reading assignment:

More classes are canceled, giving me plenty of time to listen to pretty songs, smoke, and procrastinate. My paper looms, my overdue library books and dvds sit on my desk and whine about how they long to be placed back in their dusty shelves.

I'm going to see an advisor today, to get advice about honors english, scholarships, and to make sure everything I'm doing is okay. The courses I've picked, are they okay? Will I be okay? He will sit me down and give me something educational to grasp on and cling to for the next four years.

I'm like that Arcade Fire lyric, I'm asking for something when I want nothing. What am I getting out of this boy I cling to, his warm hands are touching me when I just wish I could be alone. But if I'm alone, I'm restless and worried and nothing ever gets done. I'm starting to worry I'll always be a girl in a relationship, when I'm pretty okay with being single. I'm still comparing every boy to him, every touch to his touch, every whispered word to the ones I have locked away in my brain.

Soon it will be four years since that night, and I've changed in so many ways, yet I know I haven't completely moved on. I may have moved away and started a new phase in my life, but emotionally I am still a wreck when I think about it. The excitement of Vancouver and university have only distracted me. I want my friends, I want my own bed, I want - but can't/won't/shouldn't/ - his freckled arms around me.

I am writing again, filling up my thin black notebooks with words that I don't quite know how to process. Yet. It will happen, when the book is full.

The Vancouver rain is making me sleepy. The only things I seem to do on a daily basis are shower and sleep and smoke, walking to class under a haze of cloud and fluttering birds. The warm water each night lulls me to sleep, where I have dreams that I'm being eaten up by ink. I wake up expecting my skin to be a dull shade of gray, for the ink to have come to life and sat upon my skin for me to smooth out and trace.

I am sort of in a trance lately, emotions-wise. I fumble with my hands to take off my clothes and lie next to you, wondering what small part of me gets this. Understands you. I am breathing very slowly and trying not to remember the curve of his back, the way his hair fell on his forehead.

I am staring at my United Nations paper notes, and listening to soft sad music, and sitting here.

Perfectly still, something has to come to me. Some key.

It's Thursday. I had yesterday off, so I woke up today thinking it was Sunday. Tomorrow's Friday and it'll feel like Monday. Where have my days gone? The weeks are broken, jumbled, crammed.

I had a good week. I saw Matt Good on Tuesday, my first Vancouver concert (I thought it was fitting), and my first concert alone. The boy sat with his friends. We had drinks before the show, meaning we pounded back the pitchers in the fifteen minutes we had to get to know each other. I was just quiet, and awkward, but hopefully I smiled enough.

I called Shelby during the show and serenaded her with Us Remains Impossible. During Apparitions she cried, her soft sniffles crossing the phone lines and shooting straight into my heart. I miss her, and I miss Michael, but I will go home in 35 days. I will breathe cold Albertan air, drive around in my new car, and feel loved. Missed. Wanted.

I've been writing papers, drinking beer, making a general fool of myself. This latest paper feels like one I could write with my eyes closed. It's 1200 words where I don't have to think or worry, it all just falls out like something completely natural. I guess all that drama training in high school ensured me I'd do well on script-analyzing. It's comforting to know that I haven't completely fallen apart - that will happen during my political science and poetry papers. For now I'm going to revel in this, paint my nails red with my window open, feeling the sharp clear air.

Please let this good feeling stay with me. I will figure out next semester's classes and finish all my papers and ace my finals. And then get very, very, very drunk.

I'm seeing Matt Good preform today. It's my first concert where I'll be sitting alone, and I'm not even worried. I'm just going to concentrate on his beautiful voice and let my smile come out.

I'm feeling sluggish lately. I want to look better, but my hair and skin and body just fight me the entire time. I need longer hair. I need better bangs. I need clear, perfectly even skin. Blah!

This week I'm going to try and turn that around.

It's almost unbelievable that I'm ridiculously dehydrated, yet I look outside and see the rain come down in sheets. I should just let the water cover me.

Papers. This is my life. I bet every entry I will make between now and my GRADUATION will mention papers in some way. I'm not finished. It's due in 22 hours. It is staring me in the face and laughing, its ugly mouth opening wide and swallowing my head. Ahh.

I went to Granville Island yesterday avec the boy, and we bought expensive pens and fancy planners and I bought some hilarious post-its that say "Useless Information." Ha! Perfect. We had fancy dinner at a beautiful restaurant, and for once, I sat up straight and did not spill a thing. It was perfect. Two cups of coffee, some beer, some running around the market looking at the fresh vegetables.

I'm trying to organize. Writing neat lines in my planner while looking around at the clothes strewn across the room, the countless old cups of coffee, the pens scattered under the bed, on the desk, on the shelf. I need to clean up. I need to write. I need to take a deep breath.

