Monday, November 21, 2011

tomorrow today

Been sitting in the ground with my head held down,
And now I'm finally standing up.
I'm feeling much taller
- could've sworn I stood smaller
than before I had first fell down.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Invasion

This is something I wrote not too long ago and I felt the need to share it on here. It's a little dark as it touches on the subject of sexual transgression. I apologize if it's a little heavy so I figured I should at least give the warning. It's an important subject regardless and as I have been reflective on the topic of personal boundaries recently, I thought to share this. Enjoy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My boundaries feel like a widely porous membrane - a transparent and trembling mass of walls half-heartedly set up. Easy to poke and easy to invade and impose upon your will on a whim.

And I am tired. And there is blood and a sense of loss. And I no longer know where I end and where you begin and I can't catch my breathe and I wonder if you can feel me whimpering at the weight of it all.

God how did I get here? I don't know how one can expect to play with fire and not get burnt. I don't know why I look for love in all the wrong places. 

God make me clean. I am still bleeding.

Monday, October 17, 2011

So you're single

Goodness, when it rains it seems to really pour. I do NOT know what is up with this month of October, but it seems that hearts are breaking all over the place. I'm not just talking about break-ups, I'm just plain talking about getting a heart broke.

It's about time for me to write this: Ladies and gents who have had your heart recently broken, this post is for you. It might not make sense beyond the haze of pain you happen to be swimming in currently, but you'll get it eventually once the healing sets in. So here I am, raising a glass to you, all the breaking and broken, CHEERS, HONEY, YOU'RE SINGLE:

CHEERS...
to getting your heart bro    Ke
                                             N
to feeling the weight of your world
                                                     come                            
                                                           crashing
                                                                       in
to your sense of pride lost
and disgust that you loved someone so
imperfect                  
when you were so damncapable of being carefreesingle and you knew you could've had
Anybody
but you chose him or did he choose you? And at some point - did you just...
                                                                                                                    settle...??


CHEERS
to the god awful crying you put yourself through just to sleep at night
and the pathetic wish to lie in death in sleep
                                                                   coz at least death would feel better.

He took your heart with him when he walked away
how the hell does he expect you to function when it's not okay
that he just STOPPED. TRYING like that??

CHEERS
to the moment you learn that your sadness cannot be felt by others beyond the measure of your bedroom reeking of your agony

CHEERS
to the moment you learn there are a million silences filled with your weeping
where nobody comes
                 

                       to relieve you of your torture.
                       Not even him. He won't come.
                       Cheers to this moment where you learn to stop crying.
                       Cheers to picking yourself up out of bed.

CHEERS
to your anger and the point where you learn that you deserve better
-  COZ YOU DESERVE BETTER DAMMIT

CHEERS
to the talk-therapy where you drench your friends' ears wet with the work of your pain and your renewed sense of self-respect. You sound so damn angry to everyone else, but to you, you sound like you're finally healing.


CHEERS
to that stupid REBOUND where you took a chance all over again
and pretended like you didn't care - but only coz you were careless.

You lost everything a few months ago - what more could you lose?
                                                            And you end up losing a little dignity in the process.

but seriously, CHEERS to learning that your heart is capable of loving somebody else again.
                                                            (Even though your rebound is MILES from quality.)

CHEERS 
to the couple steps backwards for every forward step you take.
to realizing that it is beginning to get easier everytime.

CHEERS
to your new insecurities
and your new confidence
battling it out and knitting themselves over a much stronger heart

CHEERS
to your first genuine smile
where you realize you are effortlessly enjoying yourself

CHEERS
to your first sense of Hope
that you could and will find Love again.

but CHEERS first, to falling inlove with YOURSELF all over again. Maybe even perhaps for the first time. :)

To all who are hurting out there, the journey SUCKS... but seriously, enjoy the ride. You'll end up loving yourself for it.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

safe space :)

I have been so blessed and humbled by beautiful company especially in this past month.

I do not know how or when I opened my arms to receive so much love, but God granted it to me regardless. I am so inlove with the depths and beauty of each personality of each heart that beats within proximity. I feel my own heart warming and opening and discovering and breathing sighs of relief and awe. Can I be so deserving to walk amongst giants?

The question is unimportant. I am blessed nonetheless and I am grateful.

One of the topics on my mind recently is the question of permission to be ourselves. It's one thing to be around people who are so free and accepting that they create a safe space for others to let their personalities breathe. The warmth of these beautiful persons I find so addictive because I am admittedly guilty of finding excuses and permission to be myself. But it's another thing to not have to ask for permission.

