it seems my entire life is defined by drinks.

mother's milk out the womb.

(and maybe those suckles were sweet - it's not like i remember - but her words, for the rest of my life, certainly weren't.)

an hour-long debate, with my best friend at twelve years old - apple or orange juice?

(orange, obviously, is the right answer. we rehash the argument sometimes to this day.)

the day i turn 19, a beer in my hands.

(i'm sat around a campfire with my closest friends, birthdays all older than me - the beer tastes disgusting, as cheap alcohol is, but i'm glad to be there.)

yesterday, i had 1 coffee and 2 mugs of lemon honey tea, 4 glasses of water.

today, no tea, but 2 cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and 3 glasses of water.

i bite at my nails when i'm nervous, swallow down the spit that comes with it, the bile that rises.

last summer, i visited pei, had a raspberry cordial - my favourite drink to date - then bought a case of 4 more to take home with me.

last summer, when i lived in new brunswick, my friends in the same building knew me as the one who would always have a drink in hand - a milk tea, or maybe a pink lemonade, maybe that obscure korean soda i liked.

when i left new brunswick, i took a photo of my 2 trash cans, of the way they were both filled to the brim with empty bottles and cans and jugs.

i still miss the apple cider they made there.

my life is defined by drinks, sips, swallows, taking five minutes to breathe by making myself a nice whipped coffee, trawling the internet for pretty coasters and glassware for an hour in lieu of doing actual work.

Eventually, i close the shopping tabs, take a sip of coffee, and resume with the rest of my life.

so empty despite
the grains and flow of the milk
i hunger once more

Fickle
Done in mentioned light...
Through and due the common, the still
Notice of compliment, a comment of right

None
The more we save, from the proof of simplicity
Story's and a sulking tree, the seldom of fun in the sun
Turned to universality, with the eyes of anarchy

Amend
Sour and refined, refrain from the beauty of compel?
The pout of another gift and the choice of feeling's substance
Over the quiet since, that has become ours to weal...

Things
And the duty of a desire in worthing heaven, the hell of unity
Given me, and the role of synchronicity a resolve, to sweeten
Time is a daring host, to assure even the tiniest of needs, vicinity

Arduous
Threshold in the lime, the boding of every else, in the book
Staid and remembering decorum, like a hell is every cause
When we are the understanding home, to a willing look...

Force
Are we a stir of responsibility in the arms of voice, or its cope?
Timid as we are, the calling of it all, is a wisdom's source?
Look hard for a nature? when you can have a friend for it's love...

Caring
True to mellower stares, the throe of uncanny light
Made from the none, are we to survive a decision, so faring
The response of decency, that a swim with the devil, is also right...

Liberty
Loan the call, to me for a universe's song
Trust is a walking might of the deed, asking the seldom, evil's
Is it me, or the shade in a wishes stir, the tout we held all along?

steaming, pleasure drips
milked from the bloated udders
of faceless others

You in your full bloom, at peace,
like swirling honey in warm milk,
made of rich pigment and velvet petals.

take a breath, and paint a picture,
of the transient atmosphere,
and you swaying with the ocean breeze.

send it to that part of you
that is lost in endless worry.