chocolate godiva hair
          plush pinks
curving
          more than I could
heaven vanillas
          must have tasted
like the almonds
          her skins olive
oiled up for summer
          tasteful photos
you're there too
          in the pools
          reflection
i wish i could
have been        her
selling my sanity
          for an IG
or a glass half empty

Asphalte - nothing more sinister
than black wicks and
melted British Columbia coniferous'

Beige pavement - sleeping legs,
the hum of traffic, and
grey-toned depressions

Chalked up - memories,
scrawled out on blanks,
video tapes, and Air Max 97's

Smoothed by the grace of your thumbs
on my temple -
like a thimble to a sharpened needle
curving about the wandering dark silk.

King West vendours and spinning sugars
left untraced.
Woven into cracks of heated chemicals and gun smoke -
summer is not walking the plank,
only splinters.
Chilled Apothic California reds,
and sweet almond tarts.

I took you for a working fool,
only to find you
a soothing villain.

Hookup culture is a beast I cannot tame.
Drawing at my insecurities
again, picking and gnawing.
Nothing will be left now,
except the empties from the party.

My cellphone rings,
and it feels like nothing.
Pushing buttons and
overdrawn lipstick.
Bite it anyways,
apply the waterproof.

I’m gonna get it tonight.
Catch a feeling or two
Teach a lesson or three,
And for the first time –
Teach you to understand human emotion,
empathy,
and too often the human cry.

I won’t steal your keys,
and make you walk home.
But if you leave me with the Cherry pits,
the bill, or the half-smiles,
you’ll be lucky to leave with your sweater.

I am a terrible girl,
but a great date!

There are more women
unseen.
Doing more work than you'll
ever have to do.
Asking the right questions,
to open fields.
Kissing glass ceilings for
spots at table ends.

Despite my skins translucency,
I am seen more.
In T.V., Magazines, Movies.
If Black women are "loud",
it's only because you're not listening.

Suicide by pesticide,
Guns to police.
Sold to be a wife,
Don't put up a fight.
Getting your nails done,
by a stereotype,
you look at your T.V.s.

To see you,
the same consumable ****.

The state of the consumer,
as long as your
pretty,
impartial,
straight,
able,
classed,
and most of all,

white.

Technology raised me, a single truth,
A distant voice calls a subconscious blues?
Need not give lessons, need not to give proof.

My Children’s children Google from a roof,
Built into our blood, a gift, or a bruise?
Technology raised me, a single truth.

A full set of pearls, yet somehow a spoof,
Was it ever something that we could choose?
Need not give lessons, it’s merely abstruse.

Will the children read underneath a spruce,
Their youth affected by iPad’s in use?
Technology raised me, a single truth.

Is it hidden just like a chip in your tooth,
We turn to our computers, say our “I do’s”?
Need not give lessons, we’re unwashed, uncouth.

The T.V. confusing, full of untruth.
Dreams of a world, can I get out of this blues?
Need not give lessons, need not give proof,
Technology raised me, a single truth.

We lay in it. A king?
A queen? The daffodils,
a side table. Etching white lines
on your dark skin. Cashmere.
Clouds are pillows. Moss is fabric softener.
I am tumbling out of my - drawers
are thick blades of grass.
You think trees are equations.
Masterful and wise. I think they are god,
pure and solved. When I was born,
they planted me firmly. You plant a kiss,
the wind brushes, my cheeks are red -
You smell like apple crisp.

I'll always remember summer,
from the comfort of my winter solstice.

This is my brother.
He is thirteen.
He has darker browns.
Bigger ears,
and Greener eyes.
He's wearing black,
a shirt too big.

He's holding a donut to our heads.
We are smiling.
He's holding my
neck in place,
showing me the camera.

Parents tell you
what you're suppose to see.
Not me.
He's telling me to look.
I've never been good at
paying attention.

My fathers holding
the camera.
My mothers still
at work.
Brian is hiding
in his room.

Mark is here,
with me.
And this moment is
wholesome.

