Tag: creative writing

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Is it Okay? A student’s creative response

Graphic by Thom Bell

Concordia student examines the inner turmoil of coming to terms with oneself

Is it okay to be gay? I can no longer contain what I like deep inside; living day to day like it is one big lie. I’m engaged in a major battle; having to choose between watching men or women is the ultimate struggle. I know which one I prefer, but will anyone understand me? I have nothing against women, don’t get me wrong, but I feel lost and out of sync with them and I know deep down that men are my true compass. The media is harsh to people like me, which in turn creates anxiety and criticism in every place that I’ll be. How will all my loved ones react when they find out the one thing on my mind is men, men, men. I pray to God every night for the answer to the question I’ve been trying to find: is it alright to be gay? And if it is, why must I play this daily charade? Everyone—man or woman—should decide how to be, without having to face the constant, overwhelming scrutiny. I love fashion, I love my chinos, I love my beanie, and, in fact, I also love my feminine glasses. I can’t change what I love, as it is a big part of me and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t love a cute boy in tight jeans? I have come to the realization that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, because I will marry a man and live happily. Whether it is in this country or halfway around the world where the wedding might take place, I will always know that my life will be complete, as I’m standing beside the human being whom I am no longer afraid to appreciate. The truth is gender issues are no joke. They hurt, they intimidate and you lose all hope. However, today is the day that I make a stand, to be true to myself and say who I am. Gender issues can’t take my identity, as I’m still a human being and I deserve to be free. I’m walking out of the closet and into the light to live how I want—with a man by my side.

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In writing: The meaning of love and loss

Concordia student explores the notion of loving and losing in this creative piece

Why are we only given one life to live; only one chance to do something big, to leave a mark on all of humanity? The thought that one slight mistake or accident could end it all haunts us, and for some, it even consumes their lives with fear. My love was not scared of death, but she was afraid of not leaving her mark on the world. She was one of those people.

She once told me that her goal in life was to sail around the world and live at sea until the day she died. She believed that was how she would be remembered. I knew sailing was a hobby that we shared, but I never truly realized how much it had meant to her. I loved sailing, because I had loved her. Everything I did, from waking up at 6 a.m. on the weekends to get an early start on the boat to reading those sailing books she would loan to me was all for her, not for me.

Whenever I gaze upon the sea, I do not think about the competitions that I won, nor  the maneuvers that I mastered, but instead I think of  the reflection of her smiling face as she partook in her one true love. When I look back at our relationship, I realize that although it was rather one-sided, I was proud that she was happy and that I got to share the beauty of life with her.

When she died that fateful day, my heart sank. She died in the place she felt the most safe: the sea. I try to understand to this day how something so pure like water could take so many people away. A slight accident was all that was needed to take her away from me, but I knew deep down that it was the only way she would accept death. My love didn’t have to be scared or worried anymore, she was already gone. It was now I who was given this punishment. I was scared, scared of being alone. Scared of letting her go and scared of death. She was free from the pain and the suffering and her fear of not making a mark on the world proved to be meaningless, as she made the biggest mark of all. Although she wasn’t known as the girl who sailed around the world and lived at sea, she made her mark on my heart. It’s a permanent scar that will stay with me forever and remind me every day that the time we had together in this lifetime, although short, had meaning. Her memory will pass through me, through my children, through my grandchildren. Never will her memory fade, just as the scar on my heart will never go away. Her memory will continue to flow just as the waves of the sea have and always will.

As I look upon the sea now, I see her face in the distance and I immediately feel like I’m not alone and that even one true love can be significant in life.

Why are we given one life to live? The answer is clear now. We live to love and we love to live. They go hand in hand and complement each other through the good and the bad. Life is short, but love lasts forever and that is why we exist: to experience the passion that we all desire.

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Poetry spotlight: am i exciting to you?

