only the devil has no demons

i had gone there to see her mother. because it had been eating me up for a long time. the way we had left off. my brother was living there. not sure why. not even sure why or if i even knew that before getting there. but i got there and i saw her. she was happy at first - or at least pleasant. we spoke about how things had been and i made sure not to talk about her. and she made sure not talk about her either. but as soon as i saw the emotion flood her face i said it had been for the best. i said it like i had been ready for it. she said she knew but it still killed her anyway. she was better now but she was still not willing to let it go. she probably wanted to say she'd never forgive me but she couldn't. not there and then. there was nothing else to say. i knew she'd be getting home soon and i had a sudden urge to get out. cleanly. just then the door opened and i rushed for the closet. i heard her come in. her voice. she was coming to change in this room, my brother whispered to me, panicked. he said hi to her like nothing was but i knew she knew better. i watched from the vent in the door and tried not to breathe. our eyes crossed and i heard her gasp when she realized someone was looking back. or maybe that was me. either way, i recognized the fear in that gasp. nightmare fear. i thought of coming out right then and there but i stayed frozen to the spot. i was sure she was going to open the door but she didn't. she kept telling him she could have sworn she had seen someone. it's almost as if she didn't want to believe herself. she left and disappeared behind another door. i wanted to make a run for it. but the hallway was too long and i ran into her again. she stared at me and didn't say a word. i thought maybe i'd try the stupid smile i had been considering in the closet but i didn't. before i could explain, her sister came down the hallway like a steam train. she told me to get the fuck out and kept shovelling me towards the door. it was as if that one line was propelling her forward. there was no reasoning. on the way down that impossibly endless hallway, i ran into her father. everything my brain was pleading not to happen happened. he just said hello and kept walking like he had somewhere better to be. the rest of us converged at the exit. they kept whipping the insults, emotionless. and i kept thinking that i deserved it. but they were all laughing and enjoying it now. i came down the long steps and realized it was raining heavily. i also realized that i was wearing a suit. i stood there, embarrassed and angry and finally told my brother i was leaving. i tried to walk away with grace but i could feel her eyes on my back, watching my every step. i cried my tears onto flooded sidewalks and felt better with every step. i switched to autopilot and didn't notice that the entire city was unrecognizable. i had to take a boat to get home. i didn't even know where i was or where i was going. it was like a video game now. i passed several canal locks and when i final reached the giant jaw bridge door that would take me home, it was underwater. i took a chance and dove right in. i knew the door would open when it had to, releasing all that water. just like in the movies. when it did the water evaporated all around me and i started to climb down a flight of circular metal stairs. i realized that i had been carrying an acoustic guitar the entire time. some guy who had been sitting there smoking a cigarette and enjoying the view asked if i knew some particular wartime tune. he hummed it to me and i assured him i didn't. he still asked me if he could play it to me a little to jog my memory. his nails were long and dirty. that's when i realized the staircase we were on sprung out for kilometres below. like a beanstalk. the weather had cleared and it was a magnificent view that only became more and more terrifying as the bottom came into sharper focus. the height started to sink in and my mind started to scream. i could feel the whole thing swaying. i wanted to get down more than anything else in the world. i told them both i had to go but they could read my mind. one kept singing and the other started to rock the stairs like we were on an old suspension bridge. the breeze should have cleared my head, i kept telling myself, but it didn't. it only made me more nauseous. he was rocking so much that i had to wrap my arms and legs around the steel railing to keep from slipping off. that scene in paranoid android kept flashing through my head. from a great height. 

please come home

i'm not sure where i was when i saw him but i saw him. i wasn't home. not the home i had come to know. but i knew it was him. his long, lean body. his curly tail. he had come back home. finally. he had been hiding behind some shrubs, in some tall grass. like nothing was. i picked him up and he didn't resist. he wasn't angry. or scared. i felt the weight of him and pulled him closer to me. i had almost forgotten what he looked like, what it felt like to hold him. but it all came back pretty quick. i held him close and stroked his head. i called him big guy and asked him where he had been all these days. i was too happy to be mad. my heart was too full.

Dark eyes

     Today I went for a walk in the rain. I wasn't supposed to go very far but I went far enough to listen to the entire Half Moon Run album. Again. Especially all the songs that I knew would get to me. I wanted to cry. Not for any romantic notion about crying in the rain. Just because I knew it had been building up and meaning to come out. And I guess there's nothing wrong with that. It wasn't the first time this trip and it wouldn't be the last. It almost felt nice, walking down that empty road, anonymous, under my umbrella. Coming to terms with everything I had done to end up here. 

when i find the words to say i'm sorry

Today I broke your heart for the last time.

