Author: foxtongue

It’s a bouncy kind of misery when nothing goes right but you’re not allowed to cry. It shakes into you and makes you dance. Moaning saxophone rippling into a twirling wet skirt of sound to catch at your feet like walking through rain with a birthday party.

I can’t get the New Music West wristband off without cutting it.

When the englander folk start popping up on my messenger I know it’s time for bed, but I can’t help but stay up a little tonight. I sit and I think of a meeting between two people who’ve never met. A what if of proportions I can’t measure. I’m not used to this sort of thing in my head. I don’t know what to do with it, it’s too new. I know that one day I’m going to have to learn how to edit, the trick of coming back to something to make it worthwhile. Keeping the structure while smoothing the lines. It’s strange to think about as so far I can’t touch something old without losing it. Honestly though, so far I’m still amazed I have snippets to even write, period. Stream of finger-hand expression. Once it’s down, it’s lost.

I wake up with a headache pulsing through my newly solid skull. The prescribed meds have worn off, but catching myself in the mirror, I decide I like the shape, so it’s worth it. Science fiction, yeah, living here is good. I wash my hands in the bathroom and step back into the bedroom. The streets outside are empty, I’m in a bland hotel of a cubicle. The cutters paid for it, so it’s cheap but serviceable. Brown bedspread and cream coloured walls, like something from the nineteen seventies. The sheets are soiled now, I bled from the mouth in my sleep. I suppose I should straighten them, but I can’t care through the pain. It’s a bloody ache to stiffen my spine. Can’t clench my teeth yet, I have to wait until the freezing wears off else my new teeth will slip through my tongue and I won’t even feel it. I should check my reflection again. Tender self mutilation and I won’t even be able to save it hard disk. If I weren’t so happy I would scream.

“It comes down to what you’re willing to do for me”
“I don’t understand, I thought we’d made our promises.”
She looks down, away. “I suppose, but things are different. It’s like the movies, this is the bit where I look at you and tell you things have changed.”
“You know I love you.”
“You know that doesn’t matter here.”

They met just over a year ago. The summer was sliding into autumn, but slowly. The sun was hot through the window of her apartment, slanting down onto her like she was chosen by god. In a way, she supposes, she was. Not any god she would have picked, mind you, but a deity none the less. The dice rolled and he fell into her lap. Time to see what could be done with it.

“You don’t understand, I threw away your power.”

Today was Remembrance Day and I think to myself all I have are my memories. Reflections of times and places, things passed with no evidence. My lover called today and his accent sounded thick because I am no longer speaking it. No glasgay echo lass anymore but fallen back into me. Uninteresting and all I could do was wish I were a man so I could take him properly, the way I want to. Spread his legs and nudgeplunge in, suck his sounds back with my lips, my breath. I miss him today and yesterday and tomorrow and all right now, this boy is a memory and in spite of the objects left behind I can’t prove a thing. There is no ephermera for love or meaning or passions last gasp. I cannot conduct an orchestra here. I have no bow to bend.

Stiff fingers from the cold feel strange when you’re typing. As if you have to pay attention suddenly to negative feedback. A woman outside is shouting “You filthy little bastard” after someone in a ruined whiskey voice, rough and loud. My neighborhood is interactive. On my way home I was stopped countless times, the ferret a magnet for conversation, but never once asked for change. One scruffy patched hoodie boy said to his army fatigue girl, “What are you doing? She has wings on. Never ask a woman with wings for money, doesn’t matter what she looks like, she’s one of us.”

My morning was spent at first in denial of the time. Road workers set up shop outside my window at 7 a.m. with a !ZHWIM! gun. This woke the ferret, who then spilled an entire pot of cold tea on me in his eagerness to destroy whatever it was making the noise. My eyes were forced to peel open at that point and glare a little at the ceiling. My hand shot out and grabbed his furry body, this was not a loving embrace, mind, this was a I-Am-Tearing-Myself-Out-From-Beneath-A-Toasty-Coverlet-For-You grip, which was then followed by a shivering with wet feet walk to the door, where he was unceremoniously dropped into the hall. There was really no way to get back to sleep after that.

I unpacked slowly until the afternoon came. VISA things were dealt with and eventually Jenn’s was visited. Skatia came with me, he falls asleep on transit. Easy to deal with, a darling to transport. He walks the third degree hill faster than I used to. So many times now, I can feel how I’ve healed. It used to make me cry to scale that slant, to visit her building was murder one step at a time. Now I reach her place as the sun shines brightly. I know I’ve recovered this much at least.

We spent our day together, talking about everything and nothing all at once. Boys and wedding plans, girl things yet not even really. It’s like gossip but it’s all about us. Just catching up while Skatia bell tinkled around her apartment. Her basement laundry room is a fetish photographers dreamspace. Clinical and creepy, but well lit. I wanted a girl in black PVC and a camera so badly I could taste it. Make her be in a miniskirt and big nasty boots. Odd hair would help. Let me make some of those cliche shots.

Kim came home as we were packing up to leave, not soon enough for a proper ferret visit. I’d left my feathered wings and some media. Daytrippers in one pocket with the Heinlin, Smoke & Mirrors on the other leg, everything fitting into my various pockets. On the train she pointed out that our roles have reversed, now I look far more eccentric than she does. The woman who was asked if she does childrens parties has been visually out-weirded by me. With my black wings like they spring from my gentlemans coat and the white ferret in my lap, I could only agree. The difference between us being I don’t do it on purpose. It’s a pity I can’t find my hat.

