revealing dark weather-leathered scalp, he averts eye contact. Lecturing the carpet as he speaks, his words fall into the snags of the flat orange-yellow flowers.

“I won’t be running for office any time soon,” his laughter deteriorating into a fit of phlegm-heavy coughs. “Do what you will,” a hand covering his mouth as he struggles to catch his breath, three sharp sucks of air kicking at his chest bone.

“I get to see what you’re going to do with this before you show anyone, right?” his hand waving away invisible flies when he says the word “this.”

“Like, editor’s rights before publishing? I should have some creative control over the way you paint my life. Then again, you don’t know the half of it. Not like you’ll share the worst of my story,” a wobbly chuckle, the sound of gravel squished under a worn-soft running shoe.

“Don’t matter much to me. I’ve done the worst I can with this life,” absently tapping a heavy gold ring against the lip of the table, his feet shuffle under the table as he readjusts his weight to fit a chair too small for his decades-widened girth. A hand patting his rotund tummy, he struggles as his lifts his weight. He adjusts the collar of his plaid driving jacket once steady on his feet.

“Nope, don’t matter much to me. Let’s go have a smoke.”

Outside, talking with a smoke in his hand, he is animated. He tells stories of a friend named Weasel who got them kicked out of the strip joint in Winnipeg the time Weasel tried to fall asleep in the girls’ pile of blankets set to the side of the stage. Or the time Weasel shoved a half empty beer bottle into the open fly of his pants and asked all them girls to take a taste. The stuff of urban legend.

Gasping the life out of the last flakes of nicotine caught between his finger and the filter, he tosses the butt to the ground, grinding it cold with the heel of his steel-toeds. Coughing again, the shudder shaking giant shoulders, his broad height becomes round and soft, old and worn. He throws open the door and yells on his way back to his seat: “Sweetheart, bring another round of beers, will ya?”

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Go.

I am a fish.

A great, big yellow pike. Eyeshine mirroring the glint of light falling in slow layers below the surface of ink dark water, I am gills and fins and olive gold scales.

I am slicked by a current carrying me along shallow shore lines, just out of reach of your lure. Unaware of my own cold heart, I am an ectothermic experiment in love and loss.

I am a fish.

A ripe pink salmon, dorsal fin flapping the wisdom of rivers and oceans, intuitively defying death by defying life: a refusal to spawn to die.

I am a last meal on the river Boyne, escaping punishment by frustratingly swimming upstream, but suffering the consequence of a tapered tail by the hand of Thor.

I am a fish.

One half a pair of shining gold fish, I lap the shores of happiness caught inside the reflection of a glass bowl, an endless cyclic swim taunting freedom just the other side.

I am a fish.

The intuitive minnow slipping in and out of your dream current.

I am a fish.

Ichthus. Matsya. Ea. Aphrodite escaping Typhon. The spawn of Mangala. Divine Mother granting you fertility. Fionn mac Cumhaill, giver of knowledge.

I am a fish.

xoxo
M.L. H’art

Gretel Says.

The receiver smashed into plastic cradle, a resounding silence filling the space inside my ear where your voice sat only a moment ago, I say: “Please don’t.”

Ringing with the echo of all the things I left behind when I asked you to leave such a long time ago, my ears begin to burn: a red hot awkwardness crawling in through the canal, kicking at the drum, slipping down the tube into my throat until my tongue smacks of your tinny aftertaste. Trying to defend myself to walls staring blankly at me, I say: “It was nothing. It meant nothing.”

Stomping my feet, I am surprised by the protein-crack of eggshells, the same ones I tiptoed over when you raised your voice too loud. To compensate for all the noise, I whisper: “Shh, you don’t understand.”

Between the accusation and the unforgiveness, you didn’t leave much time for me to tell you: “I can explain!” Between the distrust and suspect, you didn’t leave much time for me to say: “I came back because I thought I loved you.”

Staring straight ahead, pinpoint eyes glazed with the familiar slick of liberally slathered guilt, I am leading down the same path where I’ve already dropped a line of homeward bound crumbs. “It’s all so familiar,” I muse.