You asked me for one more explanation and begged me for one last chance. You wanted to prove to me that you could change. That I was right all along. That we were still worth saving.

I always wondered what it might feel like to attend my own funeral; to watch everyone I ever loved grieve for me without being able to utter so much as a word. To just stand silently in that room with no way to tell any of them that it was okay. That I was still there. To tell them that life moves on and that we move on with it, in one form or another. Today I got a taste of that silent helplessness. Today I held you in my arms as you shook and cried without being able to offer any kind of meaningful consolation. Today, I might as well have been a cadaver: Cold. Motionless. Dead to you.

The human heart can hold so much love. Yet it can absorb only so much pain before it recoils into itself. I have seen, felt and caused so much of your pain that my own heart has gone numb. It does not want to deal with pain anymore. It wants to laugh. It wants to learn. It wants to be set free.

I hope your heart will feel like mine someday soon, Pussycat. But we all have to scrape the depths of our own personal hells before we can cry those beautiful tears of joy.

It's the only way we ever learn.

the unspoken, spoken

we were sitting around the table in my grandmother's old kitchen. there was Chantal and some other woman who had also suffered a recent and bitter divorce - possibly my uncle Tony's former neurotic cleaning lady Gabrielle. but it's impossible to tell. there were also some strangers standing around, preparing food and occasionally chiming into the conversation, which was about marriage. and yet my overwhelming focus was to ensure that Chantal talk to this mystery woman to see what both had in common. turns out they did. somewhere in the subtext of the ensuing back and forth was the notion of guilt; guilt for the person any separation leaves behind. (in this case, my cousin Joe) because it is rare that separation affects both people equally, the same way love is rarely distributed equally to begin with. "but the worst part about it is that the person doesn't realize how long you have been planning to leave until it's too late," i blurted out, surprising everyone in the room. "and only then does that person start going through the past, piecing words and events together and realizing you had actually already made up your mind a long time." the table went silent. the agreement weighed heavily in the air even if no one explicitly said so. words were unnecessary. i recognized the cold truth of my statement even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

mayday, i can`t explain

I'm always going to have a soft spot for May Day.

Let's put the plight of the international workers and all the student protests and the death of Bin Laden aside for a second. Six years ago to the day, my brother Mark and I opened the first side of il Terzo Piano. It was our first jam space. Well, the first jam space we built ourselves - and a first of many hard lessons in construction, cost over-runs, sound leakage and nation building.

But when it opened, it became the coolest spot in my universe. All turquoise blue and sunburst orange. There was Vox Populi and D Open D in Room 1, Broken Palace in Room 2, odd couple Nick and Jonathan in a windowless Room 4 and Kamikaze in the deluxe suite. Humble beginnings, but with so much promise. Like Balzac had been at one time. And it didn't take much for the place to catch fire. In the next three years, it became the place to be. It was the place to spend your Tuesday mornings and your Sunday nights. It was the place I would run to from my parent's during the summer and the perfect place to have a snowball fight on a March night. It was always Franco's last stop after tour - and just a short drive to the quarry, if need be. We walked its stinky streets and admired the giant reservoirs from the roof in states few people would ever understand. We poured bending guitars into the hallways and shared our most intimate words on her cold, hard floors. The vibe was almost always positive, the pad parties were epic and those of us dedicated to the real cause all got to create some special music there. For me, the place peaked with Uptown VineRise, still months and months after our final pad party in the back section and before things went really sour with the landlords. And the band. But every musician will have their own story; their own beginning and ends.

And even in those last two years, when everything was broken and cold hard reality crept into those magical hallways; when the early wounds were torn open, the salt poured and the place left to slowly rot from the inside, I always found a good reason to go back. It wasn't always easy. But it was always necessary. Because that place was ours until the day it wasn't.

In my head, it'll always be all shiny and new.

morning.

last night i dreamt Amy's father was dying.
it had happened suddenly and on one really knew much about the cause or the cure.
i remember bawling - as much for her as for myself - as i negotiated waves of overwhelming guilt while driving to wherever it was he had been left for dead.
just like when Tigger died.