writing – Page 2

Season of the Witch: Jenie’s Story

1 December, 2025Leave a comment

Let’s rewind to 2012. I was working front desk at a luxury hotel in North Vancouver, you know, the kind where people demand a refund because the rain ruined their ocean view.

It was late October, and North Van had that misty, gothic mood: fog rolling in off the harbour, trees shedding leaves like secrets, and me, in my early twenties, just trying to figure out who the hell I was.
Back then, I wasn’t out yet. I knew I was queer, I’d known since I was twelve, but when you grow up Indian, Catholic, and female, “coming out” wasn’t even in the vocabulary. You just quietly fold that truth away and date boys like it’s your job.

So one day, the COO of the hotel, very corporate, very blonde, probably owns crystals, tells us her psychic is coming to town and staying in the hotel. She says, “She’s doing readings! One hour for $100!”
And the front desk girls all gasped like it was Beyoncé tickets.
I thought, why not? A hundred bucks to find out if my life was going anywhere sounded like a good deal. But I didn’t tell my parents. My mom, especially, she’s religious and would’ve said, “That’s how the devil gets you!”
Which is funny, because she also used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid. All the time. Indian-style horror bedtime stories, spirits in the trees, footsteps on the roof, shadows that followed you home.
So yeah. I grew up terrified of ghosts. I still can’t watch scary movies; I’ll have nightmares for days.

Anyway, it’s my turn for the reading. I knock on the hotel room door. She opens it.
She’s this older white woman with wild curly hair and about fourteen scarves. The room smelled like incense and something vaguely floral, like Bath & Body Works met a séance.
She invites me to sit down and immediately says “Your grandmother is here.”
And I froze. Because one, I hate ghosts. And two, I didn’t even like my grandmother.
So I ask, “Which grandmother?” And when she says it’s my paternal grandmother, I’m like, “Oh crap.”
My grandmother was this cold, iron-fisted lady who always made me feel small. The kind of woman who could peel you with a look.
The psychic smiles softly, like she’s listening to someone invisible. “She says she likes your hairstyle,” she tells me.
And I’m like, “Okay, thanks?”
Apparently, the dead are into bangs now.

I’m trying to stay calm, but my heart’s racing. The air in the room feels heavy, like it’s watching me.
Then she moves on. She looks at me with these piercing blue eyes and says, “You’re dating someone just like your father.”
And that one hit me like a punch. My dad and I have always had a complicated relationship. He’s a narcissist, emotionally abusive, unpredictable. My mom and I learned to walk on eggshells around his moods.
And suddenly I saw what she meant. My boyfriend at the time, two years in, had the same energy. I was always chasing approval, tiptoeing around disappointment, trying to earn love that never felt safe.
It took me eight years to finally walk away. Eight years to break the spell.
It was like the psychic peeled back my life and said, “Look. You’re reliving the ghost of your father through this man.” That was spookier than any ghost.

She said other things too, that I’d travel, that I’d eventually end up with a white man. And, you know, I was twenty-something and eager to believe. So I made it my personal mission to fall in love with a white guy. Like it was fate.
Which, looking back now, is hilarious. Because, well, she wasn’t wrong that I’d end up with someone white. She just got the gender wrong.

After the reading, I found out I was her last appointment of the day, and she mentioned she was eating dinner alone. So I said, “Well, I can join you!”
We sat in the hotel restaurant, dim lighting, rain tapping on the windows. She kept glancing around, distracted.
At one point she sighed and said, “It’s hard for me to turn it off, the voices, the spirits. They don’t stop just because I’m tired.”
And I remember thinking, God, that sounds exhausting.
Now, years later, I realize I knew what that felt like. To not be able to turn off the voices in your head.
Not ghosts, exactly. But that constant whisper of you can’t be who you are. The haunting of expectations. The echo of your parents’ fears, my mom always thought a lesbian was going to steal me away in college.
I carried those voices for years. They followed me through relationships that weren’t right, through the polite small talk of hotel lobbies, through every time I laughed at jokes that weren’t funny just to fit in.
It took me a long time to exorcize those ghosts.

When I finally came out, I thought about that psychic. How she told me I was dating someone like my father. And how she said my grandmother was watching over me.
Back then, I didn’t believe in spirits, still don’t, not really. But sometimes, when I think about that moment, the air thick, the quiet between us, I wonder if maybe what she really saw wasn’t a ghost. Maybe she saw the version of me that was trying to break free.
Maybe she wasn’t channelling the dead, maybe she was channelling me.
And that’s the thing about witches, right? They don’t always ride brooms or wear black hats. Sometimes they’re women who hand you a mirror you didn’t know you needed.
Sometimes they say something that sounds like a curse, “You’re dating your father,” but it turns out to be the spell that wakes you up.

So now, every October, when the air smells like rain and cedar and possibility, I think about that night. About the woman who couldn’t turn off the spirits. About the grandmother I swore I’d never forgive, who maybe just wanted to say she liked my hair. And about the girl I used to be, scared of ghosts, scared of the dark, scared of herself.
Maybe we’re all haunted, in our own way.
But the older I get, the more I realize, not all ghosts want to scare you. Some just want you to see them.

And maybe that’s the most witchy thing of all.

Season of the Witch: M.’s Story

27 November, 2025Leave a comment

Where I’m from, the first drag queen I ever heard about was a saint.

In Lebanon, our Halloween is St. Barbara: a young woman fleeing a controlling pagan father who, legend says, disguised herself as a man to escape and devote her life to Jesus Christ. Holy drag in the name of survival.
To remember her, kids dress up in Halloween costumes, knock on doors, sing a little song about her, and people hand out money or candy, or tell you to go away.
It’s our Halloween, but the origin story is about a woman who beat patriarchy by cutting her hair, smearing mud on her face, and throwing on some farmer’s clothes.

I was around ten the year I decided I was going to be a witch.
Not a wizard, a witch. Wizards feel like homework. Witches have more flair.

The plan was simple: repurpose my brother’s Zorro cape as a black dress.
I walked into the living room where my mom and aunt were talking and pitched it like I was on Project Runway: “so I’ll be wearing a dress, the belt in the middle, I can pin it here, with a pointy hat, done.”
My aunt didn’t giggle. Didn’t even try to soften it with a different idea. She went straight to mocking, sharp, voice raised. “A dress? For you? Absolutely not.”
I can still feel the heat in my face, that hot, swallowed-your-voice feeling when you didn’t think you were doing anything wrong.
Five minutes later the cape was back in the closet, and so was I.
I told my friends I felt sick. I didn’t go out that night.

It took a long time to understand what that moment did.
Not just “no costume this year,” but a message that landed somewhere deep:
There are ways you’re allowed to exist, and ways you’re not.
Not because you want to be someone else,
but because people panic when you look like you might.

In my family, masculinity came with a manual, enforced by catchphrases.
My dad’s favorite, شد براغي تمك or in English “Tighten your mouth screws.”
Don’t talk like that. Don’t sit like that. Don’t say those words.
Great way to teach a kid to make himself smaller.

Cut to middle school, catechism class, religious studies. A Catholic priest gave a Very Serious Talk about “the problem of effeminate boys,” (apparently, top five on the Vatican threat list).
His solution, and I kid you not, was to send them to work with “real men” on construction sites for the summer, so they would come back “macho.”
Even as a kid I thought, Father, that is literally the plot of half of gay porn.
Part of me was like, “Maybe I should be more femme.”

