Rielly Stares
3 poems
**
One thing has turned out to be right
One thing has turned out to be right. That container turned out to be sound and airtight. I am so far from home and it is raining and getting dark. I'll have to go home where I left everything suddenly like it was an emergency. I'll blend in with the dark. Nothing is open. I didn't get any of the supplies on my list. One item I may have to wait another six days for. I'm glad that I get to go home. I thought I would have to stay until much later. I was planning on twelve hours of work today. I'll have my dinner and try to remember what I ever did to relax. Things might be wonderful when I get back and I might decide to stay, deep down.
**
I'm like others in some ways
No one from work besides him knows what my apartment and my weekends are like. They haven't seen it and they haven't done it. Nobody enters this realm. I don't like to do a lot of explaining to people that won't ever understand, but I'm looking for that glimmer of recognition in people. There are people like myself. Maybe I'll become more like others, too. I'm glad I don't watch TV because it means I have a lot of things that took a lot of time to make on my own and that I've got a unique set of signifiers. I used to be a television addict but I moved away from TV and never got it back and it's been about fifteen years. I liked it, though. There are advocates and I am an advocate sometimes. I believe in it, but I cannot be trusted because I will watch anything. I don't give myself the freedom. Television images relate to the human heart and mind so neatly and directly. The brain knows just what to do with them. My little heart doesn't see the pageant any more. It pays attention to the weather. So far I've been distracted and the nice days and weather have been strangely elusive for one reason or another. When the sun really does come back in all its heat it may be the same for them as it is for me. They can pay attention and dwell in it and they will make sounds like they are eating something wonderful and they'll sigh. Their eyes will brighten and life will become easy. I will go and put on a dress. I will run from place to place and I will sing without meaning to. I will involuntarily celebrate. Like many others I love the heat and the big star that heats us.
**
My thirty-second birthday is in thirty-nine days
I was thinking about aging. I'm now thirty-one. I was at an event feeling there and half there. Feeling vaguely uncomfortable with people attending to me. Not liking the lighting. Some people really get through to me and I can really talk to them. Other times I struggle to pay attention and to look as though I'm having a good time because I don't want to offend anyone, especially when I'm bored and already not enjoying myself I don't want the added misery of offending someone. I love my birthdays, though. I do whatever I want. I go downtown shopping. I discuss my birthday with everyone I talk to. The pharmacist. I try to buy myself a nice present. I like the feast day. I like the numbers. I can sort of see the passage of time add up a little bit with me. Though it isn't really all logical. When I was a teenager I had a crease in my forehead that is gone now. Now I have different creases. Everything seems to have changed. My friend said once that I looked senior a very old woman in a certain light. I was 26 years old then. Some people think I look young for my age and that they would say twenty-one or twenty-two. There is the crone and there is the maid. The sand in the water on the beach and the clay from the soil on my face. Sometimes, obviously, I can't help what's coming out. Everyone does their best. I've had three fruits given to me. I've dressed to match the weather. I've dressed against the weather to match my own preferences and my own heart. I've made the face of a wrathful god. Everything gets easier. I am a different person. Maybe I'm less young now than I used to be. I'm not my younger self grown up, though, but a different creature: I have become a different thing. Sometimes you can find an item of clothing that is just game over it's so good. Sometimes this silver bullet item is a dress or a shirt. You know it when you wear it. Magic. New items of clothing are very important. Everyone must acquire possessions. Everyone experiences the acquisition. Tomorrow I will go shopping for orange juice and a pineapple. I'll buy the clay that comes from the earth and from the white counter. When I'm a senior what will I do? I have thought that I may dress like a young man since old ladies sometimes look like young men.
**
return to Sawbuck 1.6
**
Rielly Stares is a Canadian artist, and writer. She was born in 1975 in Kingston, Ontario where she currently resides.
**
One thing has turned out to be right
One thing has turned out to be right. That container turned out to be sound and airtight. I am so far from home and it is raining and getting dark. I'll have to go home where I left everything suddenly like it was an emergency. I'll blend in with the dark. Nothing is open. I didn't get any of the supplies on my list. One item I may have to wait another six days for. I'm glad that I get to go home. I thought I would have to stay until much later. I was planning on twelve hours of work today. I'll have my dinner and try to remember what I ever did to relax. Things might be wonderful when I get back and I might decide to stay, deep down.
**
I'm like others in some ways
No one from work besides him knows what my apartment and my weekends are like. They haven't seen it and they haven't done it. Nobody enters this realm. I don't like to do a lot of explaining to people that won't ever understand, but I'm looking for that glimmer of recognition in people. There are people like myself. Maybe I'll become more like others, too. I'm glad I don't watch TV because it means I have a lot of things that took a lot of time to make on my own and that I've got a unique set of signifiers. I used to be a television addict but I moved away from TV and never got it back and it's been about fifteen years. I liked it, though. There are advocates and I am an advocate sometimes. I believe in it, but I cannot be trusted because I will watch anything. I don't give myself the freedom. Television images relate to the human heart and mind so neatly and directly. The brain knows just what to do with them. My little heart doesn't see the pageant any more. It pays attention to the weather. So far I've been distracted and the nice days and weather have been strangely elusive for one reason or another. When the sun really does come back in all its heat it may be the same for them as it is for me. They can pay attention and dwell in it and they will make sounds like they are eating something wonderful and they'll sigh. Their eyes will brighten and life will become easy. I will go and put on a dress. I will run from place to place and I will sing without meaning to. I will involuntarily celebrate. Like many others I love the heat and the big star that heats us.
**
My thirty-second birthday is in thirty-nine days
I was thinking about aging. I'm now thirty-one. I was at an event feeling there and half there. Feeling vaguely uncomfortable with people attending to me. Not liking the lighting. Some people really get through to me and I can really talk to them. Other times I struggle to pay attention and to look as though I'm having a good time because I don't want to offend anyone, especially when I'm bored and already not enjoying myself I don't want the added misery of offending someone. I love my birthdays, though. I do whatever I want. I go downtown shopping. I discuss my birthday with everyone I talk to. The pharmacist. I try to buy myself a nice present. I like the feast day. I like the numbers. I can sort of see the passage of time add up a little bit with me. Though it isn't really all logical. When I was a teenager I had a crease in my forehead that is gone now. Now I have different creases. Everything seems to have changed. My friend said once that I looked senior a very old woman in a certain light. I was 26 years old then. Some people think I look young for my age and that they would say twenty-one or twenty-two. There is the crone and there is the maid. The sand in the water on the beach and the clay from the soil on my face. Sometimes, obviously, I can't help what's coming out. Everyone does their best. I've had three fruits given to me. I've dressed to match the weather. I've dressed against the weather to match my own preferences and my own heart. I've made the face of a wrathful god. Everything gets easier. I am a different person. Maybe I'm less young now than I used to be. I'm not my younger self grown up, though, but a different creature: I have become a different thing. Sometimes you can find an item of clothing that is just game over it's so good. Sometimes this silver bullet item is a dress or a shirt. You know it when you wear it. Magic. New items of clothing are very important. Everyone must acquire possessions. Everyone experiences the acquisition. Tomorrow I will go shopping for orange juice and a pineapple. I'll buy the clay that comes from the earth and from the white counter. When I'm a senior what will I do? I have thought that I may dress like a young man since old ladies sometimes look like young men.
**
return to Sawbuck 1.6
**
Rielly Stares is a Canadian artist, and writer. She was born in 1975 in Kingston, Ontario where she currently resides.
