MONTRÉAL WRITES / ISSUE 2.6 - 2.7 by Montréal Writes

To see your work published on Montréal Writes, send your submissions to submit@montrealwrites.com FOUNDER / EDITOR

Kristen Laguia

MANAGING EDITOR

Sara Hashemi

FICTION EDITOR

Constantina Gicopoulos NON-FICTION EDITOR

Emily Arnelien POETRY EDITOR

Michael Jaeggle COPY-EDITORS

Rebecca Aikman GRAPHIC ARTIST

Andres Garzon

MONTRÉAL WRITES

Montréal, Québec, Canada

VOL. 2, ISSUE 6-7

â&#x20AC;¢ JUNE/JULY 2019

First Things 2 Masthead 4 Contributors

Fiction 6

H O W T O W I N S O L I T A I R E by Heather Hunt

Flash Fiction 14 I B R I N G A G I R L F R I E N D T O H A N G O U T W I T H M Y F R I E N D S by Jamie Saporsantos

Poetry 11

F R A G I L E by Topher Allen

L A T E M A Y by Bee Khaleeli

P O E M S by Nofel

Artwork 18

I N D I G O a n d T H E A R C A D E by Phiz

R A I N B O W L A N D S C A P E by Robin Yukiko

CONTRIBUTORS T O P H E R A L L E N (Poem p.11) is a Poet from Clarendon, Jamaica. He is reading Spanish at the University of the West Indies, Mona. His poetry is featured in an online anthology by 14 – 18 Now Press that commemorates the centenary of the Caribbean involvement in the First World War. Mr. Allen was the recipient of the Louise Bennett-Coverley Prize for Poetry 2019, a prize which is administered by the Poet Laureate of Jamaica, Professor Lorna Goodison, and the National Library of Jamaica. H E A T H E R H U N T (How to Win Solitaire, p.6) is a lesbian writer and video artist from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She holds a BA Honours in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and has self-published two novels of LGBT2S+ content. Hunt conveys the emotional impacts of human relationships in her work by employing language reflecting the elements of nature and the human senses.

J A M I E S A P O R S A N T O S (I Bring a Girlfriend to Hang Out with my Friends, p.14) is an emerging writer born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. She is a recent graduate of Mount Royal University’s English B.A. program where she discovered a passion for the craft of creative writing. N O F E L (Poems, p.15) is an Arabo-Anglophone Canadian poet. His poetry has appeared in Snapdragon Journal, the Packingtown Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Bywords.ca. R O B I N Y U K I K O (Artwork, p.12) is a visual and performing artist currently living in Arlington, Mass. A graduate of Berklee College of Music and two albums as a singer-songwriter, Robin is always looking for new means of expression.

B E E K H A L E E L I (Poem, p.17) is a Montrealbased student and writer, as well as a critically acclaimed dyke. Born in Pakistan and raised in various Canadian cities, they primarily study modern South Asian history and migration. Bee works in sexual violence prevention. Their writing can be found in The McGill Daily and Toronto-based literary magazine cool customer, as well as in other publications. P H I Z (Artwork, p.18) is a queer artist and 3D Designer based in London, UK. Her illustrations focus on mental health, feminism and queerness– trying to deal with the big issues through flowers and magic. Through her work, Phiz hopes to give a voice and offer representation to a community who is severely lacking it. Follow her on Instagram @lunaticillustration. 5

F I C T I O N by Heather Hunt

H O W TO W I N S O L I TA I R E Dear Mariella Goodman of the Counselling Office at Johnstown College, I wish you hadn’t helped me last year. Now I am in a worse state than I was in before, or ever have been; worse even than in the third grade when I peed my pants during story time. For weeks—MONTHS—my identity was Pissy Chrissy. No! Now I am in a state worse even than the exact MOMENT following my accident, when my best friend Hannah shot away from me, laughing, and said, “You’re just like Jillo!” Jillo was her daughter, her doll whose mouth she could pour things in if she had the urge to change a diaper. Jillo’s mouth was frozen in the shape of an O, but not in surprise. Her eyebrows were static and relaxed. Hannah and I stopped being friends after I peed at school, but we were doomed anyway. Her mother forbade her from pouring anything but water into Jillo, and I was always whispering, “Do it with chocolate milk. I can get some from my house.” Her mother slit her eyes at me while plating after-school Oreos in their kitchen. Somehow . . .I don’t know how, but somehow, she knew I wanted exotic liquids to gush from Jillo’s stark plastic nub. I mean, I kept my voice down. It didn’t matter if it was chocolate milk or prune juice. I just wanted to experience something that didn’t f low freely from millions of faucets around the world. But, actually, Jillo looked nothing like a baby! She looked like our teacher, Mrs. Ashford. They both had green eyes and blond hair down to their shoulders. During story time I’d extract reading rug lint from as close as I could to Mrs. Ashford without

