MyLightsAtNight

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[mylightsatnight]

Do I need another?

Did I ever? The Fog goes down sweet, the scent is smooth, the cafe is quiet, and the breeze is strong, yet fair. This writing will do nothing for academic journals, but the library in my mind deserves a calm lighting as much as any other wooden venue.

I see paintings on the wall, exceptional artists exculpating the flaws from their brushes' stroke. Have I been there? Maybe not, but I feel myself in the-

(move this post to somewhere in the 400's. 461 sounds good)

[mylightsatnight]

Dried Ink Sonnets

and the city started to become quiet, understanding the mourning that it would soon face. The boy, now man, that it had harboured all these years was moving to a new place. A new spot, a journey began, a new province discovered.

There will always be time for lament, time for reflection. But action, there are few moments that truly exist where action is actionable. Where potentials turn into possibles. Where someday's become right now...

After the drama, there came so much trauma,

and my heart was so quickly un-homed.

I braced for the burden, and learned how to hurt them,

deflect the fire within to the world.

I caused damage a-plenty, and let myself down, see,

my pieces were fragments and shards.

But in that lesson, the pain was the best one,

the father and son said: "Learning's hard."

So years had then passed, I cried, and I gasped,

out for air, but there was nothing of merit.

No reason to press on, but the memr'y of bird song,

and the gravestone green shade of mistletoe.

I returned to the wilds, and out of snow I carved smiles,

then by spring, melted, and tears streaking jokers.

Now it's nothing but filler, lost timing of love's killer,

If her heart was a hearth, I would still be the poker.

Now the story's grown long, has not even begun,

But the truth lay deep in the stable.

For the eyes of the devil, caught my tongue in such drivel,

Then the horses ran off, my eyes, to horizon and mabel.

Tell me of the summer, tell me of the fall,

Be reminded of the seasons, your heart felt so tall.

Then remember the springtime, and the deep winter freeze,

Where you were hopeless and broken and fell to your knees.

As this chapter comes closed, as this book nears it's end,

Know that I never once faked love, never did pretend.

I was always a good man, even when I faltered,

I never cheated, or lied, I just fell short of Love's altar.

So as the words do run out, and the ink all runs dry,

Love, just know I was there, just know that I tried.

As I watch the light stream in, to this cabin of shadow,

I know I can be light, and I have become healed.

[mylightsatnight]

Give me the everything of nothing.

I walked in today, she looked at me, smiled, and asked if I wanted a London fog. I returned the smile, replied with a yes, took my seat, drank, wrote, enjoyed my time, and realized that I had to leave this place in the past.

When you are recognized, when you have become a monument to a certain idea, when when guardian gargoyles can pinpoint the sheep that they are protectors of...That's when it's time to go.

...Then I clicked the letter of acceptance...Which means a whole new chapter is about to start. I am terrified...Terrified of how much I'm ready to go, and how I don't want to leave.

I don't like to reflect if something is a mistake, or the right choice. You simply take the right action in each moment, and you learn. I'm trying to learn, and I'm getting there now.

Closer, and soon I'll be farther away. We're almost done...

I've said a lot in all of these posts, and I've even said more than once: "If you take nothing else from this blog..." But this is the first time I'll ever be saying:

"I'm leaving. I hope to be remembered. I never wanted to be known, but I don't want to be forgotten either. It's funny how we want the opposite things at the same time, but that's the human condition I suppose."

Here I go.

[mylightsatnight]

Substitutions.

I did not get the drink I wanted today. They were low on teabags. I guess the milkman did not arrive. The kettle must have had a faulty power cord, and the mugs must have all been smashed, dirty, or worse.

I smiled. I did this, because I thought about how so often these days I kept repeating to myself: "It's time for a change. I need something different. Let's make today unique." Consequently, it was. The drink order that hasn't changed for very close to a decade now, has become fractured due to circumstances beyond universal control...But maybe that's what the universe wanted.

So I orderer a matcha latte per the recommendations of the barista. A warm smile, through literal rose-colored glasses. (...How must he see the world...?)