A few years later came my first real Halloween party as a teenager.
I was old enough to make my own choices, young enough to still want a mask to cover my face.
The kid who didn’t get to be a witch remembered. So I did it properly.
First accessory: fake tits. Big ones. Two balloons and a silky robe.
When I walked in that party, something in my body unclenched. People kept asking, “Who is she?” and honestly, I didn’t know.
But whoever she was, she was thriving.
It wasn’t a kink. It was a relief.
Proof that wearing a dress and fake tits doesn’t threaten who I am.

As is grow older. I collect small rebellions.
A few summers ago, on vacation in Rome, I walked into a piercing studio right by the Vatican walls and got my earlobes done, just the lobes.
I almost fainted from the pain; I did not expect that, LOL… but stepping back out onto that street so close to where the pope is, felt deliciously on theme, and a little poetic.
There was a small residual sting in my ears and it made me happy, like my body had a tiny built-in reminder: you did a thing just for you.
A small spark of self-expression I could feel with my fingertips.
Every time I touched them, I felt that small pulse of yes.

Then last year I tried a few more things.
A couple of drag nights with friends, which was so much fun.
I experimented with some Dollarama makeup. Got my nails done at a salon a few times, even paid extra for Gelish! Sky blue looks amazing, by the way, and Gelish ruins your nails.
I also changed my Instagram profile photo, nothing wild, just me flaunting my nails. Not a post. Not a story. Just the tiny little circle.
And a few days later, my phone buzzes. A DM from my aunt, the same one.
“Hi Malek, how are you sweetie? I hope you’re good and work is going well. I miss you a lot. Habibi, this is not a good picture on your profile. I do hope you can change it. I know you will say that this is not my business, but I am still your only aunt who cares too much about you and loves you dearly, and I am, after all, your godmother. I doubted for a while, I don’t know what to say to you (dot, dot, dot).”
I wrote back, “Why? What’s wrong with the pic?”

We both knew what she meant.
Same living room message as when I was ten, this time wrapped in “I care about you” and “I’m your godmother,” with “that’s not for boys” tucked inside.
And here’s the part that surprised me: I didn’t spiral. I didn’t write a defense essay. I didn’t change the photo. I just let the message sit there and went on with my day. Not because I’m brave, but because the scale finally tipped. The joy outweighed the fear.
And that’s the part I wish I could tell my ten-year-old self:
You’re not broken for wanting what’s fun.
You’re not dangerous for wanting to be different.
You can try a thing, decide you like how it feels, and that can be the whole story.

And here’s the plot twist, the pushback doesn’t only come from family.
I hooked up with a couple from L.A. who were visiting Vancouver eariler this year. After a short while, they saw a picture of me with nail polish and texted out of nowhere, “nail polish doesn’t suit you.”
Which, first, literally no one asked for your opinion.
Second, it’s wild how fast masc4masc energy turns into policing. Like, babe, I don’t even remember your first name.
Even inside the gay community, a little color on a nail can make internalized homophobia jump out and wave.

But Somewhere along the way, masculinity stopped feeling like rules and started looking like options. A menu, not a manual.
Some days I want plain jeans and a T-shirt. Some days I want a little swish. Neither day needs permission.
Do I still hear the old lines? Sure.
They pop up in a joke at a family dinner or in a DM about a photo I chose because I liked myself in it, from a relative who confuses worry with love.
But my perception shifted. Those reactions aren’t commandments; they are just data. They tell me who can walk with me comfortably, who needs time, and where my boundaries should live.

Every Halloween season, I still think about the year I didn’t go. How quickly excitement turned into shame. How one reaction canceled an entire night.
I don’t hate anyone in that memory. I just wish someone had looked at that cape and said, “Okay. If it wants to be a dress tonight, just let it.”

And that brings me back to St. Barbara, probably one of the very first drag kings.
She cross-dressed to survive, and all I wanted was to cross-dress to have fun.
If a saint can do drag to get free, surely a kid can do it to feel free for one night.
So that’s what I do now, in small ways that add up.
I keep the earrings. I wear nail polish sometimes. I say yes to the version of me that feels most like me that day.
And when someone tries to hand me a manual for how I should look or present, I hand it back and say:
“Keep the manual. I’m ordering the whole menu.”

Season of the Witch: Claus’ Story

24 November, 2025Leave a comment

The shadows never waited for me to fall asleep. They watched me from the moment I got into bed and the light was turned off. There were always two of them: one slightly taller than the other, both standing by the door in my room, as if to make sure there was no way for me to escape. The shadows simply stood there, watching. They never moved… at least not while I was awake.

I was seven years old when my middle brother, whom I previously shared a room with, graduated to his own bedroom. I should’ve been happy then, as I got my own space too. But the truth is: I HATED the dark.

We lived in a big house on the grounds of an old ranch that was developing too slowly, so all the plots around our house were empty fields, and our closest neighbours lived far down the street. Being so secluded, we had the most amazing views when I lay on the lawn with my brothers, looking out into the star-speckled night sky. However, that same solitude meant that my room was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness when I went to bed.

In that deep darkness, I shouldn’t have been able to see the shadows, but there they were. Always two. Always watching me.
I would lie on my stomach with my arms crossed under my body, and hold on to the opposite sides of my blanket, with the naive impression that my bedsheets could protect me from whatever these beings that stood in my doorway were. I held on so tightly that my hands would sweat, and my arms would go numb under the weight of my body, but I wouldn’t let go until I eventually fell asleep.

The house I lived in was beautiful. A spacious two-story with more rooms than we needed for a family of five, and a massive backyard. My parents had built it, so there was no history for the house to be haunted. But my overactive imagination was always on alert. Whether it was the weight I felt in the air when going up the stairs, the flickering figures I saw out of the corner of my eye, or the voices that escaped from the concrete walls at random intervals, there was always an energy I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
The stories our housekeeper told us probably didn’t help: tales about witches flying through the sky as fireballs, or appearing in mirrors with bloodied faces. El Coco, coming to take away misbehaving children, or La Llorona, who wandered the streets at night in search of her children, whom she had killed in a moment of madness, before taking her own life.

Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee, but I would hold it until the next morning (which embarrassingly meant I peed my bed more than once). But mostly, I just lay in the dark, the silence in my room so quiet that it pressed into my ears like a scream. I held my blanket tightly, with my arms crossed under my body, imagining the witches and El Coco, and La Llorona. Knowing that the shadows were there, even when I didn’t look towards the door.

My family moved to the coast when I was 10 years old, to a beachside apartment, where I once again had to share a room with my middle brother. From there, we moved to Canada, and although I had my own room again, I didn’t fear the dark the same way. The shadows had been left behind in the old ranch, maybe to haunt the next family, or maybe to die as the area developed.

But at some point in my late teenage years, I had my first episode of sleep paralysis.

I wake up suddenly, lying in bed. It is the middle of the night, so the room is swallowed in darkness when I open my eyes. I try to raise my head, or move my arms and legs… but I’m completely paralyzed. Panic begins to build inside me, and I try calling out for help, but I’m unable to make a sound.
And then, I see it: standing by my door, there it is. A single shadow now, but this time it doesn’t just watch me, but begins to move slowly in my direction. I try to scream, so my parents or one of my brothers will come to my aid, but I still can’t make a sound. I can’t move my hands to turn the bedside table on, or knock it to the ground to attract someone’s attention. I can only lie there, frozen with fear, looking at the shadow as it drifts to my side. It leans over me, stretching its hands towards my paralyzed body. The moment it touches me, my body shakes violently, and I wake up – for real this time.