touching her black ankle boots. Once, on a Thursday in March, she said, “Christina, are you listening?” and I said, “Yes, but maybe he just put green food coloring in the eggs and ham, so it’s secretly pretty normal, but no one will believe him.” She didn’t ask me again. During the summer after the third grade, I unzipped my pencil case on a Ferris wheel in San Francisco and let all the lint out. The sky was more reading rug than it was air. If you had not helped me leave my relationship last year, I would still be in that one rather than the one I am currently in. Jen wasn’t THAT bad. I realize that any opinion you formed of her is based on my whining about her in your office. I hope your office is still located on Fourth Street, but don’t mistake my hope as a wish that you and your peace lily still face West and get all that afternoon sunshine. I just hope you are there to receive this letter. I know you never met her, but I’m telling you now. Jen, she wasn’t that bad. I used to blame Jen for the footprints on our hardwood entrance. Brown footprints from April to November, salty whites from November to April. The city was coming into my apartment with no invitation, and I had to tiptoe through that shitty city to reach the cleaning cupboard. Those footprints filled my head with heat, pulsing in my temples –Inescapable. “I need a drink,” I’d mutter to my soggy socks. Salt doesn’t wipe away as well as mud. While I filled the mop bucket, Jen would retrieve a Tupperware from the fridge and eat standing up, smirking with her dick nose and saying, “You can’t prove they’re mine.” “No one else here wears size ten,” I would

say, and she would laugh. Spraying couscous or granola everywhere. The next thing I knew, I’d be coaxing her crumbs out from between the cupboard cracks with a butter knife. Never her. God no. She’d probably chop her fingers off! Jen and her goddamn sausage fingers. Before I started thinking her nose looked like a dick, I thought Jen resembled a young Goldie Hawn. I didn’t know what Goldie Hawn looked like, still don’t. I’m guessing she’s suave and a bit handsome. Two months into our relationship, I slipped at a curling match and broke my foot, and Jen drove around the block nine times because a bread delivery truck was idling in the spot closest to the Medi-clinic. “I thought it would work, since nine’s your lucky number. But looks like I gotta take matters into my own hands.” She doubleparked, trapping all that sourdough and gluten-free rye between the curb and her Jeep. I had never seen anyone double-park before. No one’s brave enough! She carried me up the clinic walkway and hummed the Bridal Chorus into my ponytail, every note punctuated with dejected beeps behind us. Pissed fists on f lat black car horns. Her chest vibrated against my back when she hummed. Goddamn brave Jen! She placed me on a paisley waiting room chair. I was quick to grow cold – quick to complain. She covered me with her coat, even though all she had on was her Bon Jovi concert tee. Her forearm hairs stood at attention until the doctor saw me. But as soon as we moved in together, the footprints started. She was just so BIG. Just so SORRY! She didn’t realize she was so annoying. You already know . . .you helped me feel less bad leaving her. Remember? “You shouldn’t have to live annoyed.” You had this amused smile. Something you should know is . . .well, you wear glasses. And you keep your desktop screen turned away from your client’s chair, but in the ref lection of your glasses, I noticed you playing Solitaire while I spoke. I always see you making weird moves. You should hold off on moves that aren’t important.

The one I’m with now accidentally called me “Stace” on our second date, when we were in line for movie tickets. I said, “I think you mean Christina,” and she said, “What?” and I said, “Did you just call me Stace? My name’s Christina.” And she said, “Excuse me,” but not to me—she said it to the line gathering behind us, because we were stuck between those blood-red velvet ropes they try to fancy movie theaters up with. We were stuck in front of about thirty people, and she shoved backwards through them all jagged – like tearing cling wrap too fast against its own blunt razor. As I followed her, more than one person leaned toward my face and made a tsking noise with their tongue. When we got outside it was frigid as hell, but I was relieved to have escaped that snake pit. I told her, “I was just reminding you what my name was. I thought you forgot.” The marquee was bright, and she glittered in dark contrast. Onyx. Just then, I realized that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known in my entire life. She must’ve realized my realization, the way she laughed. I turned away to read license plates or convenience store signs. Coronas, 2-for-1! I heard her say, “Excuse me, do you have a cig? I’ll give you a dollar,” and when I looked, she was huddling over a garbage guy’s lighter. I wanted to touch the black stubble of her shaved head, which I had only gotten to do once so far—a week earlier, on the bridge after our first date. She had gripped the waist of my polyester peacoat, tripped me forward for a kiss. Our mouths had generated seamless humidity. My right palm had found the calmness at the back of her scalp. Come to think of it, it’s textured like a velvet rope. But outside of the movie theater, tobacco smoke streamed from her nostrils. She said, “Don’t you dare ever. EVER! Embarrass me like that again.” I apologized with my eyes. Do you remember them? They’re dusty, like September footprints. We speedwalked downtown. Instead of watching a movie, we downed Jameson and sank balls at the decrepit university billiards place. I’m guessing you don’t know the place. It’s

