at the fork of the thames

i am in the town i grew up in for the first time in a long time as if i'm here to stay. i moved out of my apartment in montreal and now have a two-year collection of stuff moved from rue de bullion and into my childhood bedroom. it's a little cramped. i'm not staying here, but i guess it's where i'm starting from again. i just drove my sister downtown and drove home along the only main street in this giant sprawling town a little nostalgically, looked at all the things (every one on that single street) i made sure to tell a friend about when he was coming to london for the first time. he said he felt close to me being here, which is funny and sort of sad to think about as i drive down the same street now with the radio off feeling more removed from my surroundings than a geographer should ever.

the other night, my last night in montreal sort of by surprise (moving was a complicated ordeal on a number of levels including when we actually intended it to happen), i sat on a couch in a new friend's place talking really closely and enthusiastically with emma. akua watched until she couldn't take it any longer and with a short laugh yelled, "You guys talk about yourselves so much!!"oh do we. we do we do. i do! so much. it never really occurs to me that's what's going on, sometimes my experiences are overwhelming and i can't stop to think about any thing besides how i'm feeling. how obnoxious.

you know what else is overwhelming right now? everything. the news. dusk. sickness. and i can't slow anything down to grab a hold of some, any, thing. i am living so much in the moment that i've hardly had a chance to sort out where anything goes. take my crowded crowded bedroom for one. my swollen heart and cold fingers for two. i don't really want this right now; that's what's whelming me. i really would've preferred to feel sure about something this May. i had kind of settled to let that be a boring job and expensive apartment in toronto, but now i've been given another opportunity to keep moving and how could i let it pass? experience! i just don't know if my rib cage is large enough to love more people fundamentally out of reach because of the spaces between us. meeting a person on the move requires so much of a commitment to being good with leaving them behind and i just really don't know if i want to do that anymore. i'm tired. i miss every person i've met and not been able to tuck into my pocket. if you are one of those people, please come over and we'll have some of the tea i bought to improve my circulation. i'll only try to steal you away if you want to come.


laura fayer

i went back to wipe it clean

sometimes it's almost too much to see how long it does take to inch inch inch out of some assumed or more likely pretended bit of assurance. trust is so fickle, there might be more than one catch tied up in being sure of someone else. especially if you're not so sure yourself. don't you think? it hurts a little bit sometimes.

and my life became risky

i am seeing everyone in these cracks.


i am pressing my hot hot chest against the cool tiles in the shower
i am leaving that him curled up comforted in my warmed bed and
letting my ears be grated by the electric violin in the metro
maybe thinking about how this
could have should have
been, not like this!
but how else.
supported by a base upon which i let the gin stand,
i am seeing

everyone

in these cracks.


benicia gantner

it's the morning!

the keys, please

"triple threat!" i licked my lips and ran my tongue across the scars left behind from the two times i have let someone pierce my lip for the sake of spontaneity and her friend (surprise!).
"we are," i savored each consonant, "cha-wri-pu-lee threatening."
i can feel all my motivation and creativity bursting from each crack between my pores, non-directionally and so, rather unproductively. i need a focus! to focus. phoe-kuss. locusts.
in large numbers they're triply threatening to some sorts of trees.
even the blazing breeze
and brazen bees aren't able to do much about that.

late nights

just off the corner of my street is a street where just off the corner of it construction is beginning again. after 8 or so long months and 12 or so store closings we had a nice break of about 8 to 12 weeks where the street was full of snow and free of trucks. alas, the sun returned beckoning to forgotten projects and misaligned pipelines and this i walked along tonight wondering about the changes it had seen. the main! the Main! i get to live off of the main in this country's most curiously creative city. where no one works and spring is real dirty, and there are eyeglassed guys hanging off their balconies on your walk home, plaid shirts undone shirtsleeves rolled up yelling down to probably you, "we're all losers! we're all beautiful fucking losers!"


claire ellen oswalt

summer in the city

i like the murmur project. neato mosquito.


jen corace