Apparently, 1 in every 3 people will experience at least one episode of sleep paralysis at some point in their life, although it’s not always accompanied by the wonderful addition of hallucinations of the so-called “sleep demon.” Lucky me, for I got the paralysis AND the demon: my wonderful shadow-friend from childhood coming back to haunt me in my dreams. And I got to see it more than once, too!
Over the next decade and a half, my sleep paralysis became so regular that I learned to anticipate it, for see, it was always preceded by a nightmare related to darkness. I walked into a room at night, locked the door, and flicked the light switch, but the light wouldn’t turn on. I tried again and again with no result, and the more I tried, the more fearful I became. It was always a different variation of the same dream; always a losing battle against the dark. I would then wake up in bed, only to realize I was paralyzed, with the shadow slowly moving towards me. And when it reached out to grab me, my body convulsed, and I woke up again.

As an adult, I have a complicated relationship with the dark, and the terrors (real and imaginary) that hide within it.
To this day, I don’t like confined dark spaces… but I once went exploring a flooded cave in Guatemala, with only a candle for light (and this was after watching The Descent movie, by the way).
I sometimes feel anxious when I walk down a dark, empty street alone… But I also have been cruising at night – and I’m not talking about the relative safety of a dark room or a sauna. I’m talking about wandering around the trails of Stanley Park (just how La Llorona wandered the streets of Mexico in search of her dead children, but sexier). I guess there is a certain thrill now, when the shadow walking towards you has an equal chance of being your next trick, a nightmarish ghoul, or someone who’s going to stab you to death.

Today, if I need to pee in the middle of the night, I can make my way to the bathroom without turning on the lights… that is, of course, when my husband is at home. When I’m alone, I still turn my bedside table lamp on (but we’ll keep that between us, because it is kind of embarrassing). I also still never look at mirrors in the dark.

It has now been at least five or six years since I experienced sleep paralysis. But sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I raise my arm or move my leg, just to make sure I can. And then I look towards the door, half expecting to see a shadow or two there.

But I am 42 years old, so I know these shadows aren’t real.
Or, are they?

Season of the Witch: Matthew’s Story

19 November, 202519 November, 2025Leave a comment

The first Halloween costume I can ever remember wanting to wear, but which I thankfully never got the opportunity to wear, was Mr. Mistoffelees: the magical cat from the 1988 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Cats. Something tells me that for a wee gay boy only starting to figure out how different he was from all the people around him, and who was trying desperately to hide that fact, a one-piece black leotard and top hat probably wouldn’t have been the best choice. Not to mention the magic wand.

The next Halloween costume I remember is a nerd, a “couple’s” costume with my best friend Brayden, that I can only imagine was both the last costume in the world I probably wanted to wear, and also, being that my 10-year-old self was madly in love with Brayden, was simultaneously the best costume in the world. If I had to guess, I was probably having dreams about dressing up as Michelle Pfeifer’s Catwoman and waking up in tears that I couldn’t make that happen. I assume my decision to dress up as Brandon Lee from The Crow the following year, complete with black hockey tape wrapped around my torso and black makeup around my eyes, was my way of trying to render that. I really just needed the ears and a whip, and it would have been Catwoman all the way. I remember something feeling so off about dressing as an ass-kicking dude from an action flick. I was already failing desperately at that role in my real life; the last thing I needed was to highlight that fact on my favourite night of the year.

It’s slightly ironic that Halloween is my favourite holiday, since I don’t think I have ever really felt comfortable in any costume I’ve worn. In my younger years, I almost always wanted to be something I couldn’t. Whether it was Catwoman, or Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, or Winona Ryder in Heathers, or Bette Midler, things never really went the way I wanted. Luckily, costumes aren’t my favourite part of Halloween. It was never even the candy, although who doesn’t love a giant pillowcase filled with candy?
My love of Halloween has always been my lifelong passion for the macabre. I love Ouija boards, and seances, and witches, and horror movies. I read somewhere that the reason so many gay men love horror movies so much is because we somehow primally identify with the villains.
Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, all outcasts who take revenge on the ones who wronged them. I’m not too sure that theory tracks, or maybe I’m just scared to think too deeply about it. However, I will admit that in elementary school I invented a game called ‘Murder’, where all my friends (all girls, of course) and I would pretend to be guests on a luxury cruise ship, a role perfectly played by our school playground. All the girls would check-in to different rooms, then venture out to enjoy their fabulous vacations. And then I would slowly stalk around the ship and kill each one of them. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, back to costumes. As we all know, there comes a time when Halloween suddenly shifts from being about dressing up fun and scary, and becomes entirely about dressing up hot and slutty. Especially, and some might say necessarily, if you plan on ending up at the clerb.
Which is probably why I started throwing annual Halloween parties so that I didn’t ever have to end up at the club, since a strong mix of shame and body dysmorphia mixed with just a twist of toxic culturist kept me from ever wanting to try to be sexy on Halloween. Unfortunately, in my 20s, I still wasn’t comfortable dressing as Winona or Bette, and usually found myself scrambling to figure something out.
The one year I was convinced to go to the gay bar with my new boyfriend, I decided I’d be what I imagined would be some version of a Disney Prince, thinking it could still be funny while, maybe, hopefully, being slightly hot. What we ended up with was yellow tights, shiny pink bloomers, a puffy pirate shirt, and a terrible wig. And a tiara. Don’t ask me how it happened, but also maybe don’t decide to accessorize after you’ve already started drinking. All I know is I found myself wasted on a dance floor surrounded by hot cops and cowboys, wondering how long my lovely new relationship was going to last.
Another year, my bestie Amber and I decided to be Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. These costumes were actually great. But my one stipulation for wearing them was that we did not end up anywhere close to the club, especially not the gay club. Cut to us wasted at midnight waiting in a freezing cold line (this was Calgary, by the way), surrounded by half-naked twinks in angel wings. There are numerous pictures of the two of us from that night in the club, but something about wildly teased wigs and white makeup dripping down our drunken, sweaty faces in the flash of a camera didn’t really do anything for us. Especially while swimming in a sea of abs. Trust me. There are pictures that somehow simultaneously catch the glow of perfectly sculpted abdominal muscles next to the gaunt, ghostly face of sweaty 2am Sweeney Todd. At least the miserable look on my face perfectly matched the character. I went home alone that night.

I’ve always and will always love Halloween. But dressing up in costumes almost always kills me. Like a few years ago, when I had finally, for the first time, dedicated enough solid hours at the gym that I was starting to feel ok about my body for maybe the first time in my life. This was going to be my year. And I had the perfect costume idea that would show just a bit of skin and, maybe, finally get me in on slutty Halloween: Jesus Christ Superstar. So hot, right? (I’m not going to lie, the largely Broadway theme to many of my costumes didn’t really occur to me until I was writing this essay.) It was great. I had a gold glittered crown of thorns. I had glitter all over my beautiful, flowing Jesus wig. And I had a tiny slutty sheet draped around my body. I was feeling good. So good that it seemed like a great idea to smoke a big fat joint outside the big gay party before going in.
I apologize again to my boyfriend and friends who were there with me, since it was barely half an hour before I had a slight panic attack on the dancefloor after ruthlessly comparing myself to the countless ripped torsos around me. Sometimes the ghosts we thought we’d finally exorcised come back to haunt us at the worst times. Half an hour later, I was home on the couch eating poutine as glitter tears rolled down my face.
I guess if I look hard enough, I could find some sort of deeper truth to all of this. The way so much of my life has felt like wearing a costume that I don’t quite fully belong in. How much of my life I spent trying to hide myself behind masks that never really did their job the way I needed them to.
I spent years trying to be anything other than who I really was. Wanting to be fitter than I was. Butcher than I was. Constantly warring with my body and the way it didn’t conform to the standards of my culture, and the way that made me feel like an alien even amongst all the other aliens. And while it might seem like wearing a costume could be a great way of escaping all of this, spending one fabulous night a year getting the chance to be somebody else, ironically, somehow, it has always felt like wearing costumes only ever exposed the parts of myself I was trying to hide.