I will always remember the curve of streambank drive. The way the definitive black Pontiac would make any neighbour incapable of getting home. Always sitting there blocking the entrance of my street. Swerving into oncoming traffic was a chore, but something about it made you feel alive.
Charlotte and Hannah Tarr's house was 37 and a half steps from Saginaw. Their driveway was winding and inviting to my gaze. I was never far. I remember when I ran away from home at 4am on an unusual Sunday morning impulse. I spent a whole hour throwing on my warmest red fleece sweater and packing a backpack full of Dunkaroo's and fuzzy childish socks. I went out the back creeky tin door from my basement, and made my way.
Charlotte was asleep, and her blinds were drawn. I spent another hour tapping light enough on the glass to wake her and not her dad Bruce. She never woke up.
I ended up walking through the crisp morning to Woodeden park. It was only 5minutes from me, but I knew it could be a dangerous venture. As I walked slowly and quietly down the street, I had passing strangers on runs question why a small little girl might be up at 5am:
"Is there anything I can do for you sweetie? Are you lost?"
"I'm okay thanks", and I ran. Just like that my attempt to prove a point to my parents was over. I ran all the way back home.
My mom asked how I got up so early and I told her I was outside testing the weather.
"It's cold Laura. I could have told you that."
"Sorry."
"Go get ready for church. DigaDiga is going to be over any minute."
DigaDiga is my grandpa. He smells like Nutella and has a button nose. He's not quick like he used to be with my 20 year old brothers, but he chases me around and yells DigaDiga until I lose a shoe. He's the only person I like.
"Is everything okay Laura?"
"I'm okay thanks."

I'm here at Girl Guide camp sitting by Lakelet Lake watching trees and water in a tête-à-tête, and I am simply an observer. Dull humming surrounds me and fills the air, pushing against my light golden locks that appear before the end of each bright summer. I am younger here, sixteen again and pulsing with light, evoking and echoing spirit. My legs are light too as I approach the edges of a tall birch dock that make the water seem like a steady pool without gleam. I find myself plummeting forward into it, water filling my ears and holding me close. The jump is always the worst part of this lake, the cold lasting, but it's a jump I've made before and it has to be sudden. You can sit there and deliberate the temperature, but you know you have to go in, so you surprise yourself. I quickly feel airy and steady once I make it, you do not need control for this. The water stays timid and vulnerable, I have good intentions. The breeze caresses my face, like a crack between the jet way and the jet, you smell the air blasting through the seam and you have your goodbye, touching the frame of the plane as an omen. My mom does not romanticize this moment, anxiety ridden and terrified of flight, but she touches the plane anyways. There's something to be said about being so sure. Is it romantic to know everything? I don't think so. People who are mostly sure are mostly boring, or maybe those people are floating somewhere too. My best friend Olivia appears before me, she sits perched on the dock and dips her toes in the green. I ask her if she can see anything going on through the lake. She responds, "nothing really". "Just old cottages and old people. Lily pads too".  I look an arm's length away as she said they were resting and find nothing, she must have lied, she knows I love Monet. I keep swimming out a bit further but can't make anything out. No houses, no sweet leathery old people with sun spots, just sun and whispering willows. My arms eventually grow tired and I have no choice but to steady on my back. I lay there, and I float a minute longer, just long enough to acknowledge that I feel nothing in this water. I can't even disassociate where my hands and the water meet, but they're shaking hands anyways.

Your handwriting is ******* me the ******* and every time your scrawny little fingers manage to get through a mediocre sentence your black ink smudges across the page like a baseball to a bat. What a terrible ******* comparison. How are you ever going to make it as a hobbyist writer. Hobbyist isn't even a word probably. If you had a second to not think about every single ******* thing all at once you'd probably be able to get through a single prose and thought. But you never could, so why start today? James Joyce's stream-of-consciousness was at least poetic, yours is just frantic and scared like a child lost in a grocery store for a whole minute without their mother. Speaking of, when are you going to tell her to stop emailing you job applications like a service agent. You have a voice. A small one. But a voice. And so do I. Did you think the author name drop was enough to seem like you might know something about writing, because you don't. Rest assured who's ever reading this knows that now. When we get home you better start your laundry because if I have to stay up till 3AM again your going to make me disassociate. That's what you want isn't it? Maybe if you're lucky I'll remind you about that time a centipede ran across your pillows by 1am. You think I'm your OCD speaking - I thought you didn't believe in labels. Whatever think what you want, I'm just a passenger. Kinda like that Black Mirror episode with the girl - you know the one - cause, well, your me and you have to know. What's it like to have a conversation with yourself you sick ****. Oh you just became conscious of your own voice reading this in your head. My bad - actually I'm not even mad about it. Your mad.

