Found

As we lie in the dark, our arms touch. You aren’t asleep yet. Your breath, too quiet. Can you hear the wind my frame barely contains? It is so very loud and you, so close, at least now.

That thought keeps me at sea. Your proximity and its duration, variables I hope become constants. Hope is like a rag I need to wring too frequently, the seawater dampens it.

I’d take this consumption and have it belt out over the fog, docks and hills, till the inner walls of all the homes shook in climactic perplexity, but it lacks amplification.

Something about your disposition – I want to carry you between my lips at all times and perhaps you prefer they remain sealed around your affairs.

If I tread for too long I may sink under the weight of my own offerings. They were never meant to burden.

Ring hitch, bottle sling, grief knot, fail to secure me, but with your voice alone, cast me a line and I’ll reel.

This map, it’s been redrawn, rewritten more times then I can count, but now that I found your latitude and longitude, I want to laminate its fragile remains marked with the singular outline of your features and every morning, have my eyes rise on your horizon.  

Give me something, anything.

I don't think I ever realized until now just how nourishing it is to feel truly loved. Not until I starved.

I’ve tried to hold my tongue, but it is slowly sliding down the back of my throat, obstructing my breath. I can’t breathe. Dried flowers may seem pretty hanging from their stems, heads directed at the floor, but I need water. I can’t keep pretending that his spit suffices. His silence is the very desert of my nightmares, the one where I am left stranded and alone. I am aware that many priorities precede me, but to constantly feel as though the floor will disappear from beneath me keeps me up at night and when finally from a shallow sleep I awake, facing another day seems unbearable. Plain and simple: I feel meaningless, utterly utterly meaningless. Any meaning I ever had was given to him and I wish I could just see what he's done with it.

Tracy Dion-Cooper: Collected Shorter Poems

I feel very fortunate to be a part of the poetry workshop I'm in this year, to be working with such amazing and and talented people, some of whom I've been writing alongside for the past two years.
We put together this anthology which will be launched on April 8th at Sparrow.
Thank you Jon Paul Fiorentino, you are a stellar professor and a true inspiration.

Tracy Dion-Cooper is an anagram for Concordia Poetry.

The Pilot Reading Series

Read at this last Sunday.
Good times.
Want more.

Celibate Haikus

(Reworked from an original two-page prose poem about celibacy that took me a month to write. Drastic pruning.)

i want none of it
love-waste wrapped in latex
star-studded pillows

words feel erotic
tongue in cheek, on teeth, pallet
safely erotic

old november nest
caked sheets in need of some
ralph lauren floral

wind, full-bodied air
unsettles stagnant aura
between trench and skin

tom yum take-out soup
shrimps captive in clear plastic
revive my sullen tongue

paper revision
requires rendezvous with TA
restraint revised

concert hall speakers
pulse resonates within
like clapper to lip

Braveheart

The first two DVDs off the stack piled next to my tele make good visors. The right one hides the window from view and the left, the microwave oven clock. My toes comb the shag carpet – its sensation calms my nerves. I sink between the couch pillows wishing they were your thighs. My bearings are worthless and I only wish to loose them – all. For the next one hundred and seventy seven minutes I am yours, body, mind and soul. What beautiful deception you bestow upon me. My eyes devour your performance, wanting to believe it be the holy truth. My holy truth. Your holy persona. There is such a thing as wholeness and it prances before me, yet I cannot attain it. Indeed you remain contained to the confines of the tele, a painful reality that manifests itself in the form of credits rolling in an abyss. Names of those who contributed in making me dream while awake. That name beside yours, I know it and associate it with that of a madman’s, one that knows not of Love, but only its polar opposite. We’ve all been duped, especially I, during those one hundred and seventy seven minutes – believed you were...

Demons play Angels with more ease than the latter can simply be and dear sir if I shed tears today it is not only for your moving performance, but for the morals and convictions you so ardently possessed, then discarded once the final scene had faded to black and with it my Faith in men. 

Effexor - A Short Short Story

I’m walking up West-Broadway, just got off the 51 headed east. I can see my grandparent’s house from the corner. Twenty feet from the doorway it starts to smell like Nana’s spaghetti sauce. Smells so good it makes me feel like I’m home, home in an aroma, one I haven’t smelled in too long for comfort. The door is unlocked, so I walk right in. Pappy is sitting at the kitchen table. He looks at me, beaming, as I walk up the stairs and there’s my Nana, next to the stove, busying herself with the sauce. My heart leaps and tears start running down my cheeks like open faucets.

