n-r-whyte
Canadian
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, N R lives in Toronto and enjoys attending York University for English and Creative Writing. Her passions include reading, analysing, and writing poetry, as well as cooking, cycling, drinking, and more drinking. She likes to experiment with styles and forms, and really appreciates lots of feedback.
The sky is cracked in half,
Moonlight resting on the edge of the oncoming clouds,
A front of dark being called forth by the pull of the moon.
My heart sits in two, part resting with you
In our bed, part here in my chest,
Aching to be whole. Instead, it is pulled apart
By the rising dark, currents flowing in endless
Circles around pretty stars,
Little pinpoints of light determine my grounding but call me from the earth ; they hold me prisoner with promises of hope and worth.
I'm captive as I'm hurdled towards you,
Trying desperately to find a foothold or a catch, but lost
In the promises of your smile, the lines lit by the coming night, and the corners pulled up by the moon.
Feb 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 at 4:01 PM UTC
Give me your skin
That I may take on the burdens you bear by the tone of your flesh.
Give me your wrinkles carved deep into chasms, the evidence of a life lived long and distant from my own, and let me know the feeling of smoothing them out, the feeling of wrinkling them further.
Give me your hue, and pass
The very thing that makes us unique as a flower is passed
From a hillside to a forest by the shambling of a bee, and let me dwell among the cells of your body jail.
My forehead meets your shoulder, and I will my consciousness to meet yours in a crossing, wish that you might feel the strength of my resolve, the surety others cannot know because they do not live in my skin.
Sounds perfect the moment, my breathing steadied by wishing, your heart beating, the tension of being separated by bodies a force in the room that tempts challenging like facing an impassable mountain range.
Give me your skin and fold me into you, keep me honed and edged in the sheath of you, or I will rust in the air with this space between us.
Feb 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 at 4:00 PM UTC
I knew it wouldn't end in fire;
We burned
Too fast, too enjoyably, to suffocate
In flames.
I found the scab, the source,
Small and round and secret.
Incapable of leaving it to heal, I finger the edges
Nervously until the blood flows
Cold and jealous and foreign and unforgiving and slow.
A tipping point we can't reverse out of,
We're frozen on the event horizon,
Empty like the air in February,
The oxygen burned out from our explosion.
I am only left with regret and this
Sense, clear and dry and freezing, that I've walked
Too far north and lost the sun,
Though clouds still part in the distance and wave
Toward the open spaces
With fingers unfurling in unnatural curls.
I claw back to calm from
Calamity and speak, knowing I have listened
Too deeply to words meant for other ears - words that do not tell
Me what to say in return - I am raw.
I stand at the edge of mercy,
Abrupt in my humanity,
Suddenly losing feeling in my toes.
Feb 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 at 3:58 PM UTC
I am a sunflower.
I turn my yellow
and black face,
bruised, to the sun,
hoping its light will
heal me.
With my eyes closed
I can see my stamen,
veins in my eyelids,
bulbous
where they intersect.
The sun feeds me
and I, grateful,
pour myself into
the air. I am
sweet;
I am a bowl
of candy, I live
on your tongue
and I suffocate under
your eyelids.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
If you're the blanket then I'm the stitches,
If you're the needle then I'm the mittens,
If you're the water then I'm the kettle
And if you're the rash then I'm the nettle.
If I'm the icing on the cake
Then you're the blow, the burn, the break.
If I'm the claws of a neighbour's cat
Then you're the nose of each dead rat.
If I'm the clock on the microwave
Then you're the cancer and the grave
And if I'm a schemer's dossier
Then you're the board on which he plays.
If you're the hair pulled at hysterically
Then I'm the teacher steeped in austerity.
If you're the cuff that's come unrolled
Then I'm the base camp unpatrolled.
If you're the tea leaves left behind
Then I'm the fortune undivined
And if you're the reason I'm capricious
Then I'm the reason you're pernicious.
If I'm the strap, love, you're the sandal,
And if I'm the drugs then you're the scandal.
If you're goodbye, love, I'm the foyer,
And if I am "je" then you're "tutoyer".
