Sylvie Hill

The Resonance

“I’ve gotta dead guy’s knee in me”
he said about his fixed injury.
Why did they tear down the mansions?
I asked him on Sherbrooke Street.
“To make room this this”
as he pointed to the tall building.

“Isn’t it interesting that law and right
are pretty much the same word in French.
And if cars aren’t girls why is it UNE voiture?”
I had told him that girls were for ships
That cars had manly substance.

He could explain the same moons
As funny as you with your crass but effective tutorial.
This is not flashback, nor sentimentalizing, nor comparison.
It’s appreciation for being gifted
the resonance.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, April 2019

Supernaturals

We were laughing about translations.
I meant bring it on! I said.
“If you want to use Bring it in
on a guy, that quote would be acceptable to me.
Like docking a starship,” he said.
And I laughed at the random
Humour not unlike it was in London
Supernatural resonance
A candid candor, most splendid
and delightful appetizing
in recollection.
Ha! Ha!

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, April 2019

Photo: “Woman Laughing Alone With Salad”

Ripe

“Fuck your morals
I was devastated.”
Rejected was his word
as I tried to explain it.

It was that,
and circumstance.
My fear.
& You had a girlfriend.

Best sex he ever had.
“But we didn’t even fuck!”
Ever try it on in mind
Better than talking or touch.

At 17, maybe less or more
We sat this close on my porch
with strict physical limits
yet minds, and eyes, ideas soared.

At 44
“My god that rough little piece
on the front wall is to die for.
Literally men have died to touch it.”
No more. Please, no more.

Fuck my morals
I will be devastated.
Accepting into that world
Crossing boundaries again.

And I always remembered
The scene naked on the chair
And brought that to
my lovers over years.

And I had been wondering
if the ridges were aged
The wrinkles like teeth
And if I was too old for this?

So to hear his desire
The heat shot higher
Face flush, breath lost
He was in, I was on fire.

And I was 17 again
With the power of my years
Fucking him so right this time
Fucking it all up for them.

And if you taught me what
Life is short, take what you want
But the devilish blindside
You could carry inside
Was too much weight on my guts.

Lightweight,
but you got the writing
You’d say.

“Write me,”
instead of “Fuck me,”
is what he’ll need to say.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, April 2019

Heartrush

“I have no idea what you are talking about
and my social filter is set low.”
I laughed out loud, took a deep breath,
Smiled miles wide, and got up slow.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, April 2019

Photo: David Fernandez Saez

The Arbitrary Intentional Summation

And if it makes you vile
Then it makes me a witch
That I didn’t give a toss who you were with!
And you didn’t care much that night in London
And we both didn’t give a shit.

And if it makes you impulsive
Then it makes me spontaneous
That I didn’t give a fuck what happened that night
And you didn’t care much to be wrong or right
And we both didn’t give a toss, alright.

And if it makes it magic
Then it makes it fated
That we two would end up like that at the end of it.
That I said what could happen and you didn’t resist
And you didn’t seem committed
And I made a choice to break it.

Devilish, derelict, disciplined, and mad.
You were the best night I ever had.
A Muse departed is a life fell apart
In a night over Asahi, a sushi offer, and a party in Dalston.

I try to date now but who can compare
To a night where you meet your match in a death stare.
And a bruise, and a mistake, and deepest understanding – rare.
With such directness that strips you bare.

And if it makes you tragic
Then it makes me pathetic
That I kept on for years trying to dissect a fiction.
But when it tries to replicate with another husband
And doesn’t work cuz reality is not the musation,
And we broke rules to break rules for conclusion?

That we two took it to as far as it would go
In tempers and temperaments and impatience.
In delivering permanence in transience.
Rhys, it was random and how random was my station.
How beloved the calculation of the arbitrary, intentional, summation.

Sylvie Hill, February 2019, Montreal

What You Prefer

BAD FEMINIST, they’d shout at me, they’d say
if I told them I can justify my abuser this way:

You muse a person, and you use their image
And you make these self-centred projections
You write their story one-way in fictions
And you wonder how you fed their hatred?!

Everything they say is so bloody great
You re-create and what they give you take
As your own, bitch, you own their stake
You usurp their intentions and broadcast it?!

