#prose?

One of the first means of travel humans dreamed up was something to cross water

Something that could safely carry their families across narrow streams and endless seas

I grew up boating, and now work as a small vessel captain. This has been my favourite job thus far.

The sway of the deck beneath my feet, the wind on my face, the glimmer of the sun off the water.

I’ve been getting to know Lake Ontario and her many moods:

Her whitecapped fits of rage, whipped to the skies by unforgiving wind, feeling cold and sharp as knives on your cheeks.

Her warm, sleepy afternoons, when the haze sits just right, and you can’t see where the lake ends and the sky begins. It is the palest, softest blue stretching onward south.

Her bright-eyed calm in the hours after dawn, her glassy surface winking at you with a good-morning breeze caressing your hair.

At what age did the roosters begin to scream? A cacophony of crowing, so loudly, so proudly to go north.

Go north Paisano!

Take the black truck. Trace the yellow lines and race me to the tire swing

There I wait for you. Near the irrigation ditches and honey stand where the wood is half rotten. In there, in the ditches, where the sun has cracked my flesh and turned me sweet. Hurry quick before the coyotes reach me first.

I wanted attention when I was young. Fame. Acknowledgement. The blinding lights and the eyes. Then I realised that I just wanted approval. I wanted to make people smile, I wanted to make those around me proud by doing something I was proud of. Recognition of someone who was greater than I actually was.

I wanted to be a singer.

I wanted adventure when I got older. Risk. Thrill. Then I realised that I just wanted the people around me that you would see in adventures. People to fall back on, people who argue and get back together, people who are a family far away from home in a home they found. That I could be somewhere more mystical than where I actually was. 

I wanted to be an explorer.

I wanted comfort when I got even older. Safety. Routine. Then I just realised I didn’t want to spend my time wondering what I was going to do when I got older. Competing for jobs in cities, burning myself to the ground for awards and admissions. I hoped for something simpler. Something that would maybe make me happier than I actually was.

I wanted to be a baker.

And sometimes I wonder what I had wanted for myself before I was told anything about what I should want. Not glory or excitement or money. Did I want simple existence or did I dream of grand journeys? 

I think I wanted to dip my feet in a cold river and feel the stones beneath it. I think I wanted to taste the heat of summer and sink into warm grass. I think I wanted to see the stars someday. 

Bleach the corners until they begin to peel, tell your children you built this

Take down the drawings, replace them with broken plates

Tell the mirror you love her

Draw the curtains and the blinds a) The light will come through anyway b) The darkness will scare you in anyday

Run up the stairs burn your hand

Fill the vases with sorrow and furnish it  with roses lilies lavender

Promise the mirror you werent lying

You grew up here you will die 

here

Leave in the afternoons, lie  in the sun 

Graze your knees, stock the bathroom with alcohol

See who leaves first a) See who cries harder  b) They spent years making a mistake c) You spent your life living it

Tell the mirror you were  lying, its old enough to know

there’s more to that dream than is worth talking about.

I feel sleepy but coherent. calm. regulated.

I am not ‘half’ anything.

/ 4 september 25