authenticity has always come easy,
not for lack of anxiety.
merits of originality, often mistaken for novelty.
but i am not all grand gestures,
despite your skepticism, maybe my sincerity
is really that beautiful.
my mother reminds me,
that i have always been like this -
running around as a whole self.
my eyebrows pained from frowning,
my cheeks red from smiling,
knocking on a friends door to check-in.
feelings that fall flat when forgotten -
how could you forget me?
if i can love all of my shades, why can't you?

i want to apologize to everyone
and my bird of paradise plant
and the guy on the bridge who
i couldn’t say hi to back
i want to say sorry for clinging
too long to things that couldn’t see me
for all the ugly parts i am
rigidity and emotion gasping for air
i want to make amends for chasing
ideas of what i wanted things to be
and who you couldn’t be, even if you tried
(did you ever really try?)
i want to beg-pardon for saying too much
providing the instructions on loving me
as if i was a wrench or owners manual
objectifying something indescribable

now we’re thirty, and angry,
cane chairs lining cliche CB2 tables.
i’m selling the apartment i fled to then
for a generous 2brm, 2 bath in Leslieville.
my friends and i vacation in Bali;
exchanging bars for charcuterie eves.
Olivia laughs with me about our twenties,
both of us still stale, silly, and single.
i want to remember the complex simplicity
warm disorganized summers in Fort York
believing in the Toronto dream -
waterfall islands and **** toasters.
when we were in love, then out to lunch,
then back into the vortex of unknowing.
never get too comfortable in a mirage -
sometimes hurt is the catalyst for
the perfect vintage record stand.

sometimes i smoke ****
numbing the abandon i’ve felt
and once and a orange moon
i eat shrooms in a forest with friends
to feel the child like joy unlock
skipping through narrow grass
sometimes i have a glass of wine
and the body twirls into itself
the calmness sweeps softly
for when i let go of my thirty worries
ghosts of my past stir more quietly
the dangers of living move to far corners
pausing my devastation, and the loss
of what i imagined my life to be

if i was your type
would i be smaller than you in stature
the force of my words softer,
my thoughts easier to live under?
if i was your type
would i be a light read?
the picture painted black and white,
while my greys keep growing with age.
if i was your type
the stress of a minimum reaction
feels more natural than breathing,
the double texts reciprocal.
if i was your type
would you want me then,
in the same ways that i want,
for only the sake of company?

I'm your jester here. In the dawn of early fall
evening crosswalks, I point out my favourite book stores.
Look, the red maples, turning into dust,
paint-by-number yellows. Look, the dirt is drying up
crisping your white shoes on edges.
I walk through Ossington with you
stirring through my mind. Street lights flicker well into
the signs of cold October. Look, the fancy stores,
the cute golden retriever in the red rain coat.
Fall is when the only things you know
become the things I've named them.
Soon I can offer you a new season:
frosting window panes and shiny Distillery lights.
The first time you see me okay with change -
see me laugh with my friends boldly,
coming back into my honest self. I'm forlorn for you
to love the world the way I do, because I brought you here.

they sat hiding under the bunks
whispering babies sharing brief joys
before the mush food and the cold nights
which silenced tradition and beauty
he tried to remember his mothers face,
through stale air and bronchitis stirring,
when we forget what happened
a survivor sees the stares of nuns
on bad days, the arms of a justified priest
his sister can’t speak to him here,
where friends disappear every month timidly
for failing to exist more softly
so he can’t remember his language anymore,
what was the word for hope?