2.

The incessant ringing of the phone wakes me up. It's not that hard to wake me when things are disorganized...I still haven't unpacked my stuff and I got back from that CFAC event over a week ago. I hate unpacking even though I love coming home, I say aloud as I roll out of bed, put my clothes on and head for the door. I like to warm up my voice before other people have to listen to it.

The streets of Toronto just before 7:30 a.m. aren't exactly bustling yet. It's the calm before the rush hour storm. I take advantage of this time. 8 a.m. is a whole other world...you can't float around daydreaming after 8.

I get my usual Monday dose of newspapers and tabloids which I like to consider a business expense since it's my job to be abreast of Milana's actions and of anything her people forget to tell me during our weekly conference calls. I have to not only know what she's up to all the time so that when there's a job for me they don't have to fill me in on a ridiculously huge amount of information, I also have to stay aware of how the public feels about her at all times. How the public feels about Milana at any given time is obviously determined by the media's chosen angle of coverage from week to week. Sometimes the tabloids need her to be a villain and other times they need her to be a victim. A celebrity is always a mere caricature of themselves in the public's eyes. Distortion sells. The whole tabloid scene is to be accurate, the most transparent and over-the-top soap opera anyone could ever imagine and it is a big part of my job to study it, understand it and sometimes star in it.

On page 17 of this week's "Celeb" magazine there's pictures of stars doing down-to-earth things like shopping at the grocery store or walking their dog. So, one of the pictures is of me at the CFAC event, posing with that woman, Melanie, while her husband took the picture. I have to laugh when I look at it because of the irony in the fact that a) The most down-to-earth picture they could find of Milana is one of her at some star-studded event in New York, and b) As if that's not ironic enough, it's really me in the picture, not her! Milana hates charity work with a passion. The only charity work she ever does is buying her assistant of the month Designer sunglasses for their birthday...and that's only if they remind her that their birthday is coming up. She would never think to ask.

At home, not contented enough by the mere knowledge that the man of intrigue in my life is hidden somewhere in this city for me to hopefully discover again, I crack out the most recent phone book I have and let my fingers do the stalking.

Ok, so I'm looking at 3 "Sharpel's" and one additional "Sharpell" with 2 "L's" at the end of the name. I slowly dial the first number, giving my hand time to bail out of the whole operation since my mind has obviously suffered some malfunction. Why am I doing this again? I hear the ringing start...what if he answers but his voice sounds so different on the phone that I can't recognize it? Oh yeah, and-uh what, in God's almighty name, am I planning to say here? I don't even realize that I have wrapped my pinky up like a mummy in the 6-foot phone cord and it is going numb from lack of blood supply.
Suddenly, a voice chimes in, "Hello..Hellooo?"
Shit. Her sing-songy voice is forever burned in my mind. It's her!! I hang up the phone faster than a gunmen can arm himself in a draw. Wow, I couldn't have done anything more cliched. Now she might remember my number and it'll be awkward if I ever call there again. I kick the phone book under the bed and lay down, my tense body as stiff as a board. I can't believe how stupid I really am sometimes. It must be infinite.

be worth hating

don't keep me waiting

you win the fight

you're always right
 

say I look plain

hit me again

deep down you know

you let yourself go

...oh no
 

spare me some pity

tell me I'm pretty

your eyes keep flirting

your lies keep hurting
 

one day at a time

you're taking my life

is my only use

to take your abuse

...oh no

footprints in the snow

my path is revealed

did you see where I had been

before the footprints healed?
 

old photos on my lap...

some are joyful, some sad

these paper footprints map

out the lives we have had
 

...walk beside me

footprints guide me
 

sit by the window now

and watch the snow fall down

I turn the pages slow...

see faces in the albums grow
 

footprints in the snow

our paths are closely wound

the rhythm of our countless steps

is such a lovely sound
 

...walk beside me

footprints guide me

Violet stir

translucent and pure

a hue gone astray

between darkness and light

forecasts the next day

in the clouds of tonight

I am lost in the sight

of the violet haze

so luminous and bright

ever-lifting my gaze

I like the way some things

look better

in real life than in

photographs...