decrepit. She sunk the eight-ball and said, “The only way to diminish your pain is to literally confront it head-on.” She’s one of those people who says “literally” for emphasis. Stacey’s her ex-girlfriend, and now the name means nothing because we literally include it in every conversation. Like, “What do you want for dinner, Stace?” “Oh, cheese and peas, Stace.” It’s like slapping a “Dykes Do it Best” sticker on your own locker in the tenth grade before anyone else can. Before they hear you missed class on Tuesday because you were writhing under Cherise Lopez from one to four p.m., destroying her bed with sweat and toe jam. We had walked to Cherise and her dad’s apartment for lunch, and she had used the bacon that was specifically his to make my BLT. He was at work. Cherise had this way of paying attention to me, treating each of my words and actions as opportunities. When I mumbled, “thanks, it’s tasty,” she mumbled back, “tasty, huh? I know something tasty,” and her eyes took a season or two to investigate me, starting at my mismatched socks: purple hearts left, cooking kittens right. You heard me. Cooking kittens. That morning when I’d gotten dressed . . .well, if I had even dreamed of being someone’s lunch dessert, maybe I would have worn my mother’s lawyer-lady nylon socks. Good thing was, Cherise wasn’t fickle when it came to me. She didn’t like her dad’s bacon, didn’t like salt. Didn’t even like cheese! Her own lunch was lettuce-mayobread. But with ME, I figured Cherise wasn’t fickle because of how she paused on her way up. I blushed and squeezed my thighs together, which made a shadowy v-crease in my jeans, which inf lated her smile. Maybe it’s stupid, but . . .well, if I had died under her cautious chestnut gaze, right now I’d be a ghost, bragging about how my life was all pleasure, no pain. You’d say, “what about Jen, who filled you with guilt? And what about the new one, whose slightest facial grievance governs your thoughts, emotions, and actions?” and I’d say, “I don’t know Jen or the new one, because I died in high school when

someone figured me as cunning as a piece of crystal, before I could discover ref lexivity.” The day after my time with Cherise (more specially, the day after Heaven found the stretch of skin between my thighs), I waved our afternoon around like an identity token. I wore a rainbow pin on my backpack and told all the kids from the Out and Proud Club, “Guess what I did yesterday!” I wonder if I would have started calling her Cherry if we had had more time together. I’d love to send her dad some bacon. Actually, well—what I’d actually love is to apologize to the entire Lopez family, if I knew how to reach them. But her dad moved away from Johnstown when she went to sleep in the river. I don’t dare dream of all the things I’d say. “I miss her, too,” is all I can muster without my ribs and collarbone clenching each other for support. The thing is, I don’t actually know if I miss her, or just the feelings she gave me. I feel hollow like a Jillo doll, thinking about all this. I wonder what her favorite movie was. Her favorite brand of car. I don’t care about cars the way she did. Cherise and the goddamn toy-car collection on her bedroom shelf. My bedroom shelves kept junk like concert glow sticks and dollar-store nail polish, dry, three shades too light to be current. Blame is a vortex. I don’t know why anyone accepts it if they don’t have to, but sometimes you HAVE to, like when a dark circle spreads around you on a thin blue reading rug. I wish you hadn’t helped me with my problem. Jen? Really not a problem, Jen. She used to aim the hair dryer under the duvet when my feet were frozen – made me any goddamn thing but annoyed. Maybe I mistook her coldpricked arm hairs as a visceral reaction to the cold. Maybe they were her only defense. “Spare me if you can.” She knew I’d put f lames to whatever we created, someday, in some way or another. Sincerely, Christina Burns P.S. I’ll feel bad if you’re not on Fourth Street anymore, and your offices have no

windows, because if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re like the majority of people, you threw your dead peace lily in your IKEA waste basket and its ceramic holder broke in pieces too soft to puncture a plastic bag. Did you know peace lilies grow back if they want? Just like that, on a whim? So, organic matter is in the landfill. Those brown fronds hear and smell misery without ever seeing it. Seagulls, goddamn creaking cranes and lost dogs.ďż˝

