Conciousness

The following is a stream of consciousness piece. I've been trying to write a post for a long time and haven't been able to get the words out. This came to me the other day while I stared at myself in the bathroom and could barely make myself get dressed for the day. I was reminded of James Joyce and his moo cow coming down the road from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". The remnants of university English literature. Joyce was very good at this technique. This is me trying to grapple with it, at least as an exercise to keep writing. In case you are wondering the picture is of the French countryside. On most days. . .that's where I'd like to be.

Staring at the bathroom mirror.
The football game roars on in the living room. That's soccer in American.
Mumbled conversation barely audible through the door.
Thinking of all the things to do. Never looking at the reflection.
Finish dressing, the intoxicating smell of cocoa butter.
Get up, put on boots, close door, find lists, buy milk, buy bread, buy chair, buy scarf, buy buy buy buy bye bye.
Stare at phone, thumb scroll, mall stroll.
Festive music, festive cards, festive greetings, festive sales. Bought some season.
Coldness. Numb. Dizzying lists.
To do, due to, never do.
Stop. No time. Hammer time. Face time. Facebook time.
Watch. Watch life, watch people, watch strangers, watch movies.
Never really living. Watch far off places. Dream.
Dream of escape, the Eiffel tower, the smell of freshly baked foreign pastries. Smells like teen spirit and hipsters. ESCAPE.
Escape with us before every movie.
Serene. Serenity. WRITE. Write it don't dream it. No time.
Hit fast forwarded. It's almost over. It never began.
Back to lists. Fulfillment and mediocrity all in one thought.
Put bags in car. Get in car. Go home. Go to sleep. Start it again tomorrow.
Tomorrow is hopeful. Tomorrow is yesterday. Tomorrow never dies. Hope never dies.
Dreams don't become real unless you make them.
Promises of tomorrow never come.
The most wonderful time of the year. The Winter of my discontent.
Typical, cynical conversation at work. The guy didn't know Oliver Twist.
Dickens dies again.
Please sir, can I have some more?
Just 1% more of the pie. 99 Luftballons.
A little taste. Bet you can't have just one bite?
Teasing, taunting, dangling joy on a string in a box.
This is what your identity should look like.
But this is not what democracy looks like.
It's the most capitalist time of the year. Lots of good cheer.
CEO's wizzing down a giant slide holding their bags of money.
Identical everyone individual no one.
Same. Same. Shame. Shame.
Suffocating from the fumes of corporatism.
The best job in the world is the worst.
So lucky to be unhappy and a slave.
Happy is now spelled with a $ and brought to you by the brought to you by people.
Delusional, depressing. University prepares you for nothing but analyzing and despising everything.
Hating the masses. Confetti falling on crowds while champagne pops.
Poppin' and lockin'.
Lock everything in the "too sad to care" box.
Visions of skeletal 'third world' children crying. Change channel.
Sugar plum fairies are delightful.
Tchaikovsky heard everywhere. Yet nobody knows it's him.
Beethoven is now a movie soundtrack.
No longer Beethoven but part of Colin Firth's speech impediment.
Beethoven's birth house in Bonn. Small and unassuming. Picture perfect.
Not grand piano at all.
Staring at the mirror waiting for it to happen. The disappearance of self.
Happening slowly. Losing words and thoughts. Losing moments.
Memory weakening. Input: Google, Twitter and Netflix. Output: grin, buttery popcorn and satisfaction.
After the end titles, no more escape. You lie Cineplex.
The Rolling Stones knew what they sang.
Or did they? Chomsky says music is brain washing. Something like that. But much more intelligently.
Tired. Tired. Ti..red. No words. Just hopelessness. Dreams float past and above.
Grab a small string and hold on for dear life.
Life is the longest thing we ever do. Stop saying it's short.
Idiots. Everyone but me. Or maybe only me.
Humour solves all. But covers none.
Sleep. Restless. Dream of the tomorrow that won't come.
Fin. In an explicitly pretentious manner.


''Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....'' - James Joyce

Cardiac Arrest

Sadness trickles,
Into the heart.
Soaked with despair,
It siezes the beat.
Engorged veins suffocate,
And turn to ice.
So cold that,
It sees its own breath,
So cold that,
It ceases to exist.

Mumbai

Claustrophobic shanty towns,
The wretched, putrid stink;
Scorns the humblest of men.
Bodies piled on trains,
A mob of figures;
Sweeping streets with footsteps.
Trepidation lingers at every turn.

Sitting on a Winter's night;
Longing for that chaos,
The stillness of exhaust fumes.
Heady aromas punctuating each corner.
The retching of throats,
Calmed by Pepto Bismol reveries.
My stifled hot head;
Soothed by honking horns.
Monsoon waves washing away sins,
And excrement.

The stillness of night overcomes.
Jiving to rhythms,
The senses forgive.

A tumultuous love affair.

A Valediction

"Corrections"

I wrought in these manacles,
Writhing and squirming.
There's no escape
From this inferno.
It is not a journey of the sole.

Complacent and numb,
She ignores my words
And looks away.
She is battered and worn
Like a used bouquet,
Once thrown with great hope.
Resplendent blossoms,
Are now soiled with age.
Light dances through the iron,
And gleams on a puddle.
Only during their waltz
Can I see her face.

It is full of withered leaves,
Rotted to its core.


