The Ghosts of Montreal
I live on the dot of the i
In the curve of a j
I live in that rvc single room
On that blue stormy day
In long patterned skirts
Every second is a haze
In white-washed rooms
White yellows in a blaze
I live at the window’s edge
Nude, looking for praise
On the corner of Prince-Arthur
Sheltered from the grays
At the top of Mont-Royal
Recreating sweet cliches
Wincing on Durocher
Before you moved so far away
In heavy strong breezes
On Fridays when they pray
And Thursdays when they danced
When I first told you to stay
In touches
In whispers
In kisses and songs
In breathes of pure ecstasy
And sobs until dawn
In oversized sweaters
And the taste of coffee for so long
In heavenly lounges
When you still played along
In the passenger seat of your car
When death decorated the lawn
In a C4 common room
Please let me get what i want
In moments
In memories
In regrets never gone
In the last way you looked at me
When I fit right in your arms
I’ve been using creative writing as an outlet since fifth grade, and especially high school, where friends and I would share our art together and express all our angst. I consider poetry to be a way to express feelings that I can’t point out as important in isolation but when tied together into a cohesive story, my words can capture an impactful moment. I put it to the side once I came to McGill, only writing little love poems when inspired, until I broke up with my ex. When that happened, I lost a support network and all these emotions and images that didn’t feel significant to anyone but me were reawakened. I didn’t feel like I had a place to let my emotions spill out and when I write I feel like I have that space. In a way, it’s me talking to myself and trying to make sense of the way I feel, which is something I don’t feel like I can do in any other mode of communication.
The two main characters in ‘The Good Place’ joked about living in a little capsule of time in the dot of an i, and I love that. I like the idea of two people living in their own space of memories and love, but in reality, things pass, people move on and you’re still stuck reminiscing. Montreal is a blueprint of love and hurt for me and I wanted to reflect that by making it a character in this poem, inspired by Lana Del Ray painting California as the setting for many of her songs. For me, artists like Florence Welch or Mitski are experts at capturing a feeling that’s so generally familiar yet so deeply personal, and that’s what I want to try to do.