Sylvie Hill

Loving The Alien (Story of the Two Same-Named Men)

The Universe came
And gave me a man with your same name
Spelled the exact same way
With a British accent and as strange:

Not from Camber…well
But Camber…ley
Some family equestrian thing
Folks ran businesses: exactly.

I told an ex, I’m dating; name’s “R____”
“What the fuck now, please?”
No! NOT that ONE, sheesh.
Holy fuck, and his heart skipped a beat.

“Is that weird?” I mean, really.
Yeah, he said: pretty freaky.
Is it weird for you? He asked me.
So many coincidences to count, frankly.

It was my push into checking out this guy.
Whose photos scared me: he never smiled.
Whose brevity was like yours and quite ho hum.
A seeming ‘meh’ attitude, sharpe 2, K? Like a son of a gun.

I did not ask for a man with your original name.
I did not ask that he be in wit exactly the same.
Why did the Universe present me this again?
What lessons are there for me here to retain?

In my writing about you did I manifest?
Can I get what I want, shall I re-focus.

Clarity: your impulsive ways and strange retorts.
Your outbursts and inability to sit still for long.
Your on/off again for years with that girl.
Your kindness, but honesty: “I got bored.”

Once at the pub, his eyes locked stiff
And it sent a shiver down me: I recognize this.
I searched mad from his one eye to the next:
WHERE IS HE GONE? WHERE IS HIS FOCUS?

In your big brown eyes with their Maori descent
They were locked and far-off and stared and – vacant.
But at the same time they were childlike, watching me – innocent.
You were a very strange man, you had a secret.

When I asked you “Do you have Aspergers?”
“Err no,” and I never heard from you again.
But when I read about ADHD-ODD for the doppelganger
Is this what you suffer instead?

For all my Life I sought emotionally robust men
To care for my insecurities and solve my problems.
You did that for me daily over the Internet
I could have died in alley, but you got me home safe to #7
at London’s Jesmond.

And he said for me he’d slay dragons.
That I should call his name in dreams if I’m lost in London.
Or, in my dream: “bring your phone next time,” was his logic.
Something you’d say, goddamnit!

Perhaps my lesson then, here on in
Is not to take things so personally as you once said.
That men’s reactions to me aren’t punishments.
They just got shit going on in their own head.

And what of my soft spot for loving the alien?
Universe, why did you bring me two same-named men.

With strange eyes and minds in far-off places?
With biting humour that twists me in faces.
Was it so I can close the chapter that started in 2000?
What message was there for me in this?

Did I villainize again: make myself a victim?
Of a man who never had toward me evil intentions?
When you said “it was a mistake” in blunt fact observation
I cursed you red, and your total lack of emotion.

Lack of emotion the pair you two!
Spock-logic I loved but have a heart, man, too!
And in my quiet, is revealed a truth:
Perhaps you both feel deeper than I can prove.
Perhaps you both feel deeper than I do.

The Universe came
And gave me a man with your same name
Spelled the exact same way
With a British accent and as strange:

And what of my soft spot for loving the alien?

Sylvie Hill 2017

Painting: Erich Heckel’s Two Men at the Table

“Beautiful Nastassya oscilates between the innocent goodness of Myshkin and the harsh character of Rogozhin, until she decides for the worse man, who kills her in the end. Heckel’s painting seems to portray this last encounter between the two men at Rogozhin’s house, where they spent a tense night veiling over Nastassya’s dead body. Dostoyevsky’s experiment to place a good man in an evil world highlights Myshkin’s tragic fate. People don’t know what to do with him; his purity is misunderstood and abused. More…”

Of All Your Kisses

Of all your kisses
Some I forget
For having rushed them
In Hoxton’s drunkenness.

Social lubrication
A smoke and a beer
Forgetting the approach
Just digging in fierce.

The first was wet at 15
The next accidental at 20.
Two memorable there
And a few escaping memory.

When “Accidental at 20”
Got intentional on our date one evening
I shoved his hand down my pants
TOTALLY INEXPERIENCED, like an idiot.

Light and soft’ll do it…
Like when I was 35.
The best of all kisses, pressed in firmness
A chin jut following nose touches.

WOW.

That didn’t last.
Union got sexless.
Hottest guy around
But I was too much wildness.

Fastforward years later
And a surprise British pucker over a poppy.
If we kissed that night in Jesmond
I’d be hard pressed to recall, darling.

Another Hoovered my face
There was no method in the madness.
The last in kitchen was daring, got in tongue
I got off on touching your hardness.