Luckily one of the gifts of getting older is that the feeling of needing to be something other than me has started to ease up, the edges of my self-criticism slowly wilting away. Finally, it feels like all the roles I’ve played and costumes I’ve tried on in my life have started mattering much less than the fabulous little gay boy buried underneath it all.
So, maybe this year I’ll do something different for Halloween. Maybe this year I’ll be courageous and finally be the one thing I’ve always been the most scared to be… Mr. Mistoffelees.

Season of the Witch: Randy’s Story

12 November, 2025Leave a comment

Me and my husband Drew, our son Jack, and our pets live in an old house that’s over 100 years old. It’s in a nice neighbourhood on the west side of Vancouver, which is home to most of the Jewish folks that live in our city. We once had a conversation with someone who had knowledge of the neighbourhood’s past, and they told us that they believed that many years back, our house was home to the area’s Orthodox Jewish butcher. This is notable because the highly-observant, Orthodox, meat-carving spirit might not take kindly to their ex-home being occupied by an atheist and a converted Jew, who are both gay and vegetarian. So, if our guess was correct that there was a minor haunting in our home, we likely had one pissed-off and resentful ghost.

In the first years in our house, we noticed odd things. One morning, I walked into the kitchen and the heavy, leaded glass light fixture over the counter was swinging. It was winter and the windows were closed, so there was no breeze. Everyone else in the house was asleep, including the pets.
On another day, Drew was in the basement and heard the dog’s footsteps in the TV room next door to where he was. He then heard the sound of the sofa springs as Charlie got up on the couch and curled up. He called out to her and, strangely, he heard her bark from upstairs. Then she came running downstairs to where he was (and where the demon on our couch was, apparently).
Things kept being odd. When I was taking down a thick wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, we noticed that the insides of the wall were covered in large scratch marks that looked to have come from an animal but were much too large to be attributed to a rat or a mouse.
Over the years, we have had many, many things go missing (of course, this could possibly be due to the fact that we are fairly messy people and that our haunted house is where clutter usually goes to die). But still, many things are still missing years later.
Then, our neighbour from across the street told us they witnessed what looked like a solitary female standing still in our front yard at 4AM, staring at our house for quite a while, Blair Witch Project style.

With no hints or direction from us, a friend who claims to have a connection to otherworldly forces has pinpointed a space in our house that had odd and creepy vibes. This is a room in our basement that always feels significantly colder than other rooms down there and has a door that doesn’t seem to stay closed, no matter how often we close it. Being lovers of scary movies, we had recently watched the movie Paranormal Activity, and were 82% sure the demon from that was living in that basement room.

The incidents that we had noticed had been amusing and only slightly creepy… That is, until 2015, when one bad thing after another seemed to happen to me, and my life went completely to shit. I needed someone to blame, so I figured it must be the uninvited guest in our home. You know, the demon from the movie Paranormal Activity.
Given my work and career issues, money problems, parenting struggles, and extreme self-doubt, I felt like I was cursed, and it was going to take multiple appointments with my longtime psychologist, a medication review, and additional self-examination to get myself out of the deep hole I found myself in. And, of course, significant sage smudging and a house exorcism administered by a flaky but entertaining specialist who had long grey hair and carried a tie-die backpack and a cloth bag of candles. You know, a good, science-based mental-health plan.

We went out and bought a bundle of dried sage. We lit it up, blew out the flame and the smoke from it smudged that old house within a centimetre of its life. The potent smell of the dried herb permeated our nostrils and every corner of every room. And then the specialist did their work as well. With eyes closed, mumbling to themselves and reeking of patchouli, they went about supposedly ridding our home of spirits who were annoying, occasionally frightening, and about as welcome at our place as a right-wing Albertan who wanted to discuss book banning and their views on the validity of medical vaccines.

Over time, things normalized. The sun came out. My outlook improved. I was able to see clearly that things were not nearly as grim as they seemed. It was a huge relief. It might have been the meds, maybe the time with my psychologist, but likely just that things got better all around. It probably wasn’t the smudging and the exorcism. If our guest is still cohabitating, it seems like maybe they’ve found a way to be cool, have stopped the annoying behaviour, and have remembered that they’re staying in our gay vegetarian home rent-free.

Having said that, over 20 of our forks have gone missing in the last few months. It could be lingering supernatural activity, but it’s more likely the fact that our teenage son continues to be not great at putting dirty dishes away.

On December 31 of the year in question, as a precautionary measure, I took the calendar that had hung in our kitchen all year, put it in a wheelbarrow in our backyard, and lit it on fire. It was fairly therapeutic to watch the damned thing burn.

Summer Loving: Camille’s Story

15 October, 202515 October, 2025Leave a comment

This is not your typical steamy summer romance (although trust me, I have tried). My story is more of a love letter. A love letter not to a person, but to a place. This place. Vancouver.And it’s a story that spans almost two decades, from my first visit as a first grader to my moving here just last summer. If you have watched The Summer I Turned Pretty, this is kind of like that. But queer. And hopefully, with better writing. Do it for the plot, as they say.

Now, I haven’t done this sort of thing since university so I’m a little out of practice. In this essay I will… no, I’m just kidding.

A little bit of context. Like some of you, I am not originally from here. I grew up in Belgium. I went to catholic school, sang in the church choir, etc, etc. I can confirm that the catholic school to queer pipeline is real.
And don’t get me wrong, my love for Vancouver is not the same as dislike for Belgium. I love it there and I’m proud to be from there. I talk about it pretty much all the time. The people I miss, the food, the history, and culture. The fact that Belgium was the second country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003. And yet it’s a perfect example of how different legislation can feel to daily life.
Because. Growing up there for me also meant growing up with a lot of baggage. I lived and went to school with mostly white, cisgender, straight, conservative people. My home life was a crash course in emotional survival. This and other factors made it feel like I was keeping more and more inside as the years went by. Naturally averse to any type of confrontation, I kept my head down, twisted and bent myself so I wouldn’t cause any waves, trying not to catch any attention. It was a survival strategy, something I wasn’t always aware I was doing, but, over time, it shrinks you.
Now, it’s not like Belgium doesn’t have queer people. Trust me, as someone who got a liberal arts degree, sometimes it feels like I have met most of them. And although I attended university with plenty of rainbow merch and queer friends, sometimes it still felt like I was playing a part. My real, true, queer self was starting to make appearances, before I commuted back home at the end of the day and faded into that washed-out version of myself again. I was learning how to use non-binary pronouns in French and then going home to hear how queer people shouldn’t make such a spectacle of themselves.

Something I have left out until now is that me and my sister were lucky enough to spend many summers here in Vancouver while growing up. Something I definitely did not understand or appreciate while it was happening. Why was I being shipped off to the other side of the world every summer to be with people I hardly knew or understood? Why did I have to leave my home, my friends, my language, and everything that was familiar to me? Weirdly enough, these are some of the most vivid memories I have from my childhood and adolescence. They say you can’t remember an actual emotion, only the memory that feeling left behind. Maybe that is why summers in Vancouver are so bright, painted in colorful emotions, happy, sad, and angry. Because there was a lot of anger. There were a lot of tears. But at times, I was also happy.

