"...the diver descends to maximum depth immediately and stays at the same depth until resurfacing..."

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by it.

Open your legs like an Alberta sky in August
Let me in.

I am all yours.

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by you.

Open your heart like a Wild Rose in July
Let me in.

I am coming there, back there, for some kind of terminal end.
Some terminal finale, some everything. For you, just you.
I am yours, all yours.

Hit with it.

Stung by it.

Ruffled

and

tussled.

Get in love.

-Sid
xo

Winter Miracles.

I want to freeze again on those long nights from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m. when the sun is gone.
I miss the drifts of snow and the instant sobriety upon leaving a place.

Boots and toques, icy lungs and cold fingers.

I want you to miss my warmth at 4 a.m. on an Alberta morning when I get up to piss and make coffee. I bet you'd call my name softly between sleep and wake states.
"Sid, come back to bed".

I would, too, cold and naked, leap under the covers and tell you I love you. I'd run my fingers through your hair until you fell back asleep.

I think I should retrace my steps, but in different shoes this time.

I want my winter miracle.
I want my spring lust and summer freedom.

The hard trees, the brown, the over-frozen everything. I want it.

I want it all that winter miracle.

Snow in my boots and frost-bitten ears so hot that I can't fucking stand it.

I want the drifts and wisps and shifts again.

I want to jump under the covers when you whisper my name on a farm in Northern Alberta.

"Sid, come back to bed."

-Sid

Dowshi, Afghanistan. The cunt road.

Sentry was never done, but my shift was over at 0900. I needed sleep, water and new laces. I always needed to hydrate.

On my way back to camp I saw three boys playing soccer.
Their ball was a piece of shit. Cow shit, or something.
I didn't even care and hoped they would die before they were old enough to want to kill me.

When I thought that, though, that second, that fucking instant, I was suddenly beside you. Your scolding, your fantastic love, your compassion.
I was sorry for it, for thinking like that.

Dowshi is a tiny fucking town at the cunt-opening of a valley into certain death. A76 North, a suicide drive. We had patrols up there, but man, that road buttressed by mountains on both sides is death. Drones went ahead of us and we stopped every 500 meters for a sniff-check.

It rained all day Saturday and I was up it only 1500 meters. I kept the rear and made sure we didn't get flanked or pinched or drawn-in.

It was silent.

We drove and hopped and checked like that for days, for days.
I sang Neil Young songs and kicked rocks.

But fuck I loved you, through that dust. A76 was shit, deadly but so fucking shit.
Maybe the Terry had bucked it deeper into the valley.
Fuck, I hope so.
At night we tri-podded the M20 just for kicks.

I slept well on that road.
IEDs, mortars nor snipers riled us.

Two teams were on either side of the road at all times, sifting slowly and looking overhead.

But those letters from you.
They killed me.

You.
In Safeway.
In traffic.
In line to pay your SHAW and TELUS bills.

Fuck you.

I love you.

Us.

I waited and waited again.
Not just for a rebirth of wonder
Not just for Christ to climb down
Not just for some fucking lines from God
But for you.

I waited for you and I came to thoughts of fucking you.
Again and again and again and again.

And again.

This is it, you know, my last stretch, my last grasp.
Keeping a man like me on the fence is like keeping a man like me on the fence.
One day, the whole thing is going to come the fuck down.

Like a Zimbabwean government
Like the Eiffel Tower without rivets
Like Marxism built by IKEA!

Like me.

Again and again and again.

The snow is going to be heavy this year, baby.
Are you sure you don't need some soft-shoe, soft-heart to clear that fucking drive?

This is it.

Are you sure?