© the other press © Opinions Mondays On Messenger Kerry Evans Opinions Editor K says: Hey i am here too attempting to do work. no it is not working. i am sitting in my great grand- mothers blue tall back chair, smoking cigarettes that i bought with my last six dollars, writing a brochure based on lies, yelling from my sturdy chair for my child to turn off the TV and get in bed, twisting the dry ends of my hair, thinking its really time for a haircut. K says: Watching the phone and waiting for it to ring, though when it does it is usually bad news, thinking about how i will survive if i don’t get my grant, really wanting to go pee but not being able to tear myself away from the screen S says: hi i'm formulating a response S says: my mouth hangs open you have an eloquent way of describing the tri- als of a monday evening K says: yeah mondays suck K says: yes it is monday. true to its form, true to its meaning. my glass is half empty and there is nothing to replenish it, tomorrow the sun will rise and set and again and other than a name change, it will be the same day as today. the leaves have fallen, and i have no rake, the garbage should be taken out, but i have no man, the laundry should be done, but i have no money. K says: but ahhhhhh these cigarettes are good S says: i puff my virtual rings one inside the other as if i could turn my world inside out like a plastic baggie i just washed so the air can dry a side that normally it never reaches S says: can you take some thing to such far extremes that you eventually come out the other side inside out and backwards if only i could draw a picture i could say what i mean e ® Page 12 e http://www.otherpress.ca K says: could you paint it? S says: painting is like trying to lift your arms with sev- eral balls and chains attached to them whats up with your student loan? K says: sounds a lot like trying to love someone and having them love you back K says: grant: in over award. need to appeal or find $3000 to pay it off to get my $4590 S says: seriously that sucks mondays S says: on the topic of loving and receiving iam a bitter women over ripe girl rotting of the branch never been picked i wonder what it takes S says: rotting off K says: my leaves are dead and maybe the roots too. it will take a lot to revive this tree. daily care is required and there is no one capable of the job S says: you need nutri grow the highly tampered with synthetic chemical combi- nation that will revitalize even those trees preserved in those tar pits i forget what they are called or call the master gardener for other more natu- ral remedies he suggest turning your back on fabricated materials and going in for a good root massage S says: to bring feeling back into tired toes K says: the camera has run out of film and now all the pictures look the same, the bed is made but i wonder what it would be like if the passion was ® eo 6 flugust 2003 so strong the last minutes of the morning were spent in the bed and the last worry on anyone’s mind would be to make the bed, the television tells stories of people worse off and you have to think to yourself who is worse off than me? S says: when the dark hole on the inside is bigger than you are yourself there i am trying dispiritingly to contain the dark stretching my skin around it like a shirt that hasn’t fit for years how can i look anywhere else when i so busy just trying to keep my skin on K says: the nagging feeling in the bottom of your stom- ach telling you that every decision you make is wrong only makes you make more wrong choic- es. the things that used to fulfill you no longer do but you do them anyway to cling on to the person you used to be, but people only notice that you are unchangeable and they have no desire to know why. they even think that you may be strong when you must likely K says: are the most weak and vulnerable you ever have been S says: skin is a mask that we wear S says: a shield originally a protective ceasing but we need to break it open say like a an hazel- nut in order to let the full of life seed open maybe better would be the butterfly who must struggle painfully to free its wings from the old cocoon S says: dead casing living seed S says: i have to go to bed now good night K says: okay nite