I remember soft cold kisses
on my parents old couch
and long Sunday rides
to the warm blue lakes
I remember you wrapped up
in my college white sheets
and your lips tasting like
coffee in the autumn mornings
I remember long nights
crossing off all of your fears
knowing my hands
being the only pair to catch them
I remember trekking through snow
just to burden you again
and knowing your fears
we’re always wrapped up
in me

Arms have swallowed me whole,
caught me on guard again.
After being lost in myself
you hold more doors open
to options of optimism
or Tuesday work breaks.
I am practically calculated,
disorder on draft,
overflowing with grandeur
and pity projects.
I am not gifted nor humble,
but if your parents will like me more
I have a LinkedIn to match.

If I can learn the way
to walk Belvedere, and
make one-way’s, wrong ways,
your rock t-shirt my best pillow,
a cats relentless meow
a joyous morning alarm.
Than I can find a way to
sleep soundly beside you,
hold hands without sweating,
and park under a sap-less tree.
Ones that shade our backyard dinners,
the fish and fudge left uneaten
and the lies left unlearned.

Why is it surprising?
That I can find love,
and still feel like dying.
Have you tried it?
The vacancy of living
underneath yourself.
Have they pushed you
in change rooms?
Left you half naked
to a party you threw.
I have played nice,
pressed his linens.
Gave my shoulders
for weights I can
now choose.
Even when I find
love again.
It’s not enough
to solve a labyrinth.
I’m only assured
by the consistent
accuracy of depression.
Four particular walls
I can depend on
crying behind.

To protect your laugh,
sacred gleaming subtleties.
Your pink flushed cheeks,
with dots too often observed.

The innocence of turquoise walls,
where do your bones lie?
Past reminiscent of a 1gb USB -
my closet is stuffed and cracked open,
their mixtapes in alphabetical order.

To protect your honour,
softly sharing my heavyweights.
Your pink flushed lips,
with softness never overlooked.

i wish i made you up in my mind,
instead of all the ink i spilled over tropes and trophies.
you’re much better than their tireless scripts -
only to be caught offside like the running red herring.
you’re not my cup of tea really either,
more like my morning blonde roast with too many substitutions -
but new things excite me and make me grow still.
and i have been stretching these pages longer,
taking up every inch of you that i can muster
hoping that i see an ending,
and not another oxford comma.

You reaped my moist soils,
my soft grounded earth bed,
a soul, in a place to rest your head.
Before I only asked for water,
and when the seasons changed,
I died, brown and wilted over.
When our sun got hotter,
I grew with it’s new placements,
turning pedals where they ought to,
in the centre of our pink garden,
opening up for another keen drought.