Why must we fall under the trap of often looking to each other for validation and acceptance to let our own energies run unhindered? For fear that we could be wrong or could impede upon others? This is wrong thinking -- there's more than enough space in this universe to let our own brilliance shine. We were not made by God to impede - we were made for contribution. So why seek permission?

When permission was granted the moment we first took breath.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

"Spring Forward, Fall Back" - another TTC poem

On my way home today in the streetcar, I looked up and found this poem by Troy Jollimore. Absolutely loved it. Enjoy. :)

Spring Forward, Fall Back
In November, the hours are slower;
winding down weather, the fresh lather
of a first snow. The winter,
with its months of hospital afternoons

waits huddled just over the border.
And ice will make all the distances
that much further. Speak now, kiss now
before the river freezes altogether.
                                                    -  Troy Jollimore

Saturday, August 27, 2011

if we had decided to take a chance

I wonder
If you ever could have loved me
enough to wait
If you ever could have loved me for my beliefs
when I stand for the very same things
you abhor
Or if you ever could have loved me
for my wide-eyed insecurities and chronic naivete
idealism
and stupid need to be liked

Or if I could have ever loved you
for your lack of ambition
your sky-high walls of defense and cynicism
and your stupid need to hurt and test
those who love you so easily

Yet instead we sit here in chronic chemistry
with our ease to draw laughter from one another
and easier still is that we don’t have to wonder
since the time you went and wandered
to find salvation in some other’s
arms
that you hope will call you home

Saturday, August 6, 2011

in 5 years meet me in Paris

we're tripping down dundas st. west, swaying to either booze in our muscles or music in our head and we're just chatting ourselves away. complain about how canadian guys don't seem to have much initiative and i don't-know-how-the-fuck-anybody-meets-anybody-else-inthis-damn-city-anymore kind of conversations. it almost doesn't matter coz we're quite happy where we are, we're just complaining. we're hopeful yet just complaining. love still exists we know it. we just don't believe in those movies so much anymore, that's all.

apparently we're supposed to meet in Paris five years from now, at the eiffel tower and partnered with our significant others, sipping on some "chamPAG-NEE" as I'd like to call it oh-so-tastefully. it sounds like a ridiculous dream right now but it sounds like a plan. and in that plan, I hear the panic and the hope of the twenty-something-year-old's that we are: single and happy, but slightly hungry to find something substantial that we can hold on to.

i tell her that five years from now i will remind her of this night where we were those wide-eyed and bordering-on-pathetic-girls who strutted a street wondering where-the-fuck-we'll-find-our-men. and i tell her we'll laugh and never let others know how desperate we were. (what i don't tell her is how much i enjoy these nights regardless. what i also don't tell her is how quite alright i am with this dichotomy of hope and panic. i've found love before, so i live in the truth that i'll find it again - and until then, i enjoy these nights.)

guess i gotta save up for paris. :)

Monday, August 1, 2011

A/C wars with the new roommate...

it's blazing hot outside and a sauna inside and she says she's freezing. i told her she's the only one who's complained EVER about it being too cold inside this rat-hole of a house. i watched her patter her way down the stairs and stoop over the A/C buttons to raise the temperature, smile meekly at me and then scamper up to her room like some unwanted pest I wanted to step on.

if it's so fucking cold then put a fucking sweater on...

Sunday, July 31, 2011

if you found a journal at Bellwoods Park -- that sap who wrote it was ME

I was that girl who was power-walking her way through Bellwoods Park today - the girl who was stumbling over her over-sized tote when it would somehow get caught between her legs, stumbling and power-walking. I did not stop until I reached that one bench I knew I sat my ass down on yesterday, the same bench that on this day I was running around wailing in a panic over as I realized a most terrible truth: "IT'S GONE. IT'S GOOOONEEE...!!!"

My JOURNAL is GONE!!!

I had sat on that same bench yesterday to enjoy the hot summer sun with a plan to whimsically wittle away words into my beloved journal just like other some-other-whimsical-hipster-saps on Queen St. West at summertime. Leather-bound journal on lap with pen in hand, that was the plan. And then I decided that I had nothing to say under that dreaded heat so I switched my attention to squint away at reading some financial self-help book I had also brought. After roasting in the sun awhile, I decided to crawl under the shade to join my friend while we chatted about quarter-life crises and conjuring up 5-year plans. A search for beer and dessert followed suit and we left the park -- and inadvertently MY JOURNAL ON THAT BENCH.