Concordia poet balances humour with gravitas in her creative works

Raised both in Toronto and New York City, Phoebe Fregoli is in her third year of creative writing and women’s studies at Concordia. In her poetry, Phoebe often juxtaposes a playful and childlike voice with more serious subject matter, striking a masterful balance of humour and gravitas. In addition to poetry, Phoebe is an avid writer of fiction and scripts. Her most recent work, Be Tween, a play which she wrote and directed, was produced by Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre at McGill. This column was put together with the help of Annah-Lauren Bloom.

am i exciting to you?

she says if your underwear is wet why don’t you take it off. i’m wearing a skirt and the pool is gated. we have to climb to get out, is this flirting? she says let me help you and gives me her thigh to stand on to hop over the fence. she says let’s go to my house: she says it half whispering even though we’re alone with the blue park and it makes me lean in closer to hear. i spot new freckles, the always new ones every june. we bike to her place and her hands rest on my shoulders like they always do when we share my bike but this feels new like only this night i can feel how small the gap is between my back and her boobs. if i turn around i think i know i’d see her nipples hard. but maybe that’s just the wind and the wetness or maybe that’s me. we lay on her bed like normal, face to face on her pillow. is this flirting? i start to feel sick, like sick. she says boys are stupid and she’s tired of them. is this flirting? she says she is waiting for something. girls are always waiting. she stares at my lips and now i’m really sick so sick for her. it is concentrated you-know-where and i sit up and she says did i upset you and i say ow and she says you’re bleeding. right between my legs she says it’s so red. she says can i? this has never happened before. she touches my thigh red fingers she licks her fingers her lips say red. she leans in, copper kiss. is this flirting?

Graphic by Florence Yee

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Student spotlight: I’m eating a doughnut

Michael Lottner is a Montreal native in his second year at Concordia University, completing an honours degree in creative writing. This column was put together with the help of Annah-Lauren Bloom.

for Meredith

in the park, missing you quite a bit. A woman comes up

to me and asks for directions to the nearest

water fountain. “Twenty paces north-east,” I say.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she says. “Would you

do me the honor of looking at my photographs?”

After flipping through pictures of her grandkids

and china sets, a shot of a tiny bird catches my eye.

“If you give me the rest of that delicious-looking doughnut,”

she says, “I’ll tell you the bird’s name.”

This is my third doughnut of the morning, so I accept

her offer. “Thank you,” she says. “This is my Bethina.

She’s a real Curious Finch.”  Discovering a new specimen

is exactly what I need right now. I picture

the inquisitive little birds perched on people’s shoulders,

chirping their life’s stories and planting seeds of curiosity.

I spend the rest of the day eavesdropping on

conversations. When someone asks someone else,

“Do you think Doug will be alright?” I see wings

flutter out the corner of my eye. But that’s the closest

I come to spotting a Curious Finch. Disappointed,

I wonder if maybe Curious Finches

have no interest in getting to know us, and only use us

for our big brains. I can hear your voice in my head

saying you bet they don’t even know a Doug.

What if I were to tell you Doug is their benevolent leader

and lover, and he’s recently gone missing? Do you know

where Doug is? No one expects life to be a single

vast expedition, true. But—er, if you see Doug,

tell him I miss him. That’s all. I’m heading to sleep now.

A purple bed awaits your return, Doug. Yes, I’ve known

you were Doug all along. I just needed a little something

to throw myself for a loop. The doughnuts were

a good deal, but didn’t keep me company for long,

and once I got going, I couldn’t stop. “What

happens if I start missing Doug too much?” I asked

myself. “You’ll see. It’s all up the world’s sleeve,”

I responded. “Everything gets sorted out up there.”

The moon glimmers off my Krispy Kreme coupons,

expressing some strange chirps.

I turn to your side of the bed. Then I turn again,

and again. Yet no matter how many sides I turn toward,

yours is somehow always the other side.