I learned today, that after the events of nine and eleven, that for some time after, radio stations were banned from playing certain tracks. This makes sense. The panic, hysteria, and uncertainty of New York in the late summer of 2001, was precarious at best, and painful at worst. I understand the reaction. The fear, the grief, must have been uncountable if numeric, and untouchable if behind a glass pane.

I am familiar with these emotions, grief, fear, melancholy. But lately, hell, maybe because a different colour froth has blessed my lips, I feel spurred to feel something different too. So nearly 25 years later... Let me point out some laughter, in light of the lost.

Sugar Ray - Fly

Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin' for you

Godsmack - Bad Religion

and perhaps the crowning jewel:

Neil Diamond: America.

Now to point out, to the invisible audience that is currently reading, or the future audience reading this forever-imprinted digital blog perhaps another 25 years from now...I don't think the lives lost were funny. I just think if something terrible happens, time passes, and the rules are changed so no laughs can ever happen, then the lives that were lost were in vain.

We are people. We are here now.

It's hard for me to quantify my fear and grief, as it changes so frequently.

It's harder for me to quantify my dreams and beliefs, because they are just dust in the wind. (another one banned.)

So here's an ending note. To the lives lost, and the memories not forgotten.

I like antlers. Most woodland animals are my friends, and those that aren't; I respect the distance we keep, but I feel wonder for their lives...Through lenses coloured Sage, Olive, Fern, and Laurel.

When I build a fire, it is done in a way that I do well. The descriptors around the flames are countless and many...Yet, the source of heat and comfort's words are few and held close. Like a hug from your dog, or a cookie from your grandmother, hot on fingertips and tongue.

I like the way my palm rests on my chin when I'm in deep thought. Sometimes I recall previous paramours I have had. Sometimes it's of the dreams I still chase, and the oceans I must wade through to reach them. Sometimes I wonder my place in the city, and how I knew my place in the country, but the inverse is a puzzle, logic-less in it's feasibility. I was once hillbilly, then I became something more. No better one way or another I suppose.

In the city. I like gold and it's mixtures. Gold and Black. Gold and Crimson. Gold and Grapes even. But outside the city, I like silver more. it doesn't mean it's 2nd place. It's just something with a different finish. The sun does shine silver, if you look between the rays.

And there are songs, that I keep the rhythm and harmony to in the deepest caves of my heart. Jail me. Bind me. Banish me. Kill me. I will still have those plucks of harp and whispers of choral float through my chemical brain. There's no 'where' in this world where music isn't home for me. I know many substitutes...But for music, there is none.

[mylightsatnight]

Опікун - (Guardian)

To my left, a window into a closed down store. It previously stored boudoir books and fantasy-hungry women, searching for a tattoo-covered prince charming in pages of cream and ink. Now, black blinds prohibit light from entering.

To my right, a railing, glass and brass coated. The design, the ornamentation is leaf-based, spiral-bound, curling, curving, the waves of forged alloys on this sundown Friday. Pop-punk on my headphones, jacket thrown askew on the chair, just making my way through this life.

And on the table. My guardian. 'Opikun'.

The half-warm, all-love beverage that has accompanied me through every writing journey, each pen-to-paper moment. It has watched me construct sonnets, and scribble out elegies. It's seen my fingers type essays, compose poems, lyricize my life and each other way that language has passed through my beating heart.

It has bubbles crawling up the side, a single string hanging from the side. It has come in transparent glasses. Opaque mugs. Cardboard cups, dishes, saucers, and coasters to create mosaics with.

There's a chance, that in these 500 posts, you've only been touched by a couple of the words that I've wrote. That's okay if that's the case. Just realize that with each time my hand connected to this blog, that I intended nothing but true feelings. Genuine Bona Fide...

I heard lyrics that reminded me of being so love-drunk, that I abandoned all other ambition. I felt feelings that were so real, and so fleeting, that shooting stars lasted lifetimes. And a few of the times. *chuckles*, Even a few of the times, I ended the session feeling better than the start. I would look out the window, and see the sun, colours changing. The acoustic guitar on the headphones would strike just right, and I would know what to say, I would know a better way to live my life. Sometimes I did the spontaneous thing. Sometimes I did the stupid one, but hell, I learned from that too. I can't tame the tigers. They are wild, they are dangerous, always have been. But at least I'm immune to the venom now. Their teeth may be sharpened each month, but honey,...

