I resolve to achieve health
Physically.
I resolve to not lose weight,
to celebrate my strong woman-ness,
to go to bed earlier,
and never forget sunscreen.

I resolve to achieve health
Psychologically.
To have courage against the stigma
of needing someone to talk to,
to cry when appropriate
and to take every opportunity to laugh.

I resolve to love you
Deeply.
To honour you with my
thoughts and movements,
to compromise and support,
to adore you with all my heart.

I resolve to find my resolution
Not at the end, but rather in the turning of things,
I resolve to move.
I resolve to give.
Within every struggle
I resolve to live.

The bite and the breath*
These you do not forget.
Like a grade school crush,
the rush of the Atlantic in December
Embedded within the most physical parts of memory
like a rock in your knee.

I'm silenced by the quiet here,
the space between buildings
and the white gossip of the salt stains
Upon the sidewalk.
Spreading tales that only this dolly township could know,
Burning curious holes in the black ice
and talking to the snow.

In a year, a few new babies,
A shop or cafe proudly erected looking
Suspiciously new, admitting big dreams
To the peeling peeling paint corner stores
That will never ever ever go out of business.
These are the blocks that could never be
recreated in a movie set.

This is the willow where I told two boys I loved them,
once as a girl, once as a woman.
This weathered with the seasons.

This is the candy shop,
Whose floor once knew
my toddlish ire and snot.

This is the bay
that I explored for decades
throwing rocks into the clay
First to seek
Second to escape
Third to return
And fourth to stay.

This is the town where I was knit,
In the quiet of the valley
and the roll of the sea,
This is my body's kindred fit-

Trapped inside this sleeping town,
this is where I am free.
I'll stick around.

These gasps of light
are the gaps in tonight
these downward globes
of ivory snow.

The world didn't end.
The world
didn't.

My bones lie aching here
writing for love
in this borrowed new year.

I know not whom
I hold most dear
How do I face
The world didn't end...
*another new year?

I forget what I wanted to write about.

I forget because I'm cold,
and I'm on the front porch
of my parents' house while they're both asleep.
Because they know I smoke, but
I don't like to rub it in. Like,
"This is what you've taught me to avoid!
And this
is all I rely on!"
And that's all I hear.
And I don't want them
to hear that.

And I forget
what I wanted rely on,
but when I think about it,
it sounds like music notes in my head,
and there's no way you can hear the song,
because it fades in the distance
(on a minor chord)
when I toss the cigarette ****
into the ivy, where my parents won't see it
as a constant reminder of how
I fell so hard.

So you can't hear what I hear.
And I can't really hear it either,
but when I wake up
in the afternoon
on my parents' couch,
all I know is
there's something I should be listening to,
and maybe it's the wisps of my dream,
or maybe it's something bigger
I can't quite grasp, but,
I should hear it.
And I can't.

So, at two PM, I fall back asleep,
trying to hear it again.
Or maybe, I wake up,
and wander around wearing oversized clothes
and wait to put on deodorant unless
I go outside,
and until then, I eat everything in the house
until I feel satisfied
and I never will.

I felt nothing when you kissed me.

Only your paper lips
moist with words you said to get me here.

But it's just the words I want
and all the rest feels like chalkboard dust on my hands.

I remember what this excitement was
like the memory of grabbing a sparkler that just went out.