where are you, my thought?
I think of you often.
I remember you in the hallways,
see your smile in the empty chair beside me,
hear your laugh in this silent hot room.
my dear thought, where are your brown eyes and crooked smiles?
give me another thought please.
one where your voice responds to mine.

Poem

how do i write something good to me,

something worth it?


something that holds me in that captured, raptured, fractured



memory?

Oliver danced
Olivia glanced
reflections were found
on the ground
by chance.
then again, today,
I heard Oliver say
"She was ever so kind -"
To be stuck in a mind...

what is existence?
the mountain's life in mine is so very slow,
but even it sees the same, unending horizon as I do.

i am living the days a prisoner lives where every moment feels the same and nothing is exciting.
i am locked up in a pretty scape of land
my dreams are made of sand
and castles crumble
and my own hands are numb
the brand of illusion.

dystopian

The contemplation of suicide
might just about override
any other feelings you feel inside,
but please just wait, I promise you
there is another thing that you can do:
call out for help, even if right away
the answer is silent, right by the phone you'll stay.
And call and call and they'll come, you'll see,
but you do that, you hear, you promise me.
Don't overdose, don't pull the trigger
Even though it seems stress can't get any bigger,
if you call for help, it's not just your life you're saving,
you're helping all those who aren't saved by praying.
You matter, you're match is more than everything on Earth,
death is not going to validate your worth,
I will help you, try me any day,
because you matter, because it's going to be okay.

Fresh water and salt water,
do they ever mix and mingle?
Salt water sinks and the fresh water floats,
looking so strange in its segregation;
so dangerous to swim between.

yes, I am unlimited;
like a record
doomed to replay
its brokenness
forever.

I will not break,
I am the friction of fire
and ropes tethered to cement
and anchors shattering coral.

I am unlimited
unlimited
with limited time
and limited self.

but yes, i am unlimited -

the river never met the shore,
though knew it in a dream.
    
     the ocean never knew the moon -
     love based on tenuous beams.

perhaps the lesson here: implore!
on all those things that you adore.

darling,

I don't know when the next night beside the water,
sleeping quietly,
waking up to white, waveless mornings
will be

how do people survive
when society kills their souls and culture?
how do people get away with torture?
how do you -
how do you move on when
things just stay the same?
horrific, deranged, completely wrong things happen -
have happened, are happening,
you know why?
me neither.
there is nothing you can do, say, give,
to make it go away.
what would you want if someone took your child? you'd want your child back.
I know this isn't much,
but i'm sorry.

rosemary and romeo begin with a letter

Short and sweet,
it's what I eat.

Maybe I miss
the long things written
but with the short and sweet
I am smitten.

Amour,
the sun in your cavern eyes
which in the light
faint into demise

of all you hide
burdens and bones
heavy secrets
thoughts of stone

and when sunshine
hits your hazel windows
the sleepless nights
swim like lost minnows

in depths of water
silk, smooth, and storm
sirens singing
sinking in swarms

of butterflies
from rays of sun
though in your eyes
the rays are shunned

the great abyss
of secrets kept
glow no more than opaque gems of amber
for when the moon shines
those same secrets shine translucent shrines
of spilling syrup.

and only to the moonlight
do those hazel depths respond.

Today is April 9th,
Vimy Ridge commemoration.
But it's the morning Prince Philip passed away.
I didn't know him personally, of course,
but it took me by surprise.
It reminded me that nothing really is eternal.
He has been the prince for my whole life and he lived until 99 years old, he would've turned 100 in June.
Anyway, I saw it on TV and I was taken aback because he died.
I don't know of all the things he's done
but I don't know...
My condolences.

it will not end here.

you, the one with violets in her lap,
the one, despite her mortality, that only gods may approach,
look at me

no truth was found in the fragments of sappho,
but what lies in all those lost to another time?

gently, I devour
the music that you play

the strumming and the sway,
the things you can convey

subtle, but the power
of the songs, the silent way

you make the unsaid there
and it becomes

real, authentic, ours.

i lived in the valley of butterflies
and it is now winter

leaves flicker a tune
and the ghosts waltz at midnight
among the tombstones

sunlight's strung the bow,
and the kiss of the wind strikes
the waltz of flowers.

love

is more pain than pleasure


yet we treat it like treasure

I prayed for her.
Please God, if this is the last thing I ever ask of you, give her the strength and hope to surge through.
Please do.
I wish I could take it instead of her.
I wish she didn't have to suffer alone.
But isn't it the things we mind that help us appreciate the things we love?
Still. I hate it when she hurts.

