a letter to me

hi.

i write you from the leafcovered streets of montreal.

you are younger. 

things are not stable and they may not be for a while. but things do get better. you find family in the winter. next summer you’ll have an apartment all to yourself. you’ll be isolated—but don’t worry, we’ll all be isolating (you’ll understand in time).

in the fall you and an old friend will both be living a short walk from one other in côte-des-neiges, and two more won’t be far behind. remember that you have friends and that they’re there for you even when you feel alone.

leaves fall and crisp and crunch under my boots and the weather drops to freezing by the end of october. soon you will be exactly who you want to be in the city that welcomed you with open arms.

things are looking up for us.

H.L.

a letter to a friend

friend—

i think fondly of you from time to time. your face returns to my mind when i hear the first strummed chord of one of my favorite records—when i look at the jacket i wore all spring and into the summer—when i remember ben yehudah street after sundown.

each time i reach out to send you kind wishes, sober or otherwise, remember i do so directly from the heart. 

be well

an instagram caption

i am limited by my choice of medium. every time i attempt to portray an emotion on this platform, i find that i can never properly re-create what i wanted to show in the first place. i can’t take a photograph that adequately explains the feeling of a september breeze on my freshly cleaned skin after two months in bed. i can’t melt my moods into an instagram caption.

though i have tried, no medium has ever consistently served me as well as my writing has. any attempt to sit down and compose music has, with few exceptions, ended in despair. i need not mention my inability to draw or paint. putting words on to paper seems to be the only suitable manner by which i can explain my emotions—and, i might add, it brings with it an inextricable sense of connection to my past and to other writers i’ve admired which i haven’t been able to find any other way. echoes of my betters.

no amount of cropping or application of the right filter can communicate as exquisitely the feeling of a commute into the city every single morning—where, underground, it’s always dark—as the use of no less than two hundred words.

how i know you were my favorite person

it’s a peculiar thing.

to’ve pined over someone, to’ve had them consistently at the center of all of your hopes and desires for as long as i did, and then to give them up. to recognize, though it was your love which was unrequited for so long—not theirs—that you no longer had that same love.

i don’t know what it was that they must have represented to me that i would feel perfectly reasonable in walking away from what we had once i’d gotten it. this way of thinking, though, presupposes that they were somehow symbolic to me, that i didn’t take them at face value. and i don’t think that’s the case.

they made me feel wanted and even appreciated at times, and they did many nice things for me. misty rose and powdered sugar. i gave them my time because i liked them and wanted to see them. then i didn’t.

it’s weird to think about the change that happened, because it wasn’t clear cut; it wasn’t a shift that took place all at once. 

but that’s over now. (get over it.)

sometimes

it has been of some consolation that any attempt to write about the events which have unfolded over the past two years of my life has been not only a pleasurable experience but also a very natural and simple one.

a former lover approached my basement bedroom window this evening in the hopes i wouldn’t notice them leaving behind spare ink for my fountain pen. as it happens, i did notice, and i reminded them that the window to my bedroom wouldn’t open wide enough for me to retrieve anything left outside.

this past love of mine occupies a very peculiar spot for me: neither are they the object of any lingering unrelenting affection nor are they the cause of any pain, sadness, or frustration. truly, most of what i feel now is based in self-reflection. i was taken aback by the sight of them but it was not hurtful or stressful.

i left my apartment building through the front door and they presumed i would walk with them for some time. this was correct.

previously we had spoken about staying friends after this. now, though, the consensus seems to be that it may not be worth the effort. it’s not the case that the two of us find it difficult to interact with one another on account of our history; in fact, such a history is what facilitates any interaction so far as i can discern. no, a formal platonic relationship between us seems unlikely because it isn’t the natural conclusion for this situation that i had believed it may be. they suit my life better as a kind, intermittent acquaintance i do not actively seek out.

later, when they stood by me as i sat in the doorway of my apartment building, through the mid july evening mosquitoes and hyper-acoustic hums of streetlamps i couldn’t find a thing to say. and so they left.