I don't know how I could have FORGOTTEN it. A combination of heat + writer's block + need for dessert could have been it - regardless, I don't care. What I care about is finding whoever decided to pick up a stranger's journal in the middle of a park. (A friend hypothesized that it was likely the garbage man, but I concluded the guess to be ridiculous once I pointed out the bag of dog poop that still lay by the bench cooked solid in the sun. Or maybe garbage-man does not pick up after dog poop bags -- but I digress.)

THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS -- right now, there is someone out there, someone reading MY JOURNAL, and that someone must be getting a damn good laugh.

Whereas I, I remain here cringing at all that he or she could have read.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Hunger

almost 25 and i'm jaded. i've hardly started life. 
i meant to do something with my hands - saving the world was in the plan...somewhere. yet somewhere in between idealism and bitterness i ran away and took a 9 to 5 and i only feel alive in liquored laughter...sometimes.
sometimes i'll feel it beat.thisheartbeatbeat.againthumpthumping to the beat of someone dancing, someone dreaming, someone laughing, someone else living their truth.thumpthump. where's mine?

where's my truth? myheartmyart my soul is screaming "GIVE ME PURPOSE"- no wait, i have purpose -- no, just give me the guts, give me the way, give me the courage to find my way to carve truth in this life. i don't need to know i matter i just want to do something that matters and what matters is that i do something real.


God - I am hungry. I am so. So hungry.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

saturday & sangrias with an old friend

a breeze blew by my weekend and created a little storm:
i went from a learned indifference to falling inlove with him all over again.

i forgot that i could laugh like that over stupid things like that in a way only we would know. and i loved him for reminding me of this at noon and i hated him for the same reason at 4 in the morning.

some can hail us both for our ability to be good friends after it all and there is no doubt that i absolutely enjoy his company and his friendship and i am grateful for it. but in the moments between the laughter and knowing smiles, there is still that deep reminder that our friendship was only created out of our failure to love each other in the way we had originally intended. despite all the time and all the healing, there are moments where i look at us and i remember that at some point in our lives we had let each other down in a big way.

being with him yesterday, i missed what we had. i missed us.

Friday, July 15, 2011

TGIF

crash into bed. (yay I made it past midnight!) unknot the drama in my head.
                       count my blessings by the lamplight. miss my family. love my friends. shut my
                       eyes and forget
                                                                                                                       
                                                                                              loose ends.

                                 Discard
                                 today's heartache.
                                 surprised at how
                                                           i
                                                             didn't
                                                                  break
                                                                                  this time around.

                                                                                  feel the thrill of oncoming sleep.
                                                                                  can't wait for the deep
hue of dreaming. i'll fall asleep laughing or screaming
                                                                 
                                                                    or both.
                                                                    either way,
                                                                     i pillow this heart on hope. :)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

hatin'

i know everyone's a fan. and i was too when i first heard it all.

but fuck you tinie tempah. your ubiquitous ass-squeezing star-reaching song just really REALLY needs to be done and gone right now.

fuck top 40. i feel like i've listened to the top 40 songs more than bloody 40 times in a day.

...i'm hatin i know. i just really REALLY need new songs right now.
note to self today: no matter what happens tonight, I need to go home and pack, no matter what happens tonight.


it's coz i doubt it could happen tonight. but i also most definitely doubt it's going to happen tomorrow night either.

That saturday morning flight is going to be one hell of a bitch to get on and get through.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

the stuff friends say that I find strangely comforting

i finally slumped in my seat in the subway on the way to a house class and said, "I think he has a girlfriend. In fact, I think that I know he does. - Okay I did some facebook stalking too -- and I think she's gorgeous. Beautiful. Hot. Hot and beautiful."

My friend was silent and eventually replied with an, "Oh."

I looked out the window and didn't see much other than the dark rattle of concrete walls as the subway streamed past. "This is me trying not to care," I muttered. "I guess I'm happy for him."

"Don't worry dude," my friend says. "You're gorgeous too. And he's still got his issues. Let him go and mess this girl up and he'll probably sort himself out after and come running back to you."

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter Sunday

He is real He is real He is real.


I cannot deny that truth. Despite the many times I've denied Him. The cock can crow all it wants to remind me how many times I've denied Him.

But I'll always know He is real.

You cannot walk away so easily once God has stamped Himself upon your heart. (I've tried.)

Monday, April 18, 2011

i find myself sitting idly by my laptop

i've been here for hours it seems. as if waiting for someone or something to grab me from my boredom and suck me in and let me escape for a while.

screw this, this is me getting up and shutting down the cyber-world for the night. come find me in the real world.