I fished with my father on the open lakes of Alberta.

I had coffee with my mother and made her smile expand beautifully.

I've told my friends the qualities in them that truly impressed me.

I've looked deep into the eyes of love, and been wanderlust ever since, dancing through cosmos and cornfields, wherever it may take me...

This life is alright, hell, I'd go as far as to say this life ain't half-bad...

If you don't weaken.

I don't really get a choice there. But I'll truck on.

Find me at the grave, lay me down a flower.

Tell me what you miss, but don't let tears be showers.

~MLAN

[mylightsatnight]

Cornflower Blue Flowers.

I was cocooned in my room. Nearly comatose from the fallout after a breakup. This one hit me like a freight train, at midnight, at the start of the wild wild west.

I heard crackling outside my window, and saw that my parents were having a fire. I put on a lighter bush jacket, and walked out to the plastic chairs, set into a circle of stone, and I sat back on that August night, and watched the embers do their job.

After some time watching, my parents talked to each other, asking questions about each other's day, what to do about the trees on the property, where they should vacation this year, when they started sharing exchanged glances. This was at a time before they knew what I was going through, before they knew what I went through, but in a way, they still never learned. They grew more worried with each look, each 5 minute interval that passed without my utterance of a word. So, after some time, I knew what I had to do.

I walked up to my room, climbed upon my bed, stretched to the top shelf, and blindly started clattering objects around with my hand to the out-of-reach areas. I found what I was looking for, and it was retrieved.

I climbed down from the bed, without even looking at it. I believe it was the item, and a letter. I went back downstairs. Walked over to the chair, stood in front of the fire without looking at my parents, and threw the flower bouqet, and letter directly on top of the flames.

They looked at me, shocked, concerned, worried, afraid. They didn't know what emotion suited that situation. My mother, after a beat, tenderly asked: "What was that you just burned?"

I remember, that I answered something like: "Something that needed to go."

They never asked me what it was after that. They could tell it was plastic flowers and a letter. They knew it wasn't all that environmentally friendly. But they didn't stop me. They didn't lecture me. They accepted it. That was one of the moments I knew I really appreciated them, and all they had done. Even at the times they didn't understand, they accepted, and were there in solidarity.

The flowers were a kind of cornflower blue. They were apology flowers, given to me by an ex girlfriend to make up for something unkind she'd done. It wasn't for the unkind things she would have still done, but the effort to buy something for me, something with meaning behind it, showed a kind of understanding I hadn't experienced before...

But now, I've moved away from that home. 9 years later, and any remnants of the ash from that plastic stem is surely gone by now. Turned into wind particles, blown provinces away into new and unfamiliar oceans. I still have that jacket. I still have the memory of that night, but I don't still have her. This is a good thing. This was my choice, but it doesn't mean my emotions benefited from this.

It's just simply the way it was, and is.

There was a moment, years and years ago.

Now it's no longer a moment.

That's okay.

[mylightsatnight]

Maybe I don't smile back.

They walk by, and they look at me.

It's no different than how I look back at them I suppose. But they see me, and I see them, and within a matter of seconds, in a moment ever-fleeting, never-caught. Their eyes carry on. To the sidewalk, to the street signs, to the other cars on the road, to the other restaurant tables, the empty bus seats. They see me, or rather, they know I was there, but never knew much beyond this.

This isn't always the case.

Sometimes they see me, and they raise an eyebrow, a small semicircle smile starts to form, but drops quicker than an anvil falling off Jupiter skyscrapers. Sometimes it's a wave, a peace sign. I've even seen finger guns before. Once on a blue moon, during a leap year's Aurora Borealis in June, I saw someone wink. That was special, so I kept that memory in a jar.