“hey,” they called back halfway down the block; “i hope you miss me sometimes!”

“i do,” i called from the doorway. i couldn’t discern then whether it had been loud enough for them to hear. scratching a bug bite on my left forearm, i peered my head around the corner to see if they were within earshot. i watched them walk away, and then i was alone on west hill avenue. and so i turned around and went down the stairs into my basement apartment, where i live, without exception, alone. “sometimes.”

vancouver in june

i was picked up at the airport after changing in the bathroom. we went to a diner on the granville strip that morning and i remarked on the plastic dividers between the booths. we drove down west broadway. i wore my hoodie in the 70° pacific breeze. a record store employee jokingly berated my friend for not knowing the postal service. i bought a copy.

it was good to be out there. we didn’t even do anything that exciting. i spent time with my friend and then i took a flight back home.

sometimes you just need to see your friends.

i flew over the olympic stadium on the way back, and i could see four bridges connecting montréal to the other side of the river. there was a thud and i found the beauty in the contrast between mount royal and the city scape. i could see the oratory on westmount and i could even make out the orange julep from where i was. we flew past blue bonnets and soon i could read the signs on the buildings. i was safe on the ground once more.

i took the 747 bus to leonard cohen and teared up on my way down to the platform where i met my ex on our way to the botanical gardens last time around. i took the orange line west and tear up at three stations in a row before i hopped off at snowdon to catch the 51.

it was thursday evening, and i was about to have my apartment all to myself.

winter on sherbrooke street

the lining along the edges of the floorboards
like caulking between red bricks
reminded me of me. looking towards
a city where i knew i would stick

your back to the streetfacing window
your eyes peering directly through mine
i am a no-parking sign laying down in the snow
i am a woman desperately searching for a rhyme

i turn the heat up - just a little bit
i sweep my words away like dust off a kitchen floor
i pin my aspirations up somewhere i'll see it
like typewriter notes on my bedroom door

last winter brought me to my knees
i waned until i disappeared
to a place where i can finally see
there still is something for me here.

permanent for now

i ended up here
early afternoon erev shabbos
and decided i wanted to try again

i sit now, at the intersection
of décarie and girouard,
wishing i had done differently

but i know where that path leads
and wishing i had done differently
doesn't change how i acted.

i cannot take back what i did.
i built a house on quicksand
because i couldn't see 

i just cant blame new york for this.

i stand here on sherbrooke west
outside of the centre jeunesse emploi
it's snowing. but it's warm.

the prospect of moving forward.
the feeling of being at peace.
in february, once more I call NDG home.

i finally put up mezuzahs
and i'm changing the hooks
because it's permanent for now.

how i know you are my favorite person

  ...and i will grow
and drop all my plans
for a chance to see you
no longer

i will care for myself
and find stability in change
to spite this 'consistency'
i've never known

you are a river
and i am a raindrop
you are my favorite
but i'm just me

because the world
once revolved around you:
everyone there wanted you
but not me. (i needed you)

i am a linguist
and you are an artist
we are eating tofu
on my kitchen floor

things will change
and when they do,
i'll mourn what's past
no more.

when i awake
the last thing i'll check
is my phone
...

ndg in january

the montreal air brought us back up from below freezing where we sat for a week or so. the floor of the snowdon metro sat soaking in slush this morning as a floor cleaner interrupted the end of the work-bound rush.

i am late for my welfare assessment.

the train peaks its head out from behind a corner before it comes my way. azure and canary yellow. but my pants and shoes are earth brown and mustard and it sort of clashes.

i lost my headphones again and so transcendental youth plays on repeat in my head. this summer i did every stupid thing that made me feel alive. it ended me up here where i am still in love with the city.

the sun beats down on the pavement outside decarie square, melting all of the snow from the previous days. i have my coat unzipped. the lady at the desk calls me 'madame.'