I have been informed that I have to solicit feedback on my poetry. This is outside of my comfort zone, but I am obliging (i'm probably not sure how to use that word) anyway.

Please comment.
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Piece # One. Education by Drink-&-Dial.

this ring around my finger and this ringing in my ears
from those words already spoken
gracelessly spilled and seared
into our lives
though memories will fade
along with tears and scars
but forgotten words won’t lose meaning
as we’re learning who we are
and here we are and can’t go back
while pushing so damn hard
to get this far

communal lessons born from shared words that fumble and finally drop
like this empty bottle in my hand
that I used to try to prop
myself up but
can’t remember why I held
with tears and scars
that couldn’t prop up conversation
listening can be so hard
and the blinding words I blindly offer
--way too weak by far
for something rare… or not, or not.

never been so poor or stupid, drank all my money, drowned by thoughts
at least we can say we’re spent
though we couldn’t give a lot
broken and broke
trading the little that we have
just for this good fight
that won’t leave us so easily
glad we didn’t leave tonight
with all the doors and windows open
shedding bright and easy light
we chose the depths and…

it was good to talk a while
if only to learn a little
for our (old but empty) files.

(c) 2004, C.Sobsey
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Piece Two. “you’ll always dream about the first house you ever lived in
as though it was your own.”


furniture-removed rooms
we walk through
new laminate
echoing
sounds
like dropped tools

aluminum rungs colliding

paint
in empty paint cans
drying


hollow footsteps on fake hardwood floors
open doorways beg for doors

(c) 2004, C.Sobsey
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Six months and a hard lesson. I always go in with caution and then throw it to the wind in the name of love. Perhaps a significant mistake in this case, as my the recent development of my unbridled faith and enthusiasm was met with sudden hesitations, and a major loss. It turns out that the passion that I so embraced was a trial for someone as anxious as I am, took too great a toll on a tender heart. "We're too much alike. There's no stability. It's not a good match." For me, it was. I wasn't afraid to sacrifice comfort for connection or stability for passion. For him, apparently it was not.

Out of the blue is the worst way for bad news to come. His feelings went with his logic. This week has been rich with demolition and pain. I'm ready to turn it around though: I'm eager to get moving on a new job, and with any luck, a new relationship. My aim is simple at the moment: to find out what is out there.

It's probably true that the heartbreak of unexpectedly losing someone you care deeply for can be assuaged with the reassurance, excitement and comfort of meeting someone new. But that's not what interests me about looking for a relationship at the moment. What entices me is the prospect of learning what's out there and discovering that what seemed exceptional or irreplacable may not be so. Or at the very least discovering that feelings ascribed to such unique qualities could be reinvented in a new situation. It's probably a lot to ask for someone to voluntarily, knowingly enter into such an experiment, but at the same time, if i am soliciting men's (or women's) attention, then it's fair to be honest about my present motivations.

So, on the rebound we go, six months of self-experience in hand, to find out what a good fit might really be.

Any takers?

little (want to call him baby, but he's 16) brother in hospital, four days of pediatrics ward with him not waking up despite cleft palate crying from behind the privacy curtain, fri, sat, sun, mon, tues, still no tangible improvement.

hopeless, G-tube coming right up, please why won't you drink something?!? my boss is comforting me with a discussion about end-of-life decisions, "will you bring him home to die?" and i hadn't even thought of it, haven't gotten the heart together to tell my friends yet about my poor baby brother. i want him to come home to live.

but i feel okay during the day, at work, when i'm not restless at the bedside and even at night, but i just can't sleep, can't concentrate, can't eat anything substantial. i get six hours of sleep, can never wake up in the morning, but can't sleep at night, so six becomes five becomes... staring at screens and ceilings and late for work. mom and dad are disaster. david, a child, he can't be left alone there, he can't talk...

and you...

you decided not to stop by when you passed through town, didn't call until you were back from Van with your lame friends, back from the concert of the hip hop artist that stood you up, the days off work you could take and the planning for that pointless bullshit. you don't even know how long he's been behind bedrails.

perpetual disappointment, mr. now you want to talk?

thanks a lot.