I want to write a song for you but you are the strummer,
the player,
the gentle wrist flicking up and down,
the echo in the cavity,
the vibration of the strings
and the voice that sings.

What do you think of when you think of beauty?

it is easy to know the despicability of living,
and a surprise to see the kindness when it comes.

When I was young, I hadn't learned of wars.
I thought they lasted hours, not lifetimes.
When I was young, I wanted to live in my room forever.
I didn't know there was a world past my backyard.
When I was young I played with kind kids.
I didn't know that people were mean because of someone's home.
When I was young, I disliked school.
I didn't know how much I took for granted.
When I was young, I was terribly afraid of getting taken.
I didn't know how many children went lost.
When I was young, I was free and had infinite imagination -
now I am caged inside of it.

when you're a star, watching a planet collapse in on itself … into dust, into nothing.

do you forgive me

where do they dwell,
deserters from mountain peaks,
the depths,
the deep hell, it can reach
but touch them no longer.

Swoop, soar, angels or spirits
floating between worlds,
white bodies and black fingers,
calling the freedom of flight their home.

I am from
the old brick house at the bottom of a hill;
from a small, sunny backyard;
that twilight taste of cigarette smoke from my neighbour.

I am from midnight walks through the park,
snow angels in the snow,
a house among the trees and hide-and-go-seek on rooftops.

I am from lots of bed time stories,
another one, mommy. Please?
Sitting on the staircase, contemplating whether I should ask to sleep with them because the monster scared me away.

I am from cousins and sleepovers in the summer-shed;
swinging for hours in their living room;
playing minecraft way longer than we should have;
from tag in the woods and more hide and seek down by the creek.

I am from waiting in my room 'till midnight just to make sure he got home safe and sound.
I am from watching the smoke from chimneys in the night,
from thinking that the park was on fire.

Going to twenty different places,
seeing oceans and mountains and adventures,
missing them.

From my first ballet class (and hating it),
from all those competitions and ribbons and costumes,
promising it was my last year every time and finally regretting it when it really was.

I am from going to Grandpa's house everyday after school.
I remember him in his rocking chair, with the cat in his lap, treats waiting our arrival.
He doesn't sit there any longer.

I am from wishing and watching and waiting for nothing.
I am from piles of paper and journals hidden in the corners of my room, scattered with words and memories.

I am from my sister. My mother. My father.

I am from flowers and forget me nots and daisies and lupins.
From the books on my shelves, half of them unread.

I am from staring at my ceiling fan, asking God what was wrong with me.
I am from my Black Book, where those heavy feelings linger.

From those first two weeks of quarantine, reading so much I actually couldn't see properly. And not regretting it at all.

I am from denial, denial, denial was the truth.
But hey, Grace, it's sitting right there in front of you.
Might as well embrace it.

I am from being the sentimental one.
Keeping those shoes that don't fit because I wore them on my trip.
I am from almost diving in too deep.

Sigh

I am from letting go. From love. From memories.
But where I'm from, is letting go.

who am I
who am I
who am I;
I feel like a flower, forgetting rain while it is sunny.

how do people speak so much about nothings

My street blazes orange
the lake hides in misery
the sky is beige
with the fires of a hot world

confess to the wind,
who knows only of freedom
and bears no burdens.

(I am your breeze)

If I was offered a million dollars or a hug from him, I would choose the hug. Without thought.

That's what she wrote.

I wonder,
do birds love each other,
or is it just a people thing?

why is it
that inspiration only befriends me
when happiness has not?

In my stories, I am the girl in the back with pretty eyes and bitten nails, a girl with a thousand classic books read and the daughter feeling somehow abandoned with a family that loves her.

In reality, I mind not the middle of the class, my eyes I find nice and no matter how hard I try, my nails only shrink with a cutter. I abandon myself and I confess to a bunch of strangers how twisted a little girl's life grows once she is exposed to the realities of her mind, poisoned by, well, society.

But honestly, no one is to blame.

the language of my love

                                                        it's you