But usually, they walk past. They see, and their eyes glaze over. Gargoyles protecting their city streets, let no emotion escape, like my sister. Enigmas, aren't we all? Apocalyptic, don't we feel? I can't say whether they ever wanted to see more of me. Maybe they glanced over their shoulder and saw me do a heel kick in the air one time. Perhaps the vision of me blowing frosty smoke rings into the ozone was spotted. The time I leaned over to pet my dog, the time I kissed my two main fingers, and held it up to the moon. She may have giggled at that... All I know is that the water shone with forlorn reverence that only a sinner out of prayers could have sighted. My ticket into heaven is crumpled in my pocket, damp, and half-torn. I don't expect to get validated at the gate. I guess I stand in line because someone in line may let me bum a smoke, maybe I'll crack a joke that makes the sticks laugh, and I'll get the last sip out of the flask before it's confiscated at Pearly's Finest.

I suppose there is a real reason I'm up there at all (Knowing that I'll get booted down). I'd sing Sinnerman on the cloud-slide down to Persephone's tended gardens, and Pluto's Bastion where the Elysian fields reside just beyond. The reason why I stand in line at all, is because some cute redhead, may poke her head out of line, look back at me, and lock eyes. Longer than I've had before, longer than I ever hoped. In that, I'll realize it was worth the lifetime searching for the afterlife second that is gone again,

But a warm memory in a fiery place

is enough to keep my soul apiece.

It's enough, so I'll keep looking at the places where all the eyes avoid:

Each other's.

[mylightsatnight]

Will this become dust?

Light shines through a solid object, and shadows are created.

Oxygen finds it's way to the roots, and life sprouts.

I stumble, and stumble. I'm unaware of the space I occupy, and even less aware of if this space I make up needs to be a different space, or just transformed. Do we mean to take the space we do? Some demand more, some ask for less, and some eliminate their space entirely until they are but specks among fields of stars.

I can't tell you what to do with your life. I don't know what to do with mine. But as I observe, I think I understand an iota better each day. Something happens, something changes, life moves forward. The antithesis of this is someone remembers, feelings change, stasis happens. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the enemy of the future's past is the present I suppose. So how are we supposed to get anywhere at all when everything around us is wrong and right and disastorous? I don't know much else beyond the things I have learned. The things I believed I once knew about the planet, souls, mind and heart are things that have become dust. I see ideas become dust. I see action become dust. So too monuments, philosophies religions and friends. What can we do to prevent anything else from becoming anything but dust? Is there any hope? I don't think there is. I don't think there ever was. What can be, will be. What might be, will be. What was. ...Was it?

This was too much. (Hey this won't count in the total. Delete it before publishing.)

[mylightsatnight]

The moments of '24.

I've been down for 3 days. maybe it's the cycle, maybe it's the inclement weather, burrowing farther into the negatives with each day speeding towards the collapse of '24, and rise of '25. Fewer friends send random texts, but I can still count on a couple for spontaneous calls every couple months...Those really mean a lot to me. But as I drove, I had a moment wherein I needed to recall some deeper moments of this year.

More than any other, this moment came back to me. I was in the kitchen, 8pm, little more than a month ago. I had just gotten mad at some online friends for making an inside joke one-too-many times. There was nothing wrong with the joke, nothing wrong with what they did, or how they said it, I was just incredibly manic, and didn't realize how sensitive I was in that moment. The person I wanted to call me back didn't, and the wife I wanted to hold in my arms didn't exist yet. I pet my dog once, and shuffled to the kitchen. I pulled out the peppers from the vegetable drawer, and got the defrosted chicken. I put the rice-maker on. I sliced mushrooms, minced garlic, and cut the shoots of the green onions. I threw it in oil, prepped the oven, I grated the cheese, and prepared every other step needed for this makeshift recipe I had never done before. I put a jazz playlist on my speaker, and paid close attention to each emotional note they played, and cut the peppers in syncopation to Oscar Peterson's triplets... I felt more calm, setting my mind to an organized task in the chaos soup of my jellied amygdala.

