Taro Williams
Talking to You Is Like Reading a Murakami Novel
I skateboarded swiftly past your apartment the other day
Do you remember that hot summer
We were practically shirtless everyday
​
Gave me brewskis
I returned it with a black eye
Drank all the vodka
Without soda or a lime
​
Talking to you is like reading a Murakami novel
Or a magazine I bought at the pawn shop
Show me your ecstasy
Meet me behind the Verdun community centre parking lot
When your only twenty three - the world feels like a movie
Old enough to know better - still young enough to do it anyway
I saw you at the arcade bar the other day
Tried to tell you how the police showed up at my house last night
​
You just turned away - skin crawled purple
I know I’m a lot - stupid and bitter
But please don’t walk out - give up - leave me drowned like Ophelia
Wasaga Beach
Wasaga Beach… (that’s where the undertone almost got me when I was 9)
That’s was when I saw the red and blue car lights for the first time
Back to the Mile-End apartment on rue St-Dominique.
You grew up in an white suburb
I joke, “Where did you get your silly groove?”
New England, posh attitude
Hey, sorry, I don’t make the rules
Did you ever find your wife
Or all you still searching for fantasy
Are you still drinking peach IPAs?
Or did you move onto your next tragedy
After all the cocaine and Cadillacs
The evening talks with cold ones, where ya at?
Every park you pissed in - you renamed
Swimming in technical rapids next to the vintage rail yard
Now you’re spread rumours about my good name
I just wanna lay down in the sun
Listening to dream-pop, pass the aux
Puddles of Gasoline
The world you wanted doesn’t exist anymore
You said, “I love you Jesus”, than feel to the floor
Oh Slyvia, What mess have you found yourself in?
Cancelled all the plans just to stay in
Our generation has kinda of fallen
All the prescriptions that you’ve forgotten
So, meet me at the park
Meet me at the subway station
Let the rain fall down - water running down the apartment hall!
Purple and green
​
Into puddles of gasoline
You know that book hasn’t been written
It’s not yet fished - you’re still at the beginning
Inner child wounds never heal fas
They left you behind in the race, last
And that’s just how every comedy goes
The empathy in your bones just knows
So, meet me at the park
Meet me at the subway station
Let the rain fall down - water running down the apartment hall!
Purple and green
Into puddles of gasoline
Puddles of gasoline
East and west
How far we’ve come
Every epoch passes
And then something else comes
Call it overwhelming now
It will be a memory tomorrow so,
So, meet me at the park
Meet me at the subway station
Let the rain fall down - water running down the apartment hall!
Purple and green
Into puddles of gasoline
Born and raised in the east end of Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario, Taro got his start with experimental writing while attending Rosedale Heights School of Arts. In his youth, he was active in Toronto's slam poetry community. He has attended Concordia University where he got involved in the local Queer writers scene. Today, Taro can be found regularly at many open mics across the country, where his political yet zany style of writing has been described as "raw"and "confessional." As an expressive poet, songwriter, and writer who has traversed the vibrant landscapes of Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario, and Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Quebec. The work of Taro Williams is deeply rooted in the urban fabric and cultural landscapes of these cities. His writing has been previously published in School Schmool to much fanfare. He is currently working on a larger coming-of-age novel and is a practicing Quaker, currently split between the two cities he calls home.