I had a lot of firsts here:
This is where, as an angry tween in the middle of summer, I watched my first pride parade. Right on Robson Street. I did not know what was happening; I just remember it being loud and bright and colorful.
When I was a little bit older, Vancouver is where I had first dates, best dates. Most memorably the girl who planned a walking date to visit the best independent bookstores in the downtown area. For someone with a literature degree, that’s about as hot as it gets.
I spontaneously booked a walking tour called “The Really Gay History Tour,” diving into the queer history of this city. And I felt it. A hum, a buzz, whatever you want to call it. Something small, brave, vulnerable sitting in my chest, making its presence known. This place felt good, right.

Deciding to move here was not intentionally something I chose to do for myself. It made sense for a bunch of boring legal reasons and like many, I was a bit adrift after finishing university. What do you mean there isn’t anything I’m working towards over the next 4 years? I made the choice, initially for a year, to be closer to my sister, who had been living here for years. Probably the least problematic relationship I have in my life, the person who I have leaned on (sometimes a little too much) since we were 2 lost kids in this city. It was a risk. Once again, I was leaving my home, my friends, everything I knew, but this time it was my own choice, and it was for longer. But even though I was comfortable there, I was still clenching. I was myself, but I could still feel myself purposely not taking up space at times.

So. Since I recently passed my 1-year anniversary of moving here (or my Vaniversary, as I like to call it), I thought it made sense to do a little performance review.

After many many, many job applications, I started working at what I am convinced is the queerest workplace in the greater Vancouver area. If our queer staff members were given the day off for Pride, there would be no one left to keep the place running. The people I have met there, dare I say the friends I have made there, mean more to my little gay heart than I can express.
I have also joined a queer fitness class (yes, that is a thing, and I could not recommend it more). After a fun night out dancing at The Birdhouse, I woke up the next day not with a hangover, but with a hangover and my lower back in spasm. This queer cardio class, pitched to me as “gay line dancing,” seemed like a smart solution and has led to another first. My first time actively, loudly, proudly participating in a pride event earlier this summer.
It definitely hasn’t always been easy, though. In the past year, I have experienced more than one type of heartbreak here. The distance and space have given me a lot, but they have also taken things from me. Missing out on friends’ important life events, not getting the chance to say a final goodbye. Sometimes I feel like I am living a parallel life. It is so hard to fight the urge to regress into who I used to be when my old life comes knocking.

But. There is one memory that I keep going back to. It was August 2024, right after I moved. I packed my book and towel and biked on one of the crappy Mobi bikes to sit at English Bay Beach. The pride parade was going by. I watched the colours. The sun was shining. I could hear the waves on the beach and felt the wind on my face. This memory is so warm and bright in my mind, because I felt so… peaceful. And even though I had no idea what was coming in the year ahead, I felt I could finally, truly exhale.

Summer Loving: Luis’ Story

13 October, 202513 October, 2025Leave a comment

This is a story about my on-and-off love affair with, metaphorically, the beach, open waters, and the sea.

My first ever date was in the first post COVID summer, in coastal Victoria.
I ventured out to meet a guy I met online. Through text, he was emotionally available and aware he was avoidant. The hot beach day was the perfect environment to bring any incompatibilities to the surface; looking back, I realize how the sound of crashing waves was a beautiful, soothing sound, but being caught underwater as the currents break was not. Almost immediately, we were in an anxious-avoidant trap, and it would take me two years’ worth of poems, and counting, to learn how to love myself enough to not go into steep shorelines unprepared.

After that, my longest ever relationship, although it is best defined as a situationship, was here in Vancouver with a guy I used to say was the sea, Poseidon himself. If I went with the flow, I had a wonderful time; the best dates, though technically hangouts, were trips to the beach. Blissful sunny happiness quickly clouded by my capacity to receive love that did not come with any strings attached, and unfortunately, without this clarity of what I needed, intention, I was once again in an anxious trap. A strong cycle manifesting itself like a lunar calendar. Fortunately, through poetry I was able to capture and reflect on the push and pull of the tide through this period of my life, and wonder where and why I was repeating it. Similar to the erred myth that the Aztec calendar was believed to foretell the end of the world, and not that the Aztecs were resetting their seasons, this loop of breakups and reconciliations revealed itself at the beach on January 1st:

In 2012, my cousins and I went into the sea.
Before we realized, the high tide took us away.
We tried to swim as we screamed mayday,
I split from my cousins and tried to get help,
We all got away, but not the fear that I felt.

I don’t trust the sea like before,
my sandcastle falls when a wave knocks on the door.
My comfort zone lays in more stable terrains
I even ask friends to play the water levels in videogames.
So you could say I am afraid of the sea,
Because I wouldn’t be able to blame it for drowning me.

The sea did not try to kill us, we ventured too far.
The sea does not have a memory, we remember the scar.
The sea will drown you if you let it be guide,
The sea behaves in a pull and push of the tide.
I compared you and the sea, and now I don’t know what to do with this commentary.

Let me offer my hand and help you down from the pedestal,
Take a hammer to the columns and pipes and let the water flood my skeletal.
I lean towards the synchronicity:
It’s the color blue that beacons to me.
The blue in your eyes, or the blue in your name,
Or the blue in the way you move.

I want to get out of the water, but I don’t know how.
Question the trail dripping from my body,
Wonder:
If it was an emotionally aggressive father, no,
If it’s how I process emotion and choose a path to follow, no,
If it’s how my Mexican blood reacts like oil to Canadian waters, no,
else trying to heal every other part of me when the pipes in my sandcastle are spilling water, yes.

This life isn’t sustainable.
You can’t heal personality.
I’m never in reach of the perfect standard of healing every single part of me.
How many rooms do I split myself into before I forget where every part went initially?

In this new layout of my castle, where do I fit your memory?
The thought makes the tide in my mind go red, I’ve ventured too far.
I can reason the sea’s behaviour but not a man’s vocabulary.
For that ethical ambiguity, I have no vacancy.
Not for the men I am unsure if I even “dated”,
or whatever definition fits from your dictionary.
Not for those whose banter belittle me,
Make a joke out of me and try to convince me it’s funny.
Not for the men who cross my boundary,
And dare to say the walls of my castle are imaginary.

It’s through time, in each wave that hits the sand.
That the sea and sand bank resemble each other’s hand.
I lose sight of what works for me and start becoming part of a narrative
That exists only in your mind and what I twist into poetry.

Only when I focus on what I felt
not what you said does the tide relax.
I know I’ll put the memories, the good ones left,
Not in the sea or the places we spent time in,
But in a brand new room.
Of people I rode the bus with, whom
I flirted like we were strangers,
driving away from Wreck beach, away from the currents and dangers.

Destined to get at different stops.
Dead calm waves, the high tide drops.

The idea that a place can have revealing properties is not a new one. In The Exterminating Angel, by Luis Bunuel, dinner party attendees become trapped in a sociological limbo that eventually reveals all their secrets and unravels their relationships. Robert Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, Prime Video’s Yellowjackets, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, break and rebuild social hierarchies after crew and travellers are castawayed.

