you call me again today.
it’s Wednesday at seven-o-clock,
my phone displays signs of battery drainage
because my life is equally burnt out, it blinks
for every second that we mull over details,
life’s silly intricacies that we dissect in delight,
like your terrible boomer boss Trevor, or
the bad banh mi you bought for lunch,
sometimes the person i’ll text next,
or my 2nd degree burn from the hot steamer.
i come over next, and we walk to Type Books,
buying more fiction than we can create.
you stop us at Tecumseh for A&W burgers,
because you watched a fun commercial on Youtube.
we go back to yours and watch period dramas,
everything about us is child-like. we huddle,
covered under a wool blanket, like the grandparents
in ***** Wonka, i stand up and perform a one woman
show reenacting a scene from Shrek, i go home.
i call you again tomorrow

i go to loud places in the nights we don't talk,
and sit at open tables with myself and peeled cuticles,
chipped green nail polish, and more rings than brain cells -
(i don't belong here.)
i go to loud places and i think about myself,
not in an ego, romantic way, more so in the way that i
end up at my own worst comedy roast -
(i think everything's wrong with me.)
i go to loud places and i stare at beautiful women,
how her skin looks so soft, blonde and dewy,
dancing over Katranada, with perfect lip filler -
(i think you'd talk to her.)
i go to loud places and i want to be alone,
search for someone to be quiet with who might relish
in my quick wit and peaceful violence -
(i still feel less interesting.)
i go to loud places and look bored and afraid,
and most times i am - as soon as i arrive i pack up whats left,
find the nearest exist, and ignore my shouting friends -
(i don't think they care.)
i go to loud places and i think about you,
even when i try not to, men buy me drinks and ask me things
but they don't get through, can't escape the truth -
(i wish i were with you),
i go to loud places and wonder why i choose not to.

i miss you in the sense that i miss the summer,
only on the coldest days, when i remember
altered realities, moments i felt warm and funny.
i miss you in the sense that i miss our ankles crossing,
and i think about venting to you, even when i think
about how you think about, how i’m a bad listener.
i miss you in the sense that i miss football,
because it gave me an excuse to be at your place,
after i could wear those sweatpants i liked -
now i think about my cozy apartment with coldness
and clarity, that i don’t want this bored moment
to last longer than my longing, which it has.
i miss you, when life is full of greys and grandeur, or
electric intensity, self doubt, self hate, and scoring to
track our mistakes before they keep repeating.
i miss you when i’m stubborn and annoying and
none of my friends have the heart to call me out, but you
do, and pull me in with ease, our bodies crash like waves
coming together only to pull tides apart.
i miss you in the sense that i miss myself, because you’re
always a part of me - and there’s no good in goodbye,
and no good in going steady, but i miss you, so i text you anyways.

i sit alone all night and watch as the
cars cross the bridge in rhythmic cycles,
i’m bundled on my couch under layers
of paperwork and half a medium pizza,
planning a summer trip in February.
i watch 4 episodes of the Walking Dead,
write a masters paper on Neoliberalism,
and call my mom to celebrate survival.
i live another week as a mid 20 something
who owns a Yeti cooler, a bright pink vape,
and a terrible personality to match.
is this what growing up looks like? i wonder.
i FaceTime my friend who bought a house,
another who lost a bet shaving his head for fun
and it is… to be this old and this young,
because either your friends are getting married,
or they’re sleeping with a CTV actor named Donald.
i don’t think there’s a point where this adds up,
the wave of maturity dances on our sore backs,
now it’s paying property taxes, it separates recycling,
goes to bed at 10:30pm sharp with a longer hangover,
meal preps for 7 days, only to order Uber Eats again.
you told me once there wasn’t a textbook for all this -
so I guess like my poems i just have to wing it.

you sit with yourself as you always have, alone,
i sit with the complexity of my emotions, together,
letting myself feel everything in the company
of my friends, loved ones, and a self-help book.
i know what safe love feels like because of them,
and that's why i have 25 reasons to wake up and try again.
sometime's i'm alone, but not really, i can't be -
at risk of texting apologies, or writing hurtful truths.
a network of feelings too vast to hold in -
you don't want to see me unearthed.
i wish i didn't have to write about this, you know that,
i'd rather a love poem and soft reflections on trees,
and so i give you my feelings like an arborist would,
watching my friends dissolve my splinters,
cutting my rotting branches one-by-one,
reframing them into fences of growth and change.
i wish i had their way, of seeing what i can be,
instead, i feel like a lotus in a pond of **** -
shining bright pink, like my cheeks, mildly embarrassed
by my own fluid, chaotic, and unhinged sense-of-self.

(it’s awful) to not be loved by you, (i do),
to feel i never will, mainly because i have a weird laugh,
and know too much about the wrong things, and too little
about the right things (things they like). because i have too many
opinions and i don’t like to be wrong about them (i am).
now i’m either a push over or being pushed,
and you find every button in me amusing.
i don’t find this funny at all, does he? (do you?)
you think i am unfeeling, but you never say how you feel -
i flood out the basement of my heart for what’s less of us. (not much).
you push away to an island of self hate and sabotage (avoidance),
ignore the problems and throw anchors down at “bad timing”,
you find more reasons to hate me, because it’s easier (it’s not.)
i think i am a deeply flawed good person, you think i hate you,
against my better judgement, i always learn
to love them more, and where’s the u in animosity?
that has always been my way, (unlike you), i believe i can change,
so i learn to love me more too, tell myself i need more (it’s true.)
(it’s awful) to love someone you don’t want. (i do).