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.

the afternoon fell like a slate of snow,
tumbling off the rooftops,
a cool haze of memories of the year -
flashing moments of serenity, pain,
and all the stupid ways i’ve loved -
lost and found. if i am anything,
let me be resilient (and humoured) -
this year was an underground parking spot,
takes me 3 point turns, and 20 minutes,
but in the end i get it done, and spend
another 20 minutes laughing about it.
i dance with you to Usher in the car,
water my plants with conviction -
i’m not sure what the plans are now,
i don’t know what the time is,
i’ve just been learning how to be,
authentic and optimistic -
all i have is hope for the new year,
but when i run out of that too,
i have my resilience to keep going.

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.

have a good summer without me,
man without dryer sheets, stinking,
singing in the alley behind truth,
something you stumble over still.
did you ever even notice me?
how i spin for you, knotting together
reason and feelings for answers.
you search for half empty cups
on your side of the bed - and say
i’m too good for you, that
you’ll always be this way - so
have a good summer without me,
knowing that’s the only truth
you’ve ever told me.

affection feels like running with scissors,
jagged lines between comfort and longing,
forgetting self-control and remembering
the awkward scripture for vulnerability.
no one has ever held me for long,
always sitting on the brink of disaster,
edging my unconscious homeostasis.
cutting up the unwieldy girl
for a comfort that has already matured.
practicing how to hide my sharp parts
while he’s still reaching out for me
with all the arms of a Hindu god,
wondering why i can't hold hands
with someone who’s seen all of me -
maybe i’m just too much to hold.

if you weren’t my friend,
i wouldn’t know who i was -
a part of me replaced by insecure ex’s,
musicians with bad communication,
software developers, underdeveloped,
shifting parts of identity made out of static.
i would cry somber and alone again,
instead of under christmas lights
to the Gilmore Girls opening credits,
where we sing too loud to hear our thoughts.
a sour wine bottle between us, and
vacation magnets lining my refrigerator
from all the places we’ve face-timed from.
reviewing in details your love bombing dates
and my anxious attachment -
raw parts that feel unprocessed,
which you quickly dismiss as normal.
i hope he can love me like you have,
simply, softly, like breathing - and
as brilliant and cunning as we can be,
but never as handsome, obviously.
i love to grow our gardens together,
tending to one another’s strengths and
nurturing weakness for authenticity.
i would take the miway, gotrain, and ttc -
just to laugh on the cold beach with you,
and make some mistakes for review
over another cup of coffee.

i write to you when i forget
how my feelings work,
and when their nicotine addiction
curves into lost sentiments that break.
they don't know who they are,
so i was born with a strong sense of self,
and the assurity of my next breath,
despite my chronic asthma.

people think you need to be sound,
so he plays spooky guitar noises
to silence the idea that life is quiet.
we are always running for safety,
looking for constance,
some find it in a glass of control,
but i've made peace with not knowing
practically anything at all.

holding me or holding back,
haven't got the time for that,
pick a side and stick to it,
or to me, autonomously
you decide your fate, and
i've been both faithful and
revered for knowing when
to call a ***** a *****,
but i'm so secure in myself
that i don't want sympathy,
except for yours, so just have me.
sometimes i wonder if i'm
worth holding on to,
but at least i say it all,
can't you see i'm see through?

waving hips with you to Machine Girl,
drinking terrible mixers of orange juice,
and whatever ***** my friend left last,
sometimes i let my head rest too long.
kissing my sunburn from Sunny Side beach,
trading my iPhone over tasteful r&b,
chasing memories of being loved,
tonight, you kiss me like i am.
your friends are all way cooler than me,
i’m awkward, preppy, sitting in my flaws
with excessive layers of honestly,
but still they never want me,
how can an onion put back on her layers?

my eyes get stuck on objects,
thoughts rushing in like a
Best Buy boxing day sale,
i stare at corners of the room,
hoping to meet answers -
palms build moisture, eyes lock,
what could i have done differently?
you see right through me,
and wonder, in ways i wonder,
trying to be ten steps ahead,
on a immobile cognitive treadmill,
and for what? you stick right by me.
so conceited of me to think that,
i’m the only one reading the room,
when you’re always the one
i’m sharing it with. i don’t feel stuck,
i don’t stare much longer,
like corners of my mind,
we meet in the middle,
and you find me.

