untitled

what do you want from me i want to ask,
as we drive and attempt to be as we were,
before you broke it all

we spend the day doing what you want and I realize,
I am doing it to hold on
I am desperate for your leftover time and attention
because I miss you so
my eyes are opened over a meal that falls far from what I had imagined this day would be

I have a fire burning but I need to pass the torch on,
because running away or running to you it doesn't matter
it consumes me
and I want freedom

in your arms there used to be safety,
but now there is too much of all I fear-
uncertainty
broken trust
no remorse
and pain like shards of glass beneath my foot

I've been discarded

I wait for the words I dread most-
goodbye I've met someone
she's perfect,
I'm happy,
then this light will burn out and leave me cold

there is a moment where I feel the dying ember spark,
with a flutter of remembered comfort
the truthful, intimate heart you showed
in unexpected moments,

comfortable and familiar
laughter makes my sides ache and I remember how it was
your hand brushes mine,
and I want to ask you as we sit,
thigh to thigh, beer in hand

what do you want from me?

Ellipsis-

You could cover the distance if you wanted.

It's only a few steps,

just a small breath between us.

But what you see, stretches and drops,

a canyon wide,

and threatens to swallow us whole.

We stop at this ellipsis-

It's appearance halts us,

and we are cartoons hanging over the valley,

moments before the sudden drop.

the pause,

before falling

It's just one thought,

one word,

that would fill the awkward silence,

that's become miles long.

You could sigh a small sigh,

reach your hand across this small space,

a heartbeat long,

that in the quiet gap of every rhythmic thud,

stretches,

endless again.

Nimiyou'ayan. I am fine.

I wrote this in November on my journal, but as it pertains to writing, I thought I would repost it here.

I've been thinking about things. Faith, lack of faith, words, writing, love, sex, touch, staring at the sea that goes on and on and on and feeling my feet firmly planted in the sand, my home, my heart, the air that sustains me.
It's all a jumble in my mind and the words are edging into my periphery, forcing their way out, running through me over and over. It is time. These times come infrequently, but they still come, and they don't last forever, and so I know that I can't ignore it, I must write. These are the times where words and thoughts and sensations and inner voices battle over each other in a push to get out, onto paper, into logical formation to tell a story. Their story. The characters who lurk in my inner parts, waiting for me to embrace them, pick them up, dust them off, let them speak. I hear them, I see the words, like light and air and sound all as one billowing, endless form.

I am thinking about waves. The sea that I can never leave is such a part of my core, who I need to be, who I refuse to suppress. I feel the need to go away. Alone. Just me, and these characters and lovers and family and past and present and future. I feel a calling to run away, plant my feet on the sand, lift my face to the wind and breathe deeply, letting it flood through me, that air that only those who live by the sea and love it can understand. It is these times that I am purged and made new.

Other things that have running through my brain and heart are in the form of inner drumbeats. I am becoming more and more in touch with my heritage and what it means to be from a culture that values their elders and the wisdom that is passed down, and a culture that respects the world and environment around them, treating it with reverence. I feel the calling of the mystical, magical wonder that is ingrained in my culture. Oddly enough my people are not from the sea. They are plains people, nomadic, hunters. But the sea is in me regardless. Two halves. One complete, living and breathing self with a Métis heart and the sea a cradle for my soul.

So I've been thinking about things. And not thinking about things. Some things so pressing on me like a weight that threatened to drown me, are no longer burdening me. Maybe it is denial and avoidance, or maybe right now it is the sights and sounds and smells and words that continue to roam about my brain. They want out. I have things to say, there are characters who need a voice. And only I can give it to them. I am coming into a writing stretch again, and I don't know how long it will stay, but ignore it I can't. I feel my brain begin the opening and stretching wide to embrace and release words. I mustn't let the window close.

There is peace and there is no peace. My faith is non existent at the moment and I am not sure why. Maybe as I follow this path to the end answers will come. Words have always been easier for me written down. As have feelings. Maybe my faith needs to be explored this way. Or maybe this unsettling sense of being alone in the universe while others have such a deep relationship with the creator is a season in my life. I don't feel sad, or disappointed, angry or abandoned. For now. I don't feel anything. Ambivalence is a dangerous path I know, so I will step carefully, and let these words out. And maybe I will find my way back into God's arms. And maybe I will discover a way to let this jumbled, pressing and beautiful need stay a constant and steady part of my life, because I miss it. I really do.

And as I think about these things; work, love, family, lovers, touch, music that moves me, sights that thrill me, sensations that flutter through me in a vibrating swirl of activity, my heart will expand and grow and the characters who seek freedom will break out from their hidden places. And words, the words that wake me from a dead sleep or stop a thought or chore with their sheer weight and importance, I will write them down. Even if it is on scraps of paper, or in my journal, or in a sentence, paragraph or poem. This is how it is with me, always has been. The weight of a word, leads to a whole entire voice. If I don't ignore it, or push it away.