He outgrew me like a pair of jeans. Spun too long in the wash on high, left running hot and sunken in. I am loud and my jeans a gentle blue. Vibrant orange t-shirts don't go with dull blue jeans. My lips are blue too, thanks to ignoring my mom's eager growl to wear more layers on Toronto's lasting cold advisory days.
"Laura you better be wearing that scarf I bought you", she says sternly shaking a grey wool scarf in my face. A toddler to a raddle. I never liked the itch of wool scarves anyways, they always make my hair turn up and out of my head. Waving hello to passing strangers untamed.
He took his time that day to notice each and every hair, as we walked along the quiet Trinity Bellwoods area. Pristine and clean red-brick townhomes guide the sharp sidewalk, keeping you on Queen St. for hours, whether you liked it or not. The whole morning, he kept reaching out to pull my tall hairs and inspect its frilled mechanics with close sharp eyes. Feet pushing wildly into the ground, pulling my head to his forearm on the street side, "Your hair looks like it's trying to escape". He says while stepping across the moldy Toronto ***** cracks. I retort away, my hair snapping back up and out, "Yeah, I know my hair's prone to static, it's this ******* scarf, just don't be a **** about it". He pushes me away and adjusts his new black leather boots. Some pre-authenticated Doc's bought at Eatons.
I never seem to listen to the washing labels on things. They say, "wash with like-colours in cold", but I don't own a **** like-colour. I admire a hot wash that makes denim skin-tight like a millennial scuba suit. Britney and Justin's denim-on-denim-on denim power move from 2001 reincarnated - I just don't have that kinda confidence.
The grass today seems confident. Luscious and green, a Pleasantville with White Teeth Teens. That's a good Lorde song. If he heard it today he'd remember the line, "Their studying business, I study the floor", because it's authentic and mundane, like most conversations go.
I've stared at a few floors. One word too many escaping in process, running from my thick lips that tear around corners and cliché's like a marathon. My jeans too, with one stitch too many, now past a recovery point. I kept kneeling down on the wet pavement trying to gather myself and always tear a new one.
One time I took him to the Port Credit Busker fest in 2012 and him and I listened to Vampire Weekend on the paved stone walls that guide the walkways off Lake Ontario. "I like them their cool", his voice affirming into the moist summer winds. We continue on watching the street magicians yelling from afar with tall black caps disappearing behind fixed red velvet curtains that pull apart in good beats. We finally find a place to sit and relax, I lean back to hear the ****** of Obvious Bicycle as the magician finally pulls his curtain.  Grabs my **** firmly. His thick jeans dragging against the rigid pavement to catch his prey. It left a mark.
I stand the next morning on the same shore but with new jeans, before my early soccer classes I teach. Just kneeling to allow the waves to break apart in my hands and push away, my cleats stinging my cuts and molding over. I wait as if I expect some varied response in this set.
But here it is, plain water. Nothing extraordinary. Here I am with plain jeans and another grass stain. Or maybe, another layer of lint in his pocket. Lost from a tissue forgotten in the wash when your too busy enjoying the better parts of life. The velvet curtains, the climactic choruses. I stare at the floor.

Head torn against itchy familiar grasslands, I lie in a field of decaying cow ****. Sixty years ago, Great Uncle Adolf owned upwards of 8 large cows that would roam on the endless back green property of our cottage in the Kawartha Lakes. Hazy recollections from distant Easter's tells me at least three must have died eventually due to a heatwave in the early 90's. Their skulls sitting in the back ***** overgrown pond for a time, sweet yellow daffodils and sharp wild strawberry's framing it into place. When my brothers found the skulls, they spent an afternoon sulking and moping out of character on the rocky shoreline of Balsam Lake. They aimed their ruthless rocks at stinky dead catfish floating peacefully, throwing for every pang of 12-year-old pain they felt towards the somber history. When I found out, I must have just eaten my Lindt bunny and shrugged unimpressed, but my mom would have said I cried.
I was young back then, but now that I'm a full-fledged adult, I sympathize with the greens for enduring endless winters and **** storms that I haven't. My cottage has been taunted but never shaken by the continuous tornado warnings that curse the northern lakes, but she aged steadily in spite. Waves of modernism guiding her burgundy wood panels. Air conditioning, flat screens, and the down feather pillows my grandma collected and sewn for each sunken crisp bedframe before me, replaced by industrialized cold artificial fluff from Ikea. Now that I think about it, I didn't really mind breaking my neck. This cottage lacks truth, but gains in history, my favourite place on planet earth, all greens, blues, and natural floral arrangements that put the edible ones to shame.
There's dirt and mud here too but I always choose to be blissfully ignorant. If I ever ask my mum about the shambled green roofed tin cottage on the corner of the always pebbled School and Omega Roads, and their Jesus warning signs I get kissed lips and back glares. There's more to this old country town than they put on. There's a story waiting here.
Right now, I feel it's roots on the phone with you Jordan. Because you only remind me of my grandpa when I'm here, his tall slender frame, strong jaw and warm charm that makes old women gawk and causing shrill laughter in the presence of ripe anger. He didn't let my mom wear nail polish cause it was for ******, guess I'm from a line of ****** huh?
This one time at Christian camp they tried to teach me to meditate by picturing Jesus with me in my favourite place. It was so weird seeing Jesus sitting perched in this tall birch tree, looking at me, looking at the old broken down barn that waits for me to smile back. The sky orange, celestial, fiery. I sort of wish you were here and not my mental perception of Jesus, he sort of freaks me out. But in this open field where you could walk 8 miles in any direction and find grass and only grass. Sun and only sun. Trees and mostly trees, sometimes poison ivy too if you took the wrong turns. I am surely free.
I know all the turns with you too. But that's only because I'd done them over and over again, and still I'll face a dead end. I'm not sure we can solve each other like my Papa's Sunday morning crosswords, we're more like his raspberry jam with burnt toast. But I do know that I want to have more greens like the ones in this field. Build more pillows, farms, and people. I want more pastel pinks from the cheeks left kissed in the fresh mornings on Lake Ontario where our teen selves and adult selves get caught up in some interlope of history that isn't supposed to happen. Another Kate and Leopold situation, a timeless love analogy gone too long.
Today in this field it is peaceful, when the tall grass blows with steady patient wind, it feels like your soft lips. When the birds chirp annoyingly overhead, and I hear my brothers laughing loudly from the brown rusted dock, it feels like your aged smile.
I think Monet got it right when he said, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers", because without you I couldn't paint these words all day.

