Somewhere in all the mixing
of these herbs and spices
I was caught in a scent of remembering
the way my mother crushes
crushed black pepper
because it is never fine enough
And the way she closes her eyes
sprinkling in salt, cayenne, cumin...
never measured, never the same
Just hands with so much to remember
hands with so much weight
holding the past and present
holding our hair and the house,
holding her pain and my pain
holding a ladle and my hand
smiling and laughing
I chase her down for a hug
as she runs from one *** to another
we giggle and giggle,
and the flame feels cold
unparalleled to her warmth

There isn’t much to this week
but on this day, intertwined in a breeze
wondering if the clouds will shower
or burst into a freeze
I read pages and pages of past
taking breaks to peel pears
and slice the strawberries
drizzling honey onto plates
and savouring the sweetness of spring fruit
I think of all the mountains I've yet to climb
and how much I look forward to the rain
but parts of me still hold onto autumn
and the feeling of watching the trees
shift into a new ending
It’s just like how these days
I keep returning to the shelves on these walls
picking up all the books
from every conversation in the past
and trying to, once again, read between the lines
to decipher when those questions
became answers

These sounds of silence
Rumble and roar
I’m in a constant state of questioning
Asking what love is,
Filling in the gaps between all my questions
With the things we saved for March
Relishing in the idea of spring
And what it means to bloom
Peeling away at citrus,
Reaching for the plums and nectarines
In the icebox, scarfing down cooled melon
Picking at peonies and daffodils
Thinking about tea but hating its taste
I was never a morning person
But the sun these days is so new

But it’s when the winter creeps back
And I awake to a morning frost
Bits of past, pieces of December
Pine trees and heating cars
I remember the worth of remembering
And the reality of how time moves
And how all these questions
Sprinkle down with snow, rain,
sun rays, or leaves
never leaving, never eased
only knowing that I don’t know
and that seasons don’t return; they just pass

I twist this discomfort between my fingers thinking of how to find the places I would be holding onto maps of all my searches
If I was in this world, by myself
where would I be but under the weight of it all?
Sinking into loss, folding all these thoughts and packing them away
trying to pinpoint the moments
in which I could define love
The falsehood of this bravery
grasps onto my steps, forwards and backwards
I keep walking in the same spot
sitting among moments and memories
and everything I've yet to define
knowing, however, that I recognise love
and everything it is
since the moment I could breathe
it's been in the spaces between my mother's fingers
waiting for me

Pain resonates through these laughs
a sense of solitude, lonely voices in isolation
I hope to wash off this ignorance
and listen to all that you wish to tell
holding on to the burning sense
that time is leaving us all behind
I think of ways to never leave your side
hoping you keep these stories on your palm
and feed them to birds on their quietest days

The presence of words spoken
weighs heavily on these trembling hands
I wish to take the clocks that overtook me
and inscribe in them all the lessons and stories
gifted to me by loved ones
back when I was too preoccupied with tomorrow
and everything I wanted to be
When this world was all, I thought about
and this life was all I could see
Occasionally, I find a hollow breath
and sometimes, it’s enough to fill these lungs
as I soak this anxiety in remembrance
Befriending grief and hiding from time
walking home in a new day’s cold
Shivers and chills, pulling apart my steps
With aching bones and a desire to rest
but forward and forward I go this time
knowing, wholeheartedly,
that seasons never last

purple, yellow bruises
from playing outside
and picking up pebbles
to throw at tomorrow
and chase it away
the sky was never blue
as we never had enough strength
to look up past our little heads
engulfed in the wonders of chalk and road
when secrets were worth flower petals
and flew away with the wind
unlike the ones we hold today
with aching shoulders
and burning pains
from looking up and only up
and witnessing how fast
these colours change
terracotta, navy, to grey
as all these pebbles wash away