I have Matt Good on Monday. I have two days off this week plus the weekend. I want to drink. I want to smoke. I need, need, need to do well in these final weeks. I have to start studying!

I will only do about a third of these things. Such is my life.

Life just keeps throwing me these ridiculous things. I think I have a UTI, and am headed to the doctor in 15 minutes. Ugh. Body. Let me be healthy. I need to write my essays.

At least it's pouring, and after I get my prescriptions filled I can come back, curl up with my laptop, and write about family and social norms and giant cockroaches.

I just wish I wasn't so tired. Always.

Come on body, heal, heal, heal. Please. The next weeks are important. Please.

It's so sunny here, I'm ignoring the sharp wind and staring at the sky. My friends came and they were lovely, we walked downtown and slipped on the wet streets, laughing and suddenly I missed home. I got stuck on a broken down skytrain and had 40 minutes to sit and ponder, finally coming home to collapse on his bed and whine.

We are learning to sleep together. I move around too much, hog the blanket, sigh all night. I've never been able to sleep next to a boy before, always something getting in the way or frustrating me so I end up on the couch. It's nice. He left me in the warm bed with a kiss and I slept the morning away, finally waking to leave a post-it on his computer, make his bed, and step into the day.

I'm still not writing my papers, choosing instead to eat some Halloween candy and stare out the window. I am not stressed. It's like I am suspended in this moment, right here in this city, waiting for something to hit. I am comfortable in my skin and comfortable in his grasp, and I know writing will come to me. For now I am content to go see a play at Granville Island, try to buy him a birthday present, try to not worry. My bottom lip is getting chewed off because of my constant pacing and hair-pulling. My legs can't move forward because my heart wants to stay in this nook, with this weather and this music and this boy down the hall.

It doesn't feel like November anymore. No more counting down, no more waiting for snow. I'm just going to float, like one of the many leaves, and hopefully land somewhere that feels like home. Maybe I won't know it then, but the tiny itch in my heart will reassure me.

"Are you tracing my scar?"
"Yeah. I think it's cute."
"Why?"
"It means no one else can be you."

I am preparing for friends to come for a night. I spent the day listening to loud music and writing poetry on my concrete wall. My hands were covered in coloured dust, on my bed the leftovers of the letters. It's pretty now, that gray hard wall.

Yeah, I have essays due, and readings to do, but instead I just walk to your door and spend a little part of the evening on your bed. We're comparing books we've read, movies we've seen, places we want to go.. life that stretches before us. Your perfect wet hair and my bare face. I'm enjoying this little piece of your life I'm being allowed to see into.

Halloween was perfect. All a tangle of sheets, an awkward knock at the door, a quiet flurry of hot breath and soft skin.

I'm coughing up phlegm like it's my job. And he has an ear infection.

But god damn it, I am having sex tonight if it kills me. Or both of us. I think Halloween for a first time together is pretty awesome. So I'm going to swallow my gin and take my clothes off and not feel bad about it.

I'm writing papers, or attempting to, and all these notes I've written aren't translating into full sentences quite yet. Maybe I need more coffee.

It's very windy here, and all I seem to want to do is smoke outside while watching the crows fight over the last scraps of food on the concrete. It's odd how I've come to accept these crows, watching them bicker and coo at each other, hopping from stair to stair. I like them.

Six weeks until I go home. Four weeks until I have no more papers to write this term. Nine days until the Matt Good concert. Two days until friends come for a night. A few hours until I can lie in bed and lightly trace his body with my finger tips.

I am counting, counting, counting. One word, three words, three thousand words. All neatly aligned. I'm hoping they pour from my hands and brain onto the page and make me feel powerful.

Lots of things are happening.

On Friday I finally kissed the boy down the hall. It was quiet and soft and perfect, and eventually we curled up together and slept the day away. Then I got sick.

I spent the past two days sleeping. Literally. I've been up enough to walk to the store and buy tea and medicine, and then my bed calls and I am back in dreamland.

Last night I watched a movie avec the boy and his hands touched my back and my stomach and my shoulders and today I woke up feeling better. Magic hands.

"You are too important to me."

I am coming out of my medicine-fueled haze and feeling ready to work. Ready to learn, write, absorb everything. Papers are due in the next couple weeks and friends are coming down and I'm hoping I can handle it all. Remember that school is important, that I am paying for it, that it is right.

But when he sleeps next to me I try and preserve everything around us in a moment. The music softly playing, his chapped lips, the feeling of his arms on my stomach, the scent of Irish Spring. His cold feet next to my warm legs. We are moving slow and spend hours in his tiny room, looking at the ceiling and his many books, my elbows constantly bruised from bumping the wall when I roll over. It's like I can't memorize enough tiny details, always looking for the stray hair or the wrinkle in the sheets. I want this to stay tiny and sweet enough to carry with me.

I am happy.