he pushes my hair behind my ear
and asks
"is this romantic?"
he would not have to ask
i am driving in my brothers car
half a tank of gas
a strangers hand on my thigh
he says
"this is a tumblr thing isn't it"
i wish it wasn't a "thing" and just was
i make sharp turns
i make wrong escapes
our conversation ends in
the heat of the afternoons burn
he touches my face
compliments it as smooth
but our drive is bumpy
his voice is unsettling
i smile and he squeezes my face to his
"can i kiss you?"
so i give in
i let it all go
i have wandered between empty fingers
too long to know it's not the destination
it's the drive

he wont be there in the morning
i will turn to my right
& his sweetness won't infect me
inside and out he is warm
his plump lips pursed
he snores but denies it
he has infected me
my mom studied microbiology
she doesn't know how to fix me

he wont be there in the afternoons
crisp leaves crunching under toes
hands in another's pocket
i always forget my mittens
head on a different shoulder
eyes on a different lake
i bet that lake is prettier than ours
my dad studied geography
but he never told me
this lake is melting

he wont be there in the evenings
bundled in sweaters and blankets
a pizza between us both
another shoulder to drool on
your eyes looked different
in the light of each dark night
my brother he's been labeled an artist
but he couldn't draw up
dark eyes like yours

Here,
i am slowly learning
that i am slightly more deserving
than what i’ve been given in my past
I am always on the right track
onto the next practical coordinates
and i no longer believe in crossing paths
i am a believer in destinations
that is the confidence and pride speaking
when i plan the journey ahead
i am good with direction
not hindered by crossed roads
not the path less travelled or the path created
i am not on your maps
distance is what i have asked for
time and time again i have fallen from a cross road
i am where you cannot find me
you can’t find something you can’t recognize
here at a dead end and still continuing
i am not on any path, but I am
Here

i held onto your lips through tears
as if they could cure the moment
held salvation and cancers demise
solved the wars in syria and my mind

i held onto your neck through tears
and i couldn't quite let you go
like easing off a high from heroine
withdrawing from everything i knew

i held onto your hair through tears
in a park id been broken up in before
words ringing through my brain
a deja vu i didn't want to romanticize

i held onto your arms through tears
dizzy, afraid, petrified, confused
how do i run to a friend for help
when you've been my only one for so long

i held onto your lungs through tears
as you bit back the air escaping your sob
this is where the road ends, our nightmares
we both seem to plan for the worst

i held onto your eyes through tears
i didn't want you to stop looking at me
forget who i was to you, who i am to you
don't you see that i'm yours, i am yours

i held onto your words through tears
in bed repeating your quivers, the goodbye
when the last thing i said was i love you
it wasn't because you were scared

it's because i was

do not get too close
to the one you love
for they have out grown
what you may become
they have their own thoughts
opinions may vary
love is grand
but it can be scary

icarus loved the sun
he gallantly flew
to hold what he loved
to find further truths
he just got too close
what can one do
love is something dangerous too

when you love someone
don't get too close
their thoughts are their own
their space is uncut
be cautious with your questions
your proximity can lose
but don't get too close
you might get burned too

it is like i'm being pushed away from myself
my brain hoping to be tethered down
but i always seem to forget to buy the string
and i will lie endlessly in bed
wondering when i last had seen myself
time moves so slowly here
i can't even find the time lines
or a rhythm
or a reason i don't deserve this
i deserve this

i no longer know if this is a personal torture
or a lesson i forgot to have learned
but it's awfully lonely here and i forget that
girls are suppose to be "social creatures"
i guess i'm not the only one here after all

