Rom Com Read online

  love, actually is Mr. Bean selling you jewellery in a bag that

  is never

  ready for consumption,

  love, actually is not

  your co-worker, or

  your best friend’s wife, or

  your busty assistant, or

  your failed career,

  or love is, actually

  your failed career,

  your busty assistant, or

  your best friend’s wife, or

  your co-worker, or

  love, actually is not

  ready for consumption,

  is never

  love, actually is Mr. Bean selling you jewellery in a bag that

  cannot represent the general public,

  power, love, actually

  sustainability and perpetual validation, in an ever decreasing

  boredom, between

  the spaces of longevity versus

  moves between the spaces of desire and fulfillment, it isn’t

  Love, actually?

  When Harry Met Sally

  for Cara Ng

  1

  I don’t remember meeting, or if we were really friends. That’s what I want to remember. I know other things: the soft tonguing of bread before you bit into a sandwich, the bright flashes before waking next to you, and you floating down from the tallest building I can imagine. But blockages compromise. Men and women can’t be friends. And can be friends. It depends on the man and woman. It depends on how badly that man thinks his dick deserves to plug a woman. If his only goal in life is to never see the light in the eyes of someone outside of sex. It depends on how much you reminisce. It depends if the meeting felt like it took place in a conference room. No one declares a list that opens with I love you because, no one can stop and start their life. People forget the beginnings. I want to appreciate why this feeling is familiar, why I forget.

  2

  Sometimes I think about trying to get back to a feeling. But it’s so far away I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to recreate it. Instead I light 20 cigarettes, lay them in the snow around me, and try to smoke them all before they melt into their holes, until my head is so light this feeling dissipates.

  3

  What if Harry didn’t meet anyone? What if Sally met Harry? What if switching words would transform the outcome so drastically that Bruno Kirby played the leading man he deserved to be? What if all that cute stuff was with me and Bruno Kirby, the two of us stealing scenes and each other’s hearts and maybe pies from windowsills. His moustache brushing against me. This is why there’s entertainment, escape, fantasy. I can revel in the forgetting and relive meetups in my mind. To me they’re real. Bruno Kirby watching me fake an orgasm and commending me on my skills, laughing along, acknowledging me as clever, sexual, complicated. Not an insult. Bruno reassuring me that I could be out there, but he’s here. I will meow for him. Bruno keeping up with me. Bruno. Kirby. Breathless.

  4

  You said we were never friends and we will never be lovers and we are nothing to each other and it was easy to believe you. It was easy.

  Five-Star Rating

  Blindsides you with its charm. As ephemeral as a talk show. Meg Ryan. Haltingly absurd. Smart, sexy, and other dating clichés. Early animosity leads to a predictable ending. A modern take on something else. A series of misunderstandings and soiled T-shirts. Unreal dialogue, wardrobe choices. Love and hate in equal measure. Bristles with implausibility. Literally heartbreaking. Literally heartwarming. Literally vomit-inducing. Pulses. Laughs in your face. Banal. Just like real relationships. Sets up unrealistic expectations. Doesn’t hold a candle to plot devices. A tale as old as times you don’t remember and references at least two years too old. Some ugly person steals the show. Absent of Meg Ryan. Thumbs-up because they’re broken. Puns. Assembly-line epiphanies. Where is Meg Ryan?

  The Movie Will Be a Disappointment

  What’s happening

  onscreen isn’t relatable.

  These people are moving

  around too much.

  Bodies in motion, kissing,

  frolicking, trying.

  Why is no one in the corner

  crying, covered in spit,

  in nostalgia, in blankets

  sweat-glued to old T-shirts

  melded to a body that hasn’t moved

  in days and days? Why is no one

  covered in a protective shell,

  hooded in a paranoid stasis?

  The part that makes sense

  comes before the movie

  bashes us in the face and ears, before

  even the ads, quizzes, trailers,

  stuff to make us care

  about movies. The part

  where someone spends too much

  on popcorn, butter, chocolate,

  soda the size of 20 hearts, before

  stepping into a dark room to forget.

  What’s Happening Onscreen

  Isn’t Relatable

  No one ever flew through traffic and stopped you

  from getting on that plane. No one ever ran after you

  down the street to tell you they love you.

  No one held a boom box outside

  your window. No one flew across the world

  for you. No one wrote you a song.

  No one wrote you a poem. No one followed you

  to Rome or pretended to be the man you were looking for.

  No one took a bet on you. No one tried to lose

  you. No one gave up their job for you.

  No one wrote an article about you and fell

  in love in the process. No one showed up

  at your apartment and climbed the fire escape.

  No one recruited David Bowie to sing to you on an airplane.

  Someone did kiss you during a sunset,

  pulling you in as night pulled the sun down.