P O E T R Y by Topher Allen

FRAGILE

My mother always said, if you break a lizard’s egg you will never stop breaking things. And dinner plates slipped from my cursed fingers, so did the figurine from whatnot, her heart-shaped clock, her Home Sweet Home lamp shade. My mother always said, if you break a looking glass you will never stop breaking things. And I was tasked to knock Sunday morning coconut on concrete, to grate it down to my finger print. I use to go down to Emmanuel Road, fling rock stone, kick football and forget to return home before spit dry on the ground; I had to pick my own sweetsop switch. My mother did not explain that secrets are as fragile as silence. She did not tell me that they are things I should keep in boxes lined with sponge. So, I kept my secrets in the oiled hinges of the back door closing at ten o’clock at nights, in my own shadow easing into the backseat of a car, in a man’s house with thick curtains, a wedding day family portrait and a bedspread white as lies. I kept my secrets small in the white swirls I deposited inside him. I didn’t understand fragile until the day his wife returned unexpectedly.

A R T W O R K by Robin Yukiko

RAINBOW LANDSCAPE

F L A S H F I C T I O N by Jamie Saporsantos

I BRING A GIRLFRIEND TO HANG OUT WITH MY FRIENDS

I used to make out with Ariel from The Little Mermaid. It was a doll. She was a doll, and I was four. And the little four-year-old girl that I was just wanted a little smooching before she pretended to swim in the bathtub and played with her plastic toy Flounder. When I was a pre-teen my cousin would ask, “Do you have a boyfriend?” I’d say, “No.” “Do you have a girlfriend?” “No,” I’d say, and she would smile. Now, I think that was a joke, but twelve-year-old me just thought it was normal. And it is normal, it is normal, I tell myself. Now, I bring a girlfriend to hang out with my friends. We’re thirty minutes late because I want them to have had at least one drink in them. We walk up to the table and take our seats. I let a breath out as two little shot glasses are placed in front of us, and I smile while introductions are made. “Alcoholic,” my girlfriend teases. “Just a lesbian,” I say.�

P O E T R Y by Nofel

I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW AT T H E S N O W FA L L

and I remember you. I know it never snowed when we were together, and, no, the white snow does not remind me of your white skin, but I still cannot forget when, on Anderson Hill, I sobbed on your chest, for a good hour or longer, in front of your remorseful tears, enkindled by your racism, even though I now know a three-month romance cannot erase your forty years of white ignorance, even though I now know you were not necessarily a racist. I look back now as the bus moves through Gatineau and crosses to the Ottawa side, and as you fly from Victoria accompanied by a man with whom you have fallen out of loveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I realize racism will becloud my relationships with men, white or not, and please do not say sorry, partly because I hate that word, partly because I am not angry at you. Do you still remember the poetry I read you? Are you still in love with me? I do mean it when I tell you that you are my Qur'anic angel perching, there, at McNeil beach, your head not on my shoulder; alone you reminisce about our kisses in the morning, my love for coffee, your love for coffee shops, and our juvenile sex. I still die at the movement of your beautiful lips when you indulge in deep thinking, as though you are printing a kiss on a beloved's face. I find it odd that no man before me had been enamoured of your ethereal hand gestures or effeminate voice. Your love and benevolence I treasure through my insomniac nights. I am almost certain I do not want to date you, and, yes, I think I am in love with you.

P O E T R Y by Nofel

FRAGMENTS

I like men in whose faces I behold myself and poems in which I find no one I neither carry my religion around my neck nor angels on my shoulders I want to and I remember the ageless child from whom I freed myself

P O E T R Y by Bee Khaleeli

L AT E M AY

Ghazal translates roughly as talking to women: My grandmother sang on national radio My mother, a child on a drawing room floor And hers drawing words tight into pale red soundbites I talk to women too, putting my mouth right into it. The subject of faith still pervades â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like Weil says, Prayer is attention left uncorrupted. Our days are A slow downhill tumble of honey. Everything moves like a soundwave, You look at me, arms akimbo, dressed in black â&#x20AC;&#x201C; And you really look at me, in nothing at all, Nothing metaphysical about it; You end with my name.

A R T W O R K by Phiz

INDIGO

@lunaticillustrations

THE ARCADE