accompanied by suppressed thoughts
whispering secrets and love me not's
that i never even knew were happening
somewhere in the background, week after week
collecting all my mistakes and inner comments
to shot when the times are the worst
making it two weeks unscathed
with half my wits left

that's a good week

you are fast asleep
in your own personal storm
as i sit in my own
the realities have swept me

you are so sweet
i have developed a sweet tooth
your love solid
i need it's guidance too

you are always there
constant, forgiving, patient
i am somewhere else
distant, rising, uncontrolled

you are centred
managing the moments that pass
i am running for them
finding out they had already gone

you are cautious
mostly of me and how i see
i am working
on being more vocal

you are mine
i will never understand that wonder
you are something else
i wish to be the better version of myself

The Crack in My Voice

the one held by structure and poise
the one held by sincerity yet worry
the one held by the thoughts of you
and I together

The Late Night Deep Breathe

the one that got me through my wednesday night anxiety attacks
the one that whipped away my tears 5 times in counting
the one that carried my suitcase across cities and trains
the one that made me finally see you
and I together

The Van Gough Poster

the one which makes me think of better things
the one which sees the starry nights to come
the one which takes me back to the core of myself
the one which creates what is you
and I together

The Argument We Had On Church Street

the one that led me to ignorance
the one that made me cry for 2 minutes straight
but i haven't cried, even 5 months later
thats how i know that everything is real with you
and I together

it's 7:00am and your alarm sounds
a classic default ring
regardless of your musical options
you remain conventional in this one

i glide my hand smoothly across your chest
not only because i love your form
but more so, i like to feel your breath
it's calm, gentle, and steady rhythm
something i long to have

you ease into my side
nuzzling my shoulder quietly
and without words you cross over
stopping the alarm to a halt
but you won't get up for another 15
you'll just grab my hand

i move to your hair
softly i run my hands through it
careful not to mess up a single wave
rising and falling, never crashing
i can never really remember what messy looks like

maybe its the way your put together
or how god shaped your soul
but when i look at you
i see nothing but strength and poise

maybe you don't see it all the time
maybe i wish i saw it less in spite
but your so well rounded
so well put
i want to unwind you

i want to smack all your alarms
i want to knock your wind out
i want to mess up your waves
but most of all

i want to hold you back those 15 minutes

I never thought I’d be one of those people
the ones who sit in coffee shop's on Bay
readied note pads in hand, sitting with engraved pens
bought by mothers with high expectations
of their child drawing out the new future

But here we sit, a collective sum
drawing out pathetic fallacy’s
peoples right arms
someone else's future in poetic prose
finding details in the blur
of business men rushing past
so green is a theme in these woods

Grande Decaf 2 Sugars 2 Milk
and a shot of espresso
I stayed up late finishing a politics paper
What’s keeping you up “Todd of TD Bank”
Your extravagant 2 bdrm 2.5 bth on Bloor?
Or the realization your wife cheated on you
with a younger college drop out
i don't actually care Todd
i just want to write a new **** poem

Satchels hang from wooden chairs made by moroccans who get paid bottom dollar
I sit drinking over the sweat of latin americans picking coffee beans in a summer heatwave
the music plays to mask the confusion i feel here
displaced
my sperrys muddy and unkept
i am a large flaw in this small system

i'll keep my pen gliding
finding the answers to my questions
hoping when my words meet they shake hands in agreement
they are thoughts but not entirely
thoughts are questions short lived
and often unanswered

it turns out theres no answers in my silver pen either
engraved with an edgar allen poe quote
to a poem my mom never bothered to read
she wants me to draw a future
yet doubts me in every step to achieving one

in every single month
you wipe away a tear
you take away a worry
you mask another fear

in every single day
you ******* alive
shine out of parts of me
i often try to hide

in every single hour
you continue on in muse
my optimistic lover
my right hand and my bruise

in every single minute
you leave your mark on me
give me a varied outlook
constantly helping me see

in every single second
i wait for the next one
hoping it never changes
all the glory that you are

that i have become

amidst the loud noise
& the sweat that drips from heated foreheads
your hands slip from a new friend to a red cup
& for the rest of the night you’ll idly stand
maybe concerned with tomorrows homework
trying to catch a feeling
of the way peoples arms look without weight

you weren’t going to even go out tonight
but your friends said you’d regret it
even though you knew you wouldn’t if you did go
you went anyways, worried this time was different
but now that your here
and they’re playing fetty wap for the second time
this time isn’t different

what is different is the artwork
someones failed attempt at collaging girls *****
tasteful side **** to full exposed kardashian
the only thing unexposed is the exposed brick they covered
ironically and sadistically
you remember frat boys don’t do metaphores

you manage to get your hands on some chips
as your eyes meet some guys across the room
awkwardly and unobviously locking in place
you step away from his line of vision
moving backwards towards kate
who can’t remember your name from film class
so you have to hint at chanelle for input
stumbling to call your name through liquored breathe

lost in thought, but somehow forming sentences to kate
someone nudges your side
Alex
He was the guy across the room
the lighting must have been weird or something
you talk for a bit about middle school
he hugs you uncomfortably
wondering if there was some broken rule
about accepting hugs from people that aren’t your boyfriend