* must be able to comfortably lift me
* must have a body odour and bodily functions that i just so happen to find inoffensive
* must enjoy grocery shopping
* must show adequate ambition and self-determination
* must NOT require mothering
* must be prepared for ULTRA-intimacy
* must derive satisfaction from ULTRA-intimacy
* must be gainfully employed
* must be honest
* must be capable in domestic capacities-- dishes, laundry, home repair, etc. etc.
* must be passionate about learning
* must be patient, genuinely universally kind, slow to anger, understanding, compassionate
* must demonstrate acceptance of people with disabilities
* must get along extraordinarily well with my father
* must exert a positive influence on my choices, emotional life, motivation, attitude
* must be capable of challenging and engaging myself along intellectual and emotional lines
* must meet additional trivial standards of appearance and conduct


* p.s. please be sexy, please be sexy, please be sexy.

why be forced to choose? conditions of worth, i guess.

the best way for me to express it, that i guess addresses both sides of the issue, is to reference a relationship i've been in. i asked if he thought he could do better, and he said he thought that we could do better. i would have given up on it if i felt it was replacable, but with polyamoury, it has already been replaced before any difficulties even occur. So what is the incentive to make the most of what you have? why work to make things better when you can just 'trade up'? the relationship is commodified.

i also can't understand the value derived from more than one relationship. love, like pain and fear and dreams, expands to fill the space it's given. so how do you get more out of two, three, five relationships than one? if the value isn't all there in the a single relationship, why keep it?

personally, i want security. i want promises. i want a relationship with qualities of uniqueness. it's personal that i can't understand the desirability of a non-exclusive relationship, so it's wrong for me to condemn anyone else's choice. i would like to understand polyamoury and i would like to identify for myself why i've become so negative about it (i didn't used to have such a strong opinion)... we can learn a great deal from the things we instinctually refuse. i'd love to hear more...

Celebrities with babies.
what the fuck is this?

there are many things i will accept from celebrity culture:that includes being told that certain things will improve my life, make me happier and more desirable-- though i mildly object to the assertion that money, lipstick, weight loss, a new car, a good relationship will make everything splendid, i will tolerate it, and sometimes i will even try it. However, babies are a completely unacceptable addition to this list.

I refuse to be told that fertility, pregnancy and child birth are, in any way, the answer to any of my problems. and yet, i am now receiving this message on a virtually daily basis. "things are finally looking up for Jen"-- because she's pregnant? Who's got the trendiest baby bump? Which women are expecting "child #3"? And best of all, Angelina Jolie: her mission and motherhood! She's a hero not because she has done great works of humanitarianism, but because she has redeemed the superficiality of hollywood with her compassion, her beauty, and best of all, motherhood! Anderson Cooper, how could you, you slimy bastage!?!?

no matter what they tell me, it is clear to me that despite the fawning attention i might receive for my big belly or carrying a newborn, none of those people are going to babysit for my kid on Saturday night so that i can go to the Oscars, and that, having a baby will not automatically add my name to the guest list, either. yet no matter what i know, i can't help hearing what they tell me and wondering if i could piece my shitty life back together with a little old-fashioned unprotected sex.

damn you, celebrity magazines. rot in hollywood.

does anyone enjoy monogamy any more? i think it's on its way out. and i can see how structures like these sites are facilitating it. they allow us to practice polygamy throughout our relationships, even encourage it. when you meet someone on a dating site, you both understand that you are there for comparable reasons-- to meet people. and every time you meet on that site, then you log on and make yourself available to meet other people. we are set up to develop multiple concurrent relationships that, because of their cyber-ambiguity, bridging social reality and fantasy, are difficult to end or make meaningful decisions about if the situation comes to demand it. Why end something that you're not sure is really there?

