the market was covered with silver,
old vintage lighters and hellish hipsters,
you asked me what my problem was,
when we stood there in the mirror,
staring at reflections of hands intertwined,
your feet already cold and staggered.
i said, the issue is i don’t have any
when we’re standing here together.
oh i thought - just give me one good reason.
i want the idea of you more than i want,
steadfast peace and solitude, stable,
sometimes forgetting what alone feels like,
knowing that i’m still able.
i should probably leave us here -
but, knowing that i’m too stubborn,
to let bygones be byes and gones,
still lingering into a prolonged exit -
so i stay with you another month.
i’m never gonna love anything good for me,
centrifuging parts of my identity,
pretending i’m not attached to concepts
and hefty bets on changes -
and it takes one to know one,
so i see right through you,
now i don’t even know your address.

got me through the rough patch,
droughts and my melancholia,
tending to the weeded, overgrown,
cut up good parts of me.
wildflower bouquets, and surprise coffees,
6 wine bottles and 2 awkward silences -
only to hold me at a distance,
never close enough to see the wrinkles,
the pore from my teenage nose ring,
or the scar on my left foot jaded.
you think about the way i fit into you,
subtext on a park bench in July,
and now the sun’s tucked away behind
mutual friends and soft playlists,
some people are facets of where we’re at,
and i never wanted a fixed address.

i’ve looked within myself,
self-help books become my mirrors,
character twisting into ugly shapes
of what i could have done wrong?
i keep looking for something,
but forgetting why i entered the room,
and they sit watching me search,
for human errors and common ailments,
that i quickly diagnose as disease.
i can’t keep a straight face,
stroking my ego to ted talks and podcasts,
while arguing about the colour of the sky.
what if i’ve never been a problem,
frankenstein wasn’t the creation,
he was the creator.

some days i don’t feel anything,
and it scares me, mostly because
i’m in the business of feelings.
but you don’t detach without warning
my mind freezes, i hope someone will call me
tap on the glass hard enough to break me -
usually in my bed, doom scrolling,
until my fingers can’t extend
enough to reach you,
the sun goes down quietly,
between the half drawn curtains
i sit and wait for the tightening in my chest
half a tear falling down my neck
but it doesn’t come,
and my notifications are turned off
can someone love half-empty?

obviously, it’s about you,
and the thousand hairs in your
bathtub, and the fact you read these
trying to decode my midnight delusion,
with a hope that it’s all perfectly fine -
and it always is, because we decided it.
let’s not read into this, you’re here,
(we both know we’re still broken)
and life isn’t going to be smooth or kind,
but i’ll try to make it sound sweet.
so trust my soliloquy's and good nature,
hold on to cheek kisses and prolonged stares,
treasure the sound of my eight alarms,
stay with my rolling eyes and shaking hands
for a moment longer you’ll understand,
nothing is ever picture perfect -
and poems are just like relationships,
everything could ****,
but it’s all about the framing.
if it wasn’t any good, i wouldn’t be
sitting here painting pretty words,
obviously, it’s about you.

quietly a mess,
my parents planted it when i was born
and every year i kicked and screamed more
and played make-believe with Emily -
that we would one day be grown too.
i still hold onto my innocence
so tightly that wrinkles are growing around it.
i try to be steady now,
twenty-five and slow to notice more of -
but every so often I turn bright red
and no one can hide from my ageless trends,
to be credible, reliable, dependable, unshaken,
but able to bend backwards, your sun mistaken -
and when the light goes out, and I turn away to rest,
will you still remember to water me,
quietly a mess.

i walk down Richmond quietly,
waking up to white crystal roof tops,
while St. Mary’s church bells
cry out for my resignation.
the fallen angel, walking on ice
with a birth control pack, Diet Coke,
and sometimes his painter sweats.
my Tim Hortons guy laughs with me
as i slip on black ice backwards.
for me, just breathing is falling victim,
to cold noses and cherry cheeks.
or to hope, long shots, and long hauls.
winter is here, i’m inside cozy,
and my mind gets too noisy,
to see things clearly.