Dear Neighbour (Letter)

Dear Neighbour,

      It's been a few days now since you left. I have to say it's a bit strange not hearing your music anymore. It never really bugged me. It was just kind of there. I guess in a way, you were also just kind of there. It's not like we were close friends or anything, just strangers that lived beside each other. Still, watching you put all your stuff into the back of a truck was painful in its own regard. It was the end of a structure that I had gotten used to. I had gotten used to passing you in the hall, most of the time silently and awkwardly. I had gotten used to hearing the occasional Spanish conversation from your room. For a while, you had been an unavoidable fact of my life, as detached as you were. And now that you're gone, there's this emptiness, this unavoidable emptiness. Your door is bare now, and the hall is quiet. There's not a word of Spanish that reaches my ear, and there's not a single time that I see your face.

      I know I'll get used to this eventually. Someone will take your place beside you, and someone after them, and so on. I know I'll occupy that place one day for someone else, and someone else after that, and so on. Goodbyes are the essence of life, it seems. Whether it means goodbye between strangers, neighbours, friends, or family, it happens nonetheless. That's not to say that each time isn't painful in its own regard, or carries powerful memories in some strange way.

      I remember the screaming. Something had happened, something bad, and you were acting appropriately. At first I thought it might have been laughing, and I prayed that I had been right as I realized it was intense sobbing. I wanted to do something, whether that was going to see you or putting on music to try and drown out your howls of anguish, but I just sat there. I checked the hall and saw a friend of yours leaving your room and another entering. I wasn't necessary, but I heard everything. I'm tempted to make this about me, about how your screams made me sit in silent darkness in quiet agony. Something within me had resonated so deeply with your pain. While I wanted to block it out, I simultaneously did not want to pretend that your pain was not there. So I sat there and listened, on the edge of tears as the story reached my ears piece by piece. He cheated on you. I never knew who he was, but I had heard you talking about how when you went out drinking you partied like a taken girl. Your distraught and frustrated howls shook the emotions of everyone around. I grew furious at him, whoever he was. How could he do such a thing? What could make him think that it was a good idea? Why would he do it? These were thoughts that I found myself thinking as I sat at the end of my bed with clenched fists and watery eyes.

      That night still stands as an intense emotional experience for me, even though I was only experiencing what was happening second, or even third, hand. I was by no means involved in what was happening. I knew more about that guy down the hall than I did you, and yet, in those moments, I felt you. But there's more to your departure than just the loss of the person who accidentally gave me that experience.

     It's the loss of someone who had been a part of my daily life for some time. It's the loss of someone that, even when I was in my room and isolated from everyone else, was still present to some degree. It was as if I was in a dark room and couldn't see anything, but every now and then I'd hear the same panicked, alone, breaths a little bit away from me. Through all that darkness, I knew that I was not alone, and this wasn't even your intention. Like I said, you were just kind of there, just as I was to you.

     Maybe this is why they say to love your neighbour. They are the people who will always be just on the other side, whether it be a wall, a yard, or a street. Regardless of how well you know them, they're still going to be there. Maybe it's better to appreciate them for just being there because the world can be a dark and lonely place, and sometimes all it takes is just the sound of someone else's breathing to dispel a little of that loneliness.

     Until next time, whenever that may be, whether as neighbours or strangers on the street, take care.

-Zero

A Canoe Trip (poem)

A wretched feeling:

Wasted time.

Imagine:

Finding photos,

Taken in summer,

Vibrant,

Beautiful.

A trip:

Good company.

One walks on a log,

Another pants,

The camera clicks.

All three:

On a canoe,

Braving clear waters,

A layer of mist,

A radiant sun.

Now imagine:

Witnessing winter,

In its power,

On and under all.

But that is not

The problem here.

The issue:

Summers past,

Friends distant,

The time wasted,

Knowing it

Can happen again.

Experience drained

By technology,

Wondrous science,

Life-sucker,

Addictive.

I forget the touch of summer.

-Zero

Inspired by this series of photographs.

The Late Forest Walk (poem)

and I wonder why he doesn't look up,

if he's blind,

of if there's something more honest about me

when I'm not there.

“Insomniac Conjectures” - Gillian Sze

A night of darkness

And forgotten light,

Led me to the overarching trees,

Begotten by giants,

Titans, who, in all their power,

Forged a violent goblet, Death's cup.

Amongst those giants of towers,

I wander alongside my shadow,

To stumble across a wolf pup

And I wonder why he doesn't look up.

His eyes follow my shadow,

The mysterious figure of my control.

He dances with it,

As the moon forces it to change.

But still I wonder,

Is the shadow how I am defined?

Or am I inactivity embodied,

And my spectre an adventure?

Maybe shadows are what a man will find

If he's blind.

The woods turn vicious,

Their spectres seize mine,

And the pup prances away,

Not once looking at me.

I look to my hands,

And them I see,

Old and broken,

Shattered, but real. I wonder:

If my shadow is truth set free

Or if there's something more honest about me.

Answers are like leaves.

Every year they form,

Looking like the last,

But different.

They die like the last,

Trapped in winter's eternal despair.

The leaves too cast shadows,

As do I and the trees,

But what's to compare

When I'm not there?

-Zero