A song came on later, that made me put down the spatula, and permitted me to allow the rice to burn just a little so that I could dance, in my kitchen, at the end of day, alone. I couldn't tell if it was happy, or sad. (Or fuck both those emotions because the real meaning of them is never clear and it's just what we use to explain to children.) I was morose, and jovial, I was distraught and calm, I panicked as I clapped, and I felt relief as my body contorted like explosive corpses. I released something in myself that night. Maybe the only reason I could is because the curtains were drawn, the windows were closed, and even my dog didn't watch what I was doing. But regardless I thought about "A Fisherman's Beard" from Crocus. I thought about swing dancing in that church at 16. I thought about my destructive repetitive patterns that never seemed to improve despite my awareness of such flaws.

and here I break:

and here I return again:

But I don't known if my absence from the keyboard led to any more genuine, or affecting thoughts...

Maybe my search for authenticity through art is as pointless as chasing happiness, because we all know that mountain will rain once you reach the peak, and carry you down the side of the valley...

Sure, I am sorrowed, mourning for my life that could have been. But Surviving, Thriving, and Living are all different states of being that one can not easily convert into until the previous stage is conquered. I fell from grace, and now the lowest layer is where I try to surmount..

I see a couple make their way inside of the cafe I'm in, (shocker) and I realize how fortunate I am that these have remained safe spaces despite how many loves I have taken to each one...Do they still think of me? In broad daylight, or quiet hours of the night? Do I only come up when they see relationship-left-behinds? Little motorcycle statues, and gifts given at monumentally prodigious moments?

I wonder where she is...each one of the she's... and when I'm gone, I just hope they realize it will not be them that was at fault. It was always myself. I could not conquer, I could not overcome. I should have been kinder, calmer, I should have been more. ... I... I wonder if I even could have been, or it's just a farce I say to romanticize the past...

I remember her blonde hair...

It made me picture greek fountains, pouring and shooting water through warm spring days. Her, the statue at the centre, the water honouring her curves, splashing, running, her body stretched and angled in ways that make your libido double. Her smile, and her scent, summertime mint and savoury sage...

If she knew how I thought about her....would that have been enough to make her stay? I don't know... I never have. But '25 is fast approaching, and the devils of the past have no use small-talking the angels who have yet to lose their halo to horns.

[mylightsatnight]

Coal Angel

As I listened to the final note ring out from a song I made 5 years ago, I realized. I realized that there was something in my eyes at 22, that I don't have at 27, and how that 'thing' that was lost was something I thought I'd never be able to misplace. Time turns. Time does not wait, time watches. (In more ways than one.)

I saw the grocery man, carrying his grocery bags back from the store 2 clicks away, with his arms suspended to his side like a stiff marionette. The strings, connected and invisible above him. The season is cold, so he must conserve energy. What else might he conserve though, he could frolick and flounder down these streets with the little stored entropy he still has, but the choice is not chosen.

I saw a lady, short in stature, vacant in stare, stand beside a greyscale car. Maybe waiting for it to unlock from someone walking behind me, but I never looked over my shoulder to check if someone was even there. Maybe she still stands. The cold didn't seem to bother her. But the months that end in: uary, are rather scuary, and there may be promised reasons behind them, but for me, it's always been from the lack of Canuarys.

As I crossed the street, I realized my writing will never be akin to Ginsberg. I will not be discovered, pre-or-post-mortem. I will simply jot my words, and jog my legs, and after enough time, I will return to pushing daisies like the phrase my ancestors once coined. I need to make coin before I go, or that's what the government tells me, but I was told something different... //

As I crossed the street, paying careful attention to the little man in the box, instructing that it was okay to cross the street, (but no one else in my personal life.) I saw an angel. A snow angel. She was covered in black, fully submerged in the sea of shadeless confetti, slow motion rain, frozen in time and structure. The sea of white around us made me feel as if in a mirage. She looked not at my eyes. Did I do wrong? Was it my gender? Was it my lack of sex? I don't know. I know so little, and so much less now that I know more.

Today feels slower. Those words will someday be meaningless once the sun has set, even though behind that blanketed wall of grey, there is no sun we can see. There is no faith we can hold, there is no hope that is certain, but all that we do, all that we carry on for, is to be a piece from a puzzle, and not the last. I am the last breather in this cafe. Laptop, headphones, even the barista stepped into the kitchen. What secrets did Autumn bury under the billionth snowflake? Does the rhythm of the heart matter as much as the choices of the train?

