#mark messier

"For the entire ‘80s and 90’s, only three different players won the Art Ross trophy for scoring lead: Gretzky, who won ten times; Lemieux, who won six times; and Jágr, who won five."

Every now and then and here again,

I receive a six digit code from a machine

who is entirely indifferent about me,

simply fulfilling its purpose as the code dictates,

similar to how I swipe left and right on beautiful women with complete abandon.

My fingers tap the screen with a panicked despair.

Somewhere buried in that rush,

an acknowledgement of an unchanging reality

hides behind a faint glimmer of "what if?"

A light I've been basking in for as long as I can remember,

a Shine that has fizzled and can only continue to fade.

Unrequited attention, barren inbox.

A long dormant message from a woman who has already joined

the fleet of women who offered up their number

just to forget me afterwards.

Hope can only erode so far

but fear can build steadily into paralyzing tension.

When those two paths cross,

an unbearable pressure withers the soul,

but so too emerges clarity from a thicket of delusion.

That isn't the only app on my phone that I've deleted,

only for it to wash up on the malcontented shores of consciousness.

The other app reaches out to me first,

informing ominously of a message

behind a stoic stare beguiling a resentful snarl.

It can be only from one woman,

a girl who deserved better than what I gave her.

I left a letter at her doorstep mere days ago,

surely re-opening a would hardly healed.

I walked nervously to her front stoop as I had

with her on my hip and her smile in my mind so many times before.

My hands trembled in a way they hadn't before.

The rumble of rubber against road abruptly ends behind me.

I turn to see her Mom's car, stopped dead in the middle of the street,

as if to do a double take on her worst nightmare.

The engine revved and tore off, but my pounding heart

drowned out the disappointment expressed in her acceleration.

I planted the envelope under the doormat.

After retreating down the driveway and out of sight,

my breathing stabilized and my heart crawled back down my throat,

yet I found myself still glancing over my shoulder,

awaiting another fleeting wisp of that vehicle.

This time, not out of fear.

I abandoned the area with my gaze buried into the ground,

trying to dispel the hope of one last chance encounter.

This act was supposed to alleviate those nagging thoughts,

to release the barbed wire from bleeding and brutalized hands.

A new narrative emerged, as quickly as the old had been dispatched.

In that note backdated over a year previous,

I begged her for some sort of connection,

pleaded for something above no-contact.

I told her to reach out in the way only we knew,

on a platform holding all our memories,

a chat app I had deleted for fear of immaturity.

This site, having my number and missing my engagement,

pings me nearly every damn day,

insisting I have messages to respond to.

Her messages to respond to,

according to a deep rooted fear.

About once per day, a notification sends a jolt of

an unforgiving deep cold down my spine.

Just as the sliding disappointment found after

entering that foolish six digit code.

An underlining uncertainty and terror

riddles each letter of those messages,

an insecurity in every buzz.

So I checked.

Predictably, there was nothing.

Neither app offered a brief respite from

the narrative of an unescapable wanting,

a tragedy unwinding in every waking moment,

through grandiose orchestral acts of sweeping emotion

and in the tiniest breaths and movements.

But this isn't Shakespearian.

This thing carries human weight and a conscious spirit.

It looks back at me, warped in rippling pond water.

It gently strokes my facial hair while

absentmindedly twirling my pen in his other hand.

I spent much of my past life

drawing a firm line between him and myself.

I needed acceptance from my peers, to conform

to the uneven and rough ridges of society.

As I distance myself from that immature and weak mindset,

colours become more vibrant,

sunbeams spark life into each dawn and dusk,

strangers smile more often and children laugh louder.

Sleep feels restful, mornings are relaxed instead of misery.

Even through the forthcoming bliss of

a deeper connection with self,

tension twists in the dark recesses of my mind,

a persistent discomfort behind my eyes that

flirts a desperate spite into my soul.

Simply put, I've been doing me

which is usually easy to define.

But that question that paws at me relentlessly,

the deep rooted insecurity towards those absent romantic notions,

is it central to my character?

is it me?

The query froze me,

threatened to send me spiralling to places

that I pray to forget.

Dark spaces that suffocate the soul,

manipulate the mind in and out of sanity,

spaces that have tightened around throats just to watch

the colour drain from frantic faces,

delighting in every moment of struggle

and airless gasp.

I have felt my lungs empty before.

I heard every gurgle and death rattle.

I watched the light dim.

I tasted the copper of blood in my mouth.

As that simple inquiry lunged for my neck,

stained forever purple and blue,

a scent brought forth an answer.

The chill of a quiet night,

the cold air rushing through my nostrils,

the way it used to when I was just a boy.

I remember how simple it all was.

Pretending to sleep after a long drive to be carried inside

on my father's shoulder,

tucked into bed with my mother's gentle forehead kiss.

The story she used to read me sat idle on my nightstand.

It was all so warm.

I recall the wet heat of my friends tears

as she wept in my arms,

a woman so used to fighting for survival

that anything less than hostile frightened her.

The faint glow reflecting off that stranger's face

as their kind eyes smiled back at me, if only for a moment.

The living breathing toasty feeling that comes in the form

of a stray cat, nuzzling against my corduroys.

The steam rising out of both cups of tea

that start and end my day.

The panting sweltering hot that follows

a brutal hike on a clear balmy day,

surrounded by moss and pine needles that cling to curious hands.

My eyes are closed,

lost in the humidity of those precious memories.

As I open them, the hand is gone.

My breath feels easy, relaxed.

I'm still alive but more than that

I am warm.

That warmth that returns to me

every time the hand nearly snuffs my flame.

This feeling pushes me elsewhere, both within in the walls of mind

and outside, into the world I share.

I exit that space to join everyone else,

just to feel the rays upon my skin.

I spend more time looking up at uninteresting skies,

imagining new animals to find in the clouds.

Everybody around me seems so cozy and familiar,

as if there is a friend in every pair of shoes.

The grass under foot radiates the passion of sun,

powerful enough to bore through sole and into heart.

It takes energy to be present in this moment,

to be at ease with all that covers the land before you.

Energy I can't spend checking my phone,

energy I can't afford to waste worried about a text back,

much less from a pair automated numbers.

Two sets of digits that can only spiral into a comfortable obsession,

a sinking feeling, a paralyzing tension,