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crossbackpoke-check · 1 year

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"This extra space next to me belongs to you. I know where I end now. I won't get lost." -- shoot me (metaphorically) and leave me for dead (metaphorically) why won't you. To make this about Dylan and maybe it's about Connor, maybe it's about Brinksy, maybe it's about any journeyman in the NHL. My brain screamed Chris Driedger and his memorable (to me) Players' Tribune article:

And how can you mention Dylan and Zach (Za-ach, the way Dylan says it) without me having a breakdown about them? You simply can't. And for the younger dudes, maybe it's a little Bords/Briss, not yet steady in The Show, a little bit of distance, a summer that tries to erase and make up all the memories they've made separately... and then a blurry insta story in Vegas. Just like old times but somewhere else. Maybe it's not the same bed, maybe it's not the same set of forks, but maybe it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway, goodbye. Sorry for this, your tag walls make me break out in imagined scenarios.

Much love. xxx

please never be sorry for sending me messages <3 i love reading them i love getting them i think they’re beautiful and i love them i’m!!!!! [🥹💕🦋🫧✨💘😭 <- the best approximation of what my heart is doing]

ok NOW i am taking this step by step because every narrative here kicked me straight in the knees (metaphorically) i am w e e p i n g (literally): i knew tangentially about chris driedger going to seattle but i had never read his players’ tribune love letter to seattle & all i can say is oh. oh. and with the part about trains delayed but still being right on time—

sometimes a dream is a truth your heart knows long before you do. the space that the city and the team made for him (“you’d be the only guy on the team”)🗣️🗣️🗣️ !!! but the way that chris talks about needing to put in the work & leo not letting him quit,,, that’s chris filling up the teakettle with twice as much water, crowding one side of the bed (falling asleep against a bus window dreaming), becoming unburdened by the idea of not being their guy, not having the fallback being their draft pick to content and settle himself with. that’s chris betting on a future. that’s the train coming down the tracks, right on time.

(i am feeling unhinged about it)

SECOND. i know i was the one that said zach and dylan to start so technically i brought this on myself but also i have been ktfo by the mere mention of the way that dylan says zach’s name different from everyone else, stealing an extra breath, stealing as much time as he can get with him, which reminded me of a poem i just read:

The Need Is So Great, Jim Moore

^^^dylan still in love with zach even as he’s leaving, can feel himself losing him, and taking every sliver of the love in his smile that he can get. even if he knows zach doesn’t still feel the same way he’s drawing out the long goodbye & saying i love you in a thousand ways without ever saying it out loud (“i have been asking for a time but in ways that have no words” because he doesn’t want to ask too much, to ask for love) in the hope that zach will say it back OKAY I’M LEAVING i can’t do this

that was a lie because THREE. “maybe it’s the principle of the thing” please insert the most ungodly screech how could you just (lovingly) come in straight with the steel chair and bean me upside the head with that l i n e i think this story has the potential for such tragedy in it but also the most tender domestic longing because bords & briss have known each other for a long time (i think) and guys do sometimes lose themselves when they first get to the nhl.

it’s a big scene, you’re with big name guys, you’re finally doing the thing you always dreamed about, you’re no longer necessarily the best because everyone’s the best, you’re not sure how you fit in, you can get lost in the glitz and the glamor of it but you can also literally get lost in it, the slog of the season and getting caught up and down between teams and leagues and endless airports and buses and travel and ice rinks, losing your phone (accidental) and having new people hound you for quotes and fame and connection so you lose your phone (on purpose) and i think where i’m trying to go is: this could play out as the tragedy of borde going to the california coastline and briss shipping off to the vegas strip and both of them getting a little lost.

maybe there’s someone else, maybe i am steadfastly not thinking about “a summer that tries to erase and make up all the memories they've made separately” as either a summer of them pretending things are ok after a year of barely speaking and now being completely different people they never were before OR a summer of them trying to pretend like they can forget about each other because maybe they didn’t think their relationship was the same thing, is all, when they were or weren’t together. maybe it’s nobody’s fault but for the fact that they were scared and tired and lonely trying to make it in the big times and didn’t know how to show it. and then borde shows up with takeout and plastic forks in vegas and it’s december and nothing like winter in ann arbor and still they fill up all the empty spaces in each other with the things they didn’t know they’d miss until they were gone and this is the real thing, not whatever they were trying too hard to be, to recreate their own nostalgia for the love in their memories. it’s the principle of the thing, is all, to always be true to the love they have right now & not what they think it should be.

sorry that i wrote you kind of an essay of an answer but i had so so so many thoughts because your ask was so lovely so thank you for sending it to me (you are always welcome to!! i love your imagined scenarios!!! cannot even explain how much!!!) & thank you for taking the time to read my walls of tags :))) <3

#liv in the replies #every time you send me a message i do the thing where i’ve got heart emojis for thumbs & cease any coherency #FIRSTLY chris driedger who i loved as seattle’s goalie without even knowing the story:#dreidger fourth layer of a dream is making me tear up AGAIN hours later as i try to write this the echl the coast easy come hard to leave &#when he talks about being somebody’s guy laying my head down in the bog & dragging my hands over my face chris who let you say that. who let #u break my HEART i truly don’t think i will ever recover from the inception reference bc that’s what they all talk abt u know? the nhl dream #the players’ tribune articles are often some of the most poetic & touching sports writing & every time i am reminded i lose my shit about it #SECONDLY:#the ever present spectre of dylan’s first boyfriend zach werenski #i have so so so many quotes? drafts? posts? about the thing with saying someone’s name to call them closer to you i say your name to speak #more of you into the world so i will possibly look for some of those to say what i mean but also: this poem was originally reminiscent of #willingly by tess gallagher which is my ajax jack / superbuddies poem & this specifically did go with the a drop of paint / the light has #fallen through you part of it but there’s a part of THIS poem which i did not include that talks about the late light / has already happened #will go on happening forever & that whole poem with this now to say i know it’s embarrassing i’m asking for it :: easy to write about light #like falling asleep on the couch & having to carry yourself up to bed is the dylan/zach heartbreak of this. waiting & waiting for the things #you used to do & the love you used to / were promised to have with the hope that if you keep the coffee ready he’ll come drink it & instead #you have too many cups of tea one yours & one cold then half-warmed over & too sweet for your tastes but you’ve learned to drink it anyway #okAY now third:#this w/the UMICH BOYS? N O I DIDN’T EVEN!!! NOT A THOUGHT IN MY BRAIN!!! & now i can’t stop thinking!!! & i had an entire PLAYLIST already #a ??? while ago before i even truly knew the umich boys Narratives™️ i heard maude latour’s song ‘one more weekend’ & went hahaha isn’t that #a great song for when you have that One Summer of college before everyone splits off into their own lives? isn’t that a fun little umich boy #going into the nhl narrative?? to which i said NO but then it spiraled into a playlist &now there is delightful heartbreak to go with vibes #umich scholars please feel free to correct me if i’m wrong on any points i can’t remember anything presently about anything #also the f a c t that that vegas picture is real and i know exactly what you’re talking about is making me %^•*]+£’ bc how!! is that real!!!#okay ALSO just throwing in brinksy like a casual AHAHA have brainworm for a year (my autocorrect tried to go bringst like angst which. lmao)#connor and dylan… all of my journeymen… we did not touch that because i WILL start yelling about sam gagner and marc staal and #the chrysalis and the caterpillar

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