christmas at 20

an early morning
i am up before the sun is
it is dark this morning and
i have a long day ahead of me

a kiss for the road
and three more in the pocket
a greyhound into the capital
an ache in my lower back

ottawa doesn't scare me
like it did six months ago
i won't be hiding my face
walking down these streets

i'll take a train to tunney's pasture
and a bus into the suburbs
carrying a bag of bridgehead coffee
and years of memories here

this is christmas at twenty:
i'm alone on the o-train.
i'm putting my feelings aside.
i'm doing this for you, mom.

you expected a lot from me.
you had ideas and plans laid out
but i'm not who you wanted me to be
and i don't love the winter like i used to.

this will be my last christmas—
i won't raise my kids with it.
there is hardly any snow here and
i hope it stays that way.

dancing shadows

it is erev shabbos and i come into consciousness 
still between your legs
i struggle to keep my eyes open and
your thigh covers my ribcage

it is 10:43 and shadows of you and dahlia lie in front of me
on the wall through the east facing window into your bedroom
there they perform choreography
and i put my head under the covers

flewellyn road

i knew i would end up back here sometime.

sunflower decal dishes and blood orange walls
uranium glass and my gramma's late 80s windbreaker
one that thrift store kids would kill for.
the christmas tree is down for the first time in years.
i finally bought myself a copy of one of my favorite albums
but i'm not sure where my record player is
it's not at my dad's;
i spent motzei shabbos looking for it.

maybe it's gone.
maybe i'll ask around.
maybe it's at the bottom of the closet in miles' house.
chances are, though, i left it somewhere at lacombe.

i moved out of there with five minutes' warning.
really giving a new meaning to 'living on the run.'
two years ago i thought by now
i wouldn't be living out of a backpack anymore.

-

i knew i would end up back here sometime
though i was certain i would be living in the little house
taking time away from the city to focus on me
and writing songs.

i had dreams of myself as some wide-eyed writer
like troll toftenes, steven christian or dan cambell
but without the skill, focus, or even drive these days
i'm damned to be an amateur

nepean street

why i gave so much power to a polaroid, it's beyond me

these tired thoughts wont let me rest
this time last year, i had a home
now i'm trying to sleep on the left
i'm getting used to being alone

it's finally weird to think about the place on nepean street
not sad. strange.

i can't put this sick sentimentality behind me
so i'm watching that colorful movie a little more sparingly
last time around i was too fucking easy
it made sense at the time when you told me

that we made sense!

a letter to myself

to a better me,

the leaves are falling.

yellow and orange surround me as i walk up and down the main streets. i wish you could feel how at home i have felt and how much the mountain in the fog looked like the copeland album cover. it was so beautiful. the rain replenishes the air here and i can breathe once more while walking these streets. i soak my clothing walking to work and i won't touch an umbrella. i sweat through my shirt for far too long this summer not to deserve this.

these autumn days grow shorter. i find the nights more often than not lead to me desperately grasping at my blankets. i shake from the very core of my being although it barely gets below freezing this time of year. as the summer came to its finale, i had to leave my apartment. i am crashing on a a friend's couch, in between places. a close friend of mine does not call as much as they used to. i am cold on the inside.

keep warm,

H.L.

in love in elul

a man who got on at lionel-groulx looked like jesse. "i ought to take the former of the two options—at least once in a while," i thought to myself. the doors stay open longer than they should with no good explanation.

though this is by no fault of my own, i have been frequented—gently—by a memory of you and i in a park. it is my intention to again state that i have not been trying to remember, but that it has been happening on its own.

leaves after dark at the turn of the last season framed the picture. stars could be seen in the sky around some church in the near distance and you surrounded me. i can't forget the blocking.

we were a picture in technicolor. laying down, i could see my shoes next to yours just like we can all see our noses. mine were not even as yellow then as they had been in june when i walked through st. louis square for the first time alone—for the first time this year.

in spite of this impending feeling that someone will hate me for saying it—although i'm not quite certain who that might be—your scent brings an inexplicable comfort. i would use the word safety when it should feel right.

no matter if i live 50 more years or 50 more days—no matter if by water or by fire—i will be in the ground some day. and that is a comforting certainty. for now i intend to enjoy what life has to offer: the things, as they matter; the people, as they come and go.

me vs. the highway

walking down somerset, a song came on which i have listened to in ottawa far too often to not be ironic—i watched the 11 pull away and made my peace with summer's departure.

this week i'm out of here and i hope not to return for some time. my life has moved with me regardless of any promise of work to hold myself over.

i would hate to see myself like dan campbell. i refuse to stay anchored here, even though i've found some way to feel nostalgic for a year i hated. this week i say goodbye.

and i'll also say—the best years may still be ahead of me

the mile end, cote-des-neiges, and me

the sky today flirted with rain and hinted briefly at a lessening of the humidity. it's sinister, i think to myself, to send rain only to take it away just as quickly. i enjoyed the breeze on the porch while i could.