Floor

I like the way the sun lights the floor in patches

worn, warm wood

marks and scuffs telling a story,

of who's come before me

It's like finding bits of paper

with words and scribbles,

meaningless to me

but a secret glimpse into someone's life

and thoughts

10:30- meet Joan

paper towel, peanut butter, eggs

I love him but he doesn't feel the same...

like graffiti under my feet and fingers,

it tells so much

t.l. temreck

days of hunger

it's not about love

the subject of songs and poems,

declarations made publicly

with broken hearts laid wide

it's too subtle to put down

in such common,

overdone ways

in fact I'm not even sure if love is the right word

a word so over used as to become meaningless

how do you pen the act

of sowing, weeding,

plucking each small, perfectly ripened fruit

written upon the heart?

that which nourishes in times of plenty,

gives rise to celebration

and jubilance,

and when full up with these fruits,

we can sigh

sit back in the warm glow of satisfaction,

sunlight fading in splendid bursts of colour

how do we give word to that which,

when missing,

leaves a hollowness vast as the prairie field,

cold as a long winter

this stuff of intangible nourishment

necessary,

but often mistreated,

taken in fits of gluttony

held onto in a sort of preparation,

for days of hunger

and drought

we no longer see the connection

of body to soul to earth

it's not about love

that would be too easy

to blame the empty ache,

on a body devoid

of this intangible nourishment

t.l. temreck

these days

it was a slow, tangled heap of days
of grass under feet,
sprinklers
in a steady hiss hiss hiss,
that showered us as we shrieked, and collided,
on slipping wet lawns
it was days of skinned knees,
mosquito bites,
and dares to ride our bikes to the end of town and back,
without getting caught

the slow drip of a sticky popsicle,
down the inside of our arm
sunburns and swimsuits,
still wet from the day before,
as we race to the community pool:

marco,
polo

sun filtering through the water as we sit on the bottom,
eyes burning, noses plugged

these splendid days stretched before us so long,
that by September,
we craved the return to school and new pencils

now,
I see the days pass so quickly,
that I avoid the calendar
the end of July comes, passes,
and I just want to sit while dusk approaches,
listen to the familiar sounds of summer
the tastes and smells and days,
of salty skin and ocean tides,
of warm pools we sat in and watched,
as bullheads skittered around us

those slow tangled heap of days
were fleeting seconds
disguised as months

t.l. temreck

Part 1- Clarity (working title, unfinished story)

This is a draft of a story I am working on. The end is where I got stuck. I'm hoping by putting it up here, I will be motivated to get it finished, so no one is waiting for the end too long!


Sophie remembers the lunches her mother made them for school as despicably embarrassing. There was no need for it, they were not poor, they lived in a good neighbourhood, but Sophie used to believe that some part of her mother’s history snuck through their WASP life, and made her determined to feed her children healthy home made food.
While all of her friends got Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches cut into triangles with the crusts removed, some cookies and milk, in their Superwoman or E.T. lunch boxes, she received her lunch in a homemade drawstring sack printed with honey bees and flowers made from left over curtain fabric. In this lunch she got a mason jar full of beef and barley soup, stew, or chilli, whatever they had had for dinner the night before. She was supposed to go an ask at the teacher's lounge if they could heat it up for her in the home ec kitchen. She never did. She also got a very dense hunk of buttered brown bread. Her mother never was very good at making bread. She just assumed because it was heavy and brown, that it was healthy. At the bottom of the sack was the treat. Some kind of dried fruit that always looked gruesome or hard boiled eggs. She remembers being so excited the few times she got cookies only to discover they were store bought, rock hard ginger snaps.
For the life of her, Sophie couldn’t understand why her pretty, popular and kind mother would want to punish her so. She learned early on however, to not bring home uneaten lunches unless she was sick. To do so would be to bring on the speech about the ungrateful daughter she tried so hard to raise with a healthy attitude towards food. Instead, at school, they made a game of disposing of her lunches. They would pour the contents of the jar into the janitors mop bucket, or down the toilets. Sophie prepared elaborate eulogies on the way to school that they used in these mock funerals. She knew the value in defecting the ridicule from herself to her mother. They discovered that the bread, dried fruit and hard boiled eggs made excellent ammunition to use in surprise attacks on unsuspecting little kids. By the end of fifth grade however, there were no more lunches. Her brother Steven told on her one day, after he happened to be one of the kids hit by a flying egg. Her mother never said a word, but the next day and each day after that there was no lunch waiting for her. The sack disappeared, and in its place lay two dollars. Sophie never asked why because she knew, and she couldn’t apologize.

