moving

People say when they come back that Delhi smells different. I was told Toronto will smell different, right away, I will notice. Well, not yet. The air is cleaner, maybe? But it feels like I know that only on an intellectual sort of level. The sound levels aren't much lower where I live, where streetcars trundle past and go ting! and buses whoosh and cars zoom and fighter jets fly past in the sky for an exhibition, like no one in this fucking city knows the sinking feeling of impending war. [Most do, but they're not the ones who are consulted.] I can't help it, my house sits at an intersection. Maybe let the city envelop me at all time of the day, now when I can still look at it with starry eyes.

When I hugged my lover at the airport of this city I will forever thank for bringing us closer, I knew his smell immediately, I buried my face in him and nearly lost myself in the intensity of it. It was the only sensory thing of his that lingered on after he'd left, in the cotton tshirt that slowly became just a cotton tshirt so soon. Everything else was pixels and skype; the lovebites faded too soon.

I catch whiffs of it now, six days and one load of laundry [this is where you drop the coins, this is where you wait] later. It can't be from my clothes. It must be me, maybe my skin touching his skin soaked up as much as it could, still viscerally sure that this parting will be for a long time too. I meet new people and hug them but I don't get their smell, not like I have his. Or maybe it was me all along and Delhi didn't let me smell it. Maybe the patina of my old city is falling off of me and I will be naked to this city sooner than I knew. 

tangents

How does it feel to be made so transparent? The text message delays and cadences give him away. I wonder if I will see him in the flesh and see right through to the beating heart and want to pierce it. Feeling contrary.

Rendered transparent - right down to the 'true' 'authentic' 'self'. All these words have turned into poison words. You hear anyone using them and immediately they are suspect. As they should be, no doubt, but there aren't any concessions in the game for those who are in the know and use these words for their poisonous power. You can't get away with saying them.

*insert GIF of Max from Happy Endings saying 'mah niiiig-' while Brad nearly kills him dead with a look*

There's a book inside my head that's taking shape in bits and pieces. I don't want to force myself into writing it, because there's just so little time for anything anyway. I keep imagining that going away will solve all my problems, from the lack of time-to-myself to dandruff. Only actual going away will cure me of that.

But scenes come and go, and most of them will be forgotten when the final thing - if the final thing - comes to life. I am not worried.

No. There will be time, and there will be time.

Like there is time now, in the midst of goodbyes and frantic packing, to gaze at pictures, to Facebook stalk, to feel that strange unpleasant churning in your middle that heralds a crush. To think of witty things to say, to imagine meeting again, to dread the actual meeting-again, to look forward to the moment where it all breaks, or the much-farther moment where you think, him, really? He really had to grow into his looks. What a cartoon.

[the still farther moment where I read this and wonder who I was talking about. Perhaps J will remind me.]