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5th Column

In the event that this finds you well

I.

In the event that this finds you well—
and I kind of hope it doesn’t,
not because I wish you unwell,
but because I’d rather think
you’re still out there, a little restless,
trying to remember where you left your keys
and what it was you were meant to forget.

II.

Romance is in the possibility. In the smirk of a stranger between Spadina and St. George. In the way the 5:13 pm light glints downtown glass mausoleums, bathing the entire world in amber. In soft gossip carried through suburban streets on a warm summer breeze. I refuse to let go of these simple seductions of life, to confine myself to the possible, to succumb to determinate negativity, to fit myself into the life of another for social recognition. 

III. 
          DARLA
I live to be perceived. I never claimed to
be anything but. Everything that I’ve done
is to better my standing in others’ eyes.

          JULIA
You are more than that. You are Darla. Of
the incomprehensible metaphors and deep
love affairs. 

          DARLA
And yet. I’m never as beautiful as in the
eyes of my friends.
IV.

I hope you are awash in something resembling 
the sunlight of our mornings after – 
how we dreaded the encroaching day 
seeping in through the thin basement slats and it ran – 
through the winding shadowed lazy roads 
of the mid-summer Annex 
kicking over trash cans and barreling 
through neighbourhood cats, 
leaving no bicycle chain left unturned. 

V.

I found love in my friends. For there is a special form of tenderness that is forged in the crucible of young adult angst and the herculean labours of university. I found it in myself and the passions that I dared to pursue while not burdened by what it might look like from the side to potential mates. 

VI. 
          SPEAKER 1
Do you think she would’ve been proud of
me - the girl I’ve been so desperately
outgrowing?

          SPEAKER 2 
I think she would’ve been dazzled
VII.

In the event that this finds you well 
I hope you’re still taking line 1 past Museum,
through Dupont
to someone who doesn’t sound like me 
waiting for you on the other end – 
that you’ve learnt to be prudent 
of drafts left in the spaces 
of things abandoned and unsaid.

VIII.
EXT. BLOOR STREET - DAY Midday summer, sun pounds on Toronto concrete as Susanna - long dark blonde hair, jeans, black peplum top, and white sneakers - and Marlena - bobbed raven hair, sundress, jean jacket, and wedges - walk arm in arm past the ROM. 
          SUSANNA
Bar?! With what sugar parent money?

          MARLENA
(looking over mischievously) 
I have 44k in my account right now. 

          SUSANNA
Which you’re gonna use to go to Berlin
and become an educated and even more
pretentious woman.

          MARLENA
Just imagine - you, me, glitz and glamour.

          SUSANNA
(lowering her sunglasses)
You mean a Tuesday?
IX.

On occasion I am scared of what will happen when one of us finds their “one”. Will we too fall like dominoes, succumbing to the normative concepts of attachment we bit our thumbs at? I hope not. Nothing is perfect and nothing is lasting. Except for romance. The one you find when you stop looking for it in others and open yourself to the beauty of uncertainty. 

X.

In the event that this finds you well
I scented what’s left between us 
with the jasmine that still blooms
even long into the December cold, 
until we wondered whether it was perennial – 
like we were destined to be, 
though we are no longer there to pick it.

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