Sophie supposed it had come full circle in a way. She was now the same determined mother, only instead of embarrassing her children; she was killing herself trying to come up with new lunch ideas every day. She didn’t want them laughing at her as she once laughed at her mother. She was on the net everyday looking up creative sandwiches, cookie recipes, and had stacks of parenting magazines with lunch ideas bookmarked. When she felt drained of ideas, she surprised them with a pick up day where they went to a fast food place. They didn’t know when it was coming and they didn’t know that it was just failure on her part to get her act together, they just thought she was the coolest mother.
Sophie suspected it was coming to an end though. At seven and nine her boys were not as pleased with PB & J cut into dinosaur shapes or Hidden Treasure rollups. They were starting to want less creative, more normal lunches. Nothing funny. And the burger trips? They wanted to bring friends along. They told her that no one else’s mom took them out at lunch. So she complied. They took turns bringing one friend with them. She dreaded the day when she wouldn’t be cool to them. She let them order whatever they wanted on these outings. Feigned interest in their gross jokes and noises. She didn’t understand testosterone, but she did understand the point at which mom stops being someone you want to hang out with.

When Aidan, her first son was born it happened so quickly that she never even had time to realize what was happening. She went into premature labour and Aidan had to stay in the hospital for two weeks. It was two weeks at home where the bassinet was empty, and her days became a blur of pumping and travelling back and forth to the hospital to feed him. Everyone kept telling her to use the time to rest she would need it when he came home, but she couldn’t sit for very long, she couldn’t sleep because her breasts were swollen and sore. She ached to have him in her arms, to lie beside him at night and watch him sleep.
He grew strong enough to take home and was feeding well so they packed him into the carseat, drove him home, and then she sat on the floor in the living room beside the carseat and wept. She didn’t know what to do with him. In the hospital she was there to nurse and cuddle him and she did so at regular times because someone was telling her to. David her husband could only sit beside her and hold her hand while she cried and cried, until her nose was raw, her eyes were puffy and Aidan was crying to eat.
He never seemed to require too much of her. He ate and slept and sat happily in his chair watching them, and everyone told her how lucky she was that he was not colicky, that he was so content. But in her heart, she wished he needed her more. She desired that primal connection that never got formed at his birth because he had been whisked away and put in an isolette in the Special Care Nursery. Sure there was a connection and a bond, and his smile was biggest for her, but it all seemed too easy. Too perfect. She kept waiting for the other shoe to come down.

The air is heavy around Sophie as she sits tightly balled up in her parent’s closet. Listening. They are arguing again, and this time the sharp rap rap of shoes going back and forth on the floor sounds hurried, anxious. She is so quiet in the closet they never know she is here. They always choose the bedroom to fight because it is the farthest away from the TV room, where she and Steven are supposed to be watching TV. Right now, Steven is lying on the carpet, concentrating on Dukes of Hazard. She knows when the fight is coming though. First it starts with a certain shrug and short, “fine then” or something like that from her mother, then the too loud closing of cupboard doors, the thick tension rising like heat waves, her father’s angry frown. Then it is quiet and the bedroom door clicks closed upstairs. Usually she hurries up before they do, so she can hide in the closet. To find out who is wrong this time.
“Do what you like then. It makes no difference to me. If I say no you’ll just do it anyway.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I wouldn’t why do you think I asked in the first place?” Her mother’s voice is getting higher pitched, and Sophie knows they are coming to the end. Her father always leaves the room, gets in the car and comes back later with pop and chips for Sophie and Steven, and some healthy muffins for her mother.
“Fine then Cheryl, no you can’t buy it. We can’t afford it.”
Sophie hears crying. Her mother. This is unusual, her mother never cries. “For once I just want something nice in here. I’m tired of all this shitty old stuff we have.”
“If I am going to work this hard, it’s not going to be to buy you something new every time the whim strikes you. If you want new carpet, go get a job to pay for it.”
“Why do you think we eat the way we do and why we don’t wear expensive clothes, and why we never go out?” There is the pacing tap of shoes again. “You seem to think the allowance you give me is enough to get by on, well it’s not.”
Sophie hears the opening and closing of cupboards, the running of water, a stomping sound, coming from their bathroom. A muffled, “who is she? Tell me.” They are back, there is the sound of falling things. Books? Sophie can’t breathe. It is hot in here. There is a sharp, “where does the extra money go? I’m tired of being kept in the dark!” Her father’s answer is inaudible over the crashing noises. Sophie holds her breath. She shouldn’t be here, hearing this. This is not her parent’s fighting. They fight about stupid things, like who left the garage door open. Now she is stuck, has to wait it out. She puts her hands over her ears, tries to block it out, but they are shouting and things are being thrown. She squeezes herself into the corner, puts a coat over her head. Then it is over. They are gone. No, he is gone. She is still there, crying. Sophie edges to the closet door, squints out through a crack. Her mother is sitting on the edge of the bed in her dress with her beautiful strawberry blond hair still perfect. The only thing out of place is the mascara running down her face. Sophie has to pee. There is no escape until her mother leaves. For what feels like hours, her mother sits there, no attempt to wipe her face. As the room begins to darken, she finally rises and pulls off her dress, drops it to the floor. She pulls open the closet door but in the dusk, doesn’t see Sophie. She reaches into the closet and pulls out her robe. Sophie holds her breath. Is still as a stone. Her mother leaves.