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you are running around in the dark and for my first workshop part 1

Graphic by Florence Yee

In her poetry, Kara Bowers explores themes of womanhood, healing, and coming of age, to name a few. Bowers is in her fourth year at Concordia University, where she studies Creative Writing and Studio Arts. She is from Toronto. This column was put together with the help of Annah-Lauren Bloom.

you are running around in the dark

i am hungry but also not

my therapist says “i know you hate confrontation”

i haven’t really thought about it

the clock on the kitchen stove is seven hours fast

i walk all the way

you are going to sleep to hide from a problem

i am staying awake beside windows

where dark presses in close

like bodies in a room in the middle of the night

i cross the street without looking

i ask if you saw me watching

you say no

inside of you it is me

i have pulled a muscle in my left thigh

walking in the fresh

my therapist says “anxiety is awareness”

i repeat this in the new city

in my urges to ravage my body

and to destroy its natural shape

something made me want to change

you feel like the blue and the green out the window in my parent’s house

i had so much more to say when i walked across that bridge every day

many strangers have been talking to me

we all wake up early when the sun comes in

will you sing me to sleep?

will you still love me even when i go away?

we stayed like that for months before i was swallowed up

i stayed in the mouth with an old woman

she said “i used to look just like you —

you remind me of my friend who died in the war”

for my first workshop part 1

i will not prune myself for you

i can’t sleep when i’m touching you

in the mornings i wake up with you

and i drink two

cups of water

i go right into the center

and i bite the pit

we move

closer together

i run into you

on the way

you shout whisper

my name

when you eat an apple

do you eat the whole thing?

i turn into an eggshell

i press my face into my knees

the message she sends says: i care

about you. i never stopped caring

i wash my hair

it is spilling out

i call the angels. another crisis without your voice

i sleep with the blinds open and i wake up every hour

each day i wear red for the fire power

there is so much more than just

seeing your name. the plants sing a song

to make us fall asleep i tell you about lying

underneath the flower blanket i tell you

about the book i’m reading i put

my face into bowls of salt and water

i will be safe with you

a piece of wire

breaks off my teeth and flies away

Graphic by Florence Yee

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Stuck in the throes of a drug-fueled cycle

This real-life account of being addicted to heroin shows the rarely-seen lowest of lows

I woke up sick. Feeling the pang of quiet panic and a taste of desperation upon awakening was something I had almost gotten used to. First thing in the morning. When I was young, it was the same. Except then, it was the terror of thinking I was late for school and I had overslept. Now the panic had its roots in smack. With heroin, if you didn’t save a hit for the morning from the night before, you woke up like this.

The catch-22 of the deal was if you do a proper hit the night before, you’d toss and turn through flashing nightmares and murky forgettable dreams. All as the sickness crept up on you. With smack, waking life was a series of no-win scenarios. A constant Kobayashi Maru.

Much like Jim Kirk, you used human ingenuity every day to try and beat the game. Anything and everything, anything and nothing, tactics and strategy, luck and prayer, friends and enemies, economics and diplomacy, hustles and honest-to-goodness straight hard work and determination, to stay one step ahead of the sickness. Like Bono once wrote, “we’re all running to stand still.” On heroin, there is no getting ahead. So I woke and started cataloguing my inventory. One tablet. One bank card. One pen. A few smokes. No lighter. About 40 cents. No food. Food always comes in second.

Graphic by Florence Yee

It was dim outside. Late afternoon, my instincts told me. In the winter, the sun sets by 4:30 p.m. in Montreal. My eyes released their first involuntary tears of the day. My nose ran. My back and legs ached. My bones felt like glass. Specifically, like the thin fragile necks of wine glasses. My neck and armpits were hot, sweating cold sticky sweat. My chest and legs were ice cold. Small localised waves of chills ran through random parts of my body. Heroin withdrawal, scientifically, is the junk-addicted cells of your body dying. Without junk, the cells cannot live. So all the chills and aches and hot flashes and throbbing pain and running noses and horrible taste in your mouth—that’s your body dying—and being reborn.  But honestly, the physical symptoms, as bad as they are, pale in comparison to the psychological feelings of despair, shame, utter tragic sorrow and acute depression.

