~September 2014~

They came to me with hair filled with colour.

We met.
We talked.

Friends.

Right...

I miss them a lot.
And the only thing I seem to remember is the shape of their hair and all the rainbow it contained, from blue, to pink, to red, to green, to blonde, to finally going back to the normal root colour.

You could say the hair had personality of its own.

~August 2015~

Summer camp.

She was a stranger and a musician, and I had to know her.
She was a strong soul, and even holding her hand felt like a superpower I couldn't control.

Short cut hair.
Clean.
Swept over her eyes, over her ears.
Framing her smile.

~December 2016~

Techie girl.

She is the most complicated thing to come from all of this.
The semester didn't treat either of us well.

Slight curl to dark short hair. Shaven around the back, kept remarkably short.

Leaving her face untouched.

~July 2017~

Me.

I've shaved my head twice.
No shame in it.
My dignity not what it used to be.

My hair hangs down past my shoulders.
4:40pm comes around and I've lost inches upon inches of my hair.
6:30pm.

Slightly bobbed at the ends, framing my chin and shoulders.
Changing my hair part again.
Moving from side to center.

Straight hair, dark colour, lighter.

Short.

I like the aesthetic.

And I like these people.

I miss them most days.

But even though I'm now a short haired person myself.

I still forget about it...

Only to find my reflection later.

I have done nothing today.

Woke up at 2pm, ate food, took a 30 second bike ride and then ate some more.

And here I am, 2 hours and 4 1/2 bowls of soup later.

I thought I might as well eat well before I panic.

Here we go.

Listen to me old friend.

I'm going to go crazy, or have a panic attack very soon.

It's going to be violent.

And uncomfortable.

And I'm going to cry.

So please.

I am a coward who can only look back once and then break.

I don't expect you to talk to me ever again.

And I don't plan on this poem reaching you by any means.

But I would appreciate it if you thought about calling.

But you know what?

Maybe you won't, honestly, I'm never sure I'm worth your time because you never seem to show it.

You're a busy person, with a life and job.

I'm broke as all hell, unemployed, and the single worst person to break after a text message.

But I will be panicking or going crazy soon.

So yeah...

Just thought I'd let you know.

After a great catastrophe hits home, like a fire or a tornado, you search through the wreckage to find pieces that can still be saved.

If anything is salvageable, you might as well take it. This was your home after all.

Finding old pictures, supplies, things of sentimental value, anything that reminds you of home before it was destroyed.

So what if your home is built upon people?

When catastrophe strikes, people might run away, give up, and sometimes they die. Not always, but sometimes they will.

I was part of the wreckage of my home made of people.
But I was also the disaster that tore it down.

Leaving people in pain, with traumatic break downs, panic attacks, and a lesson in language only known as ******.

Nobody died.

People were saved. I know of three in particular who found each other and survived.

But it left two others broken apart, one confused, and one completely homeless.

And as for me...

I survived like the rest. But unlike most of them, I didn't recover.
They didn't bother to search through the damaged home to find me.
There was no monetary value to my life, no point, no sentimental value to them.

And I just lay there to this day.

And to the person I hurt most...

You know who you are...

You left me in that home, the one you invited me into and cared for me as if I was family and now...

I'm here.

Buried under the catastrophe.

And I'm sorry I tore the house down.

I'm sorry I wasn't worth going back to the house to find and salvage.

I'm sorry I wasn't worth saving.

It's currently 3:47am and my window is open.

Which means the birds are now becoming nature's alarm clock. And that is just a wake up call that I did not ask for.

The birds just keep singing and here I am typing this on an iPod that doesn't even belong to me.

Hating the constant chirping of winged animals while I've been here watching Grey's Anatomy for hours on end. So I guess I am just a huge ***** for staying up late watching doctor shows.

I'm not even sure if this is a poem.

I'm just sick of the birds and feeling terrible for things I did late at night.

If this was any other day..

I would have already shut off my alarm clock.

Or just shout at the birds I guess.

I've had a series of dreams where things went differently then they did in real life.

Where nobody left.
And nobody was hurt.

One dream in particular keeps coming back, the one where nothing really makes sense, but it makes me feel better sometimes.

I remember running, and she was beside me.

But I immediately knew it was a dream because she was taller than me.

She's never been taller than me. And here I am...

Running beside a 5 foot 8 version of my once best friend.

What?!

This dream is so weird.. and yet it feels so normal.
She's never had to look down to see me.
Heck, she's never had a reason to look up to me either.
For height eye contact or otherwise.

And somehow this dream follows me, her, and her significant other into a building.

I'm in a hallway saying that I'm on my way to a specific room.
She says she'll follow me there.

For some reason, because this is a dream, I go to a completely different room, a shop actually.

Woodshop. Like the one I went to at school.

I don't even know what I'm doing there, I'm not sanding or doing any work, they are. I don't know what they're doing, I'm watching this alternate version of a person just...

Exist.

And suddenly she cuts her hand on a saw blade. Much like I have in shop class.

I don't panic, I grab paper towel, and start wrapping her hand.
She's gonna be fine.

She's gonna be fine..

There's no dialogue, nobody says anything, I'm just taking care of someone I care about.

This dream is just playing out.



I wake up...

I feel content and somewhat happy for a second.

But then I remember I was dreaming.

I was dreaming...

And that's okay.

But I return to a reality where none of that happened.
And I suddenly feel the utopic dream leave me.

I can't even remember most of the dream, and this is all I have.

This isn't the first time I've woken up from a better dream life to find that I'm here.

But I do need to realize that I'm here.

Despite everything.