Every woman wants the man to know them
When he says, “I know what you like,” she challenges him
He’s attentive, and caring, but asks no questions
And everything he knows about you—from the Internet.

The one-way, the skate-way slippery slope
From SOME emails, two visits, to all that hope
Telling people, “we’re seeing each other” – nope
And owning it like it’s been for ages now.

I justify it that he was kind and nice
And clear in his communications every time
He was gentle with his message, not one lie, why?
He preserved my feelings, alright, that night.

He could ruin me in a word
He could stare me dead.
And he did kill me that morning
In Bloomsbury not on the bed.

But I recognize it – call me bad Feminist.
I am him – call me self-blaming victim.
I get it – call me Woman With Baggage.
I am him – waiting to happen.

“You’re NOT like him,” a friend might say
but little do they know in which way.
See, he actually saved face and my feelings:
Ask me how I deal with a person’s musings.

I destroy, I resent, I hate, and defy.
My directness shuns you for life.
I ridicule you, diminish you quite slyly
And my public humiliation is quite lively.

BAD FEMINIST, they’d shout at me, they’d say
if I told them I can justify my abuser this way:

The mused is abused by one-way preoccupation
And so do you not expect them to retaliate?
And even mine stayed quiet, vanished: no communication
And that he did not surface….
And that he did not condemn…
That he continued to respond when written to him…

…is not flower after a beating nor an “I’m sorry.”
It’s a “I told you what I was like and you might not like me in person.”
And so – he gave me free range, let me do my poetry
And so – he sucked it up as I wrote it in story.

Don’t think for a moment he couldn’t get organized
He has, that’s why you’ll never go to New Zealand.
Don’t think for a moment he didn’t apologize
He did, but you preferred to cry.

Sylvie Hill, February 2019

Blaze ‘er, Lady.

By comparison,
Now that I’m living it
I can say clearly
And without hesitation:
I preferred the cinq à sept
To the five o’clock to two a.m.
Piss ups, anglo-style
On Elgin.

I used to close the pub with her
Our last-call pint chased down with liquor
I’d stand there off patio with a cigarette
Proclaiming: Fuck this town is boring, so sick of it!

The Pizza Pizza lights blaring upon the pavement
I’d say “Ottawa is like a town you pass thru innit?
— to get hot dog buns
— and chips
on the way to your cottage,” I’d insist.

By comparison,
Now that I’m living it
I can say clearly
And without hesitation:
I never wanted late-night drinking
Late-start bands, drinking. Sinking.
My hornyness just misplaced unfulfilment?
And a fake Self wrapped in a rocker jean jacket
and chain wallet?

I prefer curious films
— in a blazer (and heels if I could wear them).
Documentaries then ONE drink, afterwards.
All of us fetching the metro by ten
and others splitting off for a tea at eleven.
I wanted talks and conversations.
I wanted interesting and daring wits.
I was desperate to risk and to live.
I mused two Londoners in fierce contrivance.

And now I’ve set off for home from Montreal bistros, Plateau cafes, Mile End bars twice past three a.m.
With new friends and gents through Parc Lafontaine
John and me we drank a pint there, listened to musicians
And I joke-fought Fabien like a child about the BIXI station.

By comparison,
Now that I’m living it
I can say clearly
So grateful for amazing Ottawans!!
It’s not them
But this City
In which I have lived
such fear and insecurity.

It is like a lover I am so done with.
It is no wonder I have selected men here
— with whom I would never end up long with.

My boyfriends were from military families and/or small towns.
My muses from the Indian Ocean and South Pacific via London.

And fuck if I’m from here – I’m Albertan!
Big imposing mountains my backyard – and the West Coast Pacific.

Mom returned here on the heels of divorce.
Ottawa was never the home I chose.

But when I visited Quebec City and Montreal I fell in Love!
But never did my parents nurture the interest, so lost all this time I was.

By comparison,
Now that I’m living it
I can say clearly
And without hesitation:
Ottawa has been for career
and ambition:
both: I am full of it
But while a pension waits at 57
Who waits for me in the evenings
Naked
Wanting
Breathing
Supporting
Manly and desiring…
And who walks with me
toward that end?