Like you’ve never felt joy, and you can’t remember what tranquility is like. I’m describing this because it’s important to understand that, for the junkie, the lows are equally vital in driving our behaviour and decision-making as the highs. Yes, being sober means no more withdrawal, but for a person so accustomed to staring into the abyss of human suffering on a daily basis, regular life is, well, boring.  This little fact is man’s dirty little psychic secret—both from himself and to others. The reality is that everyone, in one shape or another, faces this problem. The truth is, some just go with the flow… Time passes.

I’m on the metro. This is the third time today I’m making this Friday tour de l’ile. Each time from either Angrignon or Vendome in the west to Jarry or Sherbrooke. It’s been that kind of day. “The Run,” they call it. On a good day, the Mediterraneans pick up their goddamn phones, we might get a delivery. Home and work delivery is what a man will wait three to five hours for because the LAST thing anybody wants to have to do when in the throes of withdrawal is exactly what I’m doing right now.

There’s a man in his 50s wearing navy blue, on his head and his jacket. There’s a trio of gorgeous 20-somethings to my 10 o’clock. A smattering of lone white men. A couple of young people. In a way, everybody on the metro is young. Montreal in the 2010s is predominantly a young city. A massive college town with four universities, two dozen colleges, countless more institutes and academies of dubious accredited status. I say “we” a lot because in a city like this, with weather like ours, and drugs like these, you’re never really alone. Society among the young is arbitrated and networked mainly by one or more of the following: school connections, growing up together, blood, chance, work or drugs. There’s always the guy with the hook-ups. For me, I always kept one degree, two at most, of separation from this guy. Mr. Hook-Up—the title and name changes. It can be a seasonal thing or it could just be the dude’s in jail for six months, plus probation, conditions, parole officers, curfews, random phone calls, in-person checks, piss tests, psychological tests, possible surveillance, ankle bracelets…  But I digress.

Montreal in the wintertime. We’re coming out of an ice storm. The sidewalks were glazed as a skating rink, causing innumerable falls and minor injuries. Spirits inevitably fall during such a time. A friend of mine died on Saturday I learned. He was alone in his room when he injected a mix of heroin and cocaine, colloquially known as a speedball. All his square, non-user friends will now lament his passing and the horrors of hard drugs. But what really bugs me is that it’s the lack of tolerance of these friends, their distaste for the sights and sounds and realities of drug use, specifically intravenous drug use, that spurs individuals like my friend (we’ll call him Andrew) to isolate themselves in secrecy. The last thing a hard drug user ought to do is shoot up alone.

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Arts

Love in the First and Third Quarters: A Comparison

Graphic by Florence Yee

Emily Zuberec hails from Vancouver, BC. She is in her fourth year at Concordia, majoring in both creative writing and political science

This column was put together with help from Annah-Lauren Bloom

Love in the First and Third Quarters: A Comparison

I

Walk around.

In our favour.

How does a wasp choose where it will sting?

Almonds can be a reliable sources of protein.

Sinkholes may cause discomfort, but no one looks this way anymore.

There is no way to contain geothermal energy, so use it while you can!

Two barn swifts braid into something, avoid collision with a choke cherry that grows on a slant.

“Someone who really cares for you must have taken this picture, look at how your smile runs!”

I don’t need any of these coupons, I’m set!

That was the year brown egg sales spiked.

Blue is the widest.

Do you take card?

III

There is no way to know.

Space can change owners.

We suffered a loss when the market was flooded; too many options were presented.

All milk has been causing deep burps, but it feels good to finally release something.

I once heard about a global movement to end our consumption.

The seeds of some trees only begin to grow after there’s a fire.

Hearing plaster tumble down behind a flimsy wall. Maybe I shouldn’t put up this shelf.

