Canada, I Love You. Most Ardently.

From “Trump Surprises Canada With a New Message: We Love You”:

“President Trump played nice when he came face-to-face with the new prime minister of Canada, the country he has spent months belittling.” — The New York Times

Canada,

I have struggled in vain, but I can bear it no longer. The past months have been a torment.

I came to the Oval Office this morning with the single object of seeing you.

I have fought against my better judgement. My followers’ expectations. The inferiorities of your country.

And inferiorities, my dearest, it counts amongst itself an abundance.

Your cleaner air, your more welcoming immigration policies, your overall better quality of life.

All those things, I’m willing to put them aside, and ask you to end my agony.

I love you. Most ardently.

And I ask you to, please, do me the honour of accepting my hand.

I bring my lips unquestionably close to yours, and, for a brief moment, if only brief, we both believe. Yes, for a brief moment, we are lovers. Engaging in the highest order. You are with me, and I, both awaiting and fulfilled, am yours.

But, your lips do not grace mine.

And I feel no such sensation as reciprocated love, but of the cold air that surrounds us. And when I open my eyes, I see you backed away. Far. Impersonal.

I also see JD Vance, which makes it worse.

I am offended, confused, and utterly heartbroken by your subtle rejection. You reply to my passionate proposal with fickle matters, like my past threats to buy you.

Okay. Sue me. I’m a romantic.

My dearest, expressing my desire for you to become “the 51st state”, was simply a metaphor for my desire to join our two bodies, minds, souls, sovereign states, in perfect and harmonious union.

For I wish no longer, Canada, for the winds of heaven to dance between us, but for our two bodies to ebb and flow in such a way that they produce the winds themselves.

But then you bring up my tariffs. You ask if I deny that I have instigated trade tensions and disturbed global markets. If I have involved you, amongst other countries who have made my acquaintance over the years, in misery of the acutest kind. I reply, “I do not deny it.”

You ask, “How could you do it?”

I reply, “The drugs.”

You reply that, in addition to the fact that the crisis I cite was already easing at the time I placed the tariffs, “Canada plays almost no role at all in the flow of fentanyl and other deadly street drugs into the U.S.”

I reply offended, asking if this is your opinion of me. I thank you for explaining so fully. I suggest that perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, if your pride had not been hurt. I ask if you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances.

You maintain and repeat, as if knowing that it will cut me open like a blade–pain me like a palm to face–that you will never allow me to buy you. Your own way of saying you will never give yourself over to me in the way that I have asked.

Thus, you reject my hand.

I recoil. “Forgive me, Canada, for taking up so much of your time,” I mutter, gentlemanly. I stride away in the rain.

You think to yourself, “What have I done?”

I yell at JD Vance to move from behind me. He’s in the way of my shot.

My tie drags along in the muddy marsh. Making me dirty.

Yea, it makes me dirty. And I make a wish that it was you, instead.