The hour was on.

In an empty space with an arched azure wall, she moved closer to the abandoned DVD player and hit the play button.

‘Happy Together’ was her all-time treasured motion picture.

-s

Her smile was legendary on that frigid night, and throughout many more winters her core of ‘normal’ has remained implausibly the same.

This is how she deserves to be recollected.

-s

She’s been a warrior; a true soldier through those past befouled years.

The years of navigating each day with dread and despair behind forbidden bars.

Beyond sealed lips.

-s

She’s been staring at those neglected brutalist behemoths for the last ten minutes in her stone-washed overalls; daydreaming of herself playing air guitar to the Beach Boys. 

It was only a couple of hours before the morning after.

-s

She was intensely paranoid as if she was living in somewhat a video game.

A sip of vodka could usually help her.

-s

At parties, she was the first on the dance floor and the last to leave; she just loved the freedom.

Her perfume was—in any event—overly inviting.

-s

She belonged to a tribe of French Lolitas.

Often felt vigorous when standing in front of her grandmother’s antique French Bacarrat ormolu.

She never believed in the word ‘nostalgia’.

Her name was, also, Vanessa.

– s

She was wearing a white satin suit by Marina Rinaldi. Never enjoyed shopping for clothes – unless they were for someone else. She liked second-hand bookshops and fishing-tackle stores.

She was a woman of substance.

Her name was Vanessa.

-s

It all started with a glimpse through the single lamp on the Atlantic side.  Under the stillness of Altair, Mira, Sadr; above the Silence of the Lambs.

Woke up and slept with the same buzz; with the same initial typed at the end of each heart-rending note. Detested by those dreadful musty karaoke rooms, she rarely dared––with a shaky yet sensual voice––to sing along with Gloria’s ‘I Will Survive’; the glorious Gloria.

I read her lips every single time in slow motion:

And so you’re back

From

outer 

space…

I never pitied her, but I did the ones who pitied her.

-s

Toronto, January 2023

He was sitting on the park bench up the Embankment, holding the goldfish bowl he had picked from the market. Full of the miseries of his own failures, which he had been carrying for the past fifty-odd days. His throat was sore. His heart too.

Sipping on her bottle of cheap sherry, the woman gave him a look and whispered a few words: sulfur, wings, warm, warmth. 

The moon was a thin vertical arc that night. It was fucking splendid.

-s
Toronto, January 2023