looking for his keys

i wasn’t making money i don’t think people got it, it became too

circular, too small, too much noise, usually too quiet, i was usually

drunk, i needed angels, you must work harder on things that pay

somewhat, no, things that don’t pay at all might pay a lot someday,

life is zen, work, stop being so defeatist, you have time, reading,

show up to work, everything is perfect by itself.

i must be more disciplined; i must be more sure.

hi, i am just touching base regarding the $150 cab fare after my

fl ight, delayed ~5 hours, diverted in a diff erent airport in a diff erent

city. after being assured i would receive full compensation, i have

yet to receive a follow up to my initial claim.

hey pal - so, going through my invoices - i pretty much haven’t

been paid since the rebrand. i am owed for the following dates:

oct 7, 21 nov 4, 18, dec 2, 16, 30 and dec 31 at $500. this all seems

right to me, i’m not too stressed!

i love toronto because it knows me. it isn’t about being familiar,

for most people i see – i’d rather not. it’s more that the streets feel

permissive. i can take that walk to the bookstore. i’ll fi nd what i’m

looking for. i’m guaranteed that.

this approach is “the drunk man looking for his keys under the

lamppost, just because that’s where the light is.”

passive consumers pair their wine with food.

i prefer to think of pairing with a task or event.

examples:

blanc de blanc in the bathtub

south african oxidized cinsault trying to impress a stranger

that black cahor dripped onto the third revision of a suicide

note

my 31st birthday:

i break several canvases over my knee and punch myself in the face.

i wipe my blood on your forearm. i’m not sure why i decided this

should happen.

i have tried to kill myself so many times, i feel like i’ll never

succeed. maybe every attempt has been half-hearted, a fake.

probably. i thought about throwing myself off the 20th fl oor balcony

as recently as last night - but i wouldn’t have been able to write

about the experience of actually doing it.

i don’t leave the house for 48 hours until i run out of cigarettes even

though i’m quitting. lighthearted sunday morning media, netfl ix

tells me plastic is killing the ocean.

i check off tasks, fi nding new and diverse distractions. my ecosystem

is fucked, too. i downloaded the criterion collection fi lms you

asked for, how come i’m not smarter yet. alexa drinks from the brita

water fi lter jug, i refi ll it. i move the cheese back into the fridge. i

boil water for instant coff ee. it is 12:30 and we can’t decide on a

movie.

i restore my phone after deleting my notes, instagram, and twitter.

iphone 7-iphone8+, i exaggerate my silence for safety’s sake. i don’t

know, i don’t care. i drink dr. pepper for a sober day four. i add $50

worth of sushi to my cart before cancelling the order: i call instead

i realize i’ve been researching wrong. i never follow up on open tabs

and screenshots and bookmarks. i try to change my habits but it

seems unlikely.

it would seem like i’ve actually been working on nothing the whole

time i’ve been ‘busy.’.

another bad mood: i hadn’t smoked in three days, but i feel like i

should start again.

i buy the expensive juice and mix it with tonic water so i can make

it last. the honey throat spray hasn’t done anything to fi x my cough.

my obituary: enough is enough.

i stopped stopping by for a quick drink.

i should take a few weeks off work and get that surgery on my

sinuses, but i can’t aff ord it. it’d be nice to breath like a normal person.

i’m not even sure what that’s like.

i had an avocado and tomato sandwich with a small bowl of curry

caulifl ower soup. i smoked no cigarettes. i couldn’t focus so i didn’t

read. the fl u medication i’ve been taking hasn’t been working but i

went to work anyways. i made decent money.

there are too many giggles coming from the back room- four adults

and two kids. they are talking loudly about the upcoming

municipal election. i turn the music up louder. squarepusher.

the other men dress diff erently than me.

kids are crying in the coff ee shop and i want to burn this place

down.

i have been collecting 12” records from the trash behind the thrift

store. moldy, warped, sleeveless. titles i’ve never heard of. songs of

devotion. i shelf them with no plans to ever really listen to them. i

was thinking they’d be good to sample, maybe. i’ll probably never

get around to doing it.

“prayer music,” clement says. i want to punch his face and break his

reel-to-reel.

nobody wants to talk about the murdered saudi journalist anymore.

maybe this convenience store has the cucumber lime gatorade i was

fantasizing about.

maybe if i were 20, i could start a streetwear company

called “day job”

the young man, 26, heir apparent at the cheque cashing spot by

my house, was murdered in broad daylight in what the paper refers

to as “having all the tells of a hired hit.” roy. awful.

i wanted to eat lunch alone, why did i come to work so early, my

nose is still fucking running, coff ee is making me shaky, i refuse

to go to the doctor, my chest hurts from coughing, i forgot to buy

socks, i shouldn’t have put off today’s errands until tomorrow, how

did i forget to buy cat food, who broke the brita fi lter, i picked up

the wrong swiff er sheets, i can’t imagine going back to the mall

now, i should have slept longer, my lips are chapped, i’ve been

thinking about making loops again, what am i going to do with

the iced tea in the fridge, i have to follow up on those invoices, i

can’t fi nd the reciepts though, i have to work wtfssmt seven days

straight, i must be depressed.