I hope you feel the warm cracked skin,
thumbs that twiddle against you,
in spaces that were once cold.
Woven grains of sweet serenity,
made of golden locks with bold initials.
Because initially you weren’t yourself.
And today you are something much better.
You hold a room like you’re a guest,
a door like it’s a sincere promise.
Taking care of rough details in harmony,
and together you are dignified softly.
Only to open the next.

irises search for attachment in hopes,
caring arms to tell you your qualities.
do you need them to remind you?
behind everything good there is ego,
for every mirror, we see god staring back,
we only know others as deeply as ourselves.
i look every now and then for their help,
but i always end up back alone with a pen,
do you need me? because i need me first.
we've barely met, but she seems half-decent.

they have it easier than me,
gliding through conversations
with 20 new strangers, holding
a prosecco glass like a microphone -
a IMBD celebrity on a month long press tour.
eye contact measured, smiles firming,
questions deliberate and timed out.
while i become too conscious of the way
my arms cross, pants bunching up weirdly.
am i being awkward, can they hear me
thinking? do they feel this way too?
aware how they stare too long or too little,
often forgetting how sentence structure works, or if what they said was rude?
if this were a poem, somehow
this all would make me sound earnest,
but instead i’m here, off-putting, seemingly reflecting disinterest, instead of fear -
introspection kills the conversation again,
i must have used the wrong face this time.
i shudder in madness another night,
and await to replay it all again in the shower.

to them i am an option,
something that happens conveniently,
only when it feels right, when it fits,
falling into places like a turning Tetris block.
and how many things do you think about,
before you get to me? your family portrait,
hiding me, and their priorities like poison,
and to another i’m just a muse, sitting
top shelf liquor, glistening in the parlour,
a sweet banana whiskey stirring gently.
only for special occasions or birthdays,
life keeps turning without my help.
but somehow i don’t like centre stage either -
not the manic pixie dream girl, not
the girl next door - just, not quite necessary.
i want to be seen in a different light,
but i’m not in need of another casting call -
i could put on an amazing performance,
i could play all the roles, but in their life,
well, i’ve just settled for a footnote.

i pretend to know about smart things,
sincerely hoping to appear alluring,
sirens of hope to feel amusing and well.
crocheting an ensemble of paper promises,
ripping apart at the lost seam.
vulnerability turns into another joke,
it's funny how we escape reality with this,
easier to laugh then sit with yourself.

i've never been much of anything,
even for my own company.

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

nobody has to know about us
sharing longer stares at dinner,
kissing in the elevator up,
wondering about the next mistake,
knowing each others secrets.
trusting it's going to be different,
singing now on the walk home
and eating chicken fingers through confessions.
while i'm still scared to hold your hand,
and it takes four walks a day
to believe it's happening.
we're just a couple teenagers now,
at the skateboard shop on Queen.
trying to draw a line in reason,
so i can finally learn patience, so
nobody has to know about us.

you say you don't want me,
between texts about
who i'm talking to these days.
ways of holding space above me,
and dark matters to hide in.
to my mind you say "terra nullius",
invading open corners of my lands,
as if to cheer for my loneliness
with a batting swing
making sure you're still around.
"What are you up to?"
context is the killer here,
knowing that I'm alone in a new town,
thinking it will make a difference.
and it always does.

I will enjoy this life. I will bite into
the overripe bananas, the in-season
strawberries, and remain impartial.
I will not worry about the tempers,
the Karen in the Niagara Dominos,
weeds that daunt our growth,
we can choose to love past this.
I will stir the *** of doubt, and
balance salt and sugar in style.
Burning insults, when I call myself an
ironic idiot, both brilliant and broken
pushing open the pull doors,
we can choose to live past this.
I will enjoy this life. I will bite into
the frozen mango, wait for pain, like
a slow elevator, and remain impartial.

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.

her dads car rammed on the ttc tracks -
drinking a spicy caesar on the road,
looking out for the Toronto police cars.
we ended up at Seoulshakers,
tap danced at the pizza parlors,
and I texted friends a picture of my rings.
i bought the bartender a shot,
but couldn't get steady on my longboard.
reminding locals that i'm an addiction therapist,
over the sound of tequila crashing into marble.

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.

remember when i told you
how it felt to live without it,
i could scream it, can’t unsee it,
and it’s exhausting how i need it,
read it on my face, and weep it,
every piece of me, falling
into shoulders, buckling over,
can you bare it, the weights of living,
touch it, you can handle me with care,
even serrated, even serene,
developing plot lines, uncut seams,
we keep forgiving, envisioning,
a future that we have, it’s now,
together, we are personality, perception,
sharp slivers, in need of sanding.

we were suppose to be just friends,
but you count the minutes,
between our two apartments, it’s ten
maybe w’ll cross paths again,
depending on the drinks consumed
and the man i’ll be texting next…
now i think there’s been a defect,
eating garlic knots while
discussing our future apartment.
nights are pouring into each other,
now i’m lacing myself to you  -
i make a lot of mistakes, but
my favourite one is us two.