He tells you about his skate board
attempting sarcasm at every turn
his voice burning into the air
soon the conversation swoops to music
he asks about your taste
you say you don’t have any
and you’re arms start to feel weightless too

You say bye to Alex (and to Kate)
Chanelle mouths “where the hell are you going”
before you know it your on line 2
drifting to bloor and younge
writing about a party
that you weren’t even suppose to be at

you're writing about a party that never really happened
but somehow that night still really ****** you off

our battles are often fought
with our hands tied behind our backs
because no one ever sees
perception holding you up for grabs

in your fight with varied outlook
your opponent will be torn
due to their lack of better judgement
or the opinions that they've sworn,

were completely right to begin with
don't disregard these facts
if i talk in this particular tone
what kind of purpose does it have?

the answer is: it doesn't
have a purpose or a gain
unless you're one for false politics
then continue on in vain

17 hours
before your flight to
egypt
and i can't say
that's too short
because then
you will leave milan
speechless
just like you made me
the night you left
just like i made you
leave me without
finishing a single sentence
because 3 weeks
i can tell doesn't
seem like
a whole lot to you
but to me it's enough
to know
what it's like to live
without a sidekick
and i don't want to know
that feeling
i don't want to know
what your doing
because all i know here
is that your sweater
doesn't smell as sweet
as it did filled with
your strong arms
just 5 days ago
and i find no good
in goodbyes
because last time
there was distance
it had fell apart
so just promise me
you won't say goodbye
unless you really mean it
unless you really want to
because i'll let you leave
just make sure
you never
finish the sentence

you are one good thing,
in much that is bleak
but your made up of,
many good things,
like your laugh,
a special treat

i say this because,
it hardly comes around
i wish i could invite it to dinner,
and take it out to town

because when your goofy grin,
appears right out of thin air,
i think just for a second,
i might be good enough,
to dare

to love you,
and care for,
every good thing that you are,
and tell you how much i wish,
i could compete,

because all my good things,
have been previously scared

fallen from the path
you forced me to land on
i stand here at a crossroads
two roads diverge
your favourite poem
and i don't choose
the one less travelled
i choose
to build my own

i am a shaper
i was moulded to be your everything
i was who you wanted
who you loved
by design
but that was never me
i was reading from a script
of what i thought was the truth
even if i did write it
in the end
i was the only lie present

there is no one to blame
but the insecure girl
held by promises and lies
who took what you said
and made it seem like it mattered
but matter is relative in space and time
and i am something much more
than i had ever even thought
or dreamed

today i'm still an insecure girl
but i'm held
together
only
by myself

i'm sorry
read in the most hollow voice
i'm used to people misusing its choice
is it a choice?
no?
am i wrong?
to think the person you are is gone
because what's an apology without no fear?
to admit your wrong, your at fault
your unclear

i'm stupid
we say to ourselves at night
looking back on a fight
saying maybe i could have handled this better
or maybe i should have wrote you a letter
tell me does it matter now?
looking behind what's already sound
"the pasts in the past"
that's what my mother says
laura you can't change it
if you did
you'd be dead

i'm misunderstood
said the girl in scarlet letters
how can anyone know who you are
it's just feathers
things that float in the air
eventually to be caught
how can anyone know
what they never even sought

i'm in love
we say when we finally learn the feeling
we share it with friends, family, when we're dreaming
it can be anything it wants
in any form it can
a chocolate box, some flowers
when he finally says "i can"
cause some need to overcome things
others need to listen
to their heart because sometimes

the beating of a feeling
needs to learn
to glisten

walking across my neighbours lawn
creates a deja vu
sometimes the moments i've lived
feel completely see through
i always make the same mistakes
and sometimes there's regrets
but the only thing i can remember is
how my mind felt complete unrest
during those times you played your mind games
the ones that left me bare
cold to the core at a single moment
telling myself i shouldn't care
it left a couple marks on me
at the time i felt completely used
but now i'm trying to move on
across a lawn
covered in all the memories you put me through

this familiar feeling
one i tried to forget to have
always seems to linger
in the nights where i learn to laugh
about how my brothers upstairs
playing video games quietly in his room
do you think he can hear us kissing?
i'm not sure, but i'm in tune
to the way you respond to my touch
or the way you shut your eyes
when you listen to me whisper
another stream of rhymes
ones that are held in conversation
or maybe in your arms
i'll take you anyway i can
just please don't leave a scar

my whole life has been a loss for words
because how do you explain a feeling
no one has ever felt
how do you explain a feeling
that no words were invented for

i'll start with a metaphor
and end with a sigh
because most minds can't fathom the race
my mind makes these games
i never get time to read the rules for
or were there any to begin with?