I’ve gone to the beach alone, with friends, family too, and have found similar results: an exposition of ideals and compatibility. Do you go to the beach with people who leave trash behind? Do you? How comfortable are they seeing their and other people’s bodies? How comfortable are you? Is their job really “beach” and are they qualified for it? Are you? Do they go to the beach only during summer? Do you?

I love that poetry, like the sandy coast, is as much an external as an internal space. Privacy shared publicly coexists with the secret agenda of knowing, being “in” on personal intimacy of a shared story. Being caught naked or seen in your underwear has a different moral weight than being seen at a beach wearing a range of birthday or bathing suits.

After spending the last day of Vancouver Pride weekend at Oasis in Wreck Beach with a diverse, safe, stable group of friends, I wrote about these conclusions in a poem called The beach:

I love the smell of sunscreen, sand, coconut oil;
Touch hungry, I’m picky as to who I ask for help.
At a shy distance from the ocean, water, turmoil,
I’ve learnt going to the beach’s Reckoning itself,

Of what is not said but felt: interpersonal health.
Here, where there’s not much to do but connect
We watch, talk, listen, or that’s what I’d expect,
We wear our comfort levels, habits, our neglect:

Wreck/Jurassic/Oasis, SPF, over, under dressed.
By the coastline, waves flirt with the sandbank.
A touch, a kiss here and there, a look at a chest,
A drift, a rip current wipes the shore prints blank,

Washed it away. Replaced by beautiful patterns.
The tide’s intention revealed in the rill and ripple:
It is Nature, to mix below the surface, “we” aren’t
But an undertow of elements chasing currents is.

As in, not ideal, life at the beach. I’m sunburnt
From a Sun’s hand, the Moon takes over control,
Rising and setting the pace of the ebb and soul.
I head home to myself, entirely made up of sand.

Today, as I visit familiar or new beaches, I am more aware of my qualities and needs, because I’ve been to the beach and continuously see how anxious, shy, body-dysmorphic, sexy, creative, secure I and others can be.
Today, firstly, I know myself and get a life jacket for open waters, wear a speedo and SPF 50, and trust I am capable of swimming… for survival, probably not for recreation.
Today, if I am curious about the health of my relationships, with myself or with somebody else, I go to the beach.

Summer Loving: Matthew’s Story

5 October, 2025Leave a comment

My closet was made of tinted glass. So you’d think a Caribbean cruise would be the perfect place to hide, given all that bright, glaring sun. But not even my oversized orange hoodie, perfectly covering my awkward 17-year-old body, or the baggie raver pants that flared out to the ground could shield me from the look in his eyes as he tilted his sunglasses onto his nose and gazed me up and down.
“Nice pipe,” He said, in his thick southern drawl.
I stared down at my hands, nervously turning the small wooden bowl over as I did my best to avoid looking up, the large bulge protruding through his bright blue Speedos at almost the exact height of my face practically begging me to stare at it. I thought if I ignored him long enough, he would go away, but he didn’t.
“Are you planning to put something in it”? He asked, pulsing his groin towards me. I finally looked up and met his eyes, my cheeks flushed red.
“It’s for a friend. I bought it on the island yesterday,” I said, nervously looking around the deck to see if any of my family was around. Even though I told my sister I was “bisexual” in a hotel room in Miami the night before we boarded the ship, I was still playing the all too familiar game of hide and seek with the rest of my family. The hardest part about coming out isn’t actually coming out, it’s having to expose something about yourself that isn’t really exposing anything at all. Thankfully, the coast was clear.
“Lucky friend”. He said and winked.
The truth was, he was the first person I noticed when I came up to the pool deck an hour before and found a shaded corner to hide in. That all too familiar game I always played as I scanned every room for signs of others that might be like me. Not because I found safety in numbers. More to protect myself from being around someone with the power to reveal my secrets. All it takes is a look. But as much as I tried to ignore him, my eyes kept wandering back, his body sprawled out flamboyantly on a lounger, sipping on some fruity cocktail as he laughed and screeched with the two women framing him. He made my stomach squirm. The way his wrist flicked back and forth as he talked too loudly. The way he threw his head back when he laughed. The way his tanned orange belly hung over his Speedo. A direct affront to my idea that all gay men in the world but me had 6 packs and bulging biceps.
“Hey, aren’t you a little overdressed for the occasion? You do know it’s over 90 degrees up here?” He teased.
“I don’t like the sun”, I lied.
“Did you forget your swimsuit?” He asked. “Because I have an extra Speedo in my room. If you want to come try it on.”
A rush of heat flushed through my body as my eyes flicked back to his bulge. Oh god, please tell me he didn’t see that. Of course he saw that. My eyes darted around. Were those people staring at us? Suddenly, I felt myself start to move. Automatic shifting of awkward limbs, gathering up my backpack on the floor beside me, the towel under me. But before I could stand, he took a step forward and leaned down, his fried blonde hair falling into his freckled face.
“I might even have something to put into that pipe if you want.” I froze.
“You mean like, pot?” I asked, looking up and directly into his eyes. They were crystal blue. He smiled.
“Yup. I’ve got a whole bunch of it. You wanna go smoke?”
Oh God, how badly I wanted to. How much I missed the sweet comfort of marijuana, tragically deprived of it since my parents forced me onto the plane for this stupid family vacation almost a week ago. But I couldn’t do it. As much as the lure his bulge and the prospect of getting high put their powers of seduction into overdrive, fear and disgust tightened their tendrils around my lungs, and I jumped up, spinning around to make sure I had everything before stumbling away, turning back quickly and awkwardly apologizing. I went back to my room and jerked off, then curled up like a baby and cried.

When I found myself back in the same spot the next day, I would have sworn to you it wasn’t on purpose.
“So you do own a swimsuit.” He said as I lowered the book from my face to see him back, standing in front of me in another, albeit equally revealing Speedo. “What a relief.”
My heart pounded. I looked around, then leaned forward and looked right at him. “Do you really have pot in your room?”
He smiled.
The room was tiny, the door closing behind me as my backpack dropped to the floor. He took the pipe from me and sat on the edge of the bed, filling it with weed from a plastic bag.
“My name is Calvin, by the way.”
“I’m Matthew,” I said as I sat down on the bed, taking the pipe and inhaling a long, slow hit. He moved his leg so it was touching mine, then reached his hand onto my thigh and started sliding it up towards my crotch. He leaned his face towards me, his chapped lips puckered and his eyes closed tight.
“I can’t do this,” I said, standing abruptly.
“What are you talking about?” He said, his eyes popping.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.” I turned and stepped towards the door.
“So what, you just used me for my drugs? Please. Typical fag.” The word hit like a knife, and I stopped, my hand gripping the door handle as I turned back to him, our eyes locking. And there it was. That look. That look in his eyes that said, I see you. I see right through you. I know you. I am you.
I turned and barreled out the door.