“Nan? Qu’est-ce que tu fais-la?” I look at my grandfather, happier than I’ve seen him in months. “Pappy c’est quoi qui se passe?” He just smiles at me. I run to my grandmother’s side and take her arm. She looks at me, lovingly “Ma cocote jolie mais pourquoi tu est si ébranlée? Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?” I fall to my knees and begin sobbing like an infant, all the while holding her as close to me as possible. She combs my hair with her fingers and makes shushing noises. “Mais t’es morte.” I say, more to myself than to anyone else.

My eyes fly open and I’m staring at the curtains of my room. I’m about to roll onto my back when I realize I am soaked to the bone, nightshirt and bed sheets as well. My face is wet too, been crying in my sleep again. I throw my hand up to my face, thumb and index pressing down on their respective eyelids. “Get a fucking grip.” My voice cracks on ‘grip’. We’re somewhere in February 2011. Your grandmother passed away on October 22nd, 2010 and no, she hasn’t come back from the dead. Periodically, I need to remind myself of the facts when the nightmares try to play tricks. Throwing the covers off my now cold and clammy body I get up and shuffle to the bathroom. The light over the medicine cabinet makes everything look orange. I run the bath. The bottle of Effexor catches my eye, next to my electric toothbrush. I grab it, pop the safety cap, pour them onto the counter and start smashing them with my fist clenching the now empty bottle. “You fucking life wrecking pieces of shit. I fucking hate you. I fucking hate Dr. Goldsmith, the dick.” Eyes now streaming again, I turn to the bath and stick my finger under the faucet. It’s hot enough, so I pull the shower knob and my wet nightclothes come off before I sit in the bathtub, letting the hot water hit me in the face. Going to have to pick up new pills at the drugstore after work tomorrow. Good thing Dr. Goldsmith gave me two repeats. Smart man, if I go under that’s one less patient producing bonuses for the greedy fuck. He always makes sure I’m covered. I’ll never get off, not at this rate anyway. I take the pills to rid me of the depression, but the side effects include vivid nightmares that make me want to off myself anyway – it’s the circle of life, my life as of now. I’d like to be able to get through one night without a change of clothes and sheets. Now I’m thinking of spending the rest of the night in the tub with the showerhead shooting at me, it’s wet, but at least it’s warm wet. I didn’t put the plug in so there’s no danger of me drowning. Sometimes I feel like there’s more of a chance I drown in bed, in my own sweat then in the tub. “Fucking Effexor” I mumble.

Don't remember where I found this photo - had it for too long.

Iron Maiden on my Heart

If only the phantom gashes you inflicted in my chest were as shallow as my breath at this very moment.
But they are not.
They are deep, dark, gaping.
Is it to see the effects your actions have on my insides that you wrench them open every so often?
I am your sick lab rat. Your pet freak.
How many minutes do you have to hold that pillow over my head till I suffocate?
How far will you bend me over till my back breaks?
Who wants to know? You do.
You go too far. But I won’t tell you because
I am silenced by your mouth on mine, as you tear my flesh apart with your bare hands.
What it is you are looking for, I will never know.
You've called me your bitch so many times, I believe you now.
So your bitch I’ll be.
Go ahead, use me.

Contact

Rest assured, I am not dead - just insanely busy. The Seams Essential blog is a testament to that, amongst others. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do so.

I have been working on a great deal of projects lately and been going through several changes scaling from small to huge, but the dust seems to be settling and I can finally breathe freely again. I will be posting everything up on here for your viewing pleasure and come December, I should be back on track here at Vent.

If you are in need of a photographer/stylist/freelance writer, do hit me up:

I am always looking for work, work and more work!

NYC, With Dad

Two weeks ago I took some time off everything (school/work), flew to New York with my father and saw some relatives, some I hadn’t seen in over a decade, others I had never met. My father only came to visit this side of the globe for ten days (he lives in Guam) and it had been two years since I’d seen him last. It’s always like this, I get two weeks for every two years. When I saw him this time however, I realized how much he had changed. I now see what I refused to acknowledge before: the relationship I have with my dad is unraveling to the rhythm of a strobe light, one that blacks out for two years and lights up for two weeks. Every time I see him again, it’s like someone hit the fast forward button.