And if I be worried
To be left dead and lonely
I’ve only to return to T—y.
And feel like I am home again.

But I wouldn’t stay.
So where does my mouth go?

I was always with beer on a first kiss.
And to the last one who braved it: how was it?
“I could have kissed you better,” he said.
But in my fire, I injure easy, I was injured…

And I left.

But at least, my dear, I remembered it.
The first was your bold move,
The last … I could not care less.

Sylvie Hill 2017

dickwet, yes

I once knew a man named You Will Never Believe This!
Who moved so fast on my body, it was sinful, made me spin!
And he called me a tease
When I didn’t concede to release
So I decided to give him something nice to appease and treat him.

I wrote him a story about him unwrapping me head to toe
It was racy, and edgy, and romantic, sexy and bold.
His reaction was complacent
His response was non-existent
He said “I’m a man of action” and that was it: no further comment?

So the time came for You Will Never Believe This! to plan his action.
He said, “I’m all yours this weekend,” and so I gave a plan, suggestions!
He wrote: “I’ll get back to you later”
Nothing more, left me hanging there
I was so unimpressed by the lack of romance, interest and imagination.

And I remembered the times men loved me hard and moved mountains!
To be with me cast a million pennies around the world’s water fountains!
For a kiss, for my hand in
For a touch, for my understanding
Men’s attention persisting beyond the immediate goal of getting their dick wet, yes.

Sylvie Hill 2017

She Bends The 180

The irony here is that when the smart girl notices
The man’s relationship potential is nil
She may very well change over to the Dark Side still
And adjust accordingly as Friends With Benefits.

Fine by her – she’ll get some tail!
He suggests he’s good in bed – how can this fail?!
He spoke of being honest; shit, now you’re fucked.
How do you say: “I’d just like to use you for a roll about, man.”

But he will have none of that talk!
He will express his appreciation for you and then some!
He will proclaim “casual sex” is off the table!
And certainly present as a Knight and as stable!

Then you’re both screwed – and not in proper fashion.
The man starts out casual and then develops some emotion?
While the woman blamed for being intense like a woman
sorts it with reasoning, checks out, seeks sexual compensation.

After all – mind as well call in some favours
For listening to all his stuff and him never listening to yours.
But that bit about him not liking cheaters
Shit, you’ll get busted if he finds out you’re using him…

Will he be mad – or is this some reverse psychology?
The salesman pitch to get a tender girl to bend to a detached 180?
Denying her casual sex offer on the table makes him look tender.
She yawns at the irony of what he calls the “mating dance”: it’s over.

Sylvie Hill 2017

Live Decapitation

I find it quite amazing
In a live-decapitation kind of way…
That he would call me a tease
While promoting he was a good lay.

He would talk in gentle tones in writing
About energy exchanged in eyes in bedrooms
But in real life he was hardly a gentleman
And there was no intimacy in his eyes but doom.

And a vacuous look of far-away.
Was he even listening to a word I’d say?
He talks of all the FWB women who wanted him:
Is that supposed to be flattering self-promotion, selling himself again?

That women just wanted to fuck him!
(Since he didn’t have anything else to offer them, like emotions?)
3% of the time he asked me personal questions,
but a million times asked why I wouldn’t take my pants off.

Are we in Grade 7?! Is this near-50 man desperate?
What kind of man pressures a 43 year-old bird
with things like “most guys would be gone by now…”
And it’s Date 3, so “maybe you should put out” suggestions?

“I want to fuck you,” he said, hot.
It was a bit fiery, I don’t doubt
until I realized the next morning not having gone
that it was my wisest decision that I had not done him.

I am but a body without a brain or mind to this guy!
Just a set of bones and tits and a place to dive.
Without a middle name, a history or telling eyes
Just a means for buddy to feel better in his life between thighs.

If I had been a stupid girl without the men I’ve loved
I’d have slipped into his play of bullshit for a moment more.
But mom always taught me if the man doesn’t open a car door
No matter how much money they make or how good in bed they say they are…

That there in an incongruence, and RUN FAST AND FAR.
The shit didn’t add up – emails are distractions for men who are bored.
The shit didn’t add up – plans for him were made without me on board.
Shit did not add up like a human body without a head walking into doors…

Oh yes, I find it quite amazing
In a live-decapitation kind of way…
That he would call me a tease
While promoting he was a good lay…

… and withhold his affection, attention and emotion
Blackmailing horny ladies in need of connection.
Whereas I, gentlewoman, plan to deliver:
To a man who earns the stuff I display for us, with class, reciprocated and — together.

