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.

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.

i like my body when it is with your
body. it is a natural tug and pull.
my head draws onto your shoulder.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its edges. i like to feel your arm
and how it holds me, trembling
for my hands which felt foreign then.
your smooth ness and ridges of thumbs,
i want to hold you tightly, firmly,
- again and again and again and again
kissing, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, making a home in your skin for us
both reeling with electric forces, parting
flesh  . . . . . and hearts widened to eat
all the love-crumbs we trailed years for,

and possibly i just like the amusement

of how i look underneath you.

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

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 wish I didn't care so profoundly for people,
for the hair curls and the leftover Crest Strips.
Or the unnoticeable stack of old Metro Passes
piling over your Hilary Clinton autobiography.

I wish I could tell myself to be more numb,
like I had been for the past year and a half.
Listening to my own advice and shaking voice,
instead of making time I don't have left.

I wish I could be more sure of my rocking self.
Tell you my sweet limited edition offerings,
things I didn't have three years ago.
Version one me, smaller and idealistic.

I wish I didn't come with so much precaution tape,
all the needs of someone too ****** up.
A series of trauma responses and consequential ideation,
more tickets on the dash than the cost of the car.

Why bother paying?

we always have
perception
open mindedness
an idea
us
humans
created
to feel as if
theres some hope
in becoming pure
but theres
no pure people
if theres still earth
beneath my feet
to remind me of
the dirt of our
past and present
and pupils
differently sized
to remind me of
our future
and blood
that pulses off beat
to trigger a genetic
passover
to remind me
of the nature of it all
that imperfection
and mutation
drive evolution
that we are
essentially
****** up

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

If I can learn the way
to walk Belvedere, and
make one-way’s, wrong ways,
your rock t-shirt my best pillow,
a cats relentless meow
a joyous morning alarm.
Than I can find a way to
sleep soundly beside you,
hold hands without sweating,
and park under a sap-less tree.
Ones that shade our backyard dinners,
the fish and fudge left uneaten
and the lies left unlearned.

When will I be held so deeply,
that I lose sight of my own two arms?
Sipping up my seems and loss ends,
burning last words on my hard shoulders.
Heavy that you are passive to me,
but I pull you in on each breath.

I take you in with my long strides too,
and double shot pink lemonades.
I’m sorry that I am not gentle for you,
but I’m mostly sorry that I know better.
Because if there was a way to make you love deeply,
I’d have sent you the deposit by now.

"i can't"
just two or three tequilas,
then i’ll tell you how i’m feeling,
somewhere between toxic,
and relaxed, i can't win this back.
you think i’m always funny,
when i’m losing all my money,
placing bets on how long
this might last - it can't.
i've always been an afterthought,
feed myself another shot, cause
i’m over being an overthought,
i've tried to be easy, but loves not.
it costs too much to hold you,
sticking with it cause i know you -
i see the best in everyone,
your smiles on a discount
mines drawn on in clown,
why does this feel like theft,
baby, lets just lay this to rest.
wake me up when you remember,
how it felt, the beating in your chest,
i know you think about me still, spill -
but we both know,
"you can't".

always thinking about you,
half way across the world
holding my own two hands
waiting for the plane
thinking how we’d pulse them,
as in, “love you”, fingers rough,
you’d make me laugh,
through all the delayed flights and
Sofia gossip, we’d eat good cheese,
hold onto memories with less resent,
because everything’s simple when
all i do is hold onto you, the love i left,
distance makes the heart grow and i’m
half way across the world,
just thinking about it.

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.

your magnetic strung up
hydro fields sit in this
delicious precarious
silver storm
of my new June

your rain tethers on
into gentle purple trees
across from the NE window
where I sit perched
in May's altostratus fogs

your gliding about
the unrequited escapings
of my consciousness
or lack-there-of
my unresolved words
now tracing across lined sheets
of which I sip relentlessly

i am thriving
off unreliable narrators
to which I cannot name
achilles' heels
to which I cannot see

neither you nor I
can make sweets
out of
these bitter
and too often
extended
metaphors

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

the grass is a trap for us both here
keeping us apart by sheer centimetres
each blade guarding our arms lightly
trusting our legs lying there quiet

you play me your favourite soft rock bands
i pretend to listen and to care more than myself
but all i know is your soft smirk lines
and that you can’t keep your blues off me

tell me about your “super” computers
and how all my poetry is just 1, 0, and maybes
and i’ve never believed in the binaries
or doing work for someone else

so when i take off your cut off jeans
and you ride your hands up my black cherry dress
do you feel like your operating machinery
or is it just another maybe?

You’re always in my minds corner,
but just too close to home.
I’m just a few stops, from preventing us,
to being better on our own.

I kiss him by his pink thin lips,
I guess I work with what I’m thrown.
But take your shots and forget-me-nots,
because my educations better off shown.

You’re just out of reach, the edge of my seat,
out of touch with my emotions flown.
Listening to your old jazz tunes,
I wonder what keeps us both alone?

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 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.