The tracks run one direction, the only choice is to stop or go.

I shovel more coal into the engine to keep warm,

Unsure what gear will be chosen next.

[mylightsatnight]

490

and I've kicked so much snow...

Some of it went into my boot, but most of it just found it's place on the sidewalk, with the rest of the dirt, rocks, icicles, and dreams.

Life's kicked me too.

[mylightsatnight]

And they say Love will come.

And they are right. Love does come. But unexpectedly, un-assuredly, it doesn't rush, doesn't plan. It acts on it's own accord, with it's own priorities, just wanting to bring joy into the lives of these strange humans that have made this place home.

Love will come to her. Maybe her heart got a little dented while studying in Camrose. Her art degree has proved useful in refining her craft. But does she have a dependable job now? Does that matter as little to her as it always did to me? I'm sorry for the way I broke up with you all those years ago. I was young, dumb, and providing excuses won't make the healing any easier. But you learned to pick up the pieces like hair getting swept into the dustpan after your mother cut your hair in the kitchen. The hairdresser was closed that winter break, so she offered to do her best. You said some unkind things because she made your bangs shorter than you wanted them to be, and I should have texted you that night, to see if you were ok. But I didn't, I just asked if you had a haircut when we returned from break, you said yes, in quite a shy way, and then I looked directly into your...beautiful, (but I hate beautiful because it was never specific enough, so I will say more.) I looked into your deep brown eyes, no flecks of hazel, but like a perfectly assimilated cup of hot cocoa, like the warm earth that is one consistent shade around the forest spruce trees, needles all scattered around in cryptic, mythical combinations. Your eyes, which were always one shade, and I never saw any other. But they looked of comfort, of safety, of satisfaction and sunlight, despite their lack of yellow hue. I bet they shone with delight on August lake days, and they warmed the cafe's in the dead of the 40 below winter. Your eyes with no reflection, because you saw the world with a unique advantage. You are brave, strong, independent, and without even a hint of indoctrination of modern trends. You are such a star, happily orbiting your own ellipsis, unaffected by the centre star of your galaxy's pull. I hope Amelia is well, I hope your father didn't hate me too much after all I had done. I hope you know that I drove by your house on occasion, I never leered, never tried to spy through your window or anything. But I just pulled into the loop, and remembered that time we played piano, those times of backyard birthday parties, the bonfires, the harry potter marathon, the jokes, the laughs, and the number of times I couldn't feel my face because I smiled in your happy, happy home. I'm sitting in a cafe, as I always do, at 6pm on a Thursday night, and I saw a picture you posted on Instagram. You don't get nearly the attention you should, and you don't require half the attention that you deserve. You are an unbelievably special person, and it feels like an obese elephant crushing my chest, knowing that you won't read these words, and you might go through life not knowing how many people do have love from you from afar. I hope your horses lived long and healthy lives, despite my personal problems with the creatures. I hope your parents got to keep their house while so many others had to downsize. I hope you had drunken bohemian nights that made your idols of Bowie and Cleese so damn proud. My tears are welling in the corners of my eyes now, but I don't have time to concern myself whether you'd think me weak, brave, or all-together a mess. Some of my high school days I spent with you were the best I ever had, and though our time was short, both dandelions and dark-eyes juncos never stay as long as they should when the cold comes. So now my cold has come, my drink is no longer warm, and I just want you to know one last thing.

That time, I noticed that you got a haircut over the break, and I commented and said that it looked good. ... I saw this glimmer in your eye that I haven't seen in any other person since. Man or woman, child or adult, Lover or friend. Your soul is so bright, that I got to see a fraction of it escape through those...fire-warm brown eyes.

If nothing else in life matters...I'm glad I got to keep that with me.

Keep warm out there, C. Here's wishing you well.

[mylightsatnight]

Cinnamon Stones

And how could they know me without knowing the choices that I made?

The conscious and unconscious that drove me to becoming a different man than the one who woke in the same bed as I. There are secrets to learning to live with yourself. I have not yet find them all, but I pick them up along the way, like a 4-leaf clover that you somehow spotted when getting off the city bus. Like the reddest feather off of a fall Cardinal. Like the last pebble fallen onto the winter's Ice Shelf, pieces falling into the river, and with every small splash a new thought erupts from your genius mind.