I wrote that for a beautiful girl I once knew. Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a faraway land. When we were both young and carefree. When she was the one I followed into the depths of hell at times & into the haven of escapism at others. She was forever lost in a haze of her own doing. The poem is about a woman in jail & her reaction upon getting a glimpse of her own reflection. Today the subject of my poem is no longer with us. Her story ends tragically with a leap from a balcony. All of the guilt I feel for turning my back on her is nothing. Nothing compared to the loss of a once beautiful, vibrant and hopeful life marred by drugs, violence & exploitation. Life is a slippery, winding slope of inexplicable moments. My reflections & reminiscing on the moments we shared brings me deep sadness. I once lived with her & we shared every moment of our lives together. I reared her children in the best way a 17 year old knew how. I later loathed what she represented because each time I looked at her I only saw the teenage version of myself that was so desperate for attention and love. I loved her as a sister once. I loved her children as my own. Today her life ended abruptly as in a great Shakesperean tragedy. Today I write about the loving woman that turned to all the wrong solutions to relieve herself of pain. The woman who was only a scared, little girl. The woman who only ever wanted a loving family to come home to & to be loved by one & all. She never achieved that single dream.

Today I write of a woman that I loved. . .to beg forgiveness for not saving her from the demons that haunted her to the very end.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Nichole Cherise Amyotte August 15, 1979 - April 16, 2011

I Am Legend

Recently I've been thinking retrospectively about legends and folklore and the remnants of its traditions in modern society. A lot of our pop-culture reflects these tales that have been passed on for centuries through poetry, song, word-of-mouth, art, music, literature, and especially, in our times, film & television. Legends of love found & lost like Tristan & Isolde or Romeo & Juliet. Stories of great men & women who fought for their rights & freedom like Martin Luther King & Helen Keller. Tales of great civilizations that help us to discover who we are by reflecting on our ancestors like Julius Caesar and Marie Antoinette. Or simply the lore of family such as portrayed in Little Women or the Sound of Music. Fairy tales about finding a sense of family in a non-traditional way are common like the classic tale of Snow White.

In our histories family and kinship are the one common thread. Regardless of land rights, religion, race, politics or sex. Family is there whether we like it or not. You can hate your family with every inch of your being but in the end you still love them. It is unexplainable how both love & hate can exist, at times, together. You cannot get away from what you came from and what shaped you no matter how hard you try.

As an adult I reflect a lot on familial bonds I see portrayed in media & literature. I grew up feeling my mother's family was much like the Sound of Music clan. Coincidentally, my entire maternal family can probably recite every song from that film. However, the one legend & tale that I always admire and can never relate to is one in which there is a loving & present father. My father has been a very loving man, at times, but his presence has been greatly missed in mine & my sister's life. And, the love that he had to give was not always portrayed consistently. You can't change how things happened and who people are. But I feel this is the secret that I bare for myself. Obviously it is evident to everyone that my parents are divorced and it was not pleasant. However, in our time people assume that divorce is normal & it is now a norm for a parent to be absent from a child's life, predominantly the father.

I'm not trying to complain about the lack of one parent. My parents have been wonderful at times and horrible in others. This is what I've always known. I was older than my years at 11. At 29 I still feel I have much to learn but also feel as if I have lived many different lives. I've come to realize that I became the patriarch of my family a long time ago. I was always the voice of reasoning or harsh judgment in my house. I can't help being this way with everyone now. I'm bossy and controlling at my worst. It can be good and bad in varying degrees. Being the patriarch means I have been my mother's companion & confidant at times. I have known every acute problem that occurs in adult lives even as a child. I used to either be told these things or was smart enough to snoop and find out. Being the patriarch means I protect my mother & sister at all costs. Even if I look like a raving lunatic and they don't agree with me. Even if it seems that I'm unreasonable and am looking out for only myself. I feel sometimes that I have been the parent since childhood in many situations.

Don't get me wrong I'm no angel. I was also a rebellious teen and made many wrong choices. No sainthood potential here. But I know without having children what it is to have a child. My sister has been my child as well as my parents'. I used to drag her behind me in the snow to school, make sure she brushed her teeth, make her lunch & dinner, scold her for her faults, protect her from bullies and always aid in decisions made about her life from a young age. Don't get me wrong I've also tried to kill her on many occasions. I was an only child for 4 years...I think I resented her presence for a very long time. And, because my mother & her have a special bond I was always the outsider in the threesome. They share hugs and affection more easily. I never have. C'est la vie. That's just me.

It's hard thinking of someone as your child and having them grow up and realizing you don't have any control over them. Worrying and yelling at them. This is my way. This is my love. What else can I say? Every success of hers is MY success. Every failure MINE to bare. She has been my responsibility for so long I forget that she's an adult and needs to find her own way sometimes. I say these words "you will find your own way" to myself & her...but in the end I can't let go. I don't love my sister as if she is my friend or even sibling. I realized that a long time ago. She is my child. I tried in my own crazy way to nurture her. To make her like me without realizing it.

I will never know what it is to have parents who stay married until death. So be it. I definitely don't want my parents to be together. But, I constantly wonder what it's like. Two parents & two children together in harmony. What would it have been like if I was just a child & a sister? Maybe I would have been worse off. But, my experiences are what have shaped me. My family has made me strong through weaknesses & hardships. It's mind boggling for me to see two parents and think about ever having that or knowing what it is like. I just don't understand it because I haven't really experienced it. I only know that my sister is probably the only person on this planet to truly understand me other than my husband. Yet, at the same time she resents how I treat her. One day, I hope she can see that I always had good intentions for her...she has been my secret love. The silent joy of my life. Mo cuishle...my darling. My blood.

In the end MY legend will not be my anger, strength or success...it will be her. She is MY legend and I am HERS.