voting raze i know i shouldn't open the door for these people. i try not to. but sometimes through the peephole a stranger looks like a friend. and once they start talking, i have a hard time walking away. i remember working in sales. lowly slug that i was. getting paid peanuts to talk to a few hundred people who hated me every day. hung up on. spat at through the phone. called every awful thing you can think of. just for doing my job. what this woman is selling is hope. she's campaigning for a liberal lawyer angling to earn enough votes to dethrone the man who's represented the riding of our federal electoral district for the last twenty-three years. she asks me if i'm planning on voting. i feign ignorance and tell her i try not to pay too much attention to politics when there's enough to be afraid of in this world already. which is true enough. "i hear you," she says. she hasn't heard a word i've said. her partner comes over with his clipboard and tells me where i need to go to cast my ballot. he gives me an address. he says it's near a mosque. he asks if i know where that is. i lie and say yes. as if he can sense his people are losing me when they never had me to begin with, the head of the snake strides up the steps that lead to my front porch. "i came as fast as i could," he says. his name is richard. he gives me his pitch. in soothing tones that make me think of my childhood dentist, he tells me what canada needs now is a strong leader who's going to stand up to tariffs and work with mark carney to secure our future. i want to ask him what he's going to do to combat the corruption that courses through every crease and crevice of this city's government like a cancer. i want to tell him about the planes_trains_and_automobiles that have robbed me of the right to eat, sleep, or even piss in peace in my own home. to give him a taste of some of the terrors that have torn my life apart. to watch his face fall. there's no point. he might try to ply me with platitudes. he won't fight for me when it matters. he's just like any other politician. all i am to him is a sale he doesn't know he couldn't close. i lie again and say i'll give it some thought. he shakes my hand. he gives me something better than a dead fish. i throw his literature on the dining room table and walk out the back door to the last pure place i know, where something_wild waits to be fed. this is what i represent. this is what i would breathe fire to protect. no pamphlet can hold what's seared into my soul. 250422 what's it to you? who go blather from