A Way to Happiness

Happiness is riding on a bicycle in the sunshine with a heavy pack on your back weighing you down, full of food and you have an empty stomach but you know you’ll soon be back to your flat. No worries, just the sun and the cobblestones. A connection to everything, you can feel it. the lady across from you, peddling away on another bike, she’s not so different. It’s all written by the same hand.

Happiness is enjoying black coffee while soaking in the Portuguese conversation all around you, the Brazilian diva on the television, and a white terrier resting on the carpet. Sharing laughs and smiles.

Happiness is laying naked and panting in the dark, holding each other, and finally realizing that this moment is eternal. That you feel love with this man, as brief and impossible as it may seem. That love comes in many shapes and you shouldn’t be so concerned with trying to find that perfect one. Enjoying what you have in the moment is much more important.

Electrify Then Think

Remember my son, that after the rush and the excitement, things come into focus again. Do not get caught up in the rush of things.

What I want to say is.

Read. Expand your mind. Understand what you thought you couldn’t. Open up. There’s more to you than a

What I mean is

I love you, keep going, you’re on the right track. And he’s out there, but think of yourself first.

Remember what I told you, and what you’ve read. Everything will work out, you are unfolding it all just as you’ve been meant to.

Thank you God for the storm. Flashing, cleansing, cracking, booming! I lay awake holding myself, and smiling in the dark, knowing that I’m dry. Naked, I look out the window and feel nature again. The rain cannot pound hard enough.

The Echoed Call

I had a vision this evening. I saw the children chasing after our white, dusty mini-bus. The black children with no shoes, begging us to stop. These boys are always running and they grow into the men of Africa, always left behind. Our white bus is abandoning them, but we can steal a photo before we go. We leave them alone in the dust with their tears. This continent is playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can with the West, but they will always be the losers in this game. Our bus rolls on in the dusk.

The trees stand singly, blurring into one another if you focus on all of them at once. The grey, black, white, dusty trees with a shrub every few metres. These trees are bare and slender. In the distant hills they point up to the sky, to the first shy stars of the evening. Look they say, look there is hope for this rolling, starving, broken country. Don’t give up, because we won’t.

Can I commit myself to this sort of life? Do I have it in me? What can I do that would satisfy? I have a vision, years from now, of a lonely bachelor living in this strange world. Can I sacrifice the West for a chance to be fulfilled?

I think of our mini-bus and tears come to my eyes. Give me your hand, brother, I’ll help if I can. I have no money to give, but maybe I can give you something else. I know it’s not easy. I know you are broken and afraid. But if you take my hand I’ll do what I can. Consider it a promise.

It makes more sense now, if I realize that I’m answering the echoed call. The dance is in me, I see your smile, I see your face. I’m not a saint, and I don’t want to be. I just want to find meaning in this confusing world of smoke and mirrors.

Golden Kiss

Hold me when the sunlight is slanting, reflecting golden off the windows and through the bare branches. With the sky still blue yet failing fast, I hold you, baby, a secret kiss against the cold and I am laughing. The sky is on fire, and the shadows lengthen. We are walking hand in hand near the water, the ripples reflecting like tiny windows or pieces of the sun. The sky lit the water on fire.

Hold me when I sigh deeply and trace the flock of geese with my eyes. But it’s not just about holding. It’s about feeling. Receiving. Loving and listening. Can I ask this of you? Of course I can, we haven’t met yet, but you’ll understand my questions without me asking them. You’ll know how my mind swims in this flickering, burning sea.

This time of day, this moment passes so quickly. And yet it’s my favorite time of all. It never lasts. One of the poets noticed this, Shelley or Keats…I forget who. But I know what they mean: the sweetest kiss is the one you know will end. Longer, a little longer, hold it still.

And we separate, the sun goes down, the wind picks up, it is over. The water is dark and the sky as well. I hug you from behind and realize that my life is complete.

A Portrait

It’s all that I have. And I put it out there and ask the world to love me. Maybe he’ll find this digitized shadow and reach out. Yeah, right. I think it’s a bit more than that. Not just for him, but as a statement. I lived, I struggled, I’m here now but will be gone someday. Send this portrait out in bytes into the tangled electric mess that we’ve created. Something to remember me by, or to see this person through a lens. What does this picture mean to you? Does it intrigue? Is it sad? Is there hope? Is it a plastic xerox? Nothing remarkable, probably. Another face in a million. There’s more behind this face than you can guess. How can you know what’s going in this jumbled head, the aspirations, fears, trepidations, elation.