Sylvie Hill 2017

I Am A Broken Record

Why would I do drugs?
I have lived high in coincidence, signs
& meanings conjured through another human being
— addictive vibrancy! Do you not see?!

The immediacy
with which he connected to my deepest
meanderings, thoughts and feelings:
fed me.

I try to live clean
But after being hooked on treats
Like perfect music links and sayings
My laughing cuts grooves: deep.

I am a broken record.

Imagine stretching out a high 24-7
That was my existence!
Living, laughing to myself his expression
How can I be normal without it?

Some have ex-boyfriends.
I’ve got that and more: ex-Muses.
Some may call me “mental”
But by extraordinary circumstances –

Well, just listen to my music…

How can I love “normal”?
Am I a Con Artist hiding her true self?
Playing her tunes in secret like a junkie and her pen-syringes
Pricking veins again, injecting memories?

It is not that I seek the mind fuck again.
But who understands those brilliant rushes?!
What does it take to fulfill a woman like this?
Surely, the madness is tiresome.

We all pull out the favourite songs
And reminisce in thought at the sounds.
But if you were waxed and engraved, made and spun
By someone’s self and production

Might you find it hard to stop
Might you crave to melt by sun

So warped, little Broken Record girl.
By vibrations from the singer man from a world apart.

Sailing men avoid temptation knowing about sirens, you see.
But what name do we provide female navigators
for the resonant pull of some males’ frequencies.

Sylvie Hill 2017

Answers

I’ll never forget her fakeness.
How she jumped up on me
When I returned from the toilet.
Spun me around like a princess.
Freaked out her wowness
“Look! We’ve finally met!!”
Her enthusiasm was incongruent.
Her sentiments, how she twirled me, inauthentic.

At the table on my end
She talked till my fucking ears bled.
I listened, with my sunglasses
As the sun off that London egg reflected
And you at your end
Same glare and in Rayban sunglasses
Amidst the talk, we listened.
I saw you staring at my tits.

That group was there, good-hearted
We met as collaborators and friends.
But looking back at that situation
Did you feel us – electric?
Did you think of nights on the Internet?
You off Brick Lane studio me in my den?
Writing, have a beer and you’d connect.
We’d discuss your song until bed.

I’ll never forget
how I made a plan with another gent:
Meet at half four at the British Museum.
Wasn’t going to stick around for you, man!
But we went to Covent Garden.
You did your thing in signals meant
To say “You know what I’m like, I told you… dick”
Followed by, “You’ve not seen much of London, yet?”

I’ll never forget how she giggled like a banshee
I was right along there with her trying to be girly.
It was my way to diffuse nerves, nausea and dreams
Your reactions were moot, what were you thinking?
And on the bridge over the Thames, why was she asking:
“Is there something going on between you two?” Inquiry.
“You’ll have to ask him,” I said politely.
“He is a free agent, has a love in New Zealand, I believe.”

By the time we hit the pub he was being so nice
To the British Museum guy now joining us.
He was saying flattering things about my writing.
Said we should collaborate, truncate the sexy things.
And I drank the death drink: Asahi.
And you invited me to a Dalston party.
And when dinner came up: “I can show you to sushi”
Twice and my brain was foggy, not listening.

And I distinctly remember convincing
The girl to come to us for dinner, “I’m paying!”
Her uncertainty now I see too clearly:
Were you trying to have it be just you and me?

And I wanted a cigarette and you got us some smokes
And you blew it into the air like at 12 Bar years ago.
And you offered 20 pounds, I said “no! No! NO!”
Did you empathize with my demise and descending low?

It was only when I got back to Canada, maybe weeks
That I realized the wine you got us: “Poésie.”
A little sign, your way of saying “I know you.” Indeed.
I was trying to die that night, and you would not let me…

And amidst all stories, poems and tales
There was you painted like the devil.
But a lover once told me I was pure evil.
My vulnerability exposed – I turn caring men into saviors.

…only when I don’t give myself over to them again after trials.
And when I do under justice, they will think me Angel.
And to each of us both, let’s be savers.
What led you to here they’ll ask, and we both know our answers.

Sylvie Hill 2017

An Innocent By-Stander Not One-Night Standing.

I wish to retire now as a woman.
Hang up my hat, my hair and my vagina.
I never knew men to be so ridiculous
As of late – some experiences:

Why when I speak of a trip to the Caribbean
Do you say things about my south and nether-regions?
I know you fucked one of my students.
I don’t respect that, and I don’t take you serious.

