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.

My love does not rise
like a mothers eternal joy.
It fades like the embers
of a dying candle to dawn.

My love does not sit
like a bernard at steel gates.
It’s consciously inept
to old kingdoms betrayed.

My love does not flaunt
or lure for local gaze.
It’s meticulously shifting
through stone alley ways.

My love does not slow
when the foxes catch their prey,
and the thimbles string out of
endless velvet displays.

My love does not leave
like the bay doors at wind.
It gusts for the moment
where the new gardens begin.

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.

Maybe it’s at 3am with the lights on
or 1pm in the orange gleeming sun.
When I think about dying,
it’s not after my brothers punch.
It’s the moment between feeling everything
and absolutely nothing at all.

I am eating clean, working every muscle,
and still this part of me is oozing black.
On Sunday my smile fades
like the orange sun in November’s 6pms.
Meeting my friends disappointment in me,
and for dinner my godmothers dismay.

How many girls does it take to die to make you believe their emotions are valid?
How many men does it take to fix
a lightbulb without a fuse?

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.

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.

the red power outlet
with the drawn on deathly hallows sign,
the 1960s oven
with the ancient lead knobs,
creeking ceilings,
passing passengers of thought.
calculator clicks from the left room,
taking care of wall marks from
the Muhammad Ali success poster,
past the humming radiators
singing hushed whispers of
youthful experiments of doubt.
i'm twenty-five, and three years late,
but i still wonder if they've figured it out.

Want to wrap me up real tight?
Under all the winding veins of mine?
Don’t you shake my miseries away,
closer to the midnights before us?

Because I recall the bow you drew,
to spin around my vacant virtues.
That I often packaged all too well,
only to become undone.

& 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

I remember soft cold kisses
on my parents old couch
and long Sunday rides
to the warm blue lakes
I remember you wrapped up
in my college white sheets
and your lips tasting like
coffee in the autumn mornings
I remember long nights
crossing off all of your fears
knowing my hands
being the only pair to catch them
I remember trekking through snow
just to burden you again
and knowing your fears
we’re always wrapped up
in me

He never told me how he felt,
when he invited me to his old car,
and I shook his honesty and hugs off,
like i did three years before.

Only because I didn't know otherwise.
You're expecting the unexpected,
a new feeling without being earned,
like my respect which left then too.

Why should I care that your upset?
I named my truth again and again,
my boundaries were boastful,
if you didn't listen, am I the perpetrator?
Some things can't be fixed.

i can’t do small talk about climate
and share my timid feelings,
i force delay my texts back,
pressing patience into place.
like guiding myself to reality
where i control how i am,
which has never been easy.
but in the challenge of acting normal
in the prolonged stares at the beach,
after the time someone held ice
on my scrapped teenage knees,
i prepared a novel then too.
even then i lived in prose, never knowing
how to be simple, small, consumable.
instead i’m harder to swallow
than the complete truth,
i want to be like them too -
carrying joy and ease in undertones
instead of an AirTag for a brain,
running lines before getting lost
and like a three week trip in August,
i’m still unpacking how to act right.

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

they sat hiding under the bunks
whispering babies sharing brief joys
before the mush food and the cold nights
which silenced tradition and beauty
he tried to remember his mothers face,
through stale air and bronchitis stirring,
when we forget what happened
a survivor sees the stares of nuns
on bad days, the arms of a justified priest
his sister can’t speak to him here,
where friends disappear every month timidly
for failing to exist more softly
so he can’t remember his language anymore,
what was the word for hope?

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.

(it’s awful) to not be loved by you, (i do),
to feel i never will, mainly because i have a weird laugh,
and know too much about the wrong things, and too little
about the right things (things they like). because i have too many
opinions and i don’t like to be wrong about them (i am).
now i’m either a push over or being pushed,
and you find every button in me amusing.
i don’t find this funny at all, does he? (do you?)
you think i am unfeeling, but you never say how you feel -
i flood out the basement of my heart for what’s less of us. (not much).
you push away to an island of self hate and sabotage (avoidance),
ignore the problems and throw anchors down at “bad timing”,
you find more reasons to hate me, because it’s easier (it’s not.)
i think i am a deeply flawed good person, you think i hate you,
against my better judgement, i always learn
to love them more, and where’s the u in animosity?
that has always been my way, (unlike you), i believe i can change,
so i learn to love me more too, tell myself i need more (it’s true.)
(it’s awful) to love someone you don’t want. (i do).

The rigid grey hills in-
between his shy pale arms
cheer with conviction.
As he reminds me of
how it feels to be.

Autumn’s fog dances over
the lake so calm it chimes,
as I sip its reflection,
and with it,
his small half-smiles.

