homemade proverbs
grade nine - 1983


• The mind is a corridor with many doors
  and many of them are locked.
  The only key that can open them
  is Life itself.
  
  
• He who does not laugh nor smile is a dead one.
  
  
• The door to happiness can be opened with a smile.
  The door to sorrow can be opened by cruelty.
  The door to laughter can be opened by a crazy best friend.
  The door to anger can be opened by sarcasm.
  
  
• Insanity is usually locked away but some people accidentally find the key.
  
  
• The flower of knowledge shall scatter its seeds of happiness as you learn, live and grow.
  
  
• Insanity is all the doors in the corridor of the mind unlocked and flung open and all feelings, good and bad, intermingle and swirl into a violent vortex.

Mother Nature, look at your son; he�s sitting on a rock, all alone.
Mother Nature, look at your son; he�s sitting on a rock, cold to the bone.
Some say he�s a loner, some say he�s a goner.
I say, he�s only lonely.

Mother Nature, look at your son; his fragile heart is broken to bits.
Mother Nature, look at your son, he buries his face and cries in fits.
Some say he�s bad, some say he�s mad.
I say, he�s very, very sad.

Mother Nature, please help your son; he doesn�t want to lose.
Mother Nature, please help your son; he cannot see from above.
Some say he�s addicted to drugs, some say he�s addicted to booze.
I say, he�s addicted to love.

Mother Nature, please help your son; he�s trying very hard to win.
Mother Nature, please help your son; no one wants to believe in him.
I say, he needs to be needed.

I was born at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal at 7:00 pm on August 27, 1967. I often wish that I was born earlier so I could be in the hippie era; oh, well, can�t have everything. People have always told me that I was strange; they are right, I mean, I used to find and play with dead birds and study their wings. I also used to "worship" the wind, the sun, the rain; actually, all of Nature�s treasures. I�ve always been a pip-squeak of an artist; draw, draw, draw and draw. Always making something out of almost nothing. I�d pluck leaves off a tree beside the house and stick them on a ball of clay or mud which I found at the foot of the mountain (people here would call it a hill) and end up with a strange replica of an ancient bird sculpture. I went on growing up in the quiet neighborhood of St. Bruno, and when I was thirteen, or was it twelve? Anyway, my parents split up and my mom and I went to live by ourselves. A year later we moved to California where my mom married this idiot called Floyd. A month later she divorced him and we went back to Quebec (fortunately!). meanwhile, my dad got married and moved here in Burnaby. When my mom and I lived in St. Lambert, a town 3 miles south of Montreal, my dad�s second wife died from pills and booze. Well, you guessed it, me and my mom went to Burnaby to live with my dad. Oh, yeah, since this is a short, short autobiography, I might as well put in some of my private life. Right before I moved here, I had my very first boyfriend. Me and him had everything in common. He was a really nice guy. He was 15 and I was 13. Almost 14. Age doesn�t matter if people are happy, right? Right. Anyway, to my dismay, crying and short depression, I had to leave him. Now, this is when I really started growing up, mentally mostly. When I moved here, I already knew a friend because I used to visit here. The summer I moved, I got stoned for the first time with the first friend and another girl. I had the usual symptoms, head like a bubble and all giggly. I went to Royal Oak Junior Secondary for grade 9, well, half of it. The last half I quit because the kids accused me of stealing thirty dollars, which I didn�t. I did grade nine with success at Burnaby North in the Independent Student Program class. That�s the only school year I can remember that I really and truly liked. I hate school, by the way, so the I.S.P. class was great for kids like me. By November I had my first real job working at a snack bar in a bowling alley. It was pretty hard for a kid that age. 15. Three times a week I� d start at 6:00 pm and work till 11:30 or 12:00. The pay was $3.65. Not bad for a 15 year old these days. By christmas I had about $80 in the bank. After christmas, I had $6. I could cry. I quit in February because I couldn�t hack it anymore. I finished grade nine with a "just passed" and went through a "bumming around" summer. Except for July 4 to the 29, I went to Emily Carr College, at a pre�college course. I loved it. I met a couple of really neat guys and a girl. We used to go to my place and party. Not loud crashing party, just sitting around. I might go back there next summer. Animation this time. Or maybe airbrush painting. We� ll see. Anyway, all of this brought me to here and now in the regular system at school because the stupid cutbacks took away the I.S.P. I� m still not used to it. I hate it actually. Now, I� m planning to paint and sell. Oh, yeah, I sold a painting of a unicorn for $35 last year to a friend of a friend. This year, I might have a job to paint this guy�s prize stallion. Money, money, money! One thing that bugs me though; if I ever get famous, it won�t be till I� m dead and six feet underground. Or frozen. Well, I have to stop writing �cause my hand is killing me.

Now you sort of know what kind of person I am. I can write another five pages about one year of my life but I� m not going to. Ciao for now.

Fear is a crouching rabbit
Before a speeding car
Watching the approaching menace
With moist beady eyes.

Sometimes I want a black shroud to wrap myself in.
I want to soar amongst a cloud and for once I want to win.
I look upwards hoping for a break and what falls from my eye is a tear.
People say, "it�s a piece of cake, and you better get your ass in gear".
I just look at them and shrug, thinking there isn�t much I can do anymore.
I say nothing about getting a hug, and silently wish to open that Door.
Society doesn�t work for me, it�s full of stress and lots of bullshit.
It costs truckloads just to be and I want to leave so I can just quit.
Getting back to basics is where it�s at, but how do I get around these filthy cities?
How can I live natural like a wild cat when all the stolen landscape is but a tease?
I am ashamed of being human whose race is a plague upon this Earth.
Whose factories keep on fumin�. . . is it all what it�s worth?

I got ripped off.
I learnt the alphabet and how to read and write.
I made some friends and lost some too.
I learnt grammar, math and history; equations, science and biology.
Grades one, two, three, four, five and six
were spent learning the basics.
I seemed to have a future, I was young and inhaled the information.
I am in high school now which ripped me off a year:
in grade nine I got sick of school and quit.
I managed that obstacle a year later learning more things:
physics, geography and book reports.
Grades ten and eleven were slow and sluggish but surprisingly I made it.
I am now in grade twelve; the product of thirteen years in learning institutions.
Thirteen years of shit shoveled in my mouth.
Thirteen years of climbing that ladder rung by rung.
I�m in grade twelve, the very last rung; I� m afraid it�s cracking as I grip.
I got splinters in my fingers.
I know I am failing this most important year as I look down at the ladder I� ve climbed,
and I watch the splinter get larger and longer.
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