bmm bmm

you're cool,

when you were fourteen you hate your dad;
when you were fifteen you took a lot of photographs —
they were Polaroids and your parents were so annoyed
and just wished inside their hearts that you would go and get employed —

when you were sixteen you thought you liked to skateboard;
when you were seventeen you thought you ought to skate more;
when you were eighteen you knew you'd never skate again
and it was high time you found a hobby you felt safer in.

it wasn't pain, of course, but just that you were over it!
high school was cool and all but it's done! get over it!
you scoffed at all your friends who went to get 'real jobs',
contemplating how to get your 'dumb' friends to peel off.

after thinking hard it all became apparent
that being cool would come by hunting out the esoteric.
you were itching for stuffy pedantic arguments
and thought about trading in your hoodie for a cardigan.

and so you did: you went to college for an arts degree.
you thought CJSR was chic and volunteered heartily.
and it was like "eureka!" when you'd finally seen the
multitude of cool people saying "music is a part of me!"

everyday you went to Megatunes or Blackbyrd
until you heard the library was free of use and faster.
you liked lo-fi and Icelandic shoegaze;
you finally got your very own night show on Tuesdays.

you went to lots of shows and you were sort of well known,
putting every local celebrity in your cell phone.
you started working at American Apparel
giving condescending looks to every single kid who dare go

because we all know you need to dress decently
unless you're a big deal inside the local theatre scene.
that was around when you found out about the Metro
and seeing 'real' cinema was too cool to let go.

Monday nights you went to Princess or Garnaeu
unless you caught wind of some loft party or art's show.
the french films became your absolute favorite
and someone told you that they're similar to novels, whoa!

that was your big awakening to literature
and you felt as if your whole life before was immature:
books! books! books! that's all you really cared for.
that was when you started always thinking of the airport.

you started saying "all we have is Leonard Cohen;
besides some Margaret Atwood poems Canada's a no one."
you liked the frenchies and of course the ex-patriots
and similar to Sartre you were an existential atheist.

you called God the 'g-word' — but you like holy water —
but as for any piety you said "why bother?"
you were more for the reckless life of death authors.
all this plus your sociology minor made you post modern.

the funny part was that you didn't know it happened
but all of a sudden you wanted to leave in a Kerouac fashion.
you lust for that sentimental irresponsibility,
thinking any sort of staying still is a futility.

ironically, you were all for Marx and Engels,
admitting cynically that you would probably vote for Hillary.
but you're Canadian, even though you hate it here,
so you voted Green, hugged a tree, and kept on changing your degree.

it occurred to you that thin people looked depraved
and interesting and because of that they were treated different.
you also noticed all the fatty foods you craved
were made of meat and dairy so you were all in for veganism.

you didn't say it was so that you could look deathly ill
but because "animals are people too and why should they be treated different?"
that's the only self-denial university instilled
because in a post-modern way you'd given yourself over to hedonism.

cause who believes in real love anyway?
that whole two-people-forever thing had up and died with Hemingway.
"it's so idealistic!" "it's so Jane Austin!"
"it's too difficult to find and too easy to get lost in."

you found a mirror to love inside of every set of eyes
and the sadder ones had always had you hypnotized.
you took'em to your dorm till it became the norm
but soon every morn' felt bitterly forlorn.

you're lovers left and you weren't even sore at'em
cause sex had grown boring and you rarely even orgasmed.
you just wanted to touch base with yourself.
you felt you built this house without a door to get back out.

all despondent with a Baudelaire ennui,
sardonic and lethargic and almost suicidal.
you'd fall asleep with cigarettes on your sheet,
nearly dying every night as if it were some recital —

cause it's always been cool to have everyone calling you,
concerned you're going to kill yourself if they aren't calling you —
the only thing holding you back from killing yourself
was years of sunday school and a childish fear of hell.

you missed your childhood when you'd known who you were,
when life wasn't this contest to which you had adjourned.
you bussed home for Christmas with your ghost beside you
and your parents and your siblings barely recognized you.

you saw your mother's eyes and your spirit stirred:
you saw you weren't 'free', as you had believed.
all along, hell was where you were —
not somewhere that you were going to be.


The Joe - UT OH - You're Cool