But the me I met when I left you, the me you decided wasn’t for you, she’s kicking at my gut, raising her voice, punching my throat – quick jabs bringing out indistinguishable sounds: a groan, a growl, a bark.

The me I met when I left you, she’s holding a road map. On the map, there’s a clearly defined line. The line? It’s leading me in the opposite direction of you.

The me I met, she says: “This isn’t about you.”

xoxo,
M.L. H’art

Spreekt U.

Passing me on the street, the man, he asks me: Spreekt u het Nederlands?

Caught off guard, choking up my words: Oh, uh, no. I’m sorry.

A hand on my shoulder, he stops me: Kunt u alstublieft mij vertellen waar een honderd en tiende straat is?

He is red. Red pants, red shirt, red face – a full up thermometer taking the downtown temperature of passersby.

With more force: Een honderd en tiende straat.

Polite affirmation, flicking his strange hand from my coated shoulder: I’m sorry sir, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.

Agitation, a hand covering wayward eyebrows, pausing as he swipes a palm over his greying beard; a giant, anxious sigh: Geen begrijpt u niet.

Me, desperately looking for help in the faces of others, shrugging when they can’t: Are you looking for a business?

Shaking his head, a downtrodden look, frustrated he says: Ik kijk voor een bijzondere zaken. Een honderd en tiende straat.

Parroting his words, I am the puppet and he the ventriloquist: Ti-end strat? Ti-end strat.

The words, they roll around my tongue, smooth rocks slick with saliva. I get a feel for the letters: Tenth street? Are you looking for tenth street?

Flashing my palms, a wide open gesture, I count to ten like I did when I was a little girl – slowly, pointing to each finger, saying subsequent numbers louder and louder.

Nodding my head: Tenth street? Yes?

Confused eyebrows rumpled, a deep v of concern pinched tight between small mouse eyes: Kunt u alstublieft mij helpen? Een honderd en tiende straat. Ja? U hoort niet mij.

I throw my white flag in the air – hands palm up to the dark night sky, a show of surrender : I’m so sorry, I just don’t know what you’re saying. I wish I could help you.

The v relaxing, his eyes lighting up: Vergeet het, onnozele meisje.

The despair of failure, my mouth a half moon smile: I’m really sorry. I hope you find wherever it is you’re going.

A laugh erupting from his lean frame as he pats my shoulder, pushing off down the street: Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m just fucking with you!

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Quick Click.

I remember the conversation: the words a short synaptic trip back in time to the day you told me you’d never forget.

“I’ll remember this forever,” you said confidently. “I won’t ever forget,” the promise sealed with a kiss on the cheek and a big bear hug pulling my slim shoulders in close to your chest.

Four short weeks later (one month; seven hundred and thirty hours; forty-three thousand, eight hundred and twenty nine minutes) you forced yourself to forget.

With one quick click.

One quick click, and you throw down a devastating roadblock to stop the electronic transmission between experience and cyber-memory. One quick click and I’m gone; emotional dissatisfaction easily erased in the age of instant information. No need to admit I existed if, and suddenly, the continuum of time shared is no longer necessary to the history of where I’ve been or where you’re headed. By deleting the pain, the truth buries its head deep in the dark sands of the Hippocampic Ocean, leagues out of reach.

And you carry on.

But, the psyche of truth is a species of super-order easily awaken: perfectly evolved, this cartilaginous wet fish splashes about the brain slapping up waves, sending the memory of us spiralling for shore on the crest of thoughts pushed too far down.

The shore is near, but the tide is strong and we’re carried right back out to sea: the ocean’s plaything, a yo-yo of back and forth, forth and back.

This fish, this shark, sinks razor sharp teeth into the soft pink flesh of humility: just when we pat ourselves on the back for being so mature, for handling awkwardness with such poise, for finally growing up, we rightly lose life blood for tempting the temper of Mother Nature’s osmoregulatory balance between you, me, experience, life.

We throw it all out of whack.

When the clouds part and the seas calm, the shark swims back to the depths of dark ocean; the wreckage still sticks to the shore – a broken toothed smile reminiscent of happier times, now shadowed with decaying holes.

Just like that: one quick click and I’m gone.

xoxo
M.L. H’art