All these weighted apologies spill
from my hands onto the wintered ground
There are moments in the day
when all the quiet burns
and the smoke inhabits these walls
but the possession of this rain
is never enough to wash out these lungs
or dilute this volatile pain
I was never good at speaking
always shied away from crowds
you were never one to stay quiet
always ran toward the loud
A cycle of oscillating seasons
I'm too in love with hating the cold
and far too familiar with the sound of rain but these birds, they're always calling
to new mornings and a sky of gold
and you sit here, waiting to hear your name as I clean up all the spills
from these weighted apologies
and pails of winter rain

To sit here and scale our memories
looking for worth in wondering
searching for pieces in the past
I left all my paints and colorful hues
and moved forward with potfuls of rain thinking that to love is constant
and to lose is momentary pain
but all these versions of lives lived
all the people we said we were
and all the things we hope to become
stir and boil in this water
and winter tells us to stay inside
but this heart keeps racing
aching to feel the sun and the snow
to tear apart the days
and take these fractures
as testimonies of all that we braved

Scents of satsuma and cinnamon
bottled up into reminders of the little things
this blurred motion has created a mirage
of incomprehensible reasons
to forget our love for patience
from strings of silver threads
and sentimental alliances
woven into patterns of picture frames
completely blurred, alive in motion
together, a collage of all the times
stillness couldn't find its breath
and laughter took us by the shoulders
shaking and shaking
till we fell into a rhythm of remembrance
with all the little things
bottled up in an illusion of permanence

To my father, who loves telling stories

Pomegranate seeds,
splatter over the countertops
your laughter heightens their fragrance
a dish rag in my hands
a halfway story exaggerating between your lips
mouthfuls and mouthfuls of past
something so simple about this morning
a togetherness of complex mirage
sun pierces through this sinking heart
and a strong desire to ease the pain
that has sunken into the cracks
overcomes me
I wonder what love is,
If it exists beyond this moment as anything true
and you, still lost in your narrations
tell me all about living
and this wondering finds ease
just as I, in your presence

Dish soap-soaked hands
Dreams stuck to the bottom of these ***** pots
I wash and dry
still thinking about the rain in September And holding onto drops of July
Silence, a gentle hum, an occasional cough my eyes fixed on searching for all those planets
And blue moons
But never making it past the windowpane home to reflections of an unrecognizable face

I revel in how fast this life changes
and how much I miss the rain

a world
of distant voices and glittering echoes
painted with a thousand sunsets
that I've poured into my eyes
to find some relief from this tiredness
Days walk beside me, years run ahead
I wish I could collect all the silences
between all that I've said
and fill them in with things
I've lost to time
Thank you notes spill from my hands to yours
The permanence of things begins to fade among dialogue once shared
There is a world I have spent building
With stories and reminders
you left for me
I hope you'll find in it
the transience of an anger
that ceases to be

A trace of light
That's all you and I look for
when those mountains fade
behind descended clouds
and that ache in our shoulders
crumbles under the fire of this rain

the moon and all its pieces
lost to all these thoughts
you and me, the same and most different awake and restless
the silver lining of this charcoal moon
is getting harder to find

until comes this eruption of warmth
and a storm of pattering fear
that if I start counting seconds
you might disappear
so, I guess it goes without saying
everything you've always known

these nights go by in wonder
of how to build you a home

In disguise,
a hopeless wonder
Apprehensive and paranoid
I leap towards the open
my feet sticking to the field grass
My memories build worlds and voids,
steps and ladders shy away from my path Something tells me to climb upward
latch onto these fears I house within my shoes,
maybe take off the glasses I wear as an excuse,
to ignore your outstretched hand
But in disguise, a hopeless wonder
A small shallow breath
Accepting defeat against my stubbornness
This fear is nothing but distance I strive to keep
Because if I give you all of these words
and instead of grasping them tightly
they slip between your fingers
fallen, forgotten, meaningless.
then what?