Friday, April 15, 2011

okay yeah, it was a rebound

You. Are:
A slurred drunken mess of promises you did not
Mean to keep;
Time and perspective translate once-believed heart-share
To whateverthefuck.you.needed.tosay.
Anything.youcouldsay.to get
Into my pants.
My rebound-muddled mind left me heady with feeling that I
was inlove
again
And that you
were inlove 
again
too.
Seeing you so out of breathe outside my door in the rain
After you had traversed the tumultuous terrain of Bellwoods Park, ditching some lame party and your good friends
to come
see me.
I thought it was your heart pumping out ahead of your chest that led a hero
to my breasts
When really it was probably your pulsing.erect.Ego 
that pointed the way back. 

I was a fool.
I see that now.
Why did we pretend so badly that it could have been love?
When truth is, we both just wanted so badly 
A body
to be warm with.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

3am at the border

There is something beautiful about connecting with a stranger at 3 in the morning. I felt happily lucky to be one of those passengers on a long bus ride that actually enjoyed the stranger sitting next to them. First names were exchanged and no last names were exchanged. I didn’t know how to get to that point nor was I sure what I would have wanted to do with it. Partly too was I was a little scared to make him a friend in the future because I wasn’t sure if future moments with each other would be just as spontaneously good. Pursuing a friendship would feel a little too real and too much like work and frankly, I didn’t have a taste for work at 3 in the morning. Is that silly? Maybe. But I guess I’m being honest.

Our night ended with long-held gazes and smiles that probably meant we enjoyed each other’s company. He said my name again as he said good-bye, slowly getting up out of his seat, and there was a pause where we weren’t too sure if we should leave each other at that or actually take each other up on this little 3am connection. But I didn’t say anything and I returned his goodbye and “it was nice to meet you” with another smile and I let him get off to his stop.

I could have risen up out of my seat to join him at the station for a while longer as my bus was going to sit idle for the next 30 minutes. I’m sure we would have enjoyed more laughs if I did leave with him. But I didn’t get up and I stayed. And I was fine with it. I was fine with not having to chase after someone or hold on to something good when I find it (like I usually am in the habit to do). It may have been worth the chase, I’m sure, but I happily didn’t care to know. :)

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Water & Marble - P.K. Page

I found this poem posted in a streetcar earlier today.

Water & Marble - P.K. Page

And I shall tell him that the thought of him
turns me to water
and when his name is spoken pale still sky
trembles and breaks and moves like blowing water
that winter thaws its frozen drifts in water
all matter blurs, unsteady, seen through water
and I, in him, dislimn, water in water?

As true: the thought of him
has made me marble
and when his name is spoken blowing sky
settles and freezes in a dome of marble
and winter seals its floury drifts in marble
all matter double-locks as dense as marble
and I, in others' eyes, am cut from marble.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

social media & social construction

In a few short years (or even shorter..??) social media has exploded with all these multi-dimensional ways of staying connected and re-connecting with each other. It's also given us different ways of socializing, communicating, and relating with one another. Suddenly we've turned into our own mini-celebrities amongst our friends (or "friends"), and we can follow each other into different facets of our private lives - from the most intimate to the most mundane. (E.g. somebody tweeting about their child being born AS it's being born. E.g. someone's fb status declaring some boring everyday thing they just ate.) We can be each other's critics and advice soundboard as we comment on each other's statuses or we can become part of someone else's support network just by validating them through a "like" button. We can connect with strangers across continents and yet feel so intimately connected because we absolutely resonate with whatever it is each other is blogging about. Social media and the internet itself can gather crowds for common interests, rallying people together for a seamlessly organized flash mob to rallying together whole political revolutions that succeed in the upheaval of a country.

Gosh...it's just so crazy isn't it??

I'm rambling I guess. Every day of dripping sweating hot yoga must have drained some filter out of me and I suddenly feel the need to ramble out loud. I forget that's what this blog was for.

I find it ironic that despite all the ways with which we seem more "accessible" to each other via social media -- we can still find ourselves struggling to just plain talk to each other when we just want to. The irony to it all sometimes is that despite this virtual linked-ness, there are still invisible levels of connectedness and dis-connectedness that still structure the very relationships we hold with people. It's almost created a whole different kind of "public self" versus "private self." Yes, for our more "open" facebook counterparts, for example, it may seem their private selves are splashed onto the network for the whole world to see. Yet a part of those intimate details of a person you do see online is also somewhat constructed. A virtual PR so to speak. It's just pictures at the end of the day. And one has the freedom to edit what others see and what others don't see -- thus constructing a virtual projection of who they are -- or more like how they want to be seen.