I am nothing more than a man who's given his best to staying here. To making his friends laugh, to doing right by his family when he could. Who dreamt of Boxcars Boxcars BOXCARS, and realized that Rapid Roy would never be able to run away from the cops nowadays, and all I'd want for him is the chance to escape, meanwhile I'm ocean-locked in my dry-land city, river running through the center, but the cracks in this heart are beginning to feel more like cinnamon sprinkled on cream cheese, a biting flavour, but not one of spice, one of heat.

Heat in an aware way, but not one that would ever make you reach for the milk. ... Another abstract metaphor, but here I am, and there you are, and whether you're lying on your bed, staring at a laptop, phone, book, ceiling, or other, do just know that once upon a time, about ten years in the mirror of the past, I hummed lyrics while staring at my popcorn ceiling, constructing new constellations, calling myself The Architect of Europa, but then the pain warms me into a burn, and I won't go down to the fridge, but I'll reach a hand towards the stars and try to close my fist around the Milky Way, and you thought I couldn't possibly bring it back to the beverage that your mom gave you a cup of when you got home from school, but I did, and you left school over 10 years ago, and just know, love, just know, that no matter if there's ceilings between the clouds or not, I will still search for those stars in every word, story, and moment that my bloodstone heart will beat.

Rivers of Rubble, but the blood still flows.

[mylightsatnight]

82 on 82.

On any given Friday night, it’s likely you’ll find Brandon outside of ((Blues on Whyte)).  He is usually hustling a game of pool, or having a dart.  We are not two people close enough to share a pint of beer together, or maybe a game of pool.  But he’s there with a smile to shake your hand, and tell you a funny story, and wish you well on your way.  This is Whyte ave.  

Inside of The Black Dog, you’ll find a rotating cast of teenagers.  They like to order their drinks, and dart their eyes around; never really knowing what to expect, but chances are high that some stranger will stumble over to your table, and ask you about anything to open a conversation, and make your night have a thrilling whirlwind tale to tell.  Inside of the bathroom, I see something written on the mirror…

It’s the same something that I have seen on telephone poles in darkened ink.  Scratched into bus seats, carved into glass, tattooed into rock-face, and hissed into wood.  His name is:  XXXXX  and it is everywhere in this city.  Every place I look, it is found.  They are living a perpendicular life to mine.  I have not shook their hand yet.  Perhaps I never will, but 'irreirregardless' of our non-meet-cute, they are apart of this too.

They are the spirit of the city.

The Dog is too,

and too are the people.

This is Edmonton,

This is Whyte Avenue.

//

10,18,24.

[mylightsatnight]

I am the only Living Soul,

in this Haunt of Haunts.

There are others like me, but none with a beating heart.

There are others that move like me, but none so clunky as these mechanical legs, blood running between roman pillars of bone.

There are others pale like me, but none so demure and iridescent as the moon's one true descendant.

There are others like me...

But I don't know where they are.

I sit in the candle-hall. Hundreds of ghosts surround my being. Whispering their secrets, better someone among the land of living, than the devil's deep red rocks. I hum a low tone. Like a herd of cows having lost a calf after the turn of springtime's warmth. I don't remember how I got this way, I just know spectral scraps from before. I can conclude this story and join my brothers made from enchanted celestial cloth, but I feel my life's purpose is not yet complete. There is still more to do. But where to you go when you know something must be done, but haven't the foggiest clue where to begin.

You moan with the other ghosts, hear wisdom in the wails

translate the bits of bad advice from the banshees,

and the wise words of the deceased lords and ladies who wail.

Every day, on my way to school, it repeats the same.

Walk from my wooden apartment's floor, to my car, drive, arrive at an empty parking spot. Walk on grass, concrete, grass, gravel, concrete, grass, finally arriving at concrete again. But this walk. I am overshadowed by scrapers, tall and sky-challenging. I shake a fist to them, warning them of the gods they insult by their impossible sizes, they lean over me; a warning.