The momentary confines
And the viscosity of this remembering
It sticks to my throat
And I think of ways to love
Beyond the way of words
Beyond the everyday exchange
But to hold on to everything
Past and future in these frail hands
Sew them deep into the leftover stains
From Sunday brunches
And midnight snacks

At ease
You tell me
I listen, I listen, I listen

The pain of telling stories
Clutches onto my chest
I wish I could tell you what hurts
And what doesn't

But I listen, I listen, and listen

from your name
I have built a world
It's made of memories
And all the things you loved
I stole pieces of the moon
from the nights we could not sleep
where you told me stories of your past
and ways for me to be
and now they illuminate
all the city streets
of houses and homes
that you have grieved
and I paint this world
onto the walls of this place
that whisper your name
every day to me
so that I can walk past
and remember
all the ways you taught me to breathe

And with this hope...

When all these walls turn into doors
Oceans into rivers with bridges
Mountains into hills, hills to fields

Will you then realize
The potency of all your dreams
When you tell them to me
They invade all my air space
My thoughts and my sleep
And I hold onto them for you
Thinking of ways to draw maps
Reciting them in my prayers
Waiting for the day
When all this hope I carry
Returns home to you

And with this hope...

I exist in a world where you are never without dreams

The inheritance of loss
Often told as a tragic story
I sit here writing
while gripping onto the edges of every passing day
hoping to change the narrative of this pain
I'm sorry to my daughter;
there were too many things I never solved
I walked with this heaviness
with a dream to transform the world for you
but instead, I lost and lost
and left these wounds on your carpet
watered a grass that was already dead
and called it advocacy
The inheritance of loss
is beaded into these gold bangles
the same ones my mother gave me
the same ones I keep for you

I don't sit in these minutes.
Wondering how and why
I fall into a motion, mindlessly
Opening cabinets of half-made
Half-done, half-finished things
Opening and closing
Yesterday and today
Just opening and closing
Until it starts to make sense
Until this loss fills in the cracks and these half-things, this half me,
find a resolution to seal these doors shut

To the many faces of grief
I never know who you'll be
Sometimes, you're an old friend
And we talk, blissfully remembering
Sometimes, you are the pain in my bones
Other days, you're a headache I can't shake
Yesterday, you gripped my breath
And did not let go until the tears shed
Today, I'm afraid to open the door
Will you be holding flowers and things for tea?
Or are you here to take everything from me?

Parallel tables down this neighbourhood street
I can see some of them from distant windows
One is vacated
One is full, people buzzing about
Hot food coming out of the kitchen onto the table
Bubbling, boiling soups, freshly tossed salads
Glasses brimming with new stories
Then, to the right, a person
Sits at their table alone,
One dim light, eating from a bowl
My guess is cereal.
Stories, stories, stories
Troubling questions
Awkward silence
He’s meeting the parents today
So, he fidgets and taps his feet
She’s telling them she got into college
He just got home from his best friend’s funeral
The other house is dark,
They always have dinner at six
But today, the lights are off
Trip? No.
They’re saying goodbye to grandma in the hospital
That couple in the duplex
I think it’s their delivery date
There’s that one house,
Everyone eats at a different time
Mom, daughter, and second daughter rotate washing dishes
but the older one just got married
it looks like they are still settling into the newfound gaps
her brother left today
a house that used to be loud and crowded
now, two empty nesters
they never eat at the table anymore
they put on the TV
with their plates
because the couch is a smaller space to fill
than these dining room tables

I don’t think I could tell you of ease
But I see you across from this sea in between
Shifting in your seat, nursing a dull ache
I know that feeling all too well
But I don’t want to tell you about it
In case I may come across insensitive
Because I’m trying not to shift this center of gravity
We both share in desperation
And tip us over the edge
We didn’t dare to wonder about
But I never learned to swim
And this sea in between
is filling up my lungs
When did it get so hard to breathe?
I call after you, under my shallow breath
I see you for everything  
Hoping you see me too
But this heavy air we drink
Settles in your shadow and mine
It spells out gracefully
That the spaces between us
Are built out of love
And so, we go on
Paving distances
For these descending clouds