Every morning after she dropped the boys off at school, Sophie stopped at the coffee shop on the corner, ducking in on her walk home. It was a ritual. One large cup of coffee, out came her day planner, and from there, she planned her day. For about fifteen minutes though, she just sat. Looked out the window and allowed her mind to wander. She knew if she didn’t get it out of her system, she would be apt to daydream all day, be scattered, and disorganized. She allowed herself this time of thoughts flowing into the other, hands wrapped around the hot mug.
With David there had been too much dreaming. It drove her crazy that he was always having ideas. They would pack up the boys and drive across Canada; they would live on a sailboat. He was always starting stories he never finished, dreaming he would one day finish a novel. His writing was strewn in every room of the house on bits of paper, smudged pencil made it nearly illegible. After he moved out, she kept finding them everywhere, would pick them up, stuff them into a crate of papers in the hall closet, only to pull them out and try to understand what was written on them, moments of brilliance, snippets of him, the deepest parts she never understood. There was no continuity from paper to paper. How was he ever planning on stringing them together? She couldn’t understand how he could stand all of the disorganization. He told her the day they decided to separate, that she had to know too many exacts. He couldn’t give her exacts, it wasn’t in him. There was no spontaneity left, and he couldn’t meet her expectations.
The separation was a trial one, his idea. Sophie felt the air being sucked out of her slowly at first, as she saw David’s lips move, mouth the words, “space, need some clarity.” Then quicker, a storm threatening with each word he uttered.
“I love you…but…” David’s face had fallen, a defeated look, gone the smile that lit her from within, a steady glow for eleven years.
“I don’t know what to say.” She busied herself with unloading the dishwasher, and nearly dropped a mug on the floor. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Seeing the floor he had just retiled for her, the smooth grey limestone, made a lump form in her throat and she had to turn away, not look at the new countertop, appliances. He had surprised her with the kitchen reno they had been talking about for years, trying to save for, when she was away visiting her mother in Calgary.
He was so proud. The look on their faces, the boys beaming beside him when she walked in, how could they have kept it secret all the way from the airport? But maybe she had been too self-absorbed thinking about the stress of visiting her mother, about how tired she was from trip, to notice their excitement.
“Sophie? I don’t want to do this.”
Was he looking for a way out of the separation? She searched his face, saw nothing but deep sadness. She had caused this. Knowing this made it impossible to beg him to stay. She didn’t deserve his constant patience. “But you don’t want to…can’t live with me. I heard you.”
With exasperation, he blurted out, “why do you do this? Why do you turn everything around like this?”
She stared him in the eye, put down her dishcloth and left the room. Half expecting him to follow, she paused in the hall. When he didn’t come, she went through the door, got in the car and headed to the market. She pushed everything out of her mind, except what she was going to make for dinner. Dinner for three. No longer for four. The rest of the week, would be her and her boys. Oh God, what would they tell the boys? No, she told herself as she compared pasta sauces, they would deal with it when they had to. Not right now. Right now, she was shopping. It had to be done. They needed to eat. She would continue her day as normal, come home, fix dinner, pick the boys up from school, take them to the park, then come home to a cold chicken pasta salad and crusty rolls. She would explain David’s absence vaguely, he had to work late. They would do homework, watch TV, get ready for bed, and read another chapter in Charlotte’s Web. She would let herself fall asleep early and not worry about any chores. She had all day tomorrow to do them.
Just planning out her evening made her feel better; she felt the tension leave her shoulders. She began to swing the shopping basket, decided to buy an apple pie for dessert. Aidan and Trevor would love that. Maybe she was in denial but she was very good at organizing her life, structuring things so that they didn’t fall down around her. This separation was probably for the best. They had planned for a temporary one, decided one month would be enough time to really sort things out. This shouldn’t devastate them, lots of people needed space to see more clearly.