Why is it surprising?
That I can find love,
and still feel like dying.
Have you tried it?
The vacancy of living
underneath yourself.
Have they pushed you
in change rooms?
Left you half naked
to a party you threw.
I have played nice,
pressed his linens.
Gave my shoulders
for weights I can
now choose.
Even when I find
love again.
It’s not enough
to solve a labyrinth.
I’m only assured
by the consistent
accuracy of depression.
Four particular walls
I can depend on
crying behind.

If I could touch next year,
and guarantee your faith
extend the olive couch
prolong the cooking sessions

Kiss your cheeks every night
like grass holding fingers
I too would linger a little longer
put the tea on just an hour later

and hold you up again,
like our four perfect walls

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.

If I knew all the times
I got it all wrong.
Showed up too late
for their funerals.
Massaged masculinity,
who made matters worse.

If I knew all the times
I doubted myself.
Showed me mirages,
two miles, too late.
Confronting over-confidence,
who coxed intelligence.

If I knew all the times
I doubted myself.
Showed me your type,
simple, slim, & selfish.
Changing my character
for a crafted coy box.

If I knew all the times
I got it all wrong.
Showed up for understudy,
only to play the part.
I wouldn’t be getting roses,
from someone else

If I knew all the times
I got it all wrong.
I wouldn’t know,
how to get it right.

your the one to blame,
for my frontal lobe spinning,
for the jack of trades tipping
the waitress twenty percent

to show me you are solid
teaching me boundaries
i sit patient and still
for the drawing of cards

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?

Skin fibres trace across us burning,
and all I can do is smirk at your shivers.
You know I’m an expert at *** and ex’s?
That’s why you find them in eachother.
Trained six years, broke three hearts.
Crossed a few seas and brown eyes
to find yours staring lonely in depths.
So ******* blue and yet so much softer -
would you ever hurt me like they do?
I can find all your secret soft spots too,
map the space our lips drew out.
Across Royal York to Jane? No Runnymede - where we ran to our bakery’s.
Where you loved me plainly,
if you think I didn’t know then here’s how:
I can see it in between takes, the ttc stops,
between breaths your forgetting to draw.
Like our map we are objectively real.
And you think I don’t see past you,
with a past like mine?

I do not have the time,
nor the energy,
to make myself consumable to you.
I am sweet to gluttony,
but sour to those who know me best.

I cannot lower myself,
in height nor heart,
to lose an inch on your ego’s behalf.
I am vibrantly tracing my path,
home grown roots of nothing less than sincerity.

I will not lose an inch,
becoming less than myself,
for your lost moral compass.
I am both the richest and the poorest,
cashing moments of free grandeur,
that you’ll later need answers to.

I should not feel bound to dance,
across the egg shells you toss,
apart from the breads I’ve broken -
I am an open book,
so I have broken more book binds
than hearts.

I hope you’re not offended.

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.