First I nurse the realization
That this pain will echo
And in all my attempts to grasp it
And keep it close to my lungs
It weaves itself into my breath
And spills out into the open
Seeping into the damp earth
Whistling between the fog
Sinking among the morning dew
And slowly creeping it’s way close to you
My hands are far too unstable
To offer you some peace
I’d give you my bones and everything
That I thought I could be
I would wrap it in the flowers
That we wished for our garden
But this pain it’s too unpredictable
It leaps away from me
It touches anyone who dares
To give me a moment of their time
and when they tell me they are sorry
We both begin our decline
This grief, she sits at the table
It’s never just you and I
This pain it always echoes
Bouncing between your words
And mine

With a voice that fails me
I aim at the lines between your hope and my despair
With a needle, in an effort to achieve precision
To stitch our thoughts together
They’re so similar, so different
You think of October as a warm home
And I see it as a cold houseguest
And we co-exist in this oblivion
This circle of this or that
I admire your willingness to fill spaces
And you question my fear of being heard
You relish in the colours of fall
And I dread the looming winter
How is it that we left September
Hand-in-hand, wishing for rain...

In the context of things unknown
the leaves have fallen far into these doubts roads I travelled on summer's humid days now pinpricked with touches of gold
wheels blast past,
and the remnants of this past year rustle, there is a mystery in the coolness of this air will winter be one we can still bear?

In the context of things known,
I leave memories of all our growth
under the shade of baring branches
as days go by,
they'll be buried under the delicacies of fall until next year,
when the burden of the snow
has shifted their weight
I'll be back to bury more

This language, everblooming
It has so easily poisoned us
But you dust off those empty phrases
Washing stains out of rageful exchanges
This white flag is half in your hand
And half in mine
A haphazard grocery list
Stopped at tomatoes
Continued as a list of those “we would never go there" words
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Written like punctuation in the spills
Now I'm picking up dinner plates off the walls
So many weapons were thrown and old secrets hashed
A mess left with us drowning in the aftermath
I think the salad is now dressed in curses and ill wishes
But despite all that
I think it's your silence that will **** me

This grief changes shapes
It runs and comes back to me in different forms
Sometimes it's angry, sometimes sad
But lately, it's a sweet melancholy
That drifts along with the wind
Carrying the scent of pear trees and spring
It has lost its pain to the December freeze And now, it's a reminder of circularity
And the transience of this little life

I sometimes sit on our old couch in the basement
And think about what we left in its recline
The leather is cold and distant
It is coated with the film of time
Stained with tears, laughter, and secrets Nestled in the crevices is all my growth
When I lay my head against it
1 can hear dialogue from the movies we watched
And faint conversations with ghosts

I've talked to all the ghosts in this room
They speak of memories and grievances
And we revel in how quickly this fog has turned into smoke
It bites at my lungs
And I sit and wait, my eyes on my hands
My ears on the clock
At some point, each passing second
Parallels my heartbeat
There is someone across from me
Saying it is time to let go
But what would be left of me
If this grief vanished, too
At some point, it became all I am

Until you
somehow stumbled into this room
untethering the past from all that I knew

In hopes that this reaches you when you need it most

A message soaked in echoes, reminders, and hope
Lathered with the perfume of nostalgia
Floats back and forth between my mind and heart
Out from the arteries, back through the veins
Shaped and reshaped into paper trains
Thought bubbles and mind maps
All muddled into flashcards
Something in there might say: I have dreams for you
And maybe if in some way
You can decipher all this mess
You'll find the speech bubble, bullet point, and quiz question
written just for you that says in someway:
1 believe, and believe, and go on believing
Everyday
In you.