  But he’s gone now, and so is the sunset. And

  no one ever lifted you out of bed

  when you drank until sorrow melted

  off your skin, frost turned to beads of spring,

  sorrys dripping from sweat, fever

  still telling you something is wrong.

  Harold and Maude

  for Laura Matwichuck

  The earth is my body; my head is in the stars.

  – Maude

  Common ground. Dirt.

  Love can grow in the dust-up

  of a car crashing over a cliff,

  the forced peace of a gravesite.

  Find the things that might make

  another person unhappy,

  that make this person

  want to toss their arms around you.

  Lessons she weaves

  out of long silver braids.

  She makes magic from reality,

  silk scarves adorning

  a 79-year-old body. Young women

  are too scared to face black humour,

  existentialist self-immolation,

  consensual, sensual May-December.

  Enjoy life through culture, not marriage,

  fight for kisses and thievery.

  Not harsh, but radical. She’s gentle,

  breaks down flower metaphors

  without being trite.

  She makes us root for death.

  New Year’s Eve

  is a poor (wo)man’s

  Valentine’s Day

  which is a poor (wo)man’s

  Love Actually

  which is fucking poor.

  Don’t bother

  trying to force

  your tongue

  down

  someone’s throat

  at midnight.

  Don’t watch this movie, either.

  Soundtrack

  If he plays that song that means we’re going to be together forever; if he plays the other I’ll wilt into the pavement, if he stops at the chorus I’ll turn to goo and live in the sewers with cartoon turtles. If the album from seventh grade plays, the
heartbreak will look like it did then: tiny bathroom stalls full of tissue bouquets soaked in tears, a first period just before first period, mean girls bitching about your sadness ruining their day. If that song comes on while we’re walking into a Moxie’s, our wedding will be in the spring surrounded by peonies and anthropomorphic squirrels; but if it’s Burger King then he takes out a hollow sparrow, stuffs it full of locks of my hair, and begs it to fly, fly away while I stand by watching and saying over and over, “It’s dead, it’s over.”

  Everything Is Bad Choices

  that Make Me Feel Good

  1

  Start with sex. With acrobatic, cup-my-balls sex.

  When morning comes after he does, exit.

  You could do an impression of a penis, elbows

  jutting out, one eye closed; if you practise

  enough, you can really shape your

  arms to be balls, and look like a dick.

  All retail jobs are about discreetly revealing lifelong

  problems to strangers, so you can try it at work.

  Your co-worker looks like a Noxema girl,

  while you get better at looking like a penis.

  2

  When you came along, dancing on painted white road

  lines to prove sobriety, I ticketed

  you, but ripped it up. You had more than

  a broken tail light, wormy-face, broken

  hearted. When you caught me behind the glass

  of the corner-store fridge with my bag of carrots

  I thought about the way the cold

  from the fridge feels familiar, the late

  nights of insomnia, for all of the times

  we couldn’t figure it out. When you

  woke up in my bed, I pushed you the way I always do,

  triggering your failed love. Now you drive

  past my house in the night, your car

  a ghost, haunting the street,

  until you left me a cake in the shape

  of a carrot, with the words “I’m sorry” iced on top.

  3

  I think about which is more pathetic: solo

  baking or a broken bakery dream; or

  fucking a handsome wiener

  versus dating a monogamous worm-face.

  Everything is bad choices that make me feel good

  for a time, or good choices that confuse. Even a meal

  isn’t simple, nor is choosing a dress. Classy-shit

  bridal shops produce severe anxiety, sweaty memories.

  Sometimes proving a point

  is more important than facing the truth,

  even if being right means diarrhea. Even if it means losing

  love, a best friend, lunch. Going broke

  as a bridesmaid is par for the course;

  moving in with your mom is optional, but

  being confronted with flour, eggs, butter, and dreams –

  that ruins a solid night of fun.

  4

  Punch a giant cookie, your rage

  the shade of a bleached asshole.

  When you hit bottom, you were greasy hair,

  you were a sad Muppet penis in sweatpants.

  Sometimes sanity is a woman who’s stolen

  a litter of puppies breaking you open on a couch,

  forcing you to fight. You had to unfurl arms, unball

  fists to stop shaping yourself like a dick,

  and slap life back. Leave a cake on life’s doorstep, fix your

  tail lights and wash your hair, stay.

  5

  Hold on for one more day.

  Credits

  Dreamland: “A Series of Romantic Comedies That Could Never Be Made,” ed. Jeremy Stewart

  Matrix: “Five-Star Rating,” ed. Jon Paul Fiorentino

  Matrix: “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “She’s All That,” ed. Leah Horlick and Billeh Nickerson

  New Poetry: “Romantic Comedies for Young Girls,” ed. George Murray

  Plenitude: “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” ed. Matthew Walsh and Andrea Routley

  Editor

  Sachiko Murakami

  Trailer Director

  Shay Wilson

  Photography

  Tina Kulic

  Illustrations

  Alana Green

  Marketing

  Zoe Grams

  Megan Jones

  The Talon Team

  Kevin Williams

  Ann-Marie Metten

  Chloë Filson

  Les Smith

  Spencer Williams

  Greg Gibson

  Vicki Williams

  With special thanks

  to our friends and family, to our many mentors, and to our past and current lovers.