“what on earth has happened to my ability to focus?”

“you grew up.”

i forgot my wallet and now i can’t aff ord a juice.

i was almost hit by a car while i was crossing the street. i was thinking

about your cell phone call history.

i hope it’s a quiet night. i’d like to fi nish this book while you watch

the hockey game.

i look tired in photographs.

at one point, i could tell the time just by looking up.

i complain about a pain on my left side. you complain about a pain

on your right.

we are both dying.

good afternoon! i forgot to do the things you asked. i’ve been wearing

the same jeans for a week. i have to close the outdoor studio

before it gets too cold. i worked on a layout for the new space. it’s

in the other notebook. it’s late october and it snowed lightly last

night. i need to buy a tarp. i was looking at used macbooks on

craigslist when i should have been working. i should switch my

coff ee to tea. after i made a smoothie, i watched the hockey game

instead of reading. my day has been ruined.

i prefer to walk away from my problems, unshowered and with no

place to go.

i want you to apologize to me fi rst.

i’m used to not getting what i want. that’s the freelance life. you get

sample-sized bites of what you want.

i think of myself of smart but impractical. unmotivated? i think

that’s the whole “depression” thing. why excel when i can remain

misunderstood and mysterious?

i was eating a slice of pizza and doing math. 900x2=1800,

200x4=800 800x4=3200 3200+1800=5000 ??? this doesn’t explain

why i am late on my rent every month.

after an argument, there is a space of tentative silence before one

sends the other memes.

i have to run errands, i have to buy a sweater. i need to go to the

bank. i need a new passport. i need a new health card. why am i so

bad at doing normal tasks?

if i am to become anything, i need to be louder and alone.

i’m writing an epic novel on the diffi culties of buying a used

macbook pro off craigslists.

driving, walking or i make myself smaller, wedging myself into a

corner half-sleep itching sweaty rash.

this new pimple, the size of a button and located right where my

glasses rest on my nose, was making it hard for me to see. analyzing

my face in the mirror, we decided it needed to be popped. i laid

down in bed and you stabbed at it with your nails, soft pink. you

suggested i put toothpaste on the spot, running yellow-orange fl uid

towards my mouth.

a week passed and the blemished remained. we agreed to re-pop

the pimple.

using an ikea kitchen knife, we scratched off the fi rst few layers of

skin to ease up on the extraction process. i’m unsure if it was the

actual pain or the fear of having a sharp knife so close to my eye,

but it hurt the front of my brain. there was what could quantify as

being “a lot of blood.” pushing upwards on the pimple’s core, pressure

was applied until a ball-bearing sized piece of me popped out

and landed on my left cheek.

“oh, weird. a cyst. maybe you have cancer.”

“well, maybe i did but not any more.”

webmd suggests i seek medical attention.

i throw the lump in the trash and put a band-aid on my face.

i look great. like a rapper. i’ll live.

my jacket smells like me, i’m not surprised, i mean - it’s mine. this

smell, uh, smells like the weather or the transcript to an interview

conducted over lunch where i feel unsure about buddhism

or whether or not ill have a job next week. “i enjoy doing things,

yeah, things that don’t pay well - everything unattractive is a good

question.”

what’s in my perfect bag? having a laptop is too heavy unless i have

a backpack and backpacks look awful on adults. i can’t carry the

things i need anymore.

i’m more concerned with, well, work that you can’t own. i mean,

you can have it, but you don’t own it, it can be anyone’s. like, put it

on your wall, sure, but there is no original - it just exists on it’s own,

but maybe that means it’s the only one since it is yours?

i just want some where quiet that isn’t home wow i spend a lot

of money, honestly. we have a lot of photographs of each other

reading with wine glasses. yes, god, the work - some things never

change. my work has always been making more work for me.

a weak person, he said, jamming his fi ngers into his ears as as a fi re

truck passes. a return to bach, bruce springsteen, sometimes. it’s

always a ritual with you, isn’t it?

chorizo, fries, al pastor, chicken, tourism toronto. i’m so happy to

eat, i need to apply for that art metropole job, that uh, art director

position, resend that piece i sent to new museum, the fax, send that.

caprese, eggplant.

ooh, a new wave of anxiety for no reason at all, ooh, a yawn, in general,

a celebration of the great narrator, no personal responsibility

- enjoyment. blame it on something absent, reasonable but tough,

end of the day two suggestions. tomato bread.

three women, early 20’s, two in glasses, discuss applepay and the

inconvenience of carrying quarters.