I've somehow stretched every limb
into a series of exhausted yawns
Now the rhythm of this day
Is with you
But it seems,
I am not the only one
With words breezy enough
To make you laugh
Because as I round the corner
I can hear the air rippling around you
And everything becoming lighter and lighter
Until you, a sun in everyone's galaxy
Illuminates the disillusioned
delusional rhythm makers
All here to gift you their love

To fault Tomorrow
Would be wrong
She just sat down
And all she said was
“I'm not sure”
And here we are
Offended
Because Yesterday was certain
But only today did she say anything
About it
And Today, she's been talking for a while.
(We are tired of it)
But Tomorrow thinks she can waltz in here
And sit down
Be mysterious and all
I won’t have it
But then to fault Tomorrow
Would be wrong
When its me
At fault
For thinking too long
Too wide
Too soon
Too late
For thinking and thinking
Until it all collates
And we are in a muddle
A mess
Of a puddle
Bursting in tears
Laughter
And fears
And all my Wondering
She’s blameworthy
I'm the neurotic one
I can't sit still
Until Tomorrow
Doesn’t come back
Dressed as Today
When she will talk
And talk
And talk
And I will wish once again
For yesterday
When she was
All quiet
And obnoxious
And mysterious
All unknown
And we will be back in new roles
New bodies
New tales
All over and over and over and over

To all the mornings that go wrong
1 hope you know
I find my laughter in you
somewhere along the "why mes" and "why nows"
A beautiful summer breeze hit
And I forgot what there was to complain about

"I hope you find ease."

"This discomfort is temporary, and that is the beauty of time. I have found my ease in that mere thought."

"But pain is pain."

"And it passes, like grief, it buries itself deep within, growing its roots and blooming into gardens, disguised as triumphs and memories.”

"I haven't laughed like this in forever."

"Me neither."

The laughter continued reverberating, threading itself into the wind and dispersing across the city glow. A moment of peace followed, and your company was a comfort, with each laugh we exchanged transforming into a life vest keeping me afloat.

"A melancholy grows, and it's swathed in nostalgia.”

"Why is that?"

"With every day that rains, it is September again... the month of endings.”

"Or new beginnings."

Colour blooms
Onto a canvas of black-and-white impressions
Left behind are brush strokes from the blues and greys
Overlayed are the yellows and pinks
Flowers drift left and right
A sunset glows until dark
Transforming into midnight bokeh
With every blink, something new
A painter paints
A thousand places all here at once
A thousand dreams
A thousand wonders
All here, in the colour of you

From the rivers of moonlight
That are flowing through these veins
I hope to light the darkness
That has showered you with rain
Maybe from this light and whatever it may reap
We can weave together a thousand memories
Enough to rival the light of a new day
And if even then, the night is too much to bear
I'll rekindle my friendship with the dawn Asking for favours to keep you under its care

Dear old me
I know how the future seems
As if time has you wringing out every last drop
Wondering if minutes spent are hours worth
But here we are
One crossroad after the other
You've taken paths paved
And those never walked
You've breathed in clouded air
And have gotten lost in the fog
You have climbed mountains
And descended valleys
You've seen clear skies
And cried with the rain
You may never know what's next; not even I do
But no matter where you think you'll go
Every tunnel you'll collide with
Always has a way through
Forwards and onwards
You'll make your way toward me
And I'll keep walking too

The hands of time
intertwined with mine
we walk down this street
through puddles of years
in the rain
where minutes fall
onto our heads
soaking our laughter
until it dissolves
and flows down the drain
to the stormwater pond
where the past awaits

but we keep walking
ignoring the ache
to retreat our steps
to what is now a lake

and we journey until we've left behind an ocean

Silence tumbles out of me
this moon, and this sun
this morning and this night
this want for rain
this flicker of hope
the embers, and the sheets of ice
it all in an overwhelming exhaustion
have come to take my breath away
and every time I speak
my words are caught in the wind
circling from everywhere to nowhere
leaving me somewhere in between

Words were left behind
    on top of the soil
    where they buried
    yesterday's bones

2. suddenly, this cold chill
    that has befriended my spine
    is now a sense of comfort
    that I am still alive

3. Grief, it is love, it is every form of love
    From every story I have ever read
    it is hope and despair
    it is the shadow
    of this rain
    that follows me
    home

4. I hope you see
    that this running clock
    moves in circles
    just like we do
                             the beginning of your journey
                             is closer to the end
                             than you could ever imagine

5. If you are looking for me
    I am searching for that old shadow
    we left with the sun for safekeeping
    thinking about burying old love

To heal
To lose
In circles
We float
Losing
Healing
Breathing
Hoping
Fearing

What are we fearing?

