I wheel me, my suitcase and my plane smell up Saint Denis. Lulu is sitting on a stoop in front of Quai des Brumes, under a post-show glow. Spring nights are for exes crouched beside their old friends and current lover(s). Everyone suave-sweating and shedding the winter months. Lulu calls my name and I’m not wearing the Harley-Davidson T-shirt I never gave back. The T-shirt that is also the wind under my they/them wings.
I ask and Lulu tells me the number of warm days I’ve missed. Not that many. I look at the pointy top of a window and remember how Lulu liked to open the curtains and, in a fake fed up tone, declare: “Ugh, another most beautiful day.”
I point out their new tattoos. Lulu tells me that they’ve yet to tattoo the back of their body. The jet-lag makes it hard for me to understand where the back of the body is located and whether this is information I should hold onto. We hug goodbye. I wheel me, my suitcase and their suave sweat smell home.
– April, 2023
Who will hold my hand through the corridors? Or more precisely, who will let their hand fall from their pocket for me to pocket it? To pocket it when I’m off to Goodwill, coming down from a fight, late to the show or balancing two ice cream tubs in one hand.
It’s not exactly a reach. It’s a hand that’s open and ready for me. It doesn’t demand anything. So, I, me, with my anxious-avoidant attachment style, I feel I can easily go yes. Don’t mind if I do take this hand with me on my walk to the elevator.
– December, 2022
Yet another ex-partner sighting last night. This time, on stage. I am in the fourth row doing some math. 24 years old with 4 ½ exes. Is that too many? Plus at least 3 crushes per month — though only 2 this year — and 1 sea of patient friends. Does love dilute, get watery?
Anna-my-ex looks into the crowd and says something to the effect of, “I love you. Enough to want to risk losing you.” I make deep eye-contact with the rug at the center of the stage.
What if a break up was not a sign of failure? To love as in, go on ahead, grow on without me. I just need a moment to loosen my grip on you. Be right there, just got to run home and grab my Other Proof(s) that I’m Lovable. To love as in, we both know I won’t be catching up, right?
The play is about two they/them lesbians. One hates driving. In the play, time is non-linear which is cool and the scenes are short which is stressful. My favourite part is when one of the lovers pulls out a fossil from under the couch.
During the talkback, the facilitator loves to point out the playwright’s age. The 21-year-old playwright is not distracted. They tell us about the stage they’d like to build for their characters. Four levels. The ocean on the ground floor. A museum storage closet. A string to unravel. Dust.
After the play, Anna and I are flustered. We do not talk about the three years we missed. About pandy Zoom theater school, the post-Concordia void, the fact that Anna is in a loving two year relationship and how is it that my exes go on to have Kind and Steady relationships with people who are not me.
I pull out a bar of chocolate from my bag to check if it’s vegan but Anna isn’t vegan anymore. Anna is also no longer the only person I’ve eaten out. The Centaur Theater’s bar is closing in 10 minutes and we agree we should grab coffee sometime though we likely won’t. We quickly exchange scenes of our relationship like that time on the bus where I asked Anna to explain the difference between gender and sexuality and they drew a diagram next to our camping supplies list.
To see the other’s baby queer self. To see them back to front. For that to be incomplete and enough.
– April again, 2023
This week’s updates: I popped my squashing fears aside, and signed up for driving school! For those of you who haven’t yet been contacted by me about this, pls feast your eyes on the Quebec sign for a gusty road:
I also got to see Three Halves Make a Whole, Camille’s play about two sisters waiting for change in an airport lounge. As it was happening, I noticed the audience inhaling and exhaling together. “I want to throw up and cry at the same time, I feel so seen” Sego said on our way out.
As I grow older, I get to see long term friends glow in front of larger and larger audiences. But they’re shining with the same thing that made me fall into friendship with them when we were 18? It’s something I really wasn’t expecting from adulthood. Anyways, if anyone has a rich relative to fund the turning of Camille’s script into an audio play, step forward.
Thank you, as usual, for holding zozine in your inbox.
Bizou,
— zo
I love zo zine so much
fit fiou!