if you take all my sheets off,
& say the worst things in the dark
i can learn to find some rest, knowing
i won‘t love you any less.
even when i’m mad and blue,
and say the same things back to you,
pack your things and leave a mess
knowing, i won’t love you any less.
& when i hold on much too tight and
cling to all the what-if/mights,
even when you don’t pass my tests,
i won’t love you any less.
if you forget how i feel and turn
away to something “real”,
i hope you’ll remember how i felt, but
i won’t love you any less, i guess,
because of all the ways i’ve loved,
and all the ones that i let run,
i take a breathe, and beat my chest, cause
i won’t love you any less.

maybe it will stay, maybe it will grow,
i can’t pretend to know, either way
we tend our yucca plant, we absolve the root rot,
weather the mistakes we make together,
drill the door with two towel hangers,
knowing we can’t always patch things up,
and still we think of baby bassinets in the study,
and still, you could leave me or love me, either way,
i’ll be just the same (alone in the end),
the funny girl with the comfort of every woman,
death do us part, but with you beside me, maybe
well maybe, i’d just have a better time rotting,
maybe it will grow, maybe it will stay,
i can’t pretend to know, either way.

you say we're running out of pages,
i say, i'm running out of time,
to make what's left art, my character's arc,
i find beauty in the madness all the time.

you listen to whoever’s loudest,
i'm writing quietly, "you're sadistic",
for never caring how i could fit in it,
stories coming to an end,
resolution's just pretend,
why did you call me your friend?

you know i'm more for retribution,
daggers in my back, i pull through it,
sharpen blades and play okay,
let you narrate your mistakes,
i bite tongues and say it’s fine,
calculate my grand goodbye,
now i know it's the last time.

you say we're only getting older,
i say, i'm not the bravest solider,
when you made me go to war,
waving white flags at our shore,
did you think i could take more?
i’m out of pages, writing more...

a light knock on your friends door,
come out and run with me -
let's fly on our bikes for answers,
down a hydro field - down a mickey,
watch the wires send messages, before
the Facebook status', before we knew
how to find peace in doing nothing.
the currency of youth, the awakening,
we all have a voice in our heads? developing
self conscious, *******, an anxiety disorder?
you don't know who you are yet -
you don't know anything!
just walking around garden sections
of Canadian Tire's with your dad -
who kept all his fake Monopoly money.
look dad! the peonies, look! the orchids,
and i'm still absorbing life like this -
noticing beauty, collecting e-currencies,
posting Instragram stories - and
i feel too young to be responsible for it.

i don't know **** about love,
not the temperature, or commitment,
ball and chains we wield over
how we want possessions and forever's.
i don't know how to love half-way,
not checking the texts back,
letting chips fall where they may,
half my head filled with air,
leave the door closed, for an open window,
or another reason to worry.
i don't know when to let it be,
if it's not you whos next to me -
not a jealous bone in me, but,
can't imagine you laughing with her
or anyone else, because i am something
of a narcissist myself -
and i don't know how to see you go,
so i never get a prescription.

you turn on the hallway light,
make us another coffee to share,
and if i tell you now how it felt
how i feel, would you still want me?
if i tell you, that i’ve been rotten too,
will you still bring out the best in me?
you give me the calm, what ifs are
what our kids names could be,
is it taboo to love this deeply?
there’s a gentle scent of peace, that is you
and i’ve never fell this softly,
into you, my sweetest taboo.

i like my body when it is with your
body. it is a natural tug and pull.
my head draws onto your shoulder.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its edges. i like to feel your arm
and how it holds me, trembling
for my hands which felt foreign then.
your smooth ness and ridges of thumbs,
i want to hold you tightly, firmly,
- again and again and again and again
kissing, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, making a home in your skin for us
both reeling with electric forces, parting
flesh  . . . . . and hearts widened to eat
all the love-crumbs we trailed years for,

and possibly i just like the amusement

of how i look underneath you.