i have a relationship with karma. i don't like karma. i think karma is a greedy bitch. he takes away moments and steals honesty from people who are afraid their words will make karma come a' knockin. if karma didn't exist in our minds our lives would be filled with truth. bare, scary, hairy, old truth. and we would all take responsibility for it.

at some point i decided there was a god. but coming from a somewhat catholic family, i ordered guilt with a side of church on sundays. that never sat well with me but i obeyed. i thought, yep. this is god. and i will be with him because who else am i going to believe in? people? fuck that. i wanted to believe in someone bigger than myself, someone who could read my thoughts and have the power to make my dreams come true. i knew if i invested in that, maybe some good would spring up in my life like the flowers in my mother's half-assed garden in the backyard.

so in my exploration with god i saw that i wasn't alone. no, no. karma lived in our relationship too. he lived on the heavy, grey clouds that stooped underneath the white fluffy ones that god lived on. i thought that anything i said, thought or believed had outcomes. bad and good. i wanted good outcomes and the only logical way to do that was to simply be awesome. all the time, awesome. that way, god and karma would love me. all the time, please, thank you, niceties to complete strangers, always smile, talk to the smelly crossing guard, eat your apple, volunteer to set up the chairs in the choir room, dah, dah, dah. it was a system. say the good stuff. hide that bad stuff which in retrospect was 'say nice things even if you're lying and repress all your needs and wants to appease others.'

it began to get interesting. as a competitive highland dancer i thought that if i was going to win, which was what i wanted, i needed god and karma on my side. i wasn't enough. i was never enough for myself. so i'd pray. i'd line up with all the girls in kilts who were taller, thinner and way hotter than me at the ripe age of 13 and i'd silently say "god, grant me this, and i will do something for you." and then i'd turn to the girl behind me in line and smile, compliment her on her kilt and tell her she looked pretty. that would earn me some karma points. now with the big guns out, karma, god and i would win. that's the crazy part. i'd win a lot. it was like those actions gave me permission to be the best. a little formula: being nice+praying=supernatural aid. supernatural aid+me= winner.

as time passed it got out of hand. i would line up and have to do a series of things that had accumulated over the year as good karma points. not only being nice to the person behind me, but spin around three times, point my right toe, touch both elbows, compliment the girl in FRONT of me now, clap, sing a high note and so on. it became superstitious. it became meaningless. karma and god were no longer present or responsive to my gifts. i would lose. not only that but i'd question my faith. 'well, why didn't it work? maybe i need to do more? what did i do differently this time? is god even here? am i even talking to anyone?' but being the resilient, little, round-faced fay, i would go back to the drawing board, and start all over. i'd pick one thing and live in that, whether i was doing it for god or not.

karma was easy to understand for a worker like me. it makes sense: you give and you get back. but it also ruined me because i began to expect gifts. 'i've put in this time, where is my gold?' and if there is anything i've learned about myself it's that expectations will be the death of me. so i dropped karma and turned to god. because it's not about 'earning' anything with god. there is no 12 step process of quacking like a duck and rubbing my right eye three times in order to earn a fulfilled life. all that energy i put into karma points, i'm now learning to put into me, which feels completely unnatural. the energy works slower and softer and i'm trying to trust in that.

some bits and pieces of poems i've written:

one:

grey minivans and soccer moms
don't have balls, but have malls!
and cherries in a bowl on the front lawn
how immaculate!

two:

i'm tunnel vision but i'm dishing up gold,
finding the pit of despair i hold
one two tumble but then it unfolds
and you watch it decay for years.

three:

at end, i'm down
on the floor by your feet
you scuff your shoes in recognition.
removal truck, pick her up
she's no good for my illusions

four:

all i can offer is a wool sleeve
and extra wool blankets if needed.
i will try to find words to sum up thank you
but words can't compare
to the deed that she dares
to do just for me
my bleeding heart sees
the good it will do
teaching me how to live honesty.

five:

i hate 80's music.
synth and jam
in between my toes.
gripping into my skull
like ice pics on amerest.

i sing along
then punch myself
and sing more.
a hilarious game for my ego.
comedy. gold.

six:

white noise, black noise, angry noise, knows noise, poise lost.
seeps ginger black pockets

seven:

crippled from words pelted at my chest
a game for them, a battlefield for me.

eight:

pick my scar
then take my pen
i'd scream alone
white noise

veins burst and shoes scuff
wipe your boot on my face
dirt
dry
dusty hammering on my corpus callosum.