I trained myself to take scalding baths and showers from a young age; I guess you didn’t.

Think of the sound fish make against wet rock.

Our return policies are seen as discouraging.

Does a spider ever give up hope when trapped under a cup?

The company is looking for a new way to invigorate its staff.

Graphic by Florence Yee

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Deal$ deal$ deal$ at the Liquidation Centre

Graphic by Thom Bell

Describing the melancholic end of summer and the promise of fall: a poem

One theme Brynjar Chapman finds himself exploring time and time again in his work is the end of summer—the peculiar and melancholic threshold that exists between end and beginning. As we move deeper into fall, it may benefit us to pause and reflect on this transition. Here, Chapman does just that, meditating on the bittersweet sentiment of another summer passed, with experiences had or missed, lessons learned and connections made.

Brynjar Chapman hails from Toronto, Ont. and is in his fourth year studying creative writing at Concordia.

It’s the last stop on the way out of town

they have everything here!

mugs and hats that say, among other things,

Female

Body

Inspector

and shirts with proud animals or confederate flags

a room, the room of a thousand knock-off crocs

where, as a dare, we stand until light-headed and about to pass out among the fumes.

It’s fun, everyone says so

and we take pictures

but in the car, with Tom,

our silence has weight

so does the smell later in the front hall

of a familiar house left alone for two weeks.

Just last night he was at the fire and barely out of the light

he was wet-eyed, wine in his hands

having just posted to the Facebook of a dead man

It’s on these nights I miss you most.

I felt for some reason I knew what he was feeling because

earlier, I saw him through the bathroom window

pooping

his face was so sincere with red effort,

a face he had never even seen

(unless of course he pooped with a mirror)

and I felt bad that I looked but also nearer to Tom

and glad that he has this place.

In the car I had regrets:

I didn’t jump off the train bridge this year

or I didn’t savour it–the moment before running into the water–

it splashing around my ankles

then the big cold step, the submerge of the crotch

feeling like I’ve accomplished something

but what, exactly? Forget it,

because there’s nothing better than freshwater

and being hungry after a swim

for white bread with meat, and chips.

Because now in the car and at home it’s August

the Sunday of the calendar year

and I don’t have everything in front of me

like on the shore, where a small, long lake held in it,

peed out in secret,

everyone’s year

and their collective fear of snapping turtles.

Graphic by Thom Bell

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The Long Shadow of a small thing

Graphic by Florence Yee.

A poem describing the start of a new academic year, and the beauty to be found in it

A new school year often inspires students to be better, do better and become better. But personal growth doesn’t need a calendar event in order to happen, as it can always take place if we let it. Ally Turner’s poem reminds us of the revelations that can be found in even the most mundane of moments. Turner is in her third year of creative writing at Concordia.

The Long Shadow of a Small Thing

Ally Turner

Chewing bubblegum like there is some kind of answer at the core of it. Standing on the side of the big road and feeling the energy of each driver as they go by you. There is no point in asking, we are just suspended in it. The blue, the stretching pink, the colour that comes through you in a way that is non-physical.

You walk into your apartment and say to your roommate that you transcended gravity tonight – that the sky lived inside of you. You go into your room and cry because every time you try to tell what is happening to you it sounds empty.

In September there is a heat wave that lasts two weeks. It is hotter than the dead of August; the pool is busy, the bodies like crystal embroidery. There is only one way to feel safe in this world and it happens when you can forget what you are. At the belly of the pool, you sit for as long as you can until there are fizzy dots behind your eyes. You fall asleep poolside while your friends talk about some drummer.

  You eat the dinner that you made together in the kitchen and don’t look at each other. You eat three noodles with each bite. You pace your fork back and forth over the plate as if action will trigger result. It doesn’t matter what is happening around you because it is all in your head. One minute you are real, the next you are just staring at the wall with shiny eyes. I don’t know why it happens like this but it does and that is the important part.

