Berri-UQAM
You looked at them as though they were about to give you leprosy, ticks, and lice at the same time. As though they carried all the diseases in the world and with every passing second, you risked being contaminated by their stench, their filth, their coarseness. I saw your air of disgust, Isabelle, and it made me feel sorry for them—I hoped they wouldn’t notice you watching them with so much contempt. You waved me over, and with a pleading look, said, “Let’s move? There are still two free seats at the other end of the car.”
Fair Play
Limp on the cliff-edge,
its life breath gone,
her body is welcome carrion
The Ones in White
I’m sober and think about how drunk drivers usually survive this type of shit because their bodies don’t tense / realize I’m not scared of dying / death by car accident is easier to say than suicide for mothers and fathers and friends left behind / and it was an accident / a litter sister or a dog in the passenger’s seat would be soup / I take a minute with my hands at 10 and 2 and my eyes on the chunk of ditch hanging from the rearview mirror / a minute in case I find a bone sticking out of denim
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Truce
Time was measured counting dog carcasses along the roadside, like a prisoner scratching days from a stone wall, calculating how many chalky white mounds of flesh I’d find concealed in lime between house and city to mark the passing weeks.
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Play Date
Since horses are gendered as men
fillies also can’t be little girls and
boys will be boys or horses or whatever
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Period
The Merlot
Maeva Hamel lived in a multi-storied heap of ancient brick, isolated by an expanse of floodplain and a screen of willows, at the end of an unmarked lane; and she wasn’t allowed visitors.
A Chaotic Jumble of Infinite Possibility
The bathroom was covered with graffiti.
For example:
The only things worth fighting for in this world are LOVE & FRIENDSHIP was written above the toilet. Immediately underneath: Wrong. You should never need to fight for love. And below, a third comment – this one in red: YOU are the fucking wrong one here, buddy. Love is a battlefield.
I washed my hands and checked my beard for signs of grey.
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