Sylvie Hill July 2018

A Simple Win

Don’t think I don’t know.
I’ve got two letters in my mind
and I’ve just re-read them.
Just now.

Both were positive
From intelligent men
Trying positively to challenge
The way I am.

They were not wrong.
They were not wrong.

With attention, and caution,
they chose words carefully.
They expressed gratitude of me
and genuine concern for our dismantling.

I feel so immature – little girl child.
But I was never taught
How to be attuned to others at all times
How often I was forgotten.

Before leaving for London
Mark never said I was annoying.
But he wrote that I aggressively promoted
Ideas left of centre that were so socially unsettling.

He said once there he got sick to stomach
Two weeks missing me fierce in London, so awful.
Then logic, Mark’s logic prevailed
And longing dissipated, recasting our relationship’s discomforts.

Why was it never easy with me?
Unhinged, everything experienced so intensely!
He signed off forever, writing
“Yours, in perpetual confusion,” sadly.

He is not the first for the last one also
professed his love but became intolerant
& had to leave as it was all too much.
Never could win with my distortions.

Don’t think I don’t know.
I’ve got two letters in my mind
And I’ve just re-read them.
Just now.

Both were positive
From intelligent men
Trying positively to address
The way I am.

They were not wrong.
They were not wrong.

I’ve been blessed
with intelligent men
trying to get through to me
again, and again, and AGAIN.

“Why won’t you listen?”
or “I’m in love with YOU!”
And “Why don’t you get it?!
You’re driving me cuckoo!”

And I am sad tonight.
If I could only have said,
“Yes, dear. You’re right.”
And stopped my fights.

And shelved the drinks
That made me annoying.
And believed in his love
Instead of making him prove it.
And stuck to business
When he expressed his limits.

As young as four then
I was afraid of men
Yet tonight in two letters
It’s clear it’s not them

I’m afraid of myself now
And the ways I’ve been.
How much I’ve strangled
A simple win.

If I could have only said
“You know, you’re right
I don’t care much
For myself either tonight!”

And healers saying
“You’re doing fine!”
And forgive yourself
For what you have done alright.

But when a person
Takes time and thought
To approach you with positive
Challenge and suggestion

When it’s been hard for them
And they’ve been carrying the load
And your fights and your scratches
While trying to keep up your love —

then you’re an asshole.

My men have been heroes!
Turned up on doorsteps
After rejections
And my antics that were gross.

My men have been heroes!
Using words and wisdom
Walking on eggshells
trying to get us re-positioned.

I’m 44 going on twelve.
I’m illiterate in languages of love.
I criticize, I don’t like
and I judge.

Who should stick around?
How can they trust –
that they won’t bleed their brains and hearts out
while I fuck reality, leaving them in the dust.

Sylvie Hill, December 30, 2018

Disheartened

When you gifted me this:
The split chest
The burning and the darkness
Well, dear, I knew you were my kind.

When he gave me pearls…
Some book by some author…
And a re-cast dinner plan with flowers?
Well, dear, I knew he was not of my time.

When he gave me plastic lobsters,
his German school pin, records,
Kurt Cobain sweater, t-shirts,
well, dear, I knew he was exactly mine.

And through the zippered chest
(I did that to him.)
And through his cut ribs
(His congenital heart condition operation.)
And through his pulmonary implosion
(If he had a scar, I missed it…) …

…I was always disheartened.
Pining for the forgotten —
the left-behind man that preceded him.
Except with Faraway Man
I could consume him —
Fiercely interested in his every minute.

But so she becomes interested
When the interest safely won’t be reciprocated.
Yet all their hearts (except his), beated, deepened,
as they pounded with blood and semen.

When you gifted me this:
The split chest
The burning and the darkness
Well, dear, I knew you were my kind.

Do not give me shit
suitable for on-looking kids
or for hanging in a suburban home,
beige walls, like.

Keep it deep
But meet me on the surface.
Keep yourself serious
in the sunshine.
Keep it real
But feed my trip
and fuck me off
with a slight smile.
Keep to me
but maintain individuality.
Act like you’re not
scared if I leave.
Creep into my chest
at night, give vulnerably
Remember me how to
Expose mine…

Sylvie Hill December 24, 2018