Forget the sandwich - try the cheese!
I will trade you hours of my life in eight hour chunks for money that I can use for goods and services.
I will trade you this afternoon looking into your eyes for a sailboat.
I will trade this bag of emeralds for another week of feeling exactly like this.
I don't mind the music of today because I know that in about fifteen years, people who are 34 will listen to these songs and it will remind them of their adolescence and the emotional connection it will bring to them will be intense.
You were the prettiest girl in school. I called you on your sixteeth birthday, two months after my own. No one had remembered it was your birthday, including your parents. I had taken a deep breath and jumped off the cliff and dialed your number to ask you out. I didn't know it was your birthday either but I pretended that was the reason I had called. You were ecstatic and touched that someone had remembered. I asked if you wanted to go to a concert that very night. You said yes.
Your parents drove us up to the concert. We didn't have driver's licenses. It was at the Ridge Movie Theater. They had removed the movie screen and filled the stage with candles. It was the Cowboy Junkies just as they were getting big with their album The Trinity Sessions and Margot Timmins' voice rose and fell smoothly and caressing.
We went for a cigarette at intermission. Remember smoking as a teenager? Being so cool.
We caught the bus back. You were a little silly and giggly. I dropped you off at your doorstep. We didn't kiss but you smiled like I had never seen you smile in school. Joyous.
We've bumped into each other over the years now and again, separate circles of other people's lovers and acquaintances stringing us into meeting.
In fact, we just had brunch today and it was great. Almost twenty years later. Not really even catching up on the six years it's been since we saw each other last. Just hanging out and wandering with our feet as aimlessly as our conversation. No impatience. Just drinking in each other's sweet, sweet, subtext and power.
You're still the prettiest girl in school. I will always be taking you to that concert.
I will always be taking you to that concert.
I look forward to moving at the end of the month. I will have a new view and a place that feels like *my* apartment. Not some bullshit default high ceilinged transient impersonal yaletown loft where hookers and dealers haunt the entrance. The new place will be a place to come home to, not just a place to sleep between shifts. And even though it's three times the size, it's a hundred dollars cheaper.
You're all loved. You have to believe that.
I will trade you this afternoon looking into your eyes for a sailboat.
I will trade this bag of emeralds for another week of feeling exactly like this.
I don't mind the music of today because I know that in about fifteen years, people who are 34 will listen to these songs and it will remind them of their adolescence and the emotional connection it will bring to them will be intense.
You were the prettiest girl in school. I called you on your sixteeth birthday, two months after my own. No one had remembered it was your birthday, including your parents. I had taken a deep breath and jumped off the cliff and dialed your number to ask you out. I didn't know it was your birthday either but I pretended that was the reason I had called. You were ecstatic and touched that someone had remembered. I asked if you wanted to go to a concert that very night. You said yes.
Your parents drove us up to the concert. We didn't have driver's licenses. It was at the Ridge Movie Theater. They had removed the movie screen and filled the stage with candles. It was the Cowboy Junkies just as they were getting big with their album The Trinity Sessions and Margot Timmins' voice rose and fell smoothly and caressing.
We went for a cigarette at intermission. Remember smoking as a teenager? Being so cool.
We caught the bus back. You were a little silly and giggly. I dropped you off at your doorstep. We didn't kiss but you smiled like I had never seen you smile in school. Joyous.
We've bumped into each other over the years now and again, separate circles of other people's lovers and acquaintances stringing us into meeting.
In fact, we just had brunch today and it was great. Almost twenty years later. Not really even catching up on the six years it's been since we saw each other last. Just hanging out and wandering with our feet as aimlessly as our conversation. No impatience. Just drinking in each other's sweet, sweet, subtext and power.
You're still the prettiest girl in school. I will always be taking you to that concert.
I will always be taking you to that concert.
I look forward to moving at the end of the month. I will have a new view and a place that feels like *my* apartment. Not some bullshit default high ceilinged transient impersonal yaletown loft where hookers and dealers haunt the entrance. The new place will be a place to come home to, not just a place to sleep between shifts. And even though it's three times the size, it's a hundred dollars cheaper.
You're all loved. You have to believe that.