nine:

your body sags
like a sack
oozing all the things you lack

dripping down your seat
honey sticks but dreary doesn't

ten:

i show up
and you show down
heart pound
sound your guns
testing testing
festering sweat
in my shoes
slippery do's and don't
no gain
no flailing
exude solid
hollow
rock sedimentary breakdown
drop
low.

post two

i sat in a room with people who are far better at reading that me. my words stumbled over the table cloth and knocked over the punch bowl. so i tried to sop it up with my floral summer dress- to no avail. they sat in wet seats and wet pants, but spoke of Hemmingway just the same. a glare my way made me check behind my shoulder for monsters but i guess it was my complexion they were staring at. should have lathered on the concealer today. i don't have a big enough mirror to see what i'm doing, let alone enough light. some of the bulbs have shattered. a glass rainfall came beaming down. it was beautiful, for a second, when the glass shreds caught the light of the other working bulbs. like a shimmering rainfall over my head. the hurt arrived when they stopped falling slow-mo and zipped into my skull. maybe that's what they are looking at.

be my friend, valentine, heart-shaped wonder and i will try and find a chunk of time for you in my time pie chart. certainly hope we can, cause currently my pie chart shows 95% me-time. 5% cat-time. good. i'm thinking of bumping up cat-time because she's starting to smile at me. i could just personify everything in my life, then my pie chart would be full. tea-time: 15%.we do talk sometimes. cracker-time: another 5%. it offers me nourishment and a crunch and crunchy things basically talk indicating conversation.

nice to dream, i suppose. dream of ciggarettes on balcony's and dances with ball gowns and star studded evenings with martini's in hand, clinking glasses echoing in the night. ah, that's good. good to dream about brick walls exposed to hardwood floors and slippery socks to ensure good slidy time. good slide-time: 5%. nice to dream of words dancing off the page and your arm slowly floating off the page gradually lifting your elbow, shoulder, left side, middle sector, belly, bum, right side up to the ceiling still writing in mid air, writing on mid air, it floats away too fast. maintain a pace and you'll float with it. air-time: 5%.

thanks for the calligraphy tip, she whispered to the sky. sometimes the sky is my friend and we dream together of blankets that feel like fur and solf plush pillows made of velvet to catch our faces from sky's height. sky is fat so she dreams about being skinny and i always say we can run more but her joints hurt from stretching out for miles and miles. she said saskatchewan, especially, hurts her...she's really got to reach there. they depend on her clouds to be as slim and long as possible, drawing out for days.

words and floorboards...

A new page on the computer. Here I am on a couch wearing a life of fuzzy faces and squinty eyes. Many people pass me by and I’m wondering which will penetrate my wall of blunt boots and cracks in the wall. I’ve taken to walking with my head up to see my life flash around, technicolor with the rest of the world. Trying to maintain some piece of mind but this world won’t allow for slow images. Do me, do work, do it, doing more, more, find more, to penetrate the core, money core, money drawer to spend on porno and fictitious fantasies you live in. I’d rather choose the world to expand in, thank you. I’ve got a chip that’s growing your way, don’t poke your eye on my hunchback, and stop trying to see me immediately. There are layers.

You don’t know the scope I’m open to. I am open to books and pages to tell a story. I ate cheerio’s this morning. I walk. I shamefully pick my foot up off the pavement, but then graciously say I’m sorry to the pavement for abandoning it already. It yells and cracks its face at me, tripping me over and over again on my way to the cafe. Fine, I’ll deal with your attitude, flushing it down with stained coffee grinds and bitter taste buds. Tongues and trials, words and floor boards. ‘Seek treatment’ my heart’s voice said, ‘The walks aren’t doing it for me’. Wearing other people’s shoes doesn’t make you empathetic, it makes you pathetic. Find a boot that makes a print, get the wet pavement and you can pave a whole route to run. Predicted and full of despair, not much there but a single footprint of a boot that doesn’t fit your toes anymore, so chop em’ off, everyone else does, we all need smaller feet and better looking bumps to showcase. Well, at least the pavement is happy, you are theirs forever.

Toronto seems large and small. I still take steps to walk to the store and I still buy toothpaste at the reasonable price of 89 cents; small things that appeal to me on the dirty bargain store rack...takes the intensity off the burning florescent lights. I walk, drink a cup of coffee in a fancy glass. Bitter and jaded, unlike me but it’s nice to dream. I don’t look for friends but opportunities to hear my voice in the noise of the city. I obviously feel like a spec on a spec on a spec on a flea. “Hugs through the phone!” I receive them through the phone lines from a caring mother. I wish I could store some before bed, I tend to use them all at once.