But what every one misses. The squirrels, traffic cops, and cyclists alike. Is the mural someone made on the cement, of a dead body. The classic 1980's chalk outline, but done in black graffiti. It's there.

Maybe someone really did commit the final act here some time ago. Maybe art has a funny way of appearing where you look for it. Maybe a sick joke. Maybe even a funny one.

Regardless of my answers that give no clarity, starting on this day I made a choice. Step on it, every time I walk over. // It's a declaration. A sin, a choice, a lonely sailor with a broken compass needle, and a milking maid, the last heifer sold for beef to keep the family from starving. I make this choice, because I am here. I am alive. I don't know if they still are. The artist that made it, the police that sketched it, the prankster who joked it, or the pancake who flattened it. I am unaware. I lack clarity. But I know that it's here, and as I saw a ghost of an ex today, in both live flesh and vicarious, I know that I am nowhere near healed, but my organs refuse to quit even when I don't treat them well. When smoke is in my lungs, and alcohol is in my liver, when shrooms are in my brain, and hunger is in my stomach. When I do all the wrong things, for all the right reasons, to punish myself for the misdeeds that no 22 year old is supposed to know better about, it's in these moments I'm unsure if the haunt was ever supposed to become a daily ritual, or it was just a fuck-up on my part that'll need me to leave the city some day. The day's getting closer. The clock tower, is chiming slower,

and the underground ghosts who yearn for me to tell the story of wind rushing through my hair, tears in my eyes, tips of my fingers interlocked between air, ground, and timeless religious final-prayers, they know...

They know every haunt needs a living soul to haunt.

Else, ghosts are ghosts, with no shot at redemption.

No potential future,

However slim of a chance,

However impossible it feels to change...

[mylightsatnight]

Mortar, Brick, Mortar, Brick. Lay one down, make it stick. Dry the clay, mould by hand, She moved the Oceans, you crossed the land. Call it a fake, point out my bluff. Take all my cards, I've had near enough. The kids are blooming new, the Fall is breathing slower. I'm struggling for breath, Last leaf means a new Lover. Brick, Mortar, Brick and Mourn her. Why couldn't I have just support her...

[mylightsatnight]

What was on the other end of the Valley?

Everyone converged, all at once.

The Filipino families, the frat brothers reunited, the bikers, the hikers, the joggers, and dog-walkers. Additively, I was among this collective. I sat on the grassy hill, with my sub sandwich, a bag of chips, and a mind open, yet empty. At times, like this, it feels like I have been writing for years, centuries even. The words flow out free, simple, and then comes a brick in the wall of words. A crack in the horizon line, and Evening's 'Orangurple', becomes a cankerous ridge of unfamiliar colours. An angel's discarded hues.

When the dark falls, we all want something in it that relates us to someone else. It matters little who, or where, or when, or anything else really. It just matters that we emerge from the silence with a plan, with a dream, a teaspoon of hope in this brew of misguided souls brought together by city sights, and concrete heights.

Something I realized all too quickly while gazing out:

It's not beautiful. Not in the Bukowskian sense, and not in the 'rose' beautiful. But in the sense that beautiful was just the wrong choice of word. It was ... well, I've lost the word now, I had it an hour ago, but the sensory calmness of this cafe has brought Titivillus out from slumber and all I can collect anymore is my breath.

The machinations of the city were too complex for beautiful. The symmetry of the highways and bridges, the lack of lighthouses, but the presence of perfectly placed shrubbery. The word wasn't pretty, it wasn't uniform or utilitarian. It was more. And the people knew it. I knew it. I saw the new sun, and I knew that it new and old saw the rise and fall of every empire, every story, every flower, brought to it's grave of soil and sand, because death and beauty have held hands since the sun awoke and played the piano notes for the very first time (The start of something wonderful...) .

So I'll conclude this letter with this:

The valley held secrets, answers, moments, and polaroids that became blanketed by fridge magnets. The people laughed, the dogs sniffed around, and above everything else, no one was told to meet in that moment. No one was instructed to gather and take in the muted revelry of this final August day, a conclusion to summer. but we did. We were there. That's something the valley now knows.

Then I Dispersed, all at once.