a b52 shot dropped into a manhattan in a rocks glass: the inside

job. oooh.

it’s not as much of an inconvenience as people say it is. make the

windows tremble 3am new record. in my defense, no ambivalence.

to speak and occasionally assemble - who doesn’t lose focus? i walk,

or is it march? the girls all loved the steak tartare.

remember what the tarot reading said? no, i’ll have to go through

my notes. i remember it being correct, though, if we’re being generous.

my mom was right about being scared of everything the older

you get, though, that’s for sure.

vaping is actually pretty sick, maybe - i vape in the washroom,

blowing smoke into my jacket and steal a wine glass. a woman in

love, by the waterfront, nectarine, vitamin water, perrier, absorbing

language. less is more, we both mean.

can we make love after our walk? oral sex on the couch maybe

listening to your new records, mexico city in the shade india ink

on glass. set back behind hedges, a shaded pavilion. an appetite for

personal openness. banana bread. annexed to take a beating, survival

based on assigned seating. yes, i care about succeeding.

avocado toast hours far apart clinging, paying attention referencing

something else.

i maybe quit smoking, trying to quit smoking. i mean, i have had

two cigarettes today but it’s not the same. i have been puffi ng on

this juul thing. yeah, it’s a vape but not an obnoxious one, less

obnoxious.

i’m trying to edit this fi lm but i don’t really know where it’s going.

life as a passive consumer:

idling about, lazily reading every other sentence in his book, always

chasing a new one, somehow.

a stripper, or i assume a stripper because i’ve seen her going in and

out of the strip club, steps out of her tesla. i congratulate her on

caring about the environment and she fl ips me off . elon musk was

on the joe rogan show earlier today and he smoked weed, or at least

that’s what twitter is telling me. a backwoods, maybe. there is one

person in my bar and i sincerely can’t stand him. he’s become an

accidental regular, the kind that nobody particularly likes. nobody

talks to him, he just interjects into your conversation with a “tell

me about it” or a “i know how that is.” i nod and my face looks like

this usually: -_-

i’m exactly the kind of person i thought i’d be. my face is a liquidation

sale. i have three desks to work on, they pile up paper until i

stop writing. 100 pages and i’ll leave here. i wish the blue jays were

doing better so i can have my summertime distraction back. something

generic, apo-karakostas. my eyes vibrate as a child screams in

my otherwise quiet.

sudden death, but what about the cat? 1:46 wednesday, i fall asleep

from a dream about guantanamo bay. my nerves, woo, vitamin water,

woo, that’s what normal people do. reluctant to motivation, but

i guess i have these survival skills, like paying rent a week late. don’t

call it a comeback.

even though i’m back where i started, gripping sober waiting for

rain something more stable to compliment me, vitamin water?

hey, just checking in, i’m always just checking in, haha. nonfi ction

missisippi goddamn. instead of reading proust, i could be a dick

sucking factory.

as much as i’m not welcome here, i don’t think i could eat pizza

again. maybe i don’t have sex again, either. salads and yoga, no, not

eating and walking, if that answer is satisfying. being here is perfect,

with your hard to pin down accent.

passive aggressive revenge is cleaning the house thoroughly and

drinking tap water, charging my phone at 30%. a party with no

cover, you don’t know how good you got it. sore throat, still smoking,

trial by fi re, liberation of spirit.

now, i smell like shampoo, sitting in a window drinking gatorade at

the pregame. this is stability, recently showered, reading.

i have been off my meds, and i guess also off the self prescribed

“stuff .” i don’t think i ever had a drug problem, it was more of a

drug inconvenience.

a wrtiter, lucky to write most days, feels happy with anything but

does want more. a writer the way that people can be writers. slightly

maladjusted. has anyone written something like this before?

he hoped people would stare at him from across the bar and

whisper “isn’t that the fi lmmaker?” no - “isn’t that the writer? the

famous one?” no - “did you see his most recent show of paintings?”

hm.

immeasurable anxiety regarding my hair, teeth, face, height. all

blemishes. i’m just a blemish.

remember that girl from the health food store? turns out she’s

really great in real life. funny how that worked out. you don’t feel

sad very often. you lay in bed, smoking, trying not to wake her – it

doesn’t matter if i did, she wouldn’t be mad.

i lay back in bed, googling “why do cats purr?” i know they purr

because they’re happy, i just wanted to make sure. the cat jumps out

of bed.

“if i’m a writer and i’m a poet, i might love you but never show it.”

my stomach hurts. i shouldn’t have eaten all of those vietnamese

leftovers. i wonder if she thinks of me fondly. i hope she’s not

thinking of me at all. there’s too much too bad if you really sit and

think about it. about me, i mean.

back to sleeping fi ve hours a night, if you’re lucky. a new, unique

pain starts in your stomach. similar to the vietnamese food pain,

but not the exact same. you call it “both excited and worried for the

future.” you name the lack of sleep “my, how things change but how

they stay the same.”

before falling asleep, he thinks of what he’d like in his new life. he

was a bookshelf. an organized bookshelf.