Over the next few days I stayed far away from the pool deck, but even that didn’t stop me from seeing him everywhere. I was so terrified at the thought of running into him that I didn’t even realize my siblings dragging me straight from dinner to the disco one hot, humid night. It wasn’t until I saw the crowded dance floor that it hit me. If there was one place you could guarantee you’ll find gays on a boat, it’s at the disco. I tried my best not to think about it, downing a boozy pina colada as the sweet sound of Kylie Minogue blared through the speakers. I finally started to relax, moving my body on the dance floor with my sister, doing shots at the table with my brothers. For the first time in days I wasn’t even thinking about big fat blunts and bulging speedos when suddenly the waitress appeared at our table, a large, fruity cocktail in her hand. She set it down in front of me.
“I don’t think we ordered that”, my brother said. She looked at me.
“It’s for you. From him.” She turned and pointed across the room as our entire table followed along together with their gaze. I leaned over to see around my brother, and it all came into view. Calvin, four tables away, with a harem of women surrounding him, all turned towards us. His head was tilted and his arm was straight up in the air with his wrist bent, his fingers flapping up and down, waving at me. I sank down into my seat as the entire weight of the cruise ship piled onto my chest. Everyone’s eyes turned from him and back to me.
“Who is that?” my brother Jesse asked. I looked over at my sister, our eyes locking for a single second.
“Oh my God”. I said, years of practice kicking into high gear. “That guy is such a fucking creep. He was stalking me all over the pool deck the other day.”
Everyone was silent.
“I’m pretty sure that he’s gay,” I said, and my brothers started to laugh.
“You think?” They said in unison.
“I don’t know why he sent me this. We hardly even talked to each other. He’s disgusting.” I spat the words out and shoved my trembling hands down onto my lap.
“Well, he obviously thinks you’re cute,” My sister said, trying to help.
“Whatever”. I said, looking over at her again, desperately.
“Well, you should just take it as a compliment. Nothing wrong with someone buying you a drink, right?” She turned back to him and waved. My brothers’ eyes stayed on me. I looked from one to the other.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said, picking up the drink and downing it all at once, lifting the empty glass into the air and gesturing it towards Calvin’s table.
“Attaboy,” My brother Darcy said, hitting me playfully on the arm.
Everyone cheered. Everyone moved on. And I did my best to follow suit. It wasn’t until we were all downing a final glass of water, getting ready to leave, when suddenly he was there.
“Well, hello there everyone.” He said, leaning his arm onto our table. “I’m Calvin.”
Everyone said hi except me; my voice caught in my throat, and my body frozen in place. The silence seemed to stretch on forever.
“Nice to meet you, Calvin,” I said awkwardly.
He laughed, running his hand through his hair, turning to me and reaching his finger out through the air and bopping me on the nose.
“You left your pipe in my room.” He said, loud enough for the whole table to hear. My stomach dropped.
“You can feel free to come by and grab it anytime.” He said, winking at me as he turned and stumbled away.
I watched him go, my body paralyzed. I wanted to disappear. To vanish into thin air. But when I didn’t, I slowly turned back to face the table. My sister’s hand was on her heart, her eyes wide. My brothers and their girlfriends’ mouths all hung open as they stared at me in total and utter… belief.

Summer Loving: Pascale’s Story

1 October, 2025Leave a comment

Some things about me:
– I was born in 1989. Thus, I love 90s/early 2000s rom coms… which is why I’m a hopeless romantic who dreams of moving to NYC and falling in love.
– I’m a millennial, so I really need you to like me!
– I’m also really, really good at talking to people, making new friends, and subsequently… shooting my shot with girls.

Not to be overly confident, and not to say that I think I’m god’s gift to the queers; I’m just not scared to walk up to a stranger that I like and talk to them.
Does my heart pound in my chest and right before I do it? 100%. But I know that if I didn’t talk to them, I would feel worse. So, I shoot my shot. Partly because no one really hits on me, not sure why. Possibly because of my huge personality — I’m a lot for some people, I know!
But hey, at least no one has ever called me boring, so there’s that!

But Pascale what do you mean when you say you “shoot your shot?” Well…
A few years ago, I was working as a server at a very busy outdoor restaurant in the Old Port of Montreal. I was 27 and finally about to move to NYC in a few weeks: AKA, my dream come true.

It’s a hot July Saturday night, and we’ve got a lineup around the block. Just as I’m walking towards the bar, I freeze. That’s when I see her: tall, dark skin, short hair, fresh fade. Blue polka dot, short-sleeve shirt buttoned to the top, and army green pants. If I were to compare her to a celebrity, it would be David Beckham.
She walks in, and I stop dead in my tracks. Everything about her takes my breath away. She is so hot, I immediately start blushing. I walk away with a stupid smile on my face.
At the bar, the bartender says, “Pascale, what’s going on? You look different?”
“Umm…I’ve just laid eyes on the hottest girl I’ve ever seen in my life!”
I subtly ask the hostess to seat her near my section, but not IN it, ‘cause OMG, I couldn’t actually serve her. So she’s seated in my friend’s section, and I ask him, “Max, that girl at table 38, what’s the deal?”
“She’s with two girls, I think they’re a couple, and she’s on her own,” he says.

I keep serving my tables, trying to make eye contact with Bechkam, but it doesn’t happen. Then, Max says, “Hey they’re getting the bill, what are you gonna do?”
I panic. The bus boy says, “why are you so obsessed with this girl?”
I say “Shut up and take notes.”
Right then, I see the lovely lady who sells roses to tables. It clicks. Done.
I run up to her and buy a rose. I write down my name and number on a piece of paper. I put it inside a billfold, and ask Max to give that girl the rose and my note and say, “That server thinks you’re stunning.”
My pulse is racing as I head back into my section, trying to look busy, taking extra time with my tables, and then get lost in work. Finally, I meet up with Max and he hands me the bill fold back. There is a note from her, “I’m Ada, thanks for the rose. We’re going out for drinks later, you should join us,” and below that, is her phone number…WITH A NEW YORK AREA CODE!
Are you kidding me?! I’m about to move to NYC: we could walk through Central Park in big cozy sweaters, while the leaves fall, drinking chai lattes, holding hands… and we could fall in love in the fall in New York! It’s perfect! — You know, the usual thought process.
My very interested server friends want to know what happened, so I show them the note with the phone number as the mouthy, jaw-dropped bus boy slowly raises his hand for a high-five.

As Ada and her friends leave, we cross paths for a second. With a big smile on my face, I tell her I would love to see them later. She smirks and says, “I hope so.”
Once I’m done work, I text Ada and head to the bar down the street. I can’t stop losing it that I am on my way to have a drink with this girl. You know when you’re just like, “Is this actually happening?!”
I take a deep breath as I walk in, and spot Ada right away. She looks at me with her gorgeous smile, asks me, “can I get you a drink?”
I say yes, of course and while she’s gone, one of her friends says, “by the way, very well played.”
We have a few drinks, play some pool, and then her friends decide to head out as they’re all going back to New York the next day. Ada and I want to stay out, so we walk over to another bar. We order two Jonny Walker Black, on the rocks, just before last call.
The lights are low, the music is loud.
We’re staring at each other, smirking, as I take a sip of my drink. Ada puts her glass down, takes mine from my hand, and places it on the bar. She puts her arm around my waist and stands tall above me.She slowly pulls me close, so her face is just an inch from mine. Ada looks deep into my eyes and finally our lips meet in a soft, still kiss, as the world around me seems to blur and fall away.
If this were a movie, the camera would be doing a 360 slowly, with the crowd dancing around us in slow motion. Right as the term “French kiss” would be used, the lights come on, and the moment is over. We both pull back, stare into each other’s eyes with a smirk… “Should we get out of here?”

We take a cab home and the next morning, I wake up in her arms. We lay there in that perfect little morning-after bed-bubble until it’s time to get up.
I drop Ada off at her hotel on my way to teach a very hungover spin class. Before she gets out of the car, the leans in to kiss me and says “I’ll text you later.”
I figure she will never text me: I was a girl she met on that Montreal trip. Just a name in a story. But still, the smile I have on my face walking into the spin studio is unprecedented!
Against all odds, Ada did text me later that day. We started talking every day for two months — spending hours on FaceTime and making plans… you’ve heard of lesbians, right?
September comes and… I would love to tell you that when I went to New York, we met up for coffee, went for a walk in Central Park, and fell in love. But really, she just led me on for a few months, and then ghosted me.
I never saw Ada again.

