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

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.

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

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

Now asleep -
When the nights fell
longer than they used to,
I fell too.

Slumbered into your arms.
Your father shrugging,
just to let me stay.

I remember how warm you felt,
our feet pressing,
into each others legs.

Is this my shirt? Is this yours? Does it matter?
What’s yours is mine,
and I am yours.

Pink and precarious,
you are green and enamoured.
I remember the blind dog,

and our blind optimism
- now awake.

I want to fall in love with you
like the way they do in the movies.
By the grace of the forgotten scarf,
the drifting current of situations undrawn.

Kissing you on the subway steps too fast
and follow safely into my own insecurities.
Will you still fall for me then? I wonder...
in the same ways that I guess the endings.

Because I’ve never been fond of soft surprises
But you were, caught in one moment.
Staring at your cut off black gloves intently.

I want to fall in love with you
like the way they do in movies.
By the grace of your good writing
and my ambition to act the part.

i want an anchor,
a steady, heavy, rain
down on me, catch.
soft talons to grab my
flesh, keeping me.
above air or under.

tender winds pushing,
never falling through.
charging at amity
crashing into loves embrace.

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?

one new burn on my wrist,
two tattoo's you'll never touch,
three new scars from falling,
four guys in my dm's,
five new pillows on my bed,
six coffee's with him,
seven days sharing apartments
eight kisses before bed
nine minutes in heaven,
ten reasons i don't think about you

Rural summer
    simmering and splashing
into shattered empties,
    stark parking lots,
        and suburban love triangles.
But quiet,
    onto 4am dusks -
skip every other step,
      timid wood always wakes parents.
Soon,
   play The Kooks vinyl in the morning,
skip every radio station
      into your 9 to 5 day,
while smiling in
               your dads ancient Subaru.

Of where I found it?
Oh that is the tricky part.
It is not in my soft yellow skin,
or my angelic avalanche blues.
Nor the way I reveal their tricks -
or my perception of them.

It is not in my frontal or parietal lobe,
not my hippocampus either!
Perhaps my eagerness knows of it,
and my care too!
Between the skin on my nails,
or in your mouth - or hers,
we haven’t spoken.

They tell me it does not ship,
that they’ll return to sender.
That I’ve got thousands of synapses,
and recovery files to date.

They say you will finally find it
when you learn to stop looking.
Or when you find yourself
in a better place.
So I guess, too bad I never had
anything nice to say?

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 wouldn't mind
if you stayed for the night.
Telling me all of your
fears, and faults,
and vices.

It is not a crisis,
to be open.
All my cards have folded.
You have been stronger
than all my emotions.

There I've finally said it,
I've spoken -
up about our misdemeanours
I've been chosen.

Can you heal a healer?
Your lips seem to know
these figures.

Build me up like a mausoleum,
but I am not your keeper.

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

Let them put me in my dry grave
with whispers of how much I meant,
and how little to show for it.

Give him red roses like my tattoo -
the same one my father had warned
would last forever.

Put bold ink in my obituary -
and let my mistaken mother
misspell my degree.

They can finally paint my long nails pink
and cover me in
compliments of untimely character.

Or my great grandmother Elizabeths golden rusted rosary's.
My papa will finally have his Rose and Rosalia in one place.

I’ll finally talk to god
and tell him my name was meaningless
I don’t need a name to know the hells I came from.

But they sent me to heaven
only for what I stood for
only after I could
no longer stand it.

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

Somewhere along the narrow path,
I dream of what I cannot have.
Lushes and blooms fill the gravels
whisking away at scared ankles.
Skies scream of consistent mellows,
drowing about my broken trebles.
The winds of change play their harps,
but I am singing past their darks.

If I could plan forever,
have carbon copies to the keys,
of the open hardwood doors,
to the new loves never seen.
I would create endless mood boards
for the heartaches every night.
Put playlists together,
for the good days out of spite.
(and pre-order Kleenex on Amazon Prime).

If I could plan forever,
there would be an anonymous “him”,
and we’d own like 7 succulents,
all 10 inches thick.
I would make him morning tea,
and he would try to make my day.
Put my miseries at Bay,
(cause he’s probably a swimmer but I don’t know that yet -)

If I could plan forever,
own a personality I liked
share the shining mirror with her,
knowing she had a creative side.
I wouldn’t need to be planning,
for the heartaches and the rent.
I would just put on my playlist,
and listen Today instead.

I have my suspicions
of your curiosity in me.
Do you marvel
at my wicked ways?
My velvet tongues,
and rough orange nails?

I cannot sit in awe of you,
or your forearms and good hair.
I cannot sit, I’m skeptical
of your charm.
This unbothered patience
you hold in zeal,
or in your hard earned BMW.

Mistrust is only
an overpass bridge,
I am just holding
my breath
trying to make it
under you again.