-fi ction, nonfi cition, alphabetized

-new directions books, however, are separated. they are organized

by publishing number.

ie baudelaire’s “fl owers of evil” is ndp71, so it comes before sartre’s

“nausea” – ndp1243

my academic career didn’t work out, but i’m still fi nding myself

aroused in a book store. soft sexting on my walk today.

when i laugh, i sorta feel like puking. maybe i have the fl u, and

maybe i’m in love.

writer who writes about intimacy issues and believes he is able to

write well due to sexual sublimation, fi nds happiness in a relationship

that off ers the exact intimacy he craved. delicate, loving, rough,

public.

as a result, the work suff ers. he thinks it’s due to the sublimation

wearing off . the aura disappears, proving the previous work contradictory.

reality is he is actually happy after years of self-diagnosis

as a coping mechanism – a way to make sense of being specifi c. is

specifi c the right word?

“just a heads up – i got a confi rmation email and our wine glasses

will be arriving there on wednesday.”

everyone goes the wrong way, looking for the washroom in an

unfamiliar bar.

why do i prefer to sleep on the couch?

why do you always take your time when returning calls?

personality traits: “reserved about asking for things directly.”

i enjoyed the ruins, the nothing, and then the return. return to existential

dread, then back to the ruins. ‘it’s better to destroy than to

create.” sober days drag by, disassociated from lack of sugar.

i’ve decided i must try to be less like me – abandon intuition at the

door. how can i be sure i’m actually going against my fi rst instinct?

which instinct feels least like me?

i fall out of love just as easily as i fall in. not always, but it does

happen.

rambling about god - hmm, now i get you. how interesting.

what?

hmm, nothing. just realized something about you.

did you just psychoanalyze me?

which made me feel prone, dreadful, unaware of what i said, what it

meant about me, what that meant to her. really made me dislike the

idea of being candid.

i realize i must remain more quiet – listen more, react less. a more

clandestine experience.

why do people go out? why do people do anything?

i’m actively feeling memories dissolve. new love is the gravestone

for old love.

should i feel sick? i need to nap. maybe i’ll take a bubble bath. i

only have dish soap. i’ll take a shower.

my hair long, made me look unhealthy. every part of me feels

ashamed or dirty. just not what makes sense with someone like you.

who set up a mirror in this washroom? i assume it was purposeful.

so you can see your dick no matter where you look in the room.

maybe it’s for selfi es. my dick does look good, though. i should take

a photograph. fuck, my phone is dead. better write this moment

down.

sometimes while masturbating, i stop halfway through. walk away.

go soft. think, “i don’t know, i don’t want to have sex again.” frustrated

at my lack of desire. i return and fi nish the job 10-15 minutes

later.

dearest,

i love you for your sensitive features,

but you should have gone to that party.

i counted. i’ve given you fi ve “i love yous” to your one “i love you

too” today.

you counted?

no, i just noticed. i was just aware.

yes, i started counting after the third.

protected, as if a passive riot cop. shield up, looking past you –

bored of everyday intimacy, preferring to bludgeon someone with

his love.

i don’t not want to be held under duress

power dynamic

yeah, i slept on the rug for a few hours – only because i was too

sad to get into bed. maybe it’s the dairy. maybe i should stop eating

cheese. when i say i’m not drinking, what i mean i’m not getting

drunk.

i fi nd my speech restrained, previously free – the other, now open

wide.

she refused to tell me the hour her plane arrived, if it wasn’t hard to

fi nd online. i laid, book on my face – i wonder if this looks

constructed.

do you want a splash of milk in your coff ee?

more than a bit but not a latte.

when i met you, well, fi rst saw you, yeah i was just buying juice.

constantly buying juice.

“god, i’ve been loving the idea of the world ending.”

“lately?”

“more than usual.”

the past two nights and one daytime nap off ered more pleasure

than i’ve had in years. fi nally relaxed. small things – “our house,”

maybe joking a bit, not really. the parlance all “tomorrow,” “forever.”

“i’ve never received the physical aff ection i wanted. i always was

made to feel guilty for wanting to hold hands or to want to be

hugged without asking for it.”

“it never happened for me. everything always felt rushed. sex felt

like washing the dishes. an avoided chore.”

we locked eyes too long, we laughed too much. i guess that means

we’re in love now.

“you make me so happy, i’ve forgotten every instance of presumed

joy before you.”

when you’re young you think love is important

when you get older, you know love is important

you just stop giving a shit

you know love is important but so is paying your bills,

doing good work, quiet moments alone

there are no promises shared when we kiss:

just a short reliving of kisses past.

like i would ever believe something that negative.