It’s always so much easier to bury things. Bury feelings, bury thoughts, bury the pain caused by it all. I pretend I don’t miss him, I pretend I don’t care, I pretend my life is unaltered by the fact he left when I was eight. All lies, but it hurts less when you don’t think about it.

Every two years I see you again, briefly, before you walk out of my life again with a piece of my heart stuck to the bottom of your shoe. As you walk away, it tears, but you can’t hear it, you don’t see the pain all over my face or maybe you just don’t want to. After you’re no longer in sight, I turn around and resume my life the way it was before your arrival, the way it’s been since the day you left, sixteen years ago. I imagine you, on the other side of the world, are resuming your life with your new daughter. I miss you Dad and no matter whom I throw myself at to fill the void created by your absence, hoping somehow I’ll get sewn back together, it’s just not you, even if I don’t really know who you are anymore. No, I find myself still torn apart.

New Blog: Seams Essential

For the past month, I have been relentlessly working on a new blog called Seams Essential. It’s very different then I Just Needed to Vent: the main focus being the fashion industry. Of course, there are so many fashion blogs out there, why make another? The point of Seams Essential is to divulge information concerning specific niches in the fashion world, mainly European based, with certain exceptions (such as Los Angeles). Weekly store features will be posted as well as special event coverage. Fashion is changing; it’s becoming more and more a question of lifestyle and personal distinction. Seams essential caters to this.

Feedback more than welcome!

One of the Hardest Things

Perhaps it stems from the fear of seeming weak or simply being so, the fear of hurting others, putting them first, neglecting what is best for ourselves, the "I'll deal with the consequences when they manifest themselves", force of habit and the likes… Whatever the cause, it’s not an easy thing to change. There are so many things I say yes to, and as the word leaves the vicinity of my mouth, my innards are bellowing no NO NO, yet I swallow hard and hope the inner screaming dies quickly. It never does, it alters its form, becoming knots in the pit of my stomach. Saying no leads to confrontation, even if it’s just in the form of a glare and I’m tired, I want peace. It’s just so much easier to comply, to agree, yes, but no, no, I must learn to say no.

Fields of Coal

If before you lay fields of burning hot coals and you were asked to drag yourself across them on your bare stomach, but at every kilometer you could smother yourself with the most soothing unguent imaginable, so soothing that the sensation it generated on your throbbing boils neared orgasmic amplitudes, for how long would you endure the suffering simply to experience brief moments of bliss?

Forever, and a day.

Tears

The room was dark. The only visible light was coming from above the curtain rod. It was a soft, glowing light. She lay on her bed, gazing up at the ceiling. Like timid little creatures, they crept up to the corners of her eyes. It only took one blink to send them running down the sides of her cheeks. They took refuge near her ears. “There, now” she could almost hear them say. Fresh tears kept pooling beneath her eyelids, patiently awaiting their send-off. She turned on her side. At a slower pace, one tear gently traced a half moon beneath her cheekbone before nestling itself between her lips. It tickled just a bit. There is comfort in crying silently, she thought at that moment. No touch is as gentle as the caress of your own teardrops. There is no need for explanations, for they know everything and never will they take offense by your silence – they find it all the more pressing. Her face felt feverish, yet the grouping that had accumulated at the nape of her neck had a cooling effect. She skimmed the surface of her pillow in search of a cooler and drier spot to lay her heavy head. Although unaware of how much time had gone by or how long it would take for the pain to subside, she knew her supply of tears would not run dry until that time had come.

Sick Youth

I’m still trying to get over what just happened…

A few of hours ago, as I was coming home from work, a group of teenagers assaulted me just a few blocks from my home.

It all started when a girl kept yelling and yelling until I finally turned around – she was yelling after me. Once at my side, she asked me to wait a minute. I saw her look in the direction of an advancing group of kids her age; they couldn’t have been older than fifteen. I was confused, but I thought perhaps they needed directions. As soon as the others were among us, she suddenly got a confidence boost and began running her mouth about me having beaten her and her friends up in a park not far away from where we were. Incredulous, I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. She called me a liar, then asked me for all my money and threatened to take out her gun. I gave a quick glance at the lot of them and couldn’t believe what was happening… these were KIDS! I told her I didn’t have time for games and started walking away. One of her friends ran up behind me and grabbed me by the hair, trying to pull me back towards them. I spun around, furious and a little spooked, to face them. The girl let go of me and shouted some bullshit about me having beat up her sister and that I wasn’t going to get away with it. I tried to keep my composure, as I didn’t feel kosher beating up tweens. I sternly told them that they were mistaken, impatience heavy in my voice and walked off at a normal pace. To my surprise and relief, they did not follow.