Why when I sit with you in Parc Lafontaine
Do you hover over me this close like you’re going in for it?
We are strangers, I don’t know you; we never met
What signal did I give for you to try this?

Why when I seek out advice about construction
Do you make jokes about my bits and sexual functions?
I’m talking DeWalt drill driver not your cock up in this.
Maybe jerk it first before you talk to me on the Internet.

Why when I invite you over for a hang out
Is there a sly comment about eating me out?
There’s an apology after, fine, love – but are you drunk?
Stop this, pick up your guitar, and write it in a song.

And you – why the fuck would you think we’d connect?
You’re high all the time on another planet.
You with your books and all your experience in construction
COULD help me, but instead you flirt it up like an idiot.

I wish to retire now as a woman.
Hang up my hat, my hair and my vagina.
I always knew men to be such gentlemen:
In my past – some experiences:

The man who asked me out for meals before a kiss.
The man who said “I don’t want to be too forward, miss.”
The man who called me “Ms Hill,” says: “as you wish.”
The man who said “wow, I’m with Sylvie Hill.”

Those gorgeous, kind gents – laughed at, asked: “Are you fucking gay?”
To which one of them all would reply this way:
“No – I just don’t go fucking everything that moves
and I prefer looking at women not as objects but humans.”

They get “are you gay, man?” And I get this:
“Why are you so pent up about sex?”
How can fucking a stranger be anything but physical?
You’re such a waste of space and you are using people.

“Spontaneous and fun” some say they about this trend
Libertines and bohemians – how’s your herpes eruptions?
My sex is valued, beautiful and close.
With a man I love not some random bloke.

I can always tell a moron by the way they misinterpret:
“For someone obsessed with sex, it’s weird you don’t want it.”
To fucknuts like this, I recommend Lars Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac”
Watch the four hours, watch it all the way to the end.

When Charlotte Gainsbourg blows the fucking guys’ head off
It’s a statement to all of you who assume a girl’s invitation
Is her sharing with you a story, a chocolate bar or smiling.
Is her saying she likes sex, loves touching, and physicality.

She never, ever said she wanted it with you.
You stupid, stupid fool. You are a tool.

In a world where we’re struggling to feel safe and happy
I wait to give this gift of me to a man who deserves it entirely.
And for women who give it more often and frequently
To random men, I do not judge as long as for you it’s fulfilling.

To me, fulfilling is connection and understanding.
Not you imposing your Jerk Bank thoughts on me –

An innocent bystander not one-night standing.

And yes I resent a man who is prudish in sexual insecurity.
And asexual hotties annoy the shit out of me.
A Lover who can’t stand naked in front of me and erect — or tired, flaccid
I have no time for, so go on, baby – show me, let me look, let’s get into this…

Sylvie Hill 2017

It was a full house for another one of the courses I created called “Tales of Female Betrayal: 8 stories of wives, unsatisfied” for the University of Ottawa’s Personal Enrichment Activities Program at the Centre for Continuing Education, downtown.

Follow along by checking out some videos I share with the class.

It’s an intriguing exploration of eight women across eight intriguing books who were unsatisfied in their marriages largely for betraying their own feelings, their own sense of self and their true desires. We look into what marriage is all about and whether the husbands, too, were suffering.

Our focus is on the women, and we examine their tragic and triumphant ends to re-disdcover for themselves a life worth living … or giving up.

These Men: Wise, Kind and Interrogist

With your invitation
“Do you want to fuck tonight?”
A funny request. Nothing serious.
But that’s exactly how I want to hear it
In my future between some man marking papers
Me preparing a lecture
Buying baguette
And taking out the garbage.

I’ve always put up with men
Who tell me I needed to wait for them.
I always said it’d be different
If they were doing a PhD
Or professorship.
Or working in medicine.
For this, I have respect.
Until their midlife crisis
Or their fucking around with students.

But there are certain kinds of men
I think of four of them: my friends.
Scholars, researchers, professorships – tenured.
Brains, and artistic, and married and disciplined.
These men are me – all except the marriage.
We’ve been friends for decades
I love them!
They are wise, kind and feminist.

They are wise, kind and interrogist!
They challenge what I’ve said!
They tell me I’m full of shit!
They play the Devil’s advocate!
They bring intellect common sense.
They remind of my great intelligence.

Sylvie Hill 2017