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

I wanted him strolling through
the lightnings.
Leftover lessons ones I didn't feel
like teaching.
Ones you pick up on the way home,
at Gerrard & Church,
         Streambank & Lornewood.
"Is he gonna be the one
made for you,
         or are you gonna build him."
I never studied architecture.
I never liked small talk
         about overcast weather.
and I never thought love was built

                                    only gathered.

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

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?

It’s in a secret folded letter,
in a book somewhere.
Building dust in your,
crusty childhood trauma.

Words like “I’m sorry that
we couldn’t fit together”.
Maybe “I’m sorry that they
didn’t teach you to love better”.

It might say that I just
want you to finally be happy.
You’ll think that’s another one
of my unforgettable darling lies.

But the anger I’ve been feeling
is completely unforgivable.
Making no better reason
to relentlessly forgive.

Seeking lustful validation
is probably my sin.
Seeking your forgiveness
is probably my mistake.

But time is always our cruelist
and truest confessors,
and I have never been betrothed
to anyone, but the truth.

you don’t really read into,
all my worrying semantics,
entangled on your couch
with the beers and joints clashing
all the mistakes we’ve made
that led us here dancing
and i feel the lavender haze,
sneaking up on bruised lovers
someone says i’m ******
so we’re ****** with each other
all you keep saying is,
we're going with the flow
but i just want to stay,
in your lavender haze

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

we wake up and absorb it,
tightly write dry plans,
best laid to go awry.
i exhaust all my options now,
turn off the curling iron,
blow out the last candle,
tie up loose ends, mark my calendar.
transit apps quantify me home,
but i still overthink breathing,
always late, or too early,
there’s no timer for this life,
no remorse for the lists we’ve made,
or the poorly scheduled TTC train.
control is a bottomless pit, and
i drink every last drop, knowing
you could wake up tomorrow
and feel differently, and i guess
so could i - so let’s try,
with whatever control we have left.

I am my grandmother tense,
and my mother frantic.
My grandfather suspicious,
and my father hot headed.
I am my brothers manic,
and my cousin confused.
But in the very end -
we are what we choose.

I was born in the northern lakes,
in a small winding wave
of unpleasant emotions.

To dream of me was a myth,
conceiving me an accident.

Yet they confide in me for comfort,
they drill me for being raw,
and take my goodness for grave abandon.

Their love is sensationalized,
asking for new leaves to shade them.

But growing up had never meant growth
and I keep on getting chopped up,
to light their dying embers.

How my morals and ethics lay at night,
soundly waiting on the day’s break.
I do not shake for desire, or
knocking on woods for a stranger like you.

A tender birch, stiff and rounded sharply,
I’m a whaling dog to the moons closing.
The world was one before me,
and the world will be won after.

the over-functioning reservoir
of matter-the-fact delusion,
so that we can stay on the same sides
the crisp 5:35pm streetcar calls
over the sound of your Youtube videos
awkward dances around topics
we forget to make happen
and future promises that we can’t keep,
because feelings are awful
and neither of us have any left

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

you love to kiss my stern mouth
when i rip up in passionate graces
but i am not a mistake, i promise
i am an awfully good learner

still i wait on your patient notices
any slight gesture to ask for more
a longer goodbye that lasts four hours
so you can kiss my smiles to form more

I fear you -
your rights and wrongs
the small on your back
bigger than before
I fear you -
that you know my dark parts
and my light ones too
weaker than before
I fear you -
kissing another broken woman
that sh’ll fit even
stronger than before
I fear you -
in the way I fear myself
because we hate the things we are
and you’re the worst of all

I was never there in your vintage sweater,
standing at the convenience store
when you failed to toss the cigarette out, or me.
I was never there when you got us pizza,
and we did the same walk four times
just to see each other in a different light.
I was never there after you got the news,
and you looked like you were crying
when your mom called and I left quietly.
I was never there when you laid asleep,
picking up my clothes softly to tie up
the loose ends of whatever we were doing.
I was never there,
because I never let me stay to begin with.

I am made of wilted spinach,
soaking in my grandmothers cast iron.
I am craving the hot and heavy words
they feed me.

I am not your songbird,
floating high among the daisy beds.
I am jersey sheets, thick Croatian prayers,
the sharp steady edelweiss
lasting.