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?

maybe it will stay, maybe it will grow,
i can’t pretend to know, either way
we tend our yucca plant, we absolve the root rot,
weather the mistakes we make together,
drill the door with two towel hangers,
knowing we can’t always patch things up,
and still we think of baby bassinets in the study,
and still, you could leave me or love me, either way,
i’ll be just the same (alone in the end),
the funny girl with the comfort of every woman,
death do us part, but with you beside me, maybe
well maybe, i’d just have a better time rotting,
maybe it will grow, maybe it will stay,
i can’t pretend to know, either way.

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?

will they always be callous and unfeeling,
cold shouldered and brooding,
teeth clenching at what's most logical?
and if this, then am i the climactic contrarian -
carrying every emotion so viciously,
that you tell me, i must be lying?
it's okay that i will never know peace like them.
because when i feel a strangers sigh,
a mothers eyes watering tightly with her pram,
the business mans shoulders folding into himself,
i can barely escape the envelopments of living.
some days my tears fall because of their pain,
on good days they pool because of an embrace,
and few days they fall for the discontented,
because what a sad life to only feel for yourself.

Summer went away
a father on a business trip,
zipping up what’s left of my
vanity and one night stands.
I wait for dry calls,
clearing my schedule once again,
hoping for a soft launch somewhere.
It’s okay I’m the worst of them,
and I hear you’re bad at this,
texting and relationships.
I learn to forget, an amnesiac narcissist,
from changing addresses, to sunken pillows,
i waited summers to see you there,
i search the streets when
your bold laugh rolls past,
just to remember that you never cared,
you’re on your own, kid,
you always have been.

when i packed up our apartment,
and said goodbye to final memories,
ones i lived in alone for months,
i noticed all the little things i gave,
to make you significant.
the things i bought for our love,
that i thought we’d do together
from the pan set, to the rug, to the vaccum,
i cared so deeply for you,
anything you needed i provided you,
i gave you my future,
and that’s a reflection of my love
that made you seem so special
surrounded by neutral items,
turning into a person,
i no longer believe in.

Never rolling eyes,
but rolling a perfect joint
in your friend Nick’s
place, I feel safest.

Always kissing shoulders,
while I read horror fiction
together laughing at
our stupid matching moles.

Never getting the last word,
but having my last bite
in the trees of the Kawartha’s
under maple keys flying.

Always carrying my worry,
buying the good leather bags
so my shoulders aren’t burdened,
when you hold me up quietly.

Timid falling cedar and birch
who hears you falling down?
Like my eager creeks should,
or my bouldering shoulders.
Again we try to graze,
making hast with premonitions.
A farmers almanac sits
and I have noticed change
long before it’s been heard.

you call me a hopeless romantic,
but at least you’re calling,
and you’ve been right for the first part,
because only an idiot hopes for things
like kisses in a BMW over french rap and
broken sentences at midnight.
the muted expressions between
muffled apathetic prose of wanting.
and i can’t help but believe i deserve otherwise,
indifference and cold shoulders.
instead i’m confused with what it means,
saying things i don’t mean.
reading between lines of madness
to guess peoples feelings -
why am i always surprised, crushes hurt.

when it arrives at dawn i’ll be waiting,
holding out the warm towel for comfort,
adding kindling to the slights and edges,
warming up the kettle for it.
i sit in my virtue and signal peace,
transition crossed arms to open up,
staring out at the human messes and
cognitive dissonance in the shape of pride.
we are meant to be glass filed down,
weathering and eroding by oceans of
doubt, fear, insecurity, and ego.
pains of which i gave up long ago -
i am lucky that i don’t need it to come,
because i love so deeply that it burns me,
saving them the third-degree.
they ask for forgiveness, not permission -
and i don’t ask for anything at all.