I write every night
on the dark cedar floors.
Tumbling in old terry sheets.
Falling in and out of,
waves of grandeur.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

i sit alone all night and watch as the
cars cross the bridge in rhythmic cycles,
i’m bundled on my couch under layers
of paperwork and half a medium pizza,
planning a summer trip in February.
i watch 4 episodes of the Walking Dead,
write a masters paper on Neoliberalism,
and call my mom to celebrate survival.
i live another week as a mid 20 something
who owns a Yeti cooler, a bright pink vape,
and a terrible personality to match.
is this what growing up looks like? i wonder.
i FaceTime my friend who bought a house,
another who lost a bet shaving his head for fun
and it is… to be this old and this young,
because either your friends are getting married,
or they’re sleeping with a CTV actor named Donald.
i don’t think there’s a point where this adds up,
the wave of maturity dances on our sore backs,
now it’s paying property taxes, it separates recycling,
goes to bed at 10:30pm sharp with a longer hangover,
meal preps for 7 days, only to order Uber Eats again.
you told me once there wasn’t a textbook for all this -
so I guess like my poems i just have to wing it.

******* in knots, and
silky smooth, just
me, myself, and you,
a pack of Cottage Springs,
hungover willful mornings,
and all the words between.
we’ve met a hundred times,
i’ve died a thousand deaths,
but still i introduce you,
to all the parts i’ve left -
the girl with shiny dreams,
actress as it seems - scientist of
feeling, no absolutes, some truths,
dramatic, and quiet at the seams,
a stinging people pleaser, pleasure
in a box, i can cry, i can gleam;
i don’t know anything,
just me, myself, and you,
silky smooth, and
i’m ******* in knots.

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

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

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

a light knock on your friends door,
come out and run with me -
let's fly on our bikes for answers,
down a hydro field - down a mickey,
watch the wires send messages, before
the Facebook status', before we knew
how to find peace in doing nothing.
the currency of youth, the awakening,
we all have a voice in our heads? developing
self conscious, *******, an anxiety disorder?
you don't know who you are yet -
you don't know anything!
just walking around garden sections
of Canadian Tire's with your dad -
who kept all his fake Monopoly money.
look dad! the peonies, look! the orchids,
and i'm still absorbing life like this -
noticing beauty, collecting e-currencies,
posting Instragram stories - and
i feel too young to be responsible for it.

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.

drive slowly,
i know it’s not what you wanted,
the long haul, just stuck and controlling,
can’t always turn where you want to.
it’s been a long ride,
tunnels, and drifting between stops,
i lean on your shoulder and get lost,
don’t know where the line crossed.
are we there yet,
eager and getting our feet wet,
can’t plan a good thing, just wait for it,
maybe another hour or two,
this will pass too, so -
drive slowly.

With you I am both larger than life,
and steady enough to walk alone.

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.

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

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.

lying in your confidence,

and my confidential feelings.

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

Welcome mats, and overprescribed ******
that my cousin gifted me on Tuesday.
I don't sleep anymore, because i'm always up ruminating.
Not about anything righteous or measurable -
just eyes closed, pacing narratives.
Breaking off one rib at a time,
to save man, to give him her.
Sitting loudly under neon bar signs,
drinking absinthe with Van Gough’s depression.
Hope is a dangerous thing,
so it’s better not to have any.
I would have done a boring man’s laundry
just to form an attachment over my own delusion.
Love is a dangerous thing,
so it’s better not to have any.

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.

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

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.

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.

you’re my little secret, vicious
how you come into my life
without a plan, heaven gracious
when you hold my back, and
tell me you’ve been waiting,
for my texts, i wish i missed my ex,
you look like a convenient solution
to a problem i haven’t defined yet.
because i’m fine - at least
that’s what you call me, to tell me
that your mine for the night, but
i’m not your protector, just a collector
of words, situationships, sometimes
masking longing for maturity, just cause
i’m a therapist, doesn’t mean i make sense.
i still don’t know what i’m longing for,
you stay a while, hold me more,
because i asked, but mostly because
you’re too drunk to drive, you lost
my number in the crash, it was
a while back, so you email me to ask.

who cares less,
indifference is a slow death,
i’d rather hate and curses,
a crafted sigh of doubt and annoyance,
i’d rather hear their screams.
anger is swift and cunning,
it makes more sense to believe,
maybe, somethings wrong with me,
i’d rather hot idiosyncrasies,
they don’t want to keep up with me.
indifference is dressed up apathy,
they clean every inch,
but leave baby in the corner -
everything’s just ***** dancing,
i try to mend, but no amends,
indifference is a slow death,
who cares less.

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.

Have I always been
a relentless version of what I seek?
Afterthoughts of what I say,
or ignorant splendours and epiphanies?

Refuge to black ink, a loved ones right arm,
or the everlasting solace of my four walls.
Eager, Anxious, Loving, & Unapologetically
most things they’ve so often feared.

To take advice from the branches,
when the roots are deeper.
To take love from the waves,
that have been set to roll back.

This is not your tree analogy,
or your ship gone afloat.
But I am leaping forward,
and falling backwards.

And it looks all the same from
here.

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?