I am my Dante Mary’s willowed secrets.
Soft and pillowed – my voice cranked,
trying to reach further than they told me.
I am my grandmother’s angel,
but I am down on earth

crusted.

i used to trace stars
around your spaces
& kiss your neck with hope
now i’m doing shrooms,
getting a masters diploma,
& listening to too much Lorde

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.

if you take all my sheets off,
& say the worst things in the dark
i can learn to find some rest, knowing
i won‘t love you any less.
even when i’m mad and blue,
and say the same things back to you,
pack your things and leave a mess
knowing, i won’t love you any less.
& when i hold on much too tight and
cling to all the what-if/mights,
even when you don’t pass my tests,
i won’t love you any less.
if you forget how i feel and turn
away to something “real”,
i hope you’ll remember how i felt, but
i won’t love you any less, i guess,
because of all the ways i’ve loved,
and all the ones that i let run,
i take a breathe, and beat my chest, cause
i won’t love you any less.

I stayed so long I began to look like you,
and started shrinking into myself,
amnesia to the cold infantile display.
Promises from my own imagination,
and gifts of pretty projection.
Laura you can't change people -
but love, love comes so easily.
But like an expired library book,
with overdue charges and a cliché cover.
You can't blame me for judging.

I wish I could be bigger
fuller than a lemonade glass,
hair waved out,
and nails painted mauve.

If you could see me
for who I've tried to be.
A tongue bitting sweetener
with clean white sheets.

Never a sinking green raft
shooting its last and final flare.
I am all too reserved,
and I am all too stubborn.

But still I've been floating,
going further, on to new,
flares burning brighter,
hair growing longer.

I wave out now to my old home,
returning to myself again.
My nails are painted green,
and I've grown just short of an inch.

i don’t miss you on a Wednesday,
when i call into work sick and tired
and i can’t get up to put on the kettle.
if i faint now, who will find me?
so, i don’t miss being loved, hardly,
always when it’s stiff and inconsistent.
rushing through me, to better plans,
past the feelings i had to hide tightly.
i don’t miss the nights you rubbed my back,
and i could rest in your dependancy,
instead of reeling out what i never have.
i don't miss you at all these days,
despite my awkward tendencies to write like i do,
but once in a while i wonder what love felt like,
sometimes i think he wonders too.

Not have been my saviour
without socks -
and off white shirts.
Maybe cause of her pasta stains,
or overwork.

Thin brown locks, and
thick hard words.
Cross off your lists and
dot your T's. Life might
**** us over. But it
won't take her
sharp wits. Blunt
force for intelligence,
lovely soft kindness,
mistaken for
fatal generosities.

You saw no reflection
good enough for telling
your greatest story.
The way a story
"ought to be told".

That's why you had a daughter,
who became a writer. Cause
it always ends up good enough
for both of us,
when a pen's involved.

I am grey and preluding. I have wounded and wound.
When I see truth I hum closer
Just enough, to swallow it whole.
I am not an angel, only mocking.
The lips of an answer, a plotted confession.
Time has been spent on your alter.
It is beating black, with blue siding. I have looked too long
I think my bloodied knees would know.
Yet flames still flicker and each ember dies over and over.

Now I am a field. A woman standing up,
Searching my corners for what she really is.
Then waving high to the doubts, out to the wines,
and low to the moons.
I see her tears, and take to them.
She thanks me in more cries, and softer verbs.
I am her saviour. Yet she hides too.
Each night it is her morning.
In me she has blown away a young girl, and in me a wiser woman
Gazes towards her day and night, like a new moon.

i rubbed your back
as we broke up
i packed you a bag
you called me babe
even through then
wanting to be something more

i did your laundry
that you left here
you’re in ibiza now
posting money pictures
looking past me
wanting to be someone more

The old rocky mountains
choose to shimmer,
the peaking suns of
my new morning.

Steaming black coffee
sits in his favourite
orange tin mug
always without handle.

On the edges of the
rich green damp tent
I twist apart a newspaper
pulling it to wooden flames.

I breath so deeply in
pulling down to my core.
That I burst out fully
into raw audible sighs.

Reaching parts of me
I’ve forgotten I own.
Peace is not this moment
but this feeling.

The sky today is higher
widening out into wide array.
My love today is stronger,
and this distance is healing.

Sometimes my lonely
cannot by conquered,
fears tear at nails
and then myself.

Have I ever known peace?

Sometimes my lonely
tells me I can’t.
Fears eat at hopes
and then myself.

Have I ever known trust?

Even in myself,
my nails tear at fears,
that can be conquered,
sometimes I’m lonely
but it cannot be owned.

Quiet Easters awake the spirit
in a shiny April dusk.
Where you call him "Baby"
by Mum's purpled hydrangeas.

Crossing many desolate fields
in hopes of finding cheerful Forget-Me-Nots.
You have found sorrowful stories
of holy ghosts arising,
and then falling.

Spilling out
of passing spring dwellings,
with trees holding far too many rings.
Strong and sturdy,
yet knocked down for a pretty penny.

I wish we could be
milled, burnt, and wrote on.
Growing out of muds
like the words on this paper.

Like mother nature,
I've been fooled into thinking
I was more than I am.
But only until man makes me,
something I am not.