with ash in morocco, val moved out, and virgil MIA, i've found it difficult to spend as long as i did today in the house. it's too quiet. while there's a comfort to be found in the calm of solitude—and a relief which often accompanies it—the complete absence of any sound for the entire day may very well be enough to drive me mad.

i took the blue line out today. i sweat through my shirt again under the merciless sun and bought coffee in the mile end. my headphones broke and so i hum and sing out loud to myself.

o-town in july

i took a ride out. a short stroll off the island along the 417—and i fall asleep with miles' hat over my face. ottawa took me in much more kindly than expected. a better experience this time than the last. truly.

three people want to make plans with me tomorrow and i've successfully avoided bank street this entire time. 

greg and i got pizza and drank and i got stoned with him and edwin and his wife. good company and my inebriated state led to an easier time keeping out the memories. i'm so grateful to see muha and maud tomorrow. my friends are here for me when i need them.

while it's still awful, this city isn't as much of a plague as i've made it out to be—i just convinced myself it is because it hurts.

my life as aaron west

one reaches a point at which there is a decision to be made: that is, whether they ought to romantically indulge themselves and capture the names and faces in ink—or, rather, let what will transpire do so and, in the event that intimacy sours, delay the writing until such a time where the resulting story is of a significantly lower spirit.

it's unclear to me now whether it was rob gordon or aaron west—but, no matter which influence it was that drove me, i find myself in this state where i have habitually preferred the latter of the two options. perhaps it's even the case that, recently, i sought out a situation which unraveled in such a way that i would have gloomy things to write about.

it's unclear to me now whether it was rob gordon or aaron west—but, no matter which influence it was that drove me, i find myself in this state where i have habitually preferred the latter of the two options. perhaps it's even the case that, recently, i sought out a situation which unraveled in such a way that i would have gloomy things to write about.

one thing is certain—it's been working.

i'll grow

i avoided the city when i was in it. kept my head down and my sunglasses on—wearing new clothes. i scraped the southern end of bank street like knuckles on concrete dividers where i used to walk through city hall every day on my way to work.

keeping away from my last two apartments indirectly lead me to thinking about them. we bought a picture of the trojan horse and hung it above our shelf the week i got my pigeon tattoo. i found out what that life was like.

i don't know if i'd've done the same if it was me. but i'll grow.

making new plans

in rabbi rob's office with all of his books and papers stacked in numbered cardboard boxes, he told me that if i changed my place i could change my luck.

he signed my papers and told me he was off to pennsylvania. i told him i was off to montreal.

where his new state has a sliver of erie, buffalo and cleveland are trying to push his little shul into the lake. still he persists. it's admirable.

i headed out to the suburbs when i heard they might have work for me. turns out all i got is bones to dig up.

i'm booking rideshares and printing resumes—i'm making new plans. i'll be catching it out of uottawa and hoping i don't have to see too much of the city.

moving forward

there's this sense i have about the way things are going—i'm not sure what brought me to it. maybe it was the last minute rideshare out of the city, bumping into a traveler coming back from montréal on the way there. or that tomer was at the second cup on laurier east. it could have been the aaron west soundtrack to it all. 

i mustered up my courage on a train bridge over a little canal. i said shehechianu as i threw my gremlins pin into the st lawrence. i don't care what they do with theirs.

i think it was the concept of progress. the feeling of fingernails scratching a peeling tattoo on st viateur watching chasidim strolling by with their kids. i was too warm for my jacket but they were still wearing shtreimels. the two hour phone call with my brother while i sat at the top of the fire escape at the st. james united church—drunk, moody and sentimental. that's what did it for me.

yeah—i'm moving forward.

letter to my friend, from montreal

dallas, my esteemed friend and brother—warmest greetings and kindest wishes from myself, here in my yellow vans stepping on cigarette butts in plateau alleyways. montréal is cooler than i'd hoped but i still skip the jacket to show off my new aaron west t-shirt.

this city has in one evening accepted me like the last year just never happened. people at shul asked when i moved here. "i just arrived four hours ago, as it were," i tell them; "i haven't moved yet, though"—that's what i said.

boys suck. i'm glad you're marrying a woman. i quite badly wanted to catch my train out to bemidji last week. obviously it would not only be a little early for the ceremony but also there's still loose ends in ottawa. a lesson from this, though, is that there is no issue in physically running from emotions. especially if those emotions are places.

i thank G-d for you whenever you're brought to mind. i used to wish i had been made to be part of a different family. eventually i discovered that G-d did give me a better family—just that these were not my blood. took me long enough to realize.

i hope the midwestern june does right by you. good things are ahead. take care of yourself.

the plum blossoms are falling

saw craig sitting in his car—windows up, a light rain coming down, his face buried in a songwriting notebook. glad he pulled over when he found some inspiration.

he didn't see me walk by but i kept looking back all the way until hintonburg even though i'm doubtful he would want to chat with me. still, for the past eighteen months i've counted every black smart car i'd find. i'd look at the license plate and peer through the windows. there was a hope to be noticed i suppose. 

what was he doing in chinatown?