spikybluegirl

Guess it's poetry day, hm?

Toronto, 8/31/03

You cant win with snow, Erin rants,
Plush lips gently tugging a Players Light,
Smoke which burrows into my nose.
Though I agree half-heartedly, I know Id
Rather be buried to the hips, shivering,
Than not return.

While I dip my toast corners in yolk
(Snotty dead babies, Kim says, and I bare my teeth)
They discuss the trials of piercing, ear gauging,
Industrials;
I stare out the window of the Shanghai Cowgirl.
Toronto is all cafs, clubs, narrow stairwells
We creep up late at night, tipsy.

This is a city both cleaner and smaller.
Englands eye for design is clearly present,
Sometimes oppressive, not pretty but comfortable, sensible.
When I totter up Dovercourt, my hand in Heathers,
Im safe even from the men hanging out of Ford windows,
Leering, yelling for the lesbians.
Somehow the city soothes my nerves.

Still, I see the stained wrinkles at formerly taut eyelids.
Lunatic natives mumbling,
The bedraggled woman who brushed past us,
Repeating help me, in her monotone, mindless of our presence.
Stumbling down the street under the mid-city scaffolding,
The crowd stops us.
Bulging eyes, limbs askew, he lies prostrate on the sidewalk.
Megan turns on her heel and walks faster
Than me-

And though I think of kneeling beside him
Opening up my wrists to watch him die,
I follow her back down the street and across,
Off to the Bovine again.