You were never complicated,
static lover with broken headphones.
Backing all my thoughts with,
“I understand you.”
Taking things literally,
you hold my truths every night.
Swallowing my over thoughts
for, what if it worked out this time?
Never getting mad at me,
you kiss my forehead more than twice.
Telling me again that,
It should always be alright.

june bugs hopping into beer cans,
the old park gates clanging open,
and a small white terrier,
outrunning it’s owner.

crooked ex boyfriends stalk grasses,
someones playing backstreet again,
and you’re tanning turns to burns,
so you flip over.

disconnected neighbours make eyes,
sharing jabs about Honest Ed’s,
and my friend falls asleep,
wearing her bra inside out.

it was 3am and I sent four texts
to four people i've slept with,
and my childhood bestfriend
is dating the owner of the bar
so im wasted and wasting time.
all of them are sleeping,
except the next morning when
James jokes about being too cheeky,
I remind him i'm barely holding on,
so he hangs onto my hollow words

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.

the pleasure is in seeing it as it is,
nothing too magnified to believe otherwise,
all of my life knotted into ties of normalcy,
and sometimes muddled mistakes.
it's often not as complicated as they'd think -
just a morning coffee with hot chocolate and
your hands around my torso at 7:15AM,
maybe, the sound of streetcars and yelling preachers,
often the typing of my keyboard writing poems at work.
i think it's easy to make life complicated,
glaring at the tripping of stairs, miscommunication,
the way the barista moved in slow motion.
somewhere between mistaking salt for sugar,
we forget that cortisol is the quickest death -
every time we choose anger we choose our own demise,
the pleasure is in seeing it as it is,
a pleasant mess, with a sense of humor.

i am a firecracker,
once lit i am sent
into the expeditions
of fanatic joy,
turning and spinning,
spectacular to watch,
hot to the touch.
burning up into
pieces of carbon
which we are all made of,
but sometimes forgetting
how beautiful we are
before we crash,
rather than upheld,
we become a spectacle.

Metal grinds quietly,
snapping branches,
holding ash on rubber.
Spinning wheels take us
on the long trek home.
I trust your spirit,
you look at me kindly.
Navigating our love
to the old cabin,
where we play Clue.
Giggling in our autumn
toques by a fire.
Kissing under resolutions.

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.

Who threw the first snowball?
White packing snow flying across,
Av des Pins O and Rue University,
to where we felt wise and so wicked.

Taken by the purity of being young,
naive and valued far more than lost,
to another grace and kind phrase.
I love my friends and hold them dear.

Montreal you project myself too fondly,
involved in culture, rhythms, and sweet language.
and grainy film on knit sleeves in February's dread.
With a bright smile written in cursive letters.

Sunday you message me again,
in the same passive ways as before.
Asking for advice, or where I bought
that french gold mirror we had in our hallway.

I always give you an answer or three,
with the door cracked open again.
You know I'm with him when I do,
hands holding me still, on the beige couch.

Where you once held me crooked.

the hardest part of wanting is time,
unreliable silences to awkward constancy,
yearning for answers to questions unasked,
only an hour past 4am at Blackburn bar.
better not to know anything, i keep my eyes closed
holding onto cheek kisses in bed, or your pockets
where you say i can live in?
i've built homes and careers out of conscious decisions,
but most relationships out of my ***.
the hardest part of wanting, is wanting at all.

I write about the middle aged
bald guy, giving the finger
to the citibike business bro,
holding a pack of Pabst.
Or about the cold air in August,
when we ran down Ossington
screaming “Feral Girl Summer!”
Maybe I do it to pass the time, or
to relive feelings I can’t forget.
To me it’s all the same -
words pouring onto the sidewalk,
pieces of my Milky’s iced coffee
with painful oat milk affliction.
I write because I’m always bitter,
or because my memories melt?
But mostly because I want you
to read this, instead of me.

i don't want you,
not really,
i just want a compliment,
and some matty's patty's,
and i want to kiss you,
so maybe hold you?
okay we could walk
to christie and
talk about our feelings
i don't want you,
not really,
okay but maybe we could
go see the new marvel movie
and laugh at failed CGI...
then touch knees on the curb -
don't patronize me
and make me feel seen,
tell me about your
childhood dreams
okay i want you,
but not really???

you broke my heart on a wednesday
i cried it out for nine days,
and let it go because i had no other choice.
you hugged me goodbye in the wrong way,
and told me you still loved me.

you're running in etobicoke on a thursday
i am buying my own apartment,
and kissing another tall kind man.
you text me about the yeti cooler we bought,
and tell me that you're proud of me.

i don't think about you at all.

not the hero,
with my hair thinning,
forehead wrinkles make themselves
at home, the walls i hide in,
his midnights a soft landing
into depression sunrises and
***** soda horoscopes
i can’t stop wondering, “is it me?”
the problem, everyone knows,
but no one remembers -
ticking timers on her shapeless body
feelings i paint by typing words.
i can’t stop searching for her,
my nails are tearing,
it’s not easy being the cool girl,
awkward and unrelenting
with my broken eyes,
always the villain,
never the bride