When will it settle? I search the treetops for an overwhelming sense of beauty. I close my eyes and try to focus on the breeze on my face. Every moment feels like the build up to something terrible. I am awaiting the pinnacle that never arrives. My hair is falling out in chunks.

In my dream I am trapped in a cell that is shaped like my body except the skin is rubbery and pallid. I open my eyes and I am in the park and there is a great emptiness. I swallow nothing into the pit of nothing. I look up at the blue through the leaves and it is brimming.

This creative writing piece was brought to you with the help of Annah-Lauren Bloom. 

Graphic by Florence Yee

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He writes hard for the money

“Five years ago, I was ready to kill myself or join the army,” said Concordia creative writing student Ian Truman. Today, he’s a self-published author, celebrating the success of the MainLine Gala for Student Drama’s second year and is getting ready to receive his degree this fall.

“It’s not just hard work and luck. I changed my life around. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs, I stay healthy,” said Truman. Hard work may be an understatement however, as Truman has had a lot more to handle than the average creative writing student.

Shortly after being accepted into the creative writing program, Truman’s wife gave birth to a baby girl. Although this was a blessing, it did complicate things. “We actually ended up baby swapping in Concordia,” he recalled. “I would need to get out of class five minutes early because her class was starting when mine finished. I’d run down the stairs, we’d meet in the Hall building and switch the baby.”

While in school, Truman continued to work as much as possible, but finances were still tight.“We got lucky. At one point I was considering dropping out because we were out of cash,” he said. “My wife wasn’t working that much because she was still a student and when you go on parental leave you can’t be a student. So what happened was she applied for a bursary and I ended up taking parental leave [from my work]. She got the bursary and it was enough to make it.”

On top of his studies, working and being a father, Truman was trying to write. Before attending Concordia, Truman worked at a number of factory jobs that inspired his first novel, The Factory Line. While on the job, he would jot down the things he observed, collecting little memos that would eventually fuel the novel’s plot.

“The Factory Line, I wrote on the job. It’s all true, well true-ish, it’s a tall tale,” he said. “I tried to capture how people talk in factories and the kind of situations that they live every day. Some of them are really nice people, some of them are insane and you get to deal with both.”

Turning these notes into a narrative wasn’t an easy task. A lot of what he’d written took place
over the span of two years and came from moments at multiple factories. Furthermore, Truman had to overcome a language barrier.

“How you do dialogue in French is different than in English, so I did dialogue in French but with English words, which doesn’t work. People gave me a break because I’m francophone and English is my second language, but you need to step up and it’s a steep hill,” he explained. “My English is okay for everyday life, but I wanted to be a writer so I needed to go back to grammar and grind those hours rewriting and learning to do dialogue in English.”

The novel did eventually come together and after finishing his classes at Concordia, Truman began looking for ways to publish it. He sent his manuscript to several publishers in Canada and the United States, but there were no takers.

Unwilling to give up, Truman decided to self-publish; he created a blog, started working the social media scene and hooked up with e-book providers. He hired an editor and a graphic designer to finesse the finished product and will be printing several copies of the novel to distribute at book fairs and zine fests. Sales have yet to pick up, but Truman isn’t too worried. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on a second novel, Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair, due out in late June, and has already begun writing a third novel. Truman hopes that by having three novels out and circulating, buzz will pick up and sales will increase.

Truman continues to work full-time and care for his daughter, writing whenever and wherever he can—before work, on the bus on the way to work, during work and in brief periods after his daughter has gone to bed.

“If you’re going to be a writer, you need to write. I try to write at least 800 words a day,” he said. “If I don’t work an hour a day on writing-related stuff, it’s not going to work out in the end.”

It’s this sort of discipline and hard work that Truman says accounts for his success, but he concedes it was also a bit of luck as well. “If we didn’t get that bursary two and a half years ago, we wouldn’t have done it, me and my wife.”

Check out Ian Truman’s blog at iantruman.wordpress.com and look for his book The Factory Line on Amazon.

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