I often find that I chase people who don’t want to be caught.
I’ve now been single for about six months, after my longest and most serious relationship. I tell myself I need some time for me, but I keep going after people who give me crumbs when I give it my all. I’m not sure I know how to date casually. Because, honestly, either I like you or I don’t. If not, what are we doing?
Not to say I’m not happy with who I am, but maybe I should take the time I put into chasing someone who won’t text me back, and spend that time on what I want and who I want to be.
The girl who will go up to a stranger to shoot her shot will always be there, inside. But maybe we can sit with her for a minute. Maybe ask her how she’s doing, or take her out on a date… because I’ve never taken the time to get to know her — know me, without chasing after some crazy idea of a love story.

Maybe, for this summer, I stop chasing those who don’t want to get caught.
Maybe, I fall in love with myself instead.

Summer Loving: Ben’s Story

29 September, 2025Leave a comment

Back in July 2019, pre-pandemic, pre-twink death, I met you, Lloyd. (Lloyd is a pseudonym, for you dear, my favourite Welshman.) Edinburgh – Edd-in-berg, if you want to be ridiculed. I was crashing on my sister’s couch in Marchmont. Bored, cramped, a little horny; friends going to a party I wasn’t interested in that night, I open an app.

Sniffies didn’t exist back then, so we did our business on Grindr like gentlemen.

I don’t know what it is about Edinburgh, but I do extremely well there. So, I casually shoot my shot. And, you reply. Truthfully, I was surprised. You are too pretty. Your singular dangling earring (because those were in style then), the white button-up shirt so open to your chest. Too pretty. You, Lloyd with brown eyes.

I steal away some weed brownies that my sister made. Keep in mind, this is Scotland, the UK (at least for now). Weed is rare goods. We are both excited to indulge. Even though European weed is shite, I tell you, including the stuff in Amsterdam compared to BC bud. We walk the Meadows, QU’EST-CE QUE C’EST in modern terms, ‘yapping.’ You tell me about cartography, and the archives you work in, poetry, and the jewelry you wear. I tell you about linguistics, the archives I work in, the dread of renting in Vancouver, the jewelry I wear.

You live just up the road from my sister’s, so we go to yours. We don’t jump to sex – no – I want to show you the Canadian Cat Show Circuit documentary I saw earlier, while the brownies take full effect. You are enamoured by the cats. Eventually, we do find ourselves in bed.

This is the first time I ever had you on top of me. It might have been the weed brownies, maybe the amber lighting, and the bedroom’s high ceiling, your cheeky smile, the smoothness of your stomach, your nose, deep in my neck. Kissing and laughing at each other.

I wake up late; we wake up late. I need to meet some friends for brunch, now. I dash out the door, forgetting my wallet, and keys, but not my phone. Thank god. You are waiting for me at your flat’s entrance as I scamper back. I see you; you see me. We look terrible. Hickies abound. Hair disheveled. What I hope is toothpaste. We chuckle boyishly and kiss. It is not our last meeting that week.

I learn Lloyd likes old, pretty things and fresh clotted cream. He is sentimental and hates low-rise socks. He pulls his knee highs all the way up.

He graduates from university later with a master’s degree; I return to Vancouver long before then. We keep in touch on Instagram as oomfs. (I have a real life oomf!)

July 2022. We are in the pandemic, but some restrictions begin to ease. My sister is having their wedding Ceilidh in Edinburgh. It is a Gaelic social event, with dancing, fiddles, and alcohol, of course.

Perhaps, you can make the trip up from London. Perhaps, we can find a place to stay away from my family for the week. Perhaps, you want to come, and see me, that guy with the weed brownies, and cat documentary, (and ass eating). Wow. You are coming. I am a bit scared now. What if, we’re just friends and not friends this time. Not that we have to be friends like that: no expectations. I’m cool. You are cool. But, we are sharing a bed for the week.

Your train is early. I am rushing to Waverley. I wanted to have something for you. I am pleading in a flower shop along the way to see what measly trimmings I can get for seven quid. [Huff] I am late. I am late, and I have shitty signal here. Fuck you, Fido! What if he isn’t getting my messages… But there you are. I am holding back smiling to look nonchalant, but my face is fuzzy, warm, and my chest is tight, racing. I can’t stop myself. My smile does not look like yours, and I don’t look like you: pretty. Have you always been taller than me? Oh, it is your shoes. He has cool shoes. “Hi Lloyd! I got you these.”

That is the first ‘gorgeous’ of the week. He calls things he likes ‘gorgeous’. Sicilian pizza, tart wine, eclectic thrifted goods, my flowing green pants, a flat white whilst hungover, train station posies.

At the Ceilidh, we give each other bruises from the swing dancing, swirling each other on the rental hall’s floor, switching partners, fumbling, tearing away, and to each other. My new brother-in-law’s third stepfather’s girlfriend, named Squirrel, from north of Aberdeen, asks us if we are together. We give each other that look. “Oh, so you are fuck buddies,” she quips in a brough. We laugh and shrug.

The rest of the week is gorgeous. Most afternoons, I nap while you read; Lloyd is not a napper. He smiles when I enter the room half awake. I don’t know why. All week, he gets to revisit haunts from his uni days. For him, his past is here in Scotland. For me, just a present together, which itself is a fantasy. And, I should know better. Playing house on Leith Walk? You are the cruelest to yourself for this.

The morning finally comes. Because the UK is (and continues to be) an absolute shitshow and the climate is boiling us alive, the train schedule has ‘been better’. The rail cables are melting now. Your train is maybe here, so we rush to the station at high noon. These moments are all – frantic, frenetic, while my insides are slow and sinking deep within me. You are leaving in an instance.

We hug, one last hug. And then, you step back, keeping me in your arms, and kiss me. I am caught off guard. You have to go. I have no choice but to linger there while your railcar leaves.

Instead of dinner, I go to bed with stomach aches. I can’t wait to get home. I want my dog, my routine, to be as far away as possible from this place. I know for a fact we can’t be together if I am an ocean and a continent away. That is what makes it impossible, not the impossibility of you reciprocating this longing. You are there; I am here.

Somewhere in 2023, you delete Instagram. I respect that. But, I lose you. Wait! I signed up for that infrequent poetry email newsletter you do. Sigh. Quarterly, sometimes, tri-annually, I still get a glimpse of your thoughts and whimsy. I reply once to the email address, but don’t hear back. You added your cellphone number to it recently. I am still too scared to send a message. It is too direct. It is too late. Too – too!

You have your Instagram again, but are never on it. Do I slide into your DMs? No. Also, a terrible idea.

I hate it: Having these thoughts and aches since you surely do not feel the same way about me. Hate acting foolish and teasing myself. Hate being reminded of you by the viola, wool pants, and Coronation chicken salad. Hate how these memories are mine, ours, but just mine really, fallible and reliably rose-tinted to a degree.
But I don’t hate you. No, I love you, Lloyd.
For how you make me breathless. For how you grin and say, ‘look at you’, when I walk in a room.

Maybe one day, I will be one of those old, pretty things you enjoy again.

Not now, and not soon. No, but one day, when my love is no longer this loathsome and restless thing but somehow braver and tempered, for you.