to you, romance died with colour film. true passions were played out on black and white celluloid, old hollywood. the quirky courtships of hitchcock’s heroines – grace kelly, silk scarf knotted at her cheek, blonde hair flipped and cool, catholic and coy with jimmy stewart. you appreciate catholicism, too. the repetition, the obsession. the beauty in those low holy chants, that morbid
THURSDAY GIRL devotion to shrines. also their love for cradling relics of the dead – dark hanks of hair, the cold white fingers of saints, kissed and blessed. honourable, you kneel at the shrine of courtly love. all the medieval knights knew the truest love shone at a distance. you follow this creed with reverence, and only one minor tweak; unlike those knights on their white horses, you will one day touch her. this is why you follow her. your own sacred ritual. there is even a shrine, with votive candles and dead peonies snipped from the trellis at the side of her house. obediently, you model it after those shrines to the virgin mary – our lady of sorrows. after all, everyone always says you have a real artistic touch.
they also remark on your tendency to mumble, to always slur as if you were a little drunk. it’s when you get drunk, though, that this tripping tongue finds a new sleekness, a steady new certainty. on the city buses, you sit a respectful three seats from her, always. it is close enough to let your gaze wander. when she leaves her purse behind one day, you do what is scrupulous – as a gentleman would, you retrieve it. in windsor, there is always someone watching in the streets. you wait till you are inside your own home, doors locked, to spill the contents on your bed. here is what you find, the relics through which you will strain to form a communion with her, both intimate and divine. lip liner and lipstick, a spicy pink shade, a little tarty. a book of matches from the canada, a seedy neighbourhood bar defunct since last summer after yet another violation, another body smashed open on the pavement. the matches are still lined up in their prim twin rows, unstruck. half a package of chewing gum, vanilla frost. half a bottle of perfume, estee lauder. it smells like lilacs and lavender. you know it from the bus, she always trips by in a mist of it.