Downtown Jenn was headed for the Commodore, but I knew the doors wouldn’t have opened so early so I dragged her over to Jay’s office space and we stood by while men carried gear up three flights of steep nasty ankle breaking stairs. He gave me a wristband for New Music West, as was the plan. It’s always nice to see him, however briefly. He knows me well and I know him well. Far more than anyone could possibly expect. It’s an odd tender relationship which means almost nothing. When he’s sick I take care of him, tip-toe around and do his dishes, let him fall asleep with his head in my lap, but when the time comes I never stay the night. He knows me for the way I sneak out, leaving him curled around a pillow or a book. One time soon I will, but not yet. We need to work another show together, I need to cement our one act play interactions a bit more. It comes down to showing face and the intentions involved with such.

I stood with Jenn in line until Steve came and the folk shuffled forward, counted by their plastic card ID. Afterward I walked to the Media Club, intending to meet back up with Jay, but there were too many people for the ferret to handle. Instead I called my strength down from the stars and walked to the Armory. I’d missed Bill, a pity. I guess I’m good at showing up after he’s left from there. I’ve been doing it three years in a row now. On my lapel is my poppy. I will not forget.

Alright – this meme has shown up in more people’s journals than election discussion, so obviously it must be getting some sort of interesting response. (I’m waiting for laundry).

This is the problem with LJ, we all think we are so close, and we know nothing about each other. I’m going to rectify it. I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me, something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.

See, I wonder where it started. Who is it that wrote this paragraph sweeping through our wierd little corner of internet? The phenomenon began somewhere, but the credit’s been lost somewhere along the way.

To keep to a theme, here is something you never, dearly did never, need to know, just to keep it even.

I’ve been upset with my writing lately like a pressure under my skin. I sit and words spill out twisting with fiction. There’s nothing different in the delivery, the process of not paying attention to the words is the same, but now there’s something being lost. My eyes feel too tight in their sockets, I hit post and almost want to cry when I properly see what I’ve written. My letters are beginning to have more than one recipient. I Don’t Like It. I can feel that I’m not the sort of girl who can let more than one person in at a time. No one can get less than half, this is hurting me somehow. If I am to write to my Painter, then my other lovers have no business creeping into my words. These people are too precious to blur, to lose definition is to betray them. In my blood, it hurts.

Today the first steps to leaving the country have been made. Paperwork begins accumulating and I am this much closer to freedom. I have to stay for the Jenn plus Steve equals wedding in the early summer, but then there’s nothing keeping me here. This means getting bits of information off my grandmother, but perhaps if I talk slutty enough she’ll respect me more. She is a bit odd that way. Ineffably english but very very loose with her affections, if we can call them that. The woman amazes me. She expects me to commiserate with her schemes to get laid as often as possible because, “well – you’re at that age dear. I’m sure you lie about your age all the time to get the men.” whereas I am continually surprised that she has yet to catch any lethal STD.

It occurs to me as I write this that I may actually have to visit her to get this arranged properly. She’s not known for being on top of anything that isn’t male. She owns a house in The Beaches, but there’s no possible way I could stay with her. I suppose I’ll find out in January if my open door home is still available in Toronto. I know there are still jobs waiting for me. I worry that if I go, I’ll go for a few months, spend the summer. Get caught in the happiness of living in a city again. I would want to stick out the winter rather than arrive in time for the England rains. It’s always nicest to come to a place in Springtime. Celebrate a birthday then leave.

No. Not leave.

Arrive.

forklift
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Heaven is falling, burning with light heartless fire. It is cold and white voiced, the saints are losing their wings to the flame. Angels wept to a chorus of screaming, but they harmonize all the same. Soaring, crying with fists shaking, they can’t help but remain beautiful. Their feathered stumps dripping silver, tarnishing the cloud beneath, still remain breathtaking. Enthralling in form and perfect in grace.

do your little thing you do, roll the globe across your fingertips, yeah it makes me hot baby, when you set everything spinning, power turns me on, show me what you’ve got, incisors gleaming the way I want them to, like a needle in a jar, bite and tear baby, show me some action, show me just a little blood and wild tame murder

This is what happens when the magic dies. This is cruel to watch, but your mortal destiny. You wrapped the twine around your wrist, you pulled the ribbon from your darlings neck to see her tick, you broke the rules. Physics binding no more now than fairy charms. All the people around you, all the treasures of the worlds, lay discarded now. Descartes curses you as the earth weeps in agony. That was the secret. Nothing functions and the angels cry.

Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Living with procrastination, I can taste it like damp cardboard over my heart and tongue. I’ll eat my last orange, then put my shoes on. I’ll re-fill the ferret water, then put on my coat. I’ll put my things in my pocket, then walk out the door. This is the theory, this is the thought. Heavy stomached need for food driving me out, but slowly. Self destructive apathy again. Need toothpaste, mundane things, tomorrow I take the garbage out. I should leave before the better shops close, leave before my evening company comes on-line. Better than time spent elsewhere, I won’t mind once I’m there. It’s chilly outside, I will feel it on my skin like your breath on a cold icy night we have yet to have. I’m thinking of Montreal in winter. It never seems to me like there won’t be a meeting, the somnalabists assumption. Talking with fingers only, it’s like curling up to you in sleep.

It’s not lazy, it’s lying down in traffic.

Every day I want to be there, slide down into depravity with you all. Man the sinking ship and maybe get drunk once or twice. Heave ho and torch the place a little when you have to leave. All that slick sweetfire jazz that aches in the belly, that weakens the knees. Opportunity moved, somebody followed with it, dying every tuesday that they can’t see my face.

The city heights scrape stormflesh from the eager sky. I walked downtown yesterday and suddenly looked up as I walked, my eyes glued to navy blue. This sky is our only sky, it is large and vast and immeasurable. The wild cloak we unrepentantly breathe into our bodies every last minute. Virus are known to be immortal, this breath was a breath that Mozart sneezed back out, his lungs rejecting it. There is always a last minute, but not for the immutable sky.

This hangs over your head too, you know.