this season is about me
how i read and speak faster
telling stories like a keeper
hugging longer every day
friends holding on tighter

laughing into sunshine gates
swinging hips to blissful fun
entertaining ideas and values
becoming better than yesterday

this season is not about love
the golden torsos and unsure flings
tense midnight overthinking
does he, does he not, does he?
i don’t need to know anymore

holding onto my own forearms
sweating into the steam rooms
to sit by myself in serenity
i love myself and my company
is becoming better than yesterday

smelling your back
as i hold you into my body,
loving you quietly,
rubbing your shoulders
as you fall gently to sleep.
picking up the lint in the morning,
and folding your laundry.
remembering your sisters
birthday from last week,
that you forgot a gift for,
like the flowers i wanted
for my masters acceptance,
was your love lost in the mail too?
i gave you safety and comfort,
you gave me distain and distrust
with a twisted sense of humour

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???

If masculinity's attractive -
and still socially confined.
Why do your crying eyes,
light my heart a million times?
Your weaknesses I favour,
to cunning hopeless tricks.
Messages once ignored,
and gaslights burning thick.
Call me your precious darling,
tell me your forever heart.
Every peice of you adoring,
even the smallest parts.
Your strength has come in threes
as goods and bads always do.
You have feelings,
You have morals,
You are more of a man,
that's strength too.

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.

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

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.

see me without a pen,
shaking out emotions, reeling
run on sentences, trying to catch
a moment as it’s passing.
i’ve tried to live in the moment,
but they leave me too soon,
and i can’t hold anything in -
thoughts fall with gravity.
i wish i was mysterious, even secretive,
harsh questions of wondering what
she might do next -
that facetious woman with
a superiority complex.
i break the binds of open books,
kiss and tell to voids beneath me,
and i’m not obscene, just obvious -
okay, give me my pen back.

i want to apologize to everyone
and my bird of paradise plant
and the guy on the bridge who
i couldn’t say hi to back
i want to say sorry for clinging
too long to things that couldn’t see me
for all the ugly parts i am
rigidity and emotion gasping for air
i want to make amends for chasing
ideas of what i wanted things to be
and who you couldn’t be, even if you tried
(did you ever really try?)
i want to beg-pardon for saying too much
providing the instructions on loving me
as if i was a wrench or owners manual
objectifying something indescribable