This is a stab in the dark, throwing it out there. Maybe no one will see. It will be lost in the back shadows of the network and forgotten. But it’s me.

Thank you for listening.

Stretched Mind

Days pass by and there’s no work, nothing to keep occupied. Things drag, time is wasted. I see my empty, pale green bowl on the table every morning, flash, again. Repeat and there’s milk and cereal left in the bottom, the spoon hangs from the side. Mornings roll over and the room is stained red, sunlight filtering through the curtains. This room is never clean, I’m living here, where else can I go? I want more action, so my answer is dancing and sex on weekends. A quick fix is porn. This is a cheaper drug.

I’m searching and searching and searching but then I start to think. This dangerous thing. The one I really want to be with won’t be found in the pubs and clubs and sites. He’s going to hit me out of the blue from behind when I’m least expecting it.

With the dragging days my morale dips lower. This foreign country is not so different, yet different enough. The equilibrium swings between love and hate, although it’s becoming less with time. The continuous grey of the rain clouds and windstorms doesn’t help, either.

I’m excited for a date tomorrow, but will it be just another passing phase? I want to know him and laugh and be with him and talk politics and history and music and languages. With luck, he’ll have a personality. With no luck, I’ll be stuck making cheap conversation in a trendy restaurant in Amsterdam. With luck he’ll come back to my place, after my weak attempt to offer a ‘movie-night’ from my collection of 4 DVDs. With no luck he’ll pretend to smile, thank me for the night, go back to his place by train and never talk to me again. Block and delete. Breathe deeply now, and try not to think about it. Pull out the designer underwear and bleached jeans for tomorrow. 6pm at Amsterdam Centraal.

Marie Caissie, Ode a L'Acadie

Waiting in the dark for the train, the ode is pulling me on, cry to the wind, I am a part of the dark. Darker, and darker still I am the dirty green train seats which are so lucid in the morning. Throw it all away I am free the night is calling, I will dance. I will dance, I am coming, I answer the song of the winds and the train pulling me on into unknown darkness. Darker and darker still. And I’m dancing, at first shy, but the song gives me courage it is my strength and I find that I will always love myself. Even after a night of screaming. I want to scream so bad. Hidden in dark corners, the darklight illuminates us in the corners. I didn’t know him but it doesn’t matter this is what I do. Ode to the wind that I am. I’m throwing myself into it and it feels so good. Abandon morals at the door. And if I hurt myself, I will still love myself in the end.

Wake up confusion. Head hurts, ass hurts. Was it good? I can’t remember and he tries to hug me. I can pretend that he’s the love I’m searching for, for awhile. Let’s hold each other and forget everything. This is such a powerful drug. It almost makes you believe. But the morning brightness brings things into focus, slowly. You’re not so good looking. And that’s all that matters for now.

The sunlight is slanting, blinding in the kitchen with mirrors and planters in an alley. It’s so cozy, I want to imagine it’s mine and we love each other. But the ode of the wind plays on and I know it’s not true. I can pretend for now, but always? I trace the Dutch whitewashed ceiling with my eyes, and follow the curving patterns. Over coffee we share some laughs, I deepen my voice to maintain my manhood. Don’t think I’m a fucking twink. Just because I let you fuck me…don’t think I can’t stand on my own.

The lilting music entices and entrances. I’ll dance out the door, down the stairs, thanks for the night I guess. I’m still drunk as I walk down the street in the midday sun, looking for the train station. Oui je peux vous aider, monsieur, la Belgie? on peut y aller directemente par traine, mais tout d’abord il faut aller a Amsterdam Centraal. And the Dutch words run through my head as the train rushes me back to the apartments. Hoi, alles goed? Goedenacht, avondmelange, ik heet Doug, ik kom uit Canada. Overveen train station?

I feel so dirty now, yet alive. Take a shower, clean my underwear, take out my contacts, brush my teeth, wash my face. The drops fall from my eyelashes. In a towel and glasses scribing last night. Was it worth it? Am I learning who I am? There is no answer.