but I like the way life

looks simpler

based upon what we place

in the photographs

...that I take

in my mind

every day

you are mine

The shopkeeper is slouched over a metal stool, his squinting face twisted away from the window light, his eyes hypnotically fixed on the glare-covered surface of the 13-inch black and white television across the room that is turned off to avoid generating anymore heat than is necessary. Above his head is the handwritten sign stating, "Sorry we don't make change." The sound of these words in my mind as I read them is muffled by the humming crosswind of fans. I stare at the tv like he is doing, trying to figure out what he is so focusedly daydreaming about. 
Outside, the light and shade interchange. The air is getting thicker and the shade is slowly taking over. I see someone approaching quickly out of the corner of my eye. He is swift, discreet and hypnotically efficient. In movies customers get down on the floor or blurt something out...but I just stand there, afraid to think. The till drawer is lifted out and emptied, then phone cards and some cigarettes are taken as well. The thief is calm and collected in a way that makes the experience all the more alarming to me. I can tell he has done this before. Then he is gone, taking with him all normalcy the day had promised to me. The shopkeeper, in a second-nature manner that disproves that this has never happened to him before, rings in the soda I forgot was in my hand, goes to the door, turns the open sign backward, closes the door and goes back to his stool, picks up the phone and dials the police. I am a ball of tangled feelings on the inside--craving to tell someone about it--but not the police. As with most things in my life, I want to talk about the experience, not what happened.
When they arrive, I tell them what I can about the suspect, which is not much: All I saw from my angle when the robbery occured, was his reflection in dark gray and devoid of any detail, rendered on the surface of the television screen upon which my gaze was locked at the time, in fear. The police don't ask if I am ok. They can tell that I'm fine and that's why they don't ask. It still bothers me though. After they leave, the shopkeeper turns the closed sign around backward, opens the door and it's business as usual. He has never taken a day off. He can't afford to stay closed, especially after a robbery. Besides, going home now would only make it hard to come back.
Outside, the wind is picking up. Windchimes in distant doorways clatter in protest, confirming today's ominous forecast. I leave the store with an unsettled feeling brewing inside me as the first few drops of rain fall. I feel the weight of them on my shoulders like the the accumulated burden of words within me that, profound or not, just need saying to someone who understands that I can't properly let go of something that I haven't first held onto for a while. Even a little thing like this.
I think of the broken karma of this situation as I walk home, dissatisfied that the theif will obviously not be caught as I look up and examine things as I did as a child when I was an alert tourist of the world. I contemplate the heavy, swollen blankets of clouds over the convenience store that is now cast over by a dark gray shade, devoid of detail. When it's overcast like this, the sky always feels to me as if it's uncomfortably close to the ground...the world feels compressed and all the problems in it are magnified. Storms ingite a tension in me that forces me to feel alive and therefore, to worry. Just like the convenience store, the rumbling sky has gathered what it can from the pockets of the earth and the time has come when it is forced to make change. I know it doesn't matter if it's fair. Sometimes, we all get caught in the rain.

my love for you now feels so strong

in light that pulls the shadows long

but you know I cannot come along

when you eventually fade out 

it seems, the further you go from here,

the clearer still that you appear

but you know the water's just too deep

to be able to wade out

the setting sun comes to appoint

your precious life its vanishing point

but you let me in your heart that day

and I couldn't have stayed out

dissonance. my awkward existence is a resistance to resolution

my fate is second-rate: i try to escape it's untimely intrusions

pain is staying sane when you want to lose your sense and recommence

resolution. my awkward revolution against this backward evolution

...how can I be more than nothing and still be less than yours

will there be a resonance of permanence in this dissonance

that fills the distance between our shores

the commotion of lunch hour settles 
in the blue corridor as people shuffle about; 
their walkers and wheelchairs turned this way and that way: 
disheveled like an old deck of cards...
that has to be missing a few

now and again, a voice calls out--
always with the same disheveled questions, 
refracted in the blue corridor of her lost eyes: 
now capable of seeing only shuffled memories 
turned this way and that way...
forever missing a few

the juxtapositioning
of furniture, walls and windows
is like an awkward conversation
between an unlikely compilation
of dinner guests:
my dreams,
now silently guessing, it seems,
what to say next

unable to sleep
for fear of waking
alone in this bed
as I know i will
for the first time in 30 years.
I do not invite confirmation
that this is really 
how it's going to be
from now on

I have a smoke,
go out in the dark
and retrieve a stack of mail.
it's the first time 
I've had more corespondance
than bills.
reading the cards
focuses my tears.
the entire family 
has flown in
yet I feel more alone
than ever before

at work they tell me
they miss me
but when I visit,
I make them nervous:
they offer wilted smiles
and watch me like
I need to be watched--
like they need to see me fall apart
for this to be really 
happening

my son:
he tries to talk about it.
I listen to the suffering
in his voice 
because he cannot
yet speak of it.

we watch videos
of her together
and pack her clothes up
as if she were going away
for a little while.
that is how we must think of it.
I have someone else
get rid of them

I do not feel blessed
that she lived longer 
than the doctors expected--
I feel only
this ache in my heart
that I know, eventually,
will fade.
people say "it'll be ok,"
but I know i will never really
be complete again

weakened now:
I am not the man 
I was before 
she left us behind,
but I must try to be...
for her.