So in Can Lit we had to read a poem and then write a story about the character. Here is mine and kat's.


I’m waiting for the phone to ring
On Valentines day
I fell asleep on the floor
So now I’m staring at the ceiling
I really should paint it
It looks kind of gray
I really should get up
but I like it this way
Nice and flat on my carpet
I should be ashamed of myself
Lying here
In the middle of books and bottles
And letters and socks and newspapers
I really wish that I wasn’t such a bum
I should be out there
Enjoying life at full throttle
I’d get people to jump with a snap
Man, I’ll start tomorrow
Right now I gotta nap.






On the back of my door hangs my bulletin board, and attached to it with tacks are my calendar and random pages of paper. Most pages are lists; things to do, things to buy, phone numbers, and other stuff. Stuff that I will most likely never end up doing. I strive for self improvement, I really do, but some days…well, most days I haven’t the drive or will power.

The floor is hard because the carpet is so thin; It’s actually increasingly thin where I’m lying, ‘cause I just lay here on a daily basis. I like the feeling of lying on a hard surface; it keeps me alert, awake and alive.

So…Why am I still waiting for him to call? I doubt he ever will. It’s hopeless, really, and it isn’t bound to solve anything.

I should just get up and go meander around town. Find love in other places, in the world around me. And not just in a single person, but in everything. The trees, the architecture, the water. Some days I’m more in love with the city itself than the people in it. I’d rather wander by my self, smoking a good cigar, looking at interesting buildings, than “hang out” and talk about nothing with people that I know will disloyally judge and talk about me as soon as I leave. Maybe I’ll end up all alone, living in one the houses that I presently tend to pace outside of and occasionally sketch or paint. I’ll stand in the window, admiring the brickwork in the archway over the neighbor’s very stylish Georgian door.
I look down at my ripped, partly bleached pants. Frig. I need to get a new pair. They are starting to wear, fray and just look grungy. I guess my whole room is sorta like that. There are still blocks of white that we left blank when we painted my room orange a few years back. I had planned to fill them with my own paintings, but now they just remind me of something else that I neglected [I only suggest neglected, although failure implies an aspect of her personality…change it back if you will!] to do. There’s no real point in doing it now, next year, I plan on packing up all of my stuff---and myself, of course—to leave and get an education. I’ll only take the worthwhile things with me next year, which, to most people, looks like junk. The maps on my walls that I’ve spent hours pouring over, my favourite books (most of which belong not to me but to my brother). I’ll take my journals and some old mixed CDs and my favourite pillow too.

I guess next year to me is a fresh start, a clean slate. Maybe I’ll change over the summer, cut my hair, and buy a pair of heals to go with a whole new wardrobe. That’s the thing about moving: You can change, and no body knows, other than your family who are usually too busy packing or attempting to keep things the same to notice that you’ve changed. Ironic, really.

I get to change a lot, to pack up and move or just switch schools. Some of the people who manage to witness the changing have accused me of lying to myself and to others about who I really am, but I don’t see it that way. I see it a little something like…trying on a bunch of different hats or some sort of other clothing, wearing them around for a bit, seeing how they feel, and whether or not they suit you. Eventually you can pick your favourite hat and get comfortable in it. For some people, this happens really early on, I’ll be old when it happens for me, I bet, but who knows? I seem to like the hat I’m wearing right now. Maybe I’ll keep it.

On the topic of hats, I really should clean my room, or at least add it to my to-do list, considering there are hats and stuff all over the frigging place. The pile of bottles in the corner is growing, and I should really deal with it, and the stack of newspapers is getting ridiculous. Honestly, how many times can I read the same news over again? Reading the newspaper and watching the news are how I keep up with what’s wrong in the world. I wish it were the opposite, but I’m fairly pessimistic for an optimist. Wait, maybe it’s the other way around. …Oh well.

Every night it’s the same routine: I watch the news, and maybe some sort of news related show like “the hour”, and then, I turn the dial on my radio from CBC to the local comedy channel. That way I can feel well-informed about the world without going to bed depressed every night. My TV is so old, that thing is about as deep as it is wide and must weigh close to 50 pounds. I moved across my room the other day and was pleasantly surprise to have a new channel, a less depressing one too!

Well, I really should get up and go do something. I get the feeling that the phone isn’t going to be ringing, and even if it does, I doubt it would amount to anything essential. That’s what I should be doing right now—amounting to something. But…maybe I’ll work at that later. Right now, I gotta nap.