wealth obscures the world ending
The city is sad, grey, wet. Toronto sidewalks are poorly plowed. Walking is exhausting. Outside is difficult.
Inside, establishments overflow. Where there is warmth, there is noise. The crowds are uncomfortable. Complaining feels inappropriate since we’re all in the same boat but this year the process of being an urban Canadian in the winter is causing me great anxiety.
The crowds give me visions of the end of the world. Images of overflowing shelters, desperate civilians attacking one another for space and survival. Fear drives me to hatred. I can’t handle other people. I don’t want to handle them. Other people are contemporary ruins.
I have forced myself to sit in a cafe. I hear too many conversations. Anxious for the apocalypse, I sweat, screaming quietly IS NO ONE ELSE AFRAID?
I write to stay calm but it’s impossible. My mother was a dramatic example of my future and here I am: intelligently over-reactive and alone. Nothing is important. There’s nothing to write about.
There’s nothing to write about anymore
He hangs his coat on the rack
His bag on the back of his chair
He pleases time
With upset typing
red knuckled hands
spastic fingers
Weekend jeans
He hurried here
From behind her marble laptop cover
She keeps saying
Find the source
Find out the source
Do you know the source
The source of your roommate’s legal dilemma
She says find the source to solve the problem
Her hat alludes to
A creative culture
And her story ends
With a bothered description
Of the latest ultrasound
A search for that ball of fluid
The one perched
on her most dutiful organ
That just won’t go away
Drink your caffeine
Humane comparisons
distance me
from a culture of business
as I wait
There’s nothing to write about anymore
His newspaper smells like anorexia
A bisected elephant
Wrote something profound
About taking charge
It reads like a demonstration
Of capability
On a Saturday afternoon
He has piles of disordered paper
He has a day today
I love him
his mother will love me
our children will have beards
She gave me
A chance to pay her
For my coffee
Without a greeting
Her septum pierced
I realize
People hate time
And perhaps I represent
The reason time hates her back
I hope you remember how little
You gave me
She tells him
There’s nothing to write about anymore
I’m searching headlines
The Earth is trash
My parents are quiet today
The likelihood of cancer
Is higher than
The likelihood
Of basically anything else
But her new coat
She tells her friend
Was worth it
So warm
Fur lined hood
Can you help me with this
Everyone takes busy moments
I take basically nothing
To a page
On a table
Shared
By importance
And bitter heat
Rachel Ganz 