i get tired after a couple of laps
my mind begs for forgiveness
for a break and a breathe
but i never seem to get one
i'm all too busy trying to get
everything else entirely

the water in the shower was hotter than july
and i can't remember when my head hit the side of the porcelain tub
but it did it painlessly

when i fell and started to cry
i couldn't tell the difference between the ground
or the pure white floor
everything seemed to twist and turn into a dark bruised mess

i sat there naked and vulnerable for hours at a time
wondering when the next wave would crash
hoping this time the tide wouldn't pull me in so far
but it did

an hour or so later
when my dad asked me why i'd been in the bathroom so long
i told him i was cleaning the tub
but he knew that wasn't true

he knew what a tub was for
afterall,
i went to clean myself

who
are you with tonight?
tracing her fingers along your spine,
finding paths you took to nowhere,
crossing edges, my territory.

what
are you wearing tonight?
with your white boxers hanging off your hips,
at the bar with some college kids,
getting under someone, getting over me.

where
did you go after this?
taking the path less traveled kid?
did you look back and wonder,
or did you just let our bygones live.

when
will i see you next?
what can i expect? should i want to?
i've been looking at bottoms of bottles,
did you put me on the shelf for later too?

why
did you give it less thought?
did the repercussions hurt a lot?
am i the only one that ever cares?
are these too many questions?

“I’m here”
I take off my shoes and look up
He lies across my sheets
His eyes staring eager like a little boy
I smile hoping he’s questioning my day
He doesn’t ask anything about it

“I wrote a new song”, he says
“Should I play it?”
I nod, as he moves quickly across the room
When he reaches back with his guitar
He looks at me so concentrated
Without delay he begins to play

He stares into me, and past me
Focused on the music he sees
Because he’s never even read music before
He’s been too busy trying to read me
It doesn’t take me long to realize
That he didn’t come to me for lyrics this time
That this song doesn’t need any

After he’s finished playing, he packs up his guitar
And glides on his favourite jean jacket,
Covered in buttons from all the concerts we’ve seen
He looks at the ground and bends down,
He puts on his shoes and looks up
“I’m leaving”

it's 2:34am
and all I can think about is the way you said to me:
"if anyone's going to leave, it's you"
because it burns in my mind when I write it on blank paper
and then i get mad
the paper looks so empty
why is it so messy
where did i write these words?
i find myself writing your words unacknowledged
just in the centre of a white page
and the white is only matter
it gets swallowed by gravity
the words a black hole with it's own gravitational pull
any matter, anything that ever mattered
you
it will find a way to pull it in
**** it dry
unless it's dust, almost nothing
not complete nothing
but something of something
that's when it stays
like feelings
lingering on as long as they can take
not even to consume them fully
but almost, never quite
exactly
if you look closer at the stars
you can see faces and the more sips i take from this bottle
they remind me of your dark eyes
and not in some increasingly overly done romanticized fashion
but more so in a
'you spark interest in me'
and
it hurts to be inspired by anything else these days
other than
you
i guess
more so the hope of you
which is, by the way, just as lively
as the idea of mythical creatures
the most anticipating satisfaction to admiration is the thirst for something unrealistic
you to be real one day
i would drink you to the last drop
and i'd still be thirsty
but i would never want to consume you
i would never want to run you dry
even in the end
there's dust left

here i sit, bottle in hand, on an adventure with no end
the search for you in late night alleys,
at the bottom of bottles, ash trays.
I think I start to see you in burning embers, striving for life at the edge of my dying cigarette.

I ache in the absence of your arms, ones caught up in other strangers
women with different proportions,
smaller voices, and softer cheeks.

despite it's appeal, I will continue to search, in all places known, places
you swore you’d never be.

just like you swore you’d never leave.
But all I can imagine is pale lifeless hands caressing your sweet dark skin,

pale hands that could never be mine
and it burns in my mind like a nintendo64 on pause.
it can last for days and weeks.