I was shaking, it took everything for me not to give in to my anger and beat them all to a pulp, but you don’t hit kids. At least that’s how I was raised. Which got me thinking… what the fuck got these little shits to think they can go around acting like petty criminals? I always thought that our youth was rotten, but today’s events had the effect of kerosene on embers and my hate for what this society is becoming has never burned so fervently.

The diseased seedlings will sprout into sick growths that will later mature and bear rotten fruit, assuming they even survive that long with roots the likes of theirs. How can the future of a forest hold promise when such a promise lies upon a sick youth?

I Curse you, Bottle

It was very cold for a midsummer night. However I preferred to grab a table on Figaro’s deserted patio rather then spend another minute surrounded by loud, sweaty people and their prying eyes. My boyfriend had lent me his jacket before rushing back into the Ukranian Federation for the band’s encore. I sat eyes fixated on the wooden doors. The waitress gracefully made her way over to the table and asked if there was anything I would fancy. “A crème brulée and a tall glass of milk, please.” I tried to sound pleasant. As soon as she was gone, my eyes wandered back towards the venue. I desperately tried not to think of the disaster our outing had become.

My comfort food hadn’t even arrived yet when I saw him walking across the street. He spotted me instantly and took a seat at the table, eyes glazed from all the Jameson he’d been drinking – he doesn’t even like Jameson. He began rummaging through his backpack and pulled out his iPod. He sat there trying to untangle the wires of his earphones. I watched him as he struggled and the vivid image of a child came to mind. The waitress came back with my indulgences and before she could turn to leave, he ordered a grappa. My insides tightened, but at least I had something to occupy myself with – food.

Although I tried not to look at him, his swaying back and forth on the chair and sudden outbursts of lyrical gibberish was making it extremely difficult. I don’t remember ever finishing a crème brulée so fast. I just wanted to leave, but of course, what I want is never easily attainable when he is in his drunken stupor. As soon as I caught a glimpse of our waitress I beckoned for her to bring the check. At this time he was rambling on about what a beautiful concert it was and how he was so happy I was there to share the experience with him. My stomach tightened a little more. I downed the rest of the milk. His grappa went down like water.

As soon as everything was paid for I looked up at him. The spectacle made me nauseous. He was definitely in a trance: eyes closed, lips mumbling, hands gesturing. If he weren’t my boyfriend, I would have found the spectacle quite amusing. If it weren’t his health that was at stake, I would have been lighter hearted. If my grand mother wasn’t dying from the same affliction he had…

Finally I managed to coax him into going home. It was like pulling teeth. Like dealing with a bratty toddler. Once across the street, he had to piss. He found that the Bixi bike stands next to the sidewalk were a decent spot, so he there he pissed for a while as I waited by him, people glaring at us. At this point all I wanted to do was be home so badly I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t even realize he was finished until he started fumbling with his iPod again, trying to replay that “beautiful part” in the song he was listening to, all the while shifting around in his piss. Tears started streaming down my face as I looked up at the night sky asking myself “why?” I wasn’t the only one crying, his cheeks too were tearstained as he began singing louder and more incoherent. I asked him what was wrong. All he could muster was “thank you” and “so beautiful”. I gaped at him incredulously.

It seemed like hours before I spotted a cab. I begged him to behave, in vain of course. He sang the whole way home. It began to rain and the water on the windowpanes mirrored the tears on my face. The knot in my stomach felt like a cancer. I cried in silence.

Once in front of my house, I tipped the cab driver generously. Upstairs, I discarded my clothes and washed before burying myself under the covers of my welcoming bed.

He lay on my kitchen floor and sung on and off till sunrise.

Loving you is going to kill me, therefore I’d best remain at bay.
You chose the bottle over Love, there’s nothing more to say.

Communication Theory (Ramble On)

In theory, perfect communication can only be established without the intervention of a medium. Which means the ideal way to transmit information would be through telepathy – straight from one mind to an other, free of distortion. Anything that needs a medium (speech, writing, signal, etc.) is subject to what communication theorists call ‘noise’.

In plain English: no one ever truly understands what you really mean.

This is mainly caused by what is known as different ‘fields of experience’ (certain words in a given context can have several meanings depending on the individual and how that word relates to that individual’s existence.) So just imagine how complicated an entire conversation really is.