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.

you say we're running out of pages,
i say, i'm running out of time,
to make what's left art, my character's arc,
i find beauty in the madness all the time.

you listen to whoever’s loudest,
i'm writing quietly, "you're sadistic",
for never caring how i could fit in it,
stories coming to an end,
resolution's just pretend,
why did you call me your friend?

you know i'm more for retribution,
daggers in my back, i pull through it,
sharpen blades and play okay,
let you narrate your mistakes,
i bite tongues and say it’s fine,
calculate my grand goodbye,
now i know it's the last time.

you say we're only getting older,
i say, i'm not the bravest solider,
when you made me go to war,
waving white flags at our shore,
did you think i could take more?
i’m out of pages, writing more...

Our jacaranda tree waves
with eastern movements,
and fast September shifts.

Teaching my temples
to hold on for moments -
months of abrupt melancholies
and state-less depressions.

Pouring worser shades on
brighter faster mornings.
I find my pieces in what I’ve known

All along -
an unhinged gate
to a fortress of starving pansies
overgrown and unloved.

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?

do i deserve your sympathy,
even when you see the worst in me?
a mosaic of broken pieces,
sharp fragments of memory,
and time well spent.
i am not a good person,
only crimson reds,
someone colouring in the lines -
trying not to fall off,
but still collecting the evidence:
my dark parts
are cut by the light, so,
the hue of being human
casts the glass either way.
like schrödinger’s cat,
i'm both half full and half empty -
so tell me what's your angle,
can you see right through me?
a mosaic of broken pieces,
sharp fragments of
mistakes and time wasted,
i am not a bad person,
only a prism, of shaded spectrums,
someone walking the line -
trying to balance virtues,
but still collecting the evidence:
my light parts
are cut by the dark, so,
do i deserve your empathy,
just cause you see the best in me?

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.

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.

Keeping my time full,
and my heart fuller.
Grass greener, taste sweeter.
Summer sambas and
shining webs of old pleasures.
I have taken strangers dancing,
and met the suns eternal wave.
Taking on a new me -
high risk, high reward,
and everything to gain.

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?

"that's just life",
crickets fill your melancholic walk
as you come to your own reflection.
looking a bit less than yourself
in the glare of an UberX window.
i am the safe place you come back to,
at 2AM, just someone's after hours -
when i should be studying Foucault,
counting sheep and masters applications.
but, i’m here - stroke backs with short quips,
on how this is the last time -
like your sweater with the security tag,
you burn off your evening just to use me.
so i sit still, look pretty, find comfort,
wash off your hands from the floors of clubs,
and sometimes the Portland hot dog stand.
you kiss me with dilated pupils, a soft member,
and the insecurity of your own lack of purpose.
i wake up next week with a fever from hell,
my friend hangs up on me in anger,
i miss the streetcar home, so you meet me,
to make it more about you. of course
you’ve been through the same thing too -
push me off your arms, to tell me, well,
"that's just life".

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

You reaped my moist soils,
my soft grounded earth bed,
a soul, in a place to rest your head.
Before I only asked for water,
and when the seasons changed,
I died, brown and wilted over.
When our sun got hotter,
I grew with it’s new placements,
turning pedals where they ought to,
in the centre of our pink garden,
opening up for another keen drought.

Let my ******* be your soft pillow,
my green eyes your emerald riches.
Arms that build up spirits and characters
for fantasies of how you want me laid.

Down in my light pink silk sets and soft
pure velvet skins - ask me for the keys.
Plenty for one small stern lock,
but you always end up breaking it open.

you’ve listened to this song
one thousand times,
each line getting warmer,
to the crafted chaos.
it didn’t make sense, did it?
tempo too long, keys off,
until the chorus rang true.
“this song was made for us.”
nothing can compare to when,
the past and present conjoin,
twisting lyrics into the context
of falling feelings of bliss.
it didn’t make sense, did it?
does it have to,
if it makes sense now?

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

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.

you turn on the hallway light,
make us another coffee to share,
and if i tell you now how it felt
how i feel, would you still want me?
if i tell you, that i’ve been rotten too,
will you still bring out the best in me?
you give me the calm, what ifs are
what our kids names could be,
is it taboo to love this deeply?
there’s a gentle scent of peace, that is you
and i’ve never fell this softly,
into you, my sweetest taboo.

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.

the market was covered with silver,
old vintage lighters and hellish hipsters,
you asked me what my problem was,
when we stood there in the mirror,
staring at reflections of hands intertwined,
your feet already cold and staggered.
i said, the issue is i don’t have any
when we’re standing here together.
oh i thought - just give me one good reason.
i want the idea of you more than i want,
steadfast peace and solitude, stable,
sometimes forgetting what alone feels like,
knowing that i’m still able.
i should probably leave us here -
but, knowing that i’m too stubborn,
to let bygones be byes and gones,
still lingering into a prolonged exit -
so i stay with you another month.
i’m never gonna love anything good for me,
centrifuging parts of my identity,
pretending i’m not attached to concepts
and hefty bets on changes -
and it takes one to know one,
so i see right through you,
now i don’t even know your address.

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

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.

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.

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.