nonfiction

To answer the specific questions being asked—of who I am within my origin, and describe my own history and place—is not plainly possible. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the people and storykeepers living on this continent for thousands of years were brutalized.

The burning sensation is fierce—the leaves and flowers of what I thought were Box Elders and Skunkbush caress against my exposed ankles before I even realized. Tingling spreads up my calves, the ivy cold and numbing. I stood at the edge of the small stream of running water. Unremarkable. The water, more of a trickle than a stream, winds through patchwork of pebbles and occasional boulders.

There’s a white noise the airplane makes, as the sound of my wails soak my shirt, my hands, tightly put together, attempt to muffle it, yet only the dimly lit airplane would let me hear my voice. My tears would pour over the page, which my thumbs had already crumpled the sides of the letter he wrote to me.

We sat on a quiet bench by the ocean, savouring the final blushes of sunshine on our faces before the sun dipped into the horizon, passing a joint back and forth in silence. When the joint burnt down to the filter, the havoc of the crowded downtown Victoria Harbour faded and I looked at the most beautiful scene in the world.

The spring is humble in the prairies⁠ — she does not boast, nor does she shine. Instead offering a gentle, cold wind. Air for the metallic, uneasy blossoms to grow within. Every so often⁠ from the garden ground⁠ will sprout — the landed lighthouse! A simple vessel⁠ springing up from the soil⁠ — like a lost, wandering watercraft. She does not truly know her place, nor does she care.

“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.” —Stars, “Your Ex-Lover is Dead”

(Put your shoes on. Where are you going, and why are you going there? There is will when it comes to the coming and going. A voluntary compulsion. Perhaps this autotomy is mandatory, for if we do not choose our traveling then it no longer is travel. It is then a forced migration.)

(A sunset will never look as good in a photograph as it does in real life. And yet, a sunset will never stop being photographed by people — until it stops setting. That’s how I go about writing her.)