  Blooper Reel

  You had me at hello, this cinder-fucking-rella

  date that never ended. 50 of them to be exact, it

  wasn’t until the wedding was cancelled, you

  left, beds are meant for bodies to be

  lifted out of. I can’t live without you, or

  complete yourself, break up in the right

  direction, you’re just a virgin, fill the parts

  of your body with other men, ones who

  wink when you fall, ones who can sew

  stories or dip bodies and dance on stars.

  You sink into a bathtub, frothy bubbles

  coat your body, your love, your ki-ki-ki-kiss.

  Sweet home wherever-the-fuck-you-are

  when you bend and snap, dream

  of the man in the moon, the only man

  who’s not a true commitment-phobe.

  We all go through phases when we question

  our own commitment to Reese. We come back around.

  Just like after the fight, the breakdown

  over something slight that upsets feelings

  like a tipped cow. So, my boyfriend died

  but he came back to life and wants to get together,

  I just really thought I would be able to

  spell my way out of this one. If I imagined

  my perfect husband, he would have the face

  of Ryan Gosling, the body of Ryan Reynolds, the smile

  of Ryan Phillippe, but the spirit of Meg Ryan.

  One time I was in a romantic comedy

  with someone over email exchanges, he was a

  prince, but he took all of the money from my

  bank accounts and never called back.

  Love is feral, I fear Will Ferrell in my dreams, fear

  love isn’t something for everyone, Farrah Fawcett

  feathered hair filling my lungs when you speak

  of forever. Someone bought a flight and a fancy

  hotel room to see me, and I still think about

  how I never saved you from depression. Marisa Tomei

  couldn’t help but fall for Robert Downey Jr. in Rome

  because substance abuse feels like love.

  True, sad me, that felt no, like no

  no one would airport-love me the way

  baggage claim does. Two, had me, at below

  the moonlight, he said there was a condom

  remember how love is a broken condom. You,

  bad me, that yellow stain around my fingers

  from chain-smoking. Learn to be more indifferent

  than other girls. Like, duh. Romance makes

  you feel so stupid. Like, why? Like, what? Like, who

  the hell is this guy standing in front of a girl

  when the girl is me and all I really want

  is to forget being sad is a thing that might happen.

  It’s so like me, shoving slice after slice

  of pizza in my face with mystical intentions

  even though I only believe in the higher power

  of Kristen Wiig. I love my own hair,

  thick like The Rock’s arms, shiny like Gwyneth’s

  face, healthy like my hatred for Ashton Kutcher.

  Extensions o
f us sit waiting to make out,

  brush lips and moustaches, in some swish set-decorated

  house so unaffordable, unattainable. Not messed up.

  Dirty underwear the reality of a day spent being alive,

  also, the contents of your misfiring man-brain,

  body sludge, goo. It wasn’t obvious to you

  that my discomfort wasn’t love, because you

  didn’t catch on I was uncomfortable at all.

  Bitch face, stink eye, ignore-you-blank-stare,

  none of it indicated how clearly I wanted

  you to step back, off, under a train.

  So obvious that Jenny Slate is my one true pairing.

  A pair of shoes won’t make it any easier to have sex

  in any city. Tottering along in love is to be unbalanced,

  to forget. Why am I here again? That old thing again

  with problematic memory stuff. Awkward love confessions

  in real life are things people want to forget. In movies

  everyone is AWWWWing hard on the inside. I want to be kissed

  outside of even gross places – dumpsters, steak houses, banks.

  Money tricks girls like me for the first two acts. Two

  weeks’ notice for your job, but men

  want to turn women into buildings that they

  build up and tear down. Hugh had me; that fellow

  knew all the right words in an English accent. He

  left his job for me, changed his cheating ways, now

  builds community centres for my vagina. Working Girl

  is the one time the executive and the secretary

  should have swept important papers, nameplates,

  monogrammed pens and all the business

  from the mahogany desk. YOU ARE A MAN,

  he says to Amanda Bynes. A man, duh, I get it!

  This was supposed to be about

  becoming great at college-level North American soccer,

  so that you could go on to great things such as

  low-level leagues that pay well

  below minimum wage, but you fell in love.

  “Conan O’Brien looks like a carrot.” That’s a double negative.

  You’re a double negative. Belief in a soulmate so that

  maybe there is only one in seven billion.

  Crazy. We meet around a bar, soak

  up divorce. Hey girl, gender is a construct, heartbreak

  is better than cancer. We all fall in love, like assholes.