You with solemn eyes look to the sun
Lost in its embrace
Wishing to be the clouds
That touch its light and dissipate

"I am afraid that everything I have lost
Will come back and find me
After I have learned to live without it"

And with that, I begin to disappear

My lungs dissipate into this silence
The fires between yesterday and tomorrow
Burn in the back of my throat
I take the words I’ve collected over the years
Store them in jars with pennies and fears
I envelop my breath with rain clouds and blues
Ready to mail it out to the years

Between us are silent sorrows
We’ve only just reunited
And already, a vast sea has made its home
Between you and me
We filled it with our tears
I spoke, you listened, I listened, you spoke
Our heartbeats aligned
Momentarily we breathed
And words flowed out
Drowning us in memories
You make your departure,
Leaving me as I overthink the unspoken

The fire’s put out, but nothing’s left
If you ever return with more things to say
You can count the pennies and words I kept
But I’ll be gone into the void of yesterday
With healing lungs,
putting out the fires you left behind

when you climb mountains
you leave your footprints
in the rigid soil
that feeds into the ground
we once laid on
waiting for the sun to descend
to take our guards down
and prepare our fingers
for pointing at stars

Time leaves us reminiscing
Leaving behind bitter tastes laced with honey
something you liked about coffee
on these notes

I think about the distances between
Who you are and what I hope to be
And I see the mountains you said you'd climb

From the echoes of the future
What would you like to hear?
I hear sea breeze and glittering leaves
Rustling in a wind that has travelled from yesterday
Touched your palms and took you dancing on the moon
Then bid it's farewell to meet you once again someday

If this is all we've left behind
Of fractured conversations broken up by laughs and cries
I hope that somewhere under this broken starlight
You find the strength to dream and feel
And when you sleep, all your prayers reverberate through the atmosphere

We shall meet someday, in a moment of realization
Or in someone's loving daze
We shall watch the sunset and wave our last goodbyes

From: the past
To: the future

It's just you here
With this open wind

And a thought that craves to be embraced
By the arms of a voice daring enough
To bring it out into the open

It's just you here
With a beating heart harmonizing with the sea

Among waves of silenced love
and whispers of forgotten dreams
That colour this terracotta sand

It's just you here
Under the broken sky

A crying heart calls out to you
Looking for consolation
So, you put your hand on your chest.

Reminding it,
It's just you here

And you are alive

I miss the sweetness of writing
When words would untangle these corroded arteries
And bring relief to the pain left behind
By the dying starlight

I dust off recollections of our past
Dressed in all black
Stretching my limbs into a new atmosphere
Remembrance is pinned onto my beating heart

If I ask you to hold my hand
And walk me through this dark tunnel
Would you become the flicker of light
That I dream of at night?

There is a canvas made of broken sky
Covered in dust left behind by the sunset
Pigments swirl in these hopeful hands
I crave to paint, write, and leave behind colorful impressions

But these words have inhabited
The rivers of blood within me
And they flow from thought
To dream
To lungs
To sky,
sea,
and breeze
Then
All the way
Back to me

Let's liberate this silence
Let it blemish with the smoke
Coming off of the cooling coal
That once burned
in the wake of unvoiced promises

Somehow, you and I have managed to exchange dreams,
fears, and beliefs with one simple unspoken conversation

And now words cascade
Down rivers of my arteries and veins
Toward the palm of your hands
Hold them close
(I never intended to let them go)

But it seems that with every nonverbal exchange
A string of understanding ties us together
And there is nothing left in my power that I could do

To save us from the falling sky, splinters of moon,
and blankets of midnight blue