The best example I can think of at the moment is poetry. Take a poem and have someone read it, then have him explain to you what he got out of it. Chances are it’s something completely different than what you deducted. Why? Because you have individual triggers. Different things catch your attention.

It gets really good when even you yourself can’t figure out what you are trying to say and instead of weighing out your thoughts properly, you spew out incoherent blather in spite of yourself. That’s the thing about words – once they leave the confines of your mouth (or are no longer a mere draft), there’s no sucking them back in. Perhaps for some, turning one’s tongue seven times in the mouth before speaking might not be enough.

Do or Die

They say this week the weather has been extraordinary. For her, it could have been Hell on Earth and she probably wouldn’t have noted any difference. It’s an intriguing sensation to be dead inside, nothing fazes her. It is equally tedious in the way she has to keep pretending to be happy in order for any loved ones to remain oblivious. This charade is a necessity – she is hurting enough for ten people, no need for actual company in the obscurity she keeps.

What if she caught a glimpse of hope – hope that it didn’t have to remain this way till she lay on her deathbed, but that it required her hurting someone she cared for… should she do it? If all it boiled down to was their happiness vs. her own, who could judge which mattered more?

Someone once told me that we live our lives for no one else but ourselves. It’s do or die… Perhaps in her case do or remain dead would be more appropriate. Life is a collection of small deaths preparing us for the grand finale; however sometimes we have the power to chose whether to live as a martyr or as a normal human being, faults and all.

Aged

Mother used to work in the antiquing business. We owned a store up in Sainte-Adele, right on the 117 highway. It wasn’t that many years ago, yet it feels as though a lifetime has gone by since then. The first job I ever had was working for her. She taught me how to restore old furniture, strip them bare and repaint them using special aging techniques so they wouldn’t lose their charm. We even made custom reproductions. After a year of working under her supervision, I could make a desk that wasn’t even a couple days old look like it had been through a couple of centuries. Selling the store was sad. The up side was that I was able to keep any piece I wanted for my home.

In order to age wood without the wait, all you have to do is beat it to a pulp and smear it with dirt, sand, grass, etc. Of course there are many other techniques, but I am not one to divulge secrets.

People are not much different.

Take drug abusers for instance. Ever see a twenty-something heroin addict? You wouldn’t give her twenty-something. Of course, by beating the crap out of your body, what did you expect? Sorry angel face – can’t call you that no more.

So what happens when all the blows one gets are on the inside?

Those wounds are not visible and there’s no way she’ll tell you about them. She needs to keep pedaling and focus on what’s ahead, if not she’ll crash. She has had it with crashing. Her body has long ago failed to keep up with her mind, she feels old. She is weary. How long before her mind passes, leaving her body empty and inert? Till that time comes she’ll walk on, hunched over from the weight of her emotional baggage.

“Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”

I am sure many of you remember the Stars’ hit. Playing it on repeat for hours on end. Humming it in the shower. Using the opening line “When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire” as your MySpace status. You remember that don’t you? Some of you even have those words tattooed somewhere.

Why was that phrase so meaningful to so many people including myself? My guess is because it refers to a common state of being: helplessness. However the above quote alludes to a state of helplessness brought upon one’s self by one’s self, a far more dark, maniacal and sadistic way of attaining it. Indeed, once we’ve tarnished everything that surrounds us, it leaves only one thing to be tarnished: ourselves.

I just re-listened to that specific line in the track and I can almost picture a pyromaniac holding up a can of gas, staring at his burning house and screaming family with a twinkle in his eye as the evil voice in his head booms out “when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire!”
Truth be told, that is only a first-degree reading, skin-deep. Sometimes the damages caused are not physical, they are psychological and although they hurt others, they are in fact meant for the initiator. A result of self-loathing.

I feel like the scum of the earth, I am so far removed, nothing seems to matter, nothing is of importance. Why do people even still care? I’ll give them reason enough no to. The process will be fun, kill THREE birds with one stone: I’ll get a kick out of watching them recoil, pass off some of my inner frustration and hatred on them AND they’ll leave me alone!

Then… “when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire”

People are so caught up in their pride that they’ll never seek to push past the aura of hopelessness that surrounds a tormented person’s actions. No, that route is far too complex. Best take things at the first-degree. Yes, skin-deep meanings are easier to cope with, really there’s no need to get messy is there?