Chalking Up City Hall

Rally was held at 7pm last Thursday.
We decided to let the mayor and the councillors now how we felt through chalk artwork.

Sunday evenings at the coffee shop,
on an off-road from the downtown square,
a haven for the anonymous, and lingering ghosts,
a pool of stale air and lights buzzing like moths.

I like to spend these nights,
sitting across from an empty seat,
elbows resting on a naked table,
hospital clean if you exclude
the rim stain from my coffee cup.

I lower my eyes as strangers flicker past,
avoiding conversation is key.

And all I need is to hear their voices
muffle into everything else:
the shrieking car alarm, the bubbling espresso machine, the drunken university students,
clamour folding into one,
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz -

My internal film, a soundtrack:
segments of footsteps flickering
with the traffic,
while I piece strips
of life together, content
to sit alone in this coffee shop,
poised like a loaded gun
within a two foot range of my target -waiting.

Taking Off Edie Sedgwick’s Clothes

First, her earrings shaped like chandeliers,
unclasping one by one and
placed within her ivory jewellery box.

And her black beret,
pulling static from her hair.

Then her long cotton leotard, a more timely matter,
as her dark sleeves inched off her shoulders,
tugging the supple cloth down her thighs
until it sat in a clumsy pool beneath her feet,
while my fingers lingered at her toes.

You will want to know
that she was leaning against a factory wall,
smoking, with a child-like grin,
counting the cold tiles on the floor,
kicking the cotton leotard from her body.

The satin feel of a woman’s pair of stockings,
is something to be savoured,
and I proceeded in perverse expectation,
peeling layers from her hips, her legs, and her pink ankles,
unwrapping the shell from her body,
until I finally reached her.

Later, I wrote in a notebook,
that she was like a Rock’n’Roll Goddess,
but of course, I cannot tell you everything –
the way her breath stunk from cigarettes,
how her words spilled like asphalt
every time we spoke.

All I can tell you is
that the fake city
lights shone through the window
and made her skin a translucent shade of green,
so when I tried to see her body,
naked as she was,
all I had was the outline of her neon silhouette,
her white bones,
and her still face,
like kissing a cold statue.

Frenzied-state.
Let's lament some more.
Memory-whore for times when
we were too naive to believe that life was not an impossible feat,
that we could cope
at least
get through these days
without the stagnant shadows
of childhood-dentity crisis.
These cracks -
shake storms
triumphant winds,
blow past these wounds,
tear careless seams apart,
we get through these days,
lament some more,
memory-hoard-
for times before
we were disillusioned.

She sits in silence,
the world is so sad.
Songs seem lifeless,
repetitive beats,
these notes fall flat,
and the world collapses once again.

People melt,
their voices cry in unison,
the monotonous chant,
sing-song
again-again,
these songs,
their words,
seem so tired and forced,
these words fall flat,
and the world collapses once again.

She feels so trapped,
suffocated,
feels forced to move,
these feet fall lifeless,
no room to dance,
her legs resign,
like all other limbs in apathy,
her feet fall flat,
and the world collapses once again.

If I could,
I would,
hold these wounds against my chest,
warrior-child,
protector,
modern-woman-witch-heart-healer,
but these hands can't heal,
the world in which we're forced to live,
get up,
put on a pair of pants,
this world will not get better,
the world falls flat,
and all collapses once again.

Posess the strength to heal,
posess the strength to think,
to lead, to grow.

i am humble when i feel misguided,
as if a confused glance,
and plea for re-direction,
could calm this ego,
settle, mellow, tame,
the girl rage,
let me
feel safe,
in this gender cage - unlearn
what is painful in unlearning.

To speak. To be. To break.
This China doll estate.
To hurt to heal.
To re-create.

But what if I make a mistake?
This doubt,
this fear,
this silence
requires unlearning.

you tell me to be,
stand strong,
and rooted.
to be mean,
to be me.
to say no.

self-sacrifice is for those who have the self to give,
to give what I haven't given myself,
is to starve,

my heart grows thin.
i want to thrive again.

i know. i can. i'm scared.

this resignation,
to loss,
requires unlearning.

I want to win,
to live again,
to shout, to scream, to rage,

this
int-er-nalization,
of fear and silence,
these scriptures of thou shall and shall not do or say,
requires
unlearning.