How could you even request exclusivity from someone, when your primary form of interaction is based on such a public forum? Even if your 'primary' relationship is elsewhere, your simple involvement here is made questionable. Mine is, because of the state of my heart. It's elsewhere. And how can you be casually involved with anyone when motives are so obvious...

My real question is why? Why is polygamy valued? It must be valued or the social structure wouldn't be so designed to support it. We create our reality, and our reality creates us. Why would we want a reality where we practice infidelity before a relationship can even begin?

on Monday, i went to meet a friend for a group booking at the spa, which she had arranged for myself and a couple of her other friends. we had gone before, and it was really nice. i've been seeing her more lately than i have in the past, and even though that's still not a whole hell of a lot, and even though i don't always agree with this particular woman's attitude toward others, i was looking forward to it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that i have very little social interaction in my life these days.

when i arrived, i spoke to the person at the counter and (after a great deal of confusion and some relatively involved investigation) discovered that not only had there never been a group booking, but that this girl had contacted every one else who was supposed to attend and cancelled... every one except me. Another of our friends explained to me that the friend in question knew I would be there, and that she claimed not to be able to reach me. However, she had not called all weekend beforehand and had not e-mailed all day... i don't know if she set me up, but she obviously didn't care to let me know. She hasn't tried to contact me since.

i wasn't upset at the time... these things happen... but i'm upset now looking back on it... because i realize that i must have provoked this some how. car accidents, toe-stubbings, lost dogs-- on the whole, people can't be held responsible for most crummy things that happen to them in life. but i'm suspicious that this is different: that i earned her hate by making random disappearances the way i do, by not returning phone calls in a timely fashion, by generally not giving my friends the effort they deserve.

another one of my previously close friends has ceased contact with me altogether. the last i heard from her, she was supposed to pick me up from my dental surgery-- we had made previous arrangements-- and didn't pick up the call from the recovery room. i had to wait 45 minutes for my dad to be able to come.

these girls are not bad people. they have been loyal friends. and now...

people say things about drifting apart after university. i don't know. i think i must have inadvertently pushed people with my rhythym of emotional unavailability, with my pattern of reclusion (is that a word?) when i get bummed out. maybe i gave the wrong signals, maybe they left in absence of any meaningful signals at all. i care about them, but sometimes i just can't get it together enough to keep in touch or to even be around other people. i have a page-long list of people i've been meaning to write to or call or e-mail, even send packages...
it's selfish, but i guess i'm hoping for people to be able to see through my mixed messages.

oh well, i guess i'll have a lot more time to figure it out, as my friendships fall apart.

put on my best lipstick, shocking pink
and a new dress...
it is a used dress, it is a
tall-tale spinning, sunday best.

give my soul a good washing,
a little sweet perfume and we go walking...
so warm and slow down south.
this is our big, this is our big night out.

and we grow like wild flowers, in season forever.
but we're planted on a window sill
hand to mouth-ville.

dreams they spill out of us
past the mobile homes and the pick-up trucks.
they soak through these fields of rust
and they, they come back beautiful and new for us.

love is scattered and hungry
but it is the only real thing
and we hold it tight.
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i have discovered late in life that i wish i was a redneck girl. i mean, i'm from Alberta, so i guess i'm at least a little bit redneck, but i wish some of these days that i ever could have been a country girl, one of those powerful and sweet women from a small town, who has an excuse for being hand in hand with her past all the time. instead, i forever walk the line of the most profound and vital temptation: to settle for what has gone before.

in spite of the brilliance of every new day, i make the same mistakes and hesitate in the face of my new ambitions: i know i want to exercise, write, learn to dance, speak German, sneak a little self-control into my routine, but instead i spend time with people and practices i once knew. i gravitate unyieldingly to old men, old habits, old faults and failures. each small (if accomplished) act of defiance against the past is overshadowed by the lack of dignity i accept when i give up a single night, a single hour, a single moment to self-doubt or sloth.

still, i'm resisting the origins of this kind of passion for change:
if i'm in control of my destiny, who is anyone to tell me what to choose?
he must be right though... it never did feel good enough.