One night in Calgary, against that great white dark
I leaned against a pillar that creaked, warily
And stared down the corridor of this old Gothic house
Framing, perfectly, the blue, cold streets
Cold with the kind of cold that pulls your face taut
And feathers the light. Makes her eyes look bluffing.
Old Prairie days. Home at last.
But is Home a place that oughtta move this fast?
Nay—lapping like waves, in and out of this city
My minds become synonymous with unreality.
But then I see the tower and the theatre and the terraces and my friends
And the technicolour lights twinkling in the tides of the Inlet
For once it feels so permanent, so present, so strange
At once I feel invincible, immense, and inane
We left home for home and dream for dream
A diaspora of ghosts found a silvery-screen gleam
And through these years of holding them close, this I have learned:
I am secretly in love with everyone that I grew up with.
And I will never be the same again.
It’s difficult to concentrate. The lights blend together.
And they look just ever so slightly off-putting
But no matter. The buzz keeps it at bay.
Tonight, dear, we’re all buttoned up and fancy
Red-blazered, black-blazered, blue-blazered imposters
Pretending like we’re more important than we are
Like we can get away with anything in the world
Like they’d catch us eventually but tonight they’re out of reach
Like everything would be new and new and new again
And we’d keep creating and making and writing and flying
Until the bitter, bitter end. Heirs to a world so glimmering and bright
Heirs to liberty in flickering golden light
Heirs to the city on the hill adorned with flurries
And the suburbs we wandered in some endless yearning
Heirs to car alarms in Brooklyn, blaring like geese
Heirs to Hammersmith canals and ostentatious caprice
Heirs to Capitol Hill when the sound kicks out
And to Vancouver when the fire just slowly… burns… out?
That can’t be. No, no, no, surely the Dream will keep us together
Surely we still have some time together, don’t we?
Don’t we? All the stories we still have to tell
All the things we still have to do
All the places we still have to go
Nay—graduation graduates a graduated soul
Makes this life of ours, ah, mundane and drivel
Are you leaving still? No, no, don’t put on your coat just yet!
A whole world we have to see together—together!
At least give me some moment to form my words!
A man ought to do that with some eloquence and stoicism
One imagines oneself returning to the Shipyards
And a village gathered before him, mingling and sipping cheap beers
Beneath the lights that border the dry dock out into the Inlet
And he, with time, can say these words with the weight they deserve:
First year. Satellites. You’re dear to me.
Remember all that innocence? Those nights on the ice here?
No point to our days but to huddle in lounges
Listen to dream pop and get ourselves soaked by a new kind of rain
Man, first freedoms, first homes
And today, still, we’re effortless, practiced, permanent.
You promised me on the 101 we’d keep in touch forever
In England or Ontario, hope we’re staying glued together.
Maestro. How you changed the trajectory of my life.
I am unmanned by how readily you express your affection.
How in touch you are to feeling these strange, strange things
And to creating together. We make movies now, and we write things
Because you pushed me to honesty and to love my life.
I have trouble fathoming what my art is without you.
And how I will create as you soar to heights I can’t even imagine.
Vers le large, l’âme est libre. I’ll watch for your signal in the great white dark.
Daydream. The darkness, the sunrise, the coffee.
How we grew up together, made space together. You form the fibres of my world.
For you, my eyes are open to the barnacles beneath my feet
And the world up in the trees. You’re my throughline through it all.
I wanna hurry home to you and make you giggle and hold you closer than anyone.
I have had the time of my life with you. I love every second by your side.
I await our adventures in our world made so beautiful because we’re here
Together. Come what may. The years have nothing on us.
But no—suddenly I’m just back at that old Gothic house. Old Prairie nights.
Leaning on the doorframe like I know what to do with myself.
All buttoned-up and beautiful. Roses on my lapel, all misted and sparkling.
But there I’m falling out of touch. My mind is so scattered.
They’re walking out in front of me and getting into the car.
Lost the words to say. Lost my American dictionary.
Leaning on the walls and the walls lean away
Leaning on some certainty falling, falling, falling away
Ah—out, out, through the door, into the lawn
Into that great white dark, and then they pause and smile, beautifully
The cold is so bitter but their embrace is so warm
For a moment I can reside in that circle, and it doesn’t disappear
And I have these delusions of returning to the balcony and waiting it out some more
But alas, they pull away, and step into the car
Little hearts on their fingers and smiles I felt viscerally
For they’re so real as to be unbelievable.
Then comes some shallow impulse to document and capture
But I can do nothing except kiss my hand and wait
Throw them some red, white, and blue bouquets
Because they’re my happy, genius, heroes
And I’ll miss them so, so, much.
To tell you the truth:
I’m scared of what happens when all this ends.
I can’t fathom to leave you
Or the world we built together
Because I have never felt love like I have with you—
You have made me everything and nothing and in your absence I’m unmanned
With some cognisance of endings I’m way short of grand
I see you in everything, everywhere, in every world I inhabit
You’re part of the textures and the spirits and the whole world I see
And I make things because of you. For you.
And I can’t fathom to leave you.
But we made it, guys. We made it together.
We gave ourselves wholly and truly to something real.
And now we’re exactly where we need to be.
Take a breath, man.
Watchman, dear Watchman, did you see this coming?
Four years of home-making and some endless mumbling
About Life and Death and Darkness and Light
We live free or die, or try as we might
To bridge some distance eventually incomprehensible
In some effort to deal with leaving the presently comprehensible
But the answer, Watchman, was love, though you never really uttered it
On the road again, my friend, futurely and desperate.
Know this—in the seams of my coat, I will hold you forever
And tow our continuous line across the continent, forever.
line of best fit 