The dog pulls you down the street.
Your eyes are hazy,
Your hair is wild.
Your beard’s unkempt.
Your steps thud awkwardly like you’ve forgotten how to walk.
If the outside reflects the inside,
you definitely need some time
to regain your health again.
It couldn’t be, he said, that you are unwilling?
A shrug was the reply.
Do you feel unable?
Another shrug.
You know, he said, it’s always a choice;
if you are willing,
eventually,
you are able.
Happy birthday, you said
bending over to kiss my cheek.
And with my fluttering heart and flaming blush
I decided that was my first kiss,
that all the others did not count.
Because I wanted my first kiss to come from you,
my heart believed it had.
You’re inside a box,
safe within your preconceptions,
covered with the dirt of mediocrity,
buried alive.
Between the slats of the Venetian blinds,
I see outside the window, to frenzied frolicking
blue spruce bouncing
pine tree pirouetting
maple making waves
beneath a grey sky
dancing in time to my wind chime’s tune.
If elephants dream
is it of grey nasal caresses,
flapping tails and
family strolls in the savannah?
Are elephants dreams
larger than life,
a two year gestation
of what might be?
She speaks of the alienation of senses.
vision fades
hearing lies
touch hurts
taste dulls
smell empties
What remains is the acute sense of memory
and occasionally a sense of humour
at the irony
of it all.
We gathered together,
grad students celebrating scholarly excellence,
and discussed philosophy, narrative,
collaboration, theory and practice.
Should such a gathering be called
an erudition of grad students?
“We all want to be able to be our full selves everywhere”
-Jenny Betz
If you can be you
and I can be me
and we can be we
without panic or worry
then it doesn’t matter
whom you love
whom I love
whether him or her,
it only matters that we
respect one another enough to see
that love is love
in whatever form it might be.
.
.
I was reading today about a teen who was sent home from school because her shirt proclaimed a sexuality that the school administration was uncomfortable with. Meanwhile, at my school, we’re looking into starting a gay straight alliance group and have gender neutral washrooms. We have under 125 high school students. It’s easy to be kind and respectful so our kids don’t need to feel so desperate that they kill themselves when they realize their sexuality isn’t a choice.
Shawn L. Bird 