I wonder how I’ll ever find you in the places
you swore you’d never be
just like you lost me,
when you swore you’d never leave.

i don't know you yet
no
but i plan on it
you
an analytical puzzle
to solve, to create
another question left unanswered
or simply unchanged
something about you
so gentle
so sweet
into late night conversations
where my words get held back
cause i'd like to think
they taste better in person
things taste better when shared
but i see it
i see that i have to just live
live without thought
that i have to just do me
but who says i can't still do me
with the help of someone else
there is 4 letters in your name
but i have an infinite more
to share with you
so tell me if you'll wait
wait for the other 22 letters
because i'd say the alphabet
backwards
and forwards
just to see where it leads us

Here
Is where I'm safe,
Writing
always safer,
Somehow my pen can’t,
stutter as my lips do,
Words get stuck in throats,
But never fingertips

Curses
instead of cursive,
We won’t stumble
across paper,
We save that for our
Unfolded rugs,
Here we won’t
fall off the edges,
Because even if we do
It has elegance,
Balance idly follows poise

That’s why we have
our guides,
Solid trails of blue lines
Form our foundation,
Making definite and clear,
our ideas, thoughts,
         selves

Reading this, you can't tell I’m crying,
   am i?
Reading this you can't tell me I’m wrong,
          how can words be wrong?


Thoughts can
we catch them,
Like thieves in the night
Slipping
In between the cracks,
green eyed warriors with broken smiles,
            broken promises

Thoughts becoming our subconscious bombs
underground, unheard,
We walk into no man’s land
without a cover,
stepping,
          testing our grounds,
       waiting for the blasts

So we write about our past,
romanticized
Our future,
anticipated


We write ourselves a map
because this time we’ll figure it out,
this time,
the words will make sense
One day

Words will whisper,
tell us what we might not know,
            what we might not understand
Tell us our present
Can it be returned?

Writing makes things clear
our own words cannot hide the truth

Writing is real, raw, ridged
forever undisguised,

It can be whatever it wants
whatever we might need it to be,
Either a "yours truly",
       or a "yours sincerely"
or maybe it was never really ours
Maybe it ends in
               "best regards…"

Through written words alone
we can understand ourselves,
Open up closed doors,
heal the cracks left behind,
By our green eyed monsters
that we never seem to find

Emoting becomes a cure all,
        end all,
        of time,
        of silent sufferings

We’re all born blind
we don’t see what we don’t understand,
what we never want to have to understand
Until we write it down
unhinge

We stare into broken mirrors
the reflection of our ideas, opinions,
Unable to detect the fractions of light
or the scars we like to keep covered

Words,
an honest to god friend
Guiding,
through those blue lines
the hidden crooked valleys
magnified by our storms
our moments

All the in-between white spaces
missing pieces
we look to fill with black,
Making us finally learn to analyze
to ask ourselves
About those white li(n)es

Opening ourselves,
Trusting our words,

to the unknown

I’m a different woman
I pride myself on it
Sometimes masking
Insecurity
I tend to take things
Seriously
Literally
I use that word
Extensively
I try to see others
Moralities
Yet talk on top of peoples
Words
The things I jumble in real life
But on paper
They come to life
My mother has too kind a heart
My fathers pride a work of art
I am both of them
And none of them
Neither my brothers alike
Both two tend to fight
I take flight
I travel in converse
Unlike my family
Grounded by roots
By People
I am grounded by nothing
I am a bird
Sometimes I will fall
But I will always
Be there to catch myself

my thoughts tremble at a name
a name at which i've learned to never speak of
if i did speak of such a name
i'm sure it would still taste just as sweet
but ironically enough i've never really liked sweet things
like a strawberry
something about strawberries
my mom always seems to buy them
yet they only rot away in our fruit bowl
i know them too good to be true
to bruise easy at a light touch
and their red can only be described as a false exuberance
because they're only actually good through one season
which leaves me wondering
it's a shame to people who would go through all that labour
to enjoy something so uncontrollably sweet
for such a short amount of time

my window has always seemed to face towards the streets

i always try to have a birds eye view of things

yet my mentality is shaped to fit between a window sill

somewhere between what i can do and what i will

"eyes see different shades" someone had once said

well lately I've been seeing through different shades of red

i'd first wanted to say blue but that seemed rather morbid

i think red means something more than what life has in store for us

i'm seeing perspective but i'll be held back by my own

and the sun is a gold i'll never truly hold

if i stare too long to catch it i could go severely blind

i guess that's the parallel to seeing through someone else's eyes

& the problem with you
is your inner confliction
and your dire need
to leave without listen

but you need to realize
you never have to be tall
regardless physically
there's nothing wrong
with being small

not all art
has to go down in history
nor will all humans
but here we are
glistening

though you might not make it big
your ambition and strive
will give love a ring
because the art thats not famous
is still known by few
and appreciated by many
in all that it represents
all you can do

all the lives you touch
all the people that will interpret you
you're not a famous painting because
i’m the only viewer
smart enough
to have fallen in love with you