I guess we all know this. I know we all know this. We all know it because we are part of this whole process. We do it with ourselves already. The visual world, the virtual world, is our creation. It's not exactly real. It can depict and even share parts of the world and lives that we don't necessarily get to see every day or ever. Yet it's never really the whole story. Our very lives are whole complicated stories on their own. And pictures and blogs, and foursquare check-ins, and youtube videos can reveal different facets. But they are only depictions, often revealing, yet also just as limiting.

The real scope and real depth of things is always just going to be beyond it.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Woman

I woke up this morning with this to share in mind. I dug it out of my old scriptbook I was using for the Vagina Monologues. I remember hearing this for the first time being read out loud by a room full of my strong castmates and found it so powerfully moving.

So! This is for International Women's Day:

To Stop the Violence Against Woman - Alice Walker

WOMAN

TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
AGAINST
WOMAN,
WOMAN
MUST STOP THE VIOLENCE 
AGAINST 
HERSELF.

WE CAN BEGIN TO DO THIS
NOW, NOW THAT WE SEE
A SKY
AND NOT A ROCK
A STICK
OR A FIST
ABOVE ALL
OUR HEADS.

WOMAN

TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMAN,
STOP THE VIOLENCE
THAT YOU
PERPETUATE
AGAINST
YOUR OWN
SISTER
WHO IS
A WOMAN, YOUR OWN
DAUGHTER
WHO IS
A WOMAN,
YOUR OWN
DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
WHO IS
A WOMAN.
YOUR OWN
MOTHER
WHO IS
A WOMAN.

WOMAN

TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMAN,
STOP THE VIOLENCE THAT LIVES
IN OPPOSITION
TO YOUR LIFE,
DEEP IN YOUR
OWN TERRORIZED AND
UNCHERISHED
HEART.

WOMAN

REMEMBER WHO WE ARE:
NOT "GUYS"
BUT 
THE MOTHER
OF ALL
LIVING.
WE CREATE OUT OF OUR OWN BLOOD
AND MILK
EVEN
THE CREATURES 
WHO OPPRESS US;
WHETHER THEY ARE MEN
OR OURSELVES.

WOMEN

AWAKE!
ARISE!
STAND UP!

WOMAN

TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
AGAINST
WOMAN,
GET UP
ON YOUR PERFECTLY
UNBOUND
FEET!
WE HAVE LOST THE EARTH
LIVING ON OUR KNEES.

Monday, March 7, 2011

I've become...

a yoga-mat toting, david's tea-sipping, coffee-shop connoisseur with a love for weekend brunch and infinity scarves.

Oh Toronto... what have you done to me??! :)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

reading in between the lines much?

You intercept me at the office, pushing a book in my hands. Frank O'Hara. "You can borrow it for the weekend."

(I don't recall ever asking to borrow anything.) Thank you through a mouth full of apple chunks and broccoli in my teeth and you've left as quickly as you came while I spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to crack the book open.

Frank O' Hara. It's midnight and I'm indulging in the comfort of my bedsheets and I'm waist-deep in poetry. Soaking and wading. An analyst, picking up each word and turning it in the palm of my hand and examining it in the light, feeling it, rolling it around and tasting it in my mouth to decipher meaning and uncover layers and angles.

It might be Frank O'Hara I am reading but I wonder if you've secretly meant it to be you that I'm indulging in on this night.

I'm reading love letters.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Ad-libbing a conversation I had with a friend:

He says, "I think the most painful stories are the ones that go unknown.


"I was on the streetcar the other night, and I looked out the window and I saw this crazy lady just standing on the sidewalk crying her eyes out. She was definitely homeless and definitely crazy, and here she was, standing alone, hysterical and crying her eyes out.


"I watched her and asked myself, 'Who is this lady? What's her story? Did she use to be rich? Was she pretty when she was young? Did she have it all, once? How did she get here? Why is she crying?' And I wanted to know all these things. And I realized how I wouldn't. Or how likely no one would ever know her story. She didn't look like she had anyone or any means to tell. She was homeless and she was crazy."


At this point he became quiet and I push him to continue, "Then..?" I ask.


"Then nothing," he says, shrugging. "Then my eyes welled up and the streetcar started forward and I'll never see this lady again."


At this point, I became the one who was quiet. After a while, he catches my eye and asks, "What are you doing?"


"What?" I say, feeling strangely vulnerable, like I was caught doing something I shouldn't have.


"What are you doing?" he presses me.


"Listening," I reply.


"Don't," he says.


"Don't what?"


"Don't fall inlove with me," he says with a smirk.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

what is it with

my sick fascination with the Broken

and my pathetic surprise
at the cuts I get
from my presumptuous attempts
to pick up the ragged pieces?

........fuck, this post sounds so fucking emo.