There's No Going Back was a collaborative photographic storytelling event hosted by photographers Sydney Hall, Felix Denomme, and myself at Art House Cafe in Ottawa, ON on Feb 29th in 2024. Tyler Nykilchyk was our IT guy and hype man. It was a leap day event meant to celebrate and mourn the passage of time while looking at photography as a tool we use to cope with the inevitable.
We projected our images while telling travel stories, talking about the medium, or in my case, reading poetry. It was a unique way to share photos, I hope I get the chance to do it again someday.
Feels like waiting to start existing, always. Like August comes and goes and the wind blows me around and I think to myself that I’ll talk someday- maybe next year- every year until I’m gone. Who needs to say anything, anyway? Aren’t we alone in the end, anyway? Maybe in my last life I felt the same. Don’t think I’ll have a next life. Hope I don’t. Hope I can rest. Hope I lay down forever in a grey dreary afternoon under a cover of cloud while my hair gets whipped around by the wind. Hope you remember me. Or, I guess I hope you don’t. I hope nothing does. I hope it all meant nothing, means nothing. I hope I miss my birthday some year without remembering to feel blue about it. I hope I never write that poem about being born while things start to die, about the small town hospital where I was born being torn down and now standing in its place— a Tim Hortons & Dairy Queen. Hope I forget to miss the past. Hope that time feels less thick someday. To go outside and live in it all and not need to capture or hold on. To know that it’ll be gone and that it didn’t matter anyway, really. Maybe I’ll be old one day. If I am, I hope I forget how to feel afraid. And that when my time comes I’m not ready. I hope I feel there’s more to life— one last summer thunderstorm to witness.
Thick glitter lipgloss, slimy on eyelids while
Her barbie dolls kiss in the corner
She doesn't know anything yet
But there's a suspicion in her mind
Of this:
Irrefutable fact– she is something
Bad, and she has to work hard
Forever, to hide it.
Sweetness to undercut the bitter current
That rushes by just beneath the surface.
Pink polka-dot one piece, her birthday
Party at the beach, permanent dimples
Rippling knees– scars from a life of falling.
A core belief– inherently guilty. She
Lies, she steals, she doesn’t think.
Girls will be girls.
Sweat dripping in the August heat,
Running behind, can’t keep up, waving
Down strangers in the street. Stratus
Clouds encompassing. Learning to smile,
Not understanding what it means.
A prayer sang down the highway
Can be my Sunday worship,
A black mass on the train tracks
Reminds me of my God.
Smoke blows cross the cedar
From the fires in the North,
My throat burns from some other pain.
A poor attempt to run away.
Hell, she tells me that’s she’s sorry,
But now it’s raining
And I’ve left already.
Maybe I’ll come home tomorrow.
Another red Honda Civic speeds by,
Adorned with the Jesus fish sticker.
I’m thinking that it’s funny,
and that it’s not a good look.
The giant gas station flags are raised at half mast
But I haven’t kept up with why;
A gnawing ache of guilt creeps in
Upon admitting that I try not to.
I wondered if I should bury my heart
By the winding river that runs along the highway.
Only, I couldn’t give it up because
In a way that I haven’t yet
Learned to understand,
It didn’t feel right.
Maybe I’ll put it under a bridge,
Crescent moon, water flowing by.
I can’t stop thinking of the road behind me
Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to tell if I want to
(I want you)
By every small cemetery
I breathe out a bit of my soul,
and breathe in a bit of theirs.
I don’t know why we’re going so slow,
Passing power lines and trading posts.
At the end of a dirt road driveway
My heart breaks for a lonely mailbox.
There's no house anymore.
The sky is so clear that it's almost
begging for a storm.
I miss home
(I miss you)
Orange light beam, too bright
Under my doorway, reminding me
Of life outside this damp room
Where spiders and I lay to rest,
Where I dream of yellow flowers
Lining the road that she
didn’t know the name of.
Silk moths vibrate the leaves
Of poplar trees; beautiful infestation.
Pure white from above, but when
Flying overhead they betray
A stark black line, resembling
The boundary between surface
And the deep, like appearance
And mythology. She wants
To come back as one she says,
Smoke surrounding her form.
They’ve been swarming,
Storms of wings brewing under
Streetlights at three in the morning,
When we choose not to sleep
But to notice, choose to notice
But to say nothing.
Early in November / North Bay Boardwalk / Dock stretches out / Fishing lines tossed / By wind burned / Red cheek / Boys who / Pay us no / Mind while we / Snap a film / Photo of them / Fishing together under / The clouds and / Pale halo sun / Your dark hair / Plays with the / Winter breeze as / I wonder who / We might be
