January 03, 2004 - 12:11 a.m.
old tricks
why can i not stop thinking about you? the message said.
and i kept it for a long time, saved in my voice mail box, because it reminded me that you weren't always so shitty. in a way it kept me from being so angry because you sounded sincere for once, not so cocky... i sometimes thought i should send it back to you, to remind you how you used to sound... would you even recognize your own voice?
It makes me remember that people aren't always what they seem to be.
this city scares me sometimes...
watching the news, i feel like I should never fall asleep or leave the house.
two drinks later and i'd feel invincible,
then maybe it would be me being dragged into an alleyway at queen and spadina, getting raped on new year's.
and they speak on tv about the robberies... do you recognize this man? I recognize that man in every person i know. One day we'll be scared to go anywhere and we really will be ruled by fear.
I get these phone calls from my mom, and my dad always asks, are there people around where you're walking? is it well lit? people's hope, like our sense of invincibility, gets snuffed out so easily. We are resilient, but fragile. I am always reminded in shockingly subtle ways, like those brief moments when you get jostled on the street car or accidentaly step off a curb, how shaky my legs really are, in spite of the 6 feet I pretend to be in platforms. I get scared and can't sleep, not really because i'm scared for myself, but because i can't control this. I get anxious for the people i can't protect if i'm not there, and i feel stupid for this naive feeling that i could stop it if i was.
growing up, those dreams would resurface, where i'd lose something, watch it fall over the edge of the ferry boat heading towards my island... someone would fall and their eyes would come searching up to my face, so terrified and i would watch those eyes disappear into the water... pulled under the boat, sucked in by the propellor... and i would wake up.
and hug my parents because i could touch them and i think about her sleeping safely in the next room, and want to die thinking that one day i won't be there when she needs me. And now i understand why she was so scared that night i didn't come home until 5 in the morning and i thought she'd be sleeping and she was sorta mad when i left, so i figured she'd just sleep and i'd come home and we'd talk in the morning... but she wasn't asleep, and my phone was in our apartment... and i know what she was thinking and why when it wasn't true she was so angry but relieved, but still so angry with me... and i'm sorry you ever had to feel that way.
i think that having children has got to be the scariest thing in the world. Not just bearing them, that would be the easy part... but just letting them go and not cracking apart everytime they're out of your sight.
I think that i am brave sometimes... until i open my eyes or trip... and know that i'm not. i just rely on the odds that i'm not one who seems like these things phase me.
It seems to be working. In the morning i never feel this way.