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 2:50 PM UTC
This is the morning
No this
this is the morning
Where etherized upon a table I will finally sit up and be seen.
No, this is the morning.
Together milling loudly across park(ing lot)s
This! This is the morning!
Perhaps you've seen me undressed, perhaps you've seen me **********
This is Morse Code these are hieroglyphs these are fingerprints on a frozen window pane. Meaning(fully equipped with the right place for a time) nothing to lose without first finding X.
This is the morning where to stay at home to garden and crow, hooked on the missing airplane lost in spices and exotic tea.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC
as if pulling (on the tab)
prevents the continued closure
of the lunch box
oxen milling brunch
as it unfolds sinewed pasture
green purloining sunlight
oxen munching salami on Thursday morning
mourning the luncheon of Sunday
black black blackberries lugubrious
lubricate brioche freshness
pile of white pile of brown pile of pylons
pile (on the tab)
shots are on me
shots fired no casualties
oxen bagged lunches aren't as fun as pulling punches
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
Well let’s just jump right into it.
Everyone knows, the question right, “Which came first?” So let’s suppose, just for argument’s sake, in this specific case that is, that which came first was the egg. It’s also really the end of it in this case as well because there’s no chicken to follow. Just really it’s followed with the warm lettuce and the recooked bacon, the unripe tomato on a freshly baked bagel, which for argument’s sake is really the only part of the whole she-bang that’s actually any good.
But if that’s true then why even include the egg. Why abolish the chance for a chicken to exist? Why not just get a plain bagel? Well it’s about protein, you know. Does anyone really even like eggs or do we just eat them for protein? Does anyone like them, for argument’s sake let’s call it Tim Horton’s, does anyone really like them, eggs that is, when they’re cooked at Tim Horton’s? Are they even really eggs or just that powder, you know what I mean, that eggy powder like the powder milk that they have in the military? And if it is right, that eggy powder stuff, would anyone even care? Morally I mean, you have to assume people (which people I don’t know, some people I guess) stand behind eggy powder. But others right, you know the ones, who are disgusted by the idea of eggy powder. I’m one of those, not ashamed of it either and you know what, let’s just assume that it is eggy powder that they use at Tim Horton’s in their bagel BELTs. Would I have bought it if I thought it was eggy powder, probably not but here we are and I did and for argument’s sake let’s just say I already ate the whole thing. I mean morally I’ve just saved a chicken’s life but now I’m revolted by my having just consumed powdered eggs (right that’s what they’re called).
Let’s assume also that now I feel as though I’m figuratively standing on a moral high-ground but I’m also more or less disgusted by what I’ve just eaten even though I’m proud of myself for having eaten it, or rather not eaten a genuine egg. I’m ashamed of my disgust right and this has now proliferated into a casual nexus of disgust, shame and pride.
Q: Is it better to eat the powdered egg and simultaneously feel pride and revulsion or is it better to eat a real egg and **** a potential chicken?
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 11:33 PM UTC
You're always passing churches
pacing before kitchen islands and
under coffee spoons.
Village churches offer
onion justices.
City churches
hipsters
ask forgiveness on music blogs.
Childish ripples in pews,
half shouts ;
you're always passing churches.
You're always on beaches
walking on un-boardwalks and
even on catamarans.
Tropical beaches go white
go white laugh red.
Fresh-water beaches
hunters
stalk sand between follicles of arm hair.
Elephant footprints on waves,
milked hills;
you're always on beaches.
You're always in zoos
floating faceless around oceans and
onto broken hotels.
Provincial zoos make
west west west west exotic.
Metropolitan zoos
brothers
fight for diamond vodkas.
Flames burst over birds,
furrowed monkeys;
you're always in zoos.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
there are some mornings
when I feel the weight of my hair
pulling my head down
when I can feel gravity
pulling down the subway when we cross the
bridge between Castle Frank and Broadview
there are some mornings
I don't think I can get out of bed
because the world is too real
the empty space between me
and my fingers is filled with blankets
and the meniscus of my eyelids
is curved up instead of away
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC