A single piece of paper
Flutters in the wind, going
This way
And that
Without end.

Bound,
The leaves still are pushed
This way
And that,

But the weight holds them in place.

A home
Can keep pieces together.

It's a game you never really cared about.
Still, I spent every waking moment giving all I had to this game.
Still, you spent nearly as much time ribbing me about the soft sport that didn't matter til the last few seconds.
Tonight, my team won a championship against all odds.
Tonight, despite the distance between us, I think of you.

Old man, I want to thank you. Cause if you didn't show me hockey, or baseball, or lacrosse, or football, I would have never found my life. I owe that to you.

Mom, I want to thank you too. Cause if you never took me to every soccer practice, if you never listened to my persistent sports ramblings, if you hadn't taught me what it means to be a good teammate, I would never have found this life. I owe it all to you.

Today is windy. The thawed, muddy earth is restless.
Spring is here, slowly creeping forward.

Today there is nothing to be done. It's a work-free Saturday in April. The cats laze in windows while I sit on the couch and she does a puzzle.

Today is not notable. None of the many life explosions that we will face, will we face today. They will come another time.

Today, I look over at her. Her concentration is unwavering, her gaze fixed on that missing piece that just can't seem to find a home.

Today, I can't look away. She is content, beautiful, strong, smart. All that, with ease, and she chose me.

She looks up. "What?" She smiles, knowing full well that I was staring.

"what?" I respond. She laughs, for the millionth time, and it makes me float, for the millionth time.

Today, I'm home.

There's magic in the moments we share.
Hands holding memories up with fingertips on each end like clouds in a drought. There they sit, unencumbered, until time necessitates rain.
Clouds can be made up of many things. That concert with two thousand people chanting the same words. The moment of knowing pause between sentences of a last conversation. What sometimes becomes remembered as THE last conversation. Brunch shared among friends. These are the things that matter. It's here that sparks are born. It's here that a dry mouth is drenched.

to what there is to hold.
what is will someday become what was.
there will be loss. and it will be without limits.
keep your grasp firm.

I get lost in the content. My eyes ache at the pain that burns around the world. No visine will ease the heat. I scroll and see a shooting followed by a dash cam of an accident followed by a cute puppy followed by some family drama followed by a selfie followed by

it's unending, and there's nothing to be done, so I scroll and scroll and scroll, giving as much attention to the meaningless and the meaningful. It's all the same to me.

Every now and then, I'll steal a glance.
On the train going to a Jays game. Sitting watching TV. Driving to yet another apartment viewing. While you're working at an adjacent desk and I browse the internet.
I see your eyes, glowing blue like the lakes in Banff. I see your nose, rising far from your face. I see your lips, soft. I see the freckle on your right ear. I see your shoulder shimmy that comes whenever any pop song comes on. I see you, every single time, like it's the first time.
I am so lucky.

Death is
one of a kind.
It takes adults, sure-handed through years of experience, and leaves them stumbling as toddlers. It takes love and makes a memory. It takes all that you value and slowly breaks it down. It is indifferent, sometimes unrelenting, and fires in any direction at any given moment.

All this, but

It can be more than just a vacant space.
It's hard to see in the moment, or even after, but death also means more than loss. It means you've had something worth missing. It means that every day prior to meeting death in any capacity, you had something valuable.

It's easy to see the vacant space that held your family, but not all vacant space has to be empty. It can be a reminder of the endless nights of laughter, the endless days of adventure. This is a reminder that canvas filled with your shared story is worth something, and will remain valuable as long as you still
remember.

just hold on, nothing is lost

The cup is full.
I can no longer absorb the things that retain our attention,
their burden is too much to bear.

I'm saying goodbye to what I don't need.
Goodbye, gunned assailants
Goodbye, facebook-shared liver cleanses
Goodbye, hatred
Goodbye, self-help anything

You're not welcome here anymore. All seats are taken. Move along, I'm sure there are chairs at other tables for you.

Goodbye, current events
Goodbye, whatever new political campaign has us up in arms
Goodbye, looming darkness that lingers in our periphery

I haven't time for you.

Goodbye, road to nowhere
Goodbye, helplessness

I'm moving on from you, old friends. I'm too tired to do this anymore. It's time for life, nothing less.

Goodbye,

Good riddance.

Suddenly, six years haven't passed.
I'm driving home from my first official job,
sun rising behind me and moon setting in front.
My hands stink of grease, grit, metal,
as a byproduct of lugging greasy, gritty
metal around the plant through all of the night. I'm tired.
My body cries out. It feels good, but I know that
Fall will give me something that makes sure
I don't have to come back here next summer.
My back burns, every movement bringing a new spasm.
I know I've got two Tylenol Extra Strength
waiting patiently for my arrival at home. I pull over at the side of the road to capture the moment. And maybe that's
why I remembered it tonight. Tonight,
six years have passed.
I'm several summers and a handful of jobs
removed from pulling metal bits around from sundown til
it rises again. I've got a piece of paper that says
I spent four years studying but I only really
spent a few weeks total, to be honest. I'm driving home
in the middle of winter, sand and salt rusting
my edges as the sun falls behind me again,
the moon acting as a guiding light to my front.
I'm coming from a place I never want to leave.
I'm going to a place I never want to leave.
It's easy to be torn, especially now,
without even taking notice of it. I'm happier for
it.

Impose no barricade.
There's no sense in waiting til the countdown ends.
There will always be another. 2018 is my year. 2020 is my year. 3001 is my year.
I'm on no golden throne here. I wait too, continuously, patiently, hoping tomorrow is brighter.
It won't be. I know it, you do too. Tomorrow never comes. We keep up our waiting, deciding that we're invincible and that time, this slowly crawling, aching forward sense of loss does not apply to us. It does.
Still, there's one way to not suffer such great a loss. We have
to make life worth our time. No more 'one day'. Be what you want. Do the thing.
A new year is not a reset. It is not a new beginning. When we decide to start chasing whatever it is that we need to be, that's when it starts.

I hope I gave you half of what you gave to me.
Both pups, grass-stained tussles; bites and scratches
that lead to misunderstood anger.
No, I'm not playing anymore. It's
time to go inside. Followed by
no more than five minutes of silence between us
until we were at it again.
All teeth and arms, pushing and grappling, clawing
like pups are apt to do.
When you were sleeping in the crate for
those first few months, I'd put my hand between
the bars, searching for my buddy; only
finding gnashing teeth, a wagging tail.
Our roles were well-defined, as far as you were concerned.

It wasn't overnight, but
I stopped rolling around (as much) and
your joints stiffened, in part because of the
years passing through us, in part
because of that one time (we're pretty sure)
you fell off the deck.
We both seemed to be fine
with it, taking the time every winter,
when your allergies would subside,
to throw snowballs and wrestle until
we were both too exhausted to get up from the snow.

The rest was calm, mostly, me
feigning excited chatter to incite
a tail wag and a big smile from you, maybe even
a **** wiggle if I was lucky. You, begging
for food at 6 PM, then 5 PM, pushing 4:30
dinner like the elderly tend to do. Your coat, not shining like it used to. Your smile, a little more offset as each ancient tooth
struggled to hold on.

I have no more to say.

You helped get me here, so thank you.

Thank you.

I'm at the edge.
behind, open
clear
free space, green in all directions. Blue skies
that I've met before, become acquainted with,
and have become my dearest friends. They
stand tall behind me, pushing forward,
encouraging
when fatigue becomes too much.
They are my sword, my shield.
in front, closed
full
just unknown. Trees piled high, no sky seen. No blue, still green looks down from above. This time,
though,
it's dark. It looks on, expectant.
Of what, I'm not exactly sure.
in front, there is thick brush
built of brambles, raspberry bushes, and dense, low
branches. They cut,
scrape skin and burrow deep for the
unexposed. They have no aim,
no end goal, but
they keep on growing, pushing up,
spreading, acre after acre,
demolishing what I aim
for myself to be. They swallow
me whole, or try, but . . .
Still, there is only one direction
I can go
from here.

Everything and turns it into something else.
Loss fades, work fades, life fades
til all you've got left is joy.
The Kingdom glistens. You walk down
American Dream Street, each square foot free from filth. Every
cast member greets you, as does
each and every guest, with joy. There
is nothing else permitted in the parks.
What you came with gets better, food tastes
better. Better better better.

Unimaginably better. A place
where disease melts away in the Florida sun before
a drip of it can fall to the pavement. We come
in droves, maybe unsure, but leaving with nothing
but mouse ear souvenirs
and awe, of course.

A city incomplete. Orange vibrance directs every corner. Its
edges are rough, each turn of the
wheel testing my shocks
as asphalt ebbs and flows
beneath me. Each turn is chaos,
each location new and different. A city lost among itself. Still, each
turn brings with it cobblestone roads and ancient paintings, museums and tourists and beggers, some sitting under bridges, huddled around
a fire. I burn, too, teeth still chattering,
at home among the chaos. A city with plenty of past, looking forward. It
isn't hard to relate.

in crowding. the air swells, too
big to fit the most developed lungs.
Isolation creeps between the living,
making any movement seem
well beyond possible. Here,
I, and likely you, feel both
alone and smothered, helpless and
aware
that sometimes no effort is too
great. Soon, but not too
soon, hopefully, we
will be enveloped.

We smoked.
Half a cigar, shared between brothers, that one of us brought back from Cuba, leaning
on the cars of strangers. The three of us friends since. . .
forever, as far as I'm concerned.
We stood, hesitant to talk, just as
I'm hesitant to
type.
Eyes averted, we whispered,
as not to be heard by each other, about
beginnings and endings. Slow inhales,
even slower exhales, half of which we wished
would get caught up in the stagnant
air that still holds me in that moment. I cracked
jokes, because that's what I do, and they both
laughed, uncomfortably,
eyes meeting only smoke that is still slow
to dissipate. Conversation cut by
coughs, we smoked
all that there was and then some,
scared to retreat, to return knowing
what we now know.

A car speeds down the highway;
an aching heart beats on despite constant
complaints. The car veers left on a straight road, tires spinning on gravel;
the heart housed in, surrounded by
disease. Slow, plodding, it beats a little slower
with every passing day. Momentum
carries the car, spinning then rolling,
bits and pieces flying in all directions; the heart grows weaker still, others keep coming because a dying heart shouldn't beat alone. The car takes one final flip,
settling upside down, glass broken, seatbelts still in place, dents, scratches, scrapes and newfound bruises; the heart is slower still,
pained peace settling until, veins showing, baggy eyes, wrinkled hands, it stops. The car, leaving black marks on straight highway; the heart leaving a slightly different imprint. It all
stops,

tonight we reminisced
about pets loved and lost and a few that we
found again. and though
decades
have gone by, and we have travelled roads
with different destinations, we're still brought
back by the fur babies that made our
home whole. our source the same,
we
will always be held together by at
least that much

I know
that every cliché is true.
And every comparison, like the one about
your eyes shining lonely but brilliant like the moon, well, it is too. The one about your kindness,
a scout helping an old woman cross the road. The one about your brilliance, leaving me feeling both blessed and a little intimidated, yes that one too.
Of course, the one
about your smile
and the whole room, like a christmas tree; yes that one too.
Thank you,
for granting me some time
with a white winged being;
but of course that one is true,
too.

I was buying a parking pass from a sketchy, one-room portable office because the people that designed and built my building forgot that people have cars and
I keep my phone on silent so I missed the first call and
I knew my Grandma was having surgery that morning to replace a valve in her heart and
I knew my Mom wouldn't call unless there was a reason so as I was walking back to the bus stop, I gave my mom a ring.

It was mid-September and
we cried together but apart and
I decided to walk the 5 km home 'cause I didn't want to break down on the bus and
it was a beautiful day and
I knew that people would stare.

Mom said there was a 4% chance it would go bad and
we knew the odds were ok but she was 92 years old and
she never really was one for odds, fighting and becoming one of 3 female doctors in her graduating class. Mom called her on her days off and
they always talked for a few hours and
I know that Grandma really valued that time.

On my walk in this unrelated town, nothing seemed out of place, but I wasn't really there at all. The beggers begged and
the students drank and
studied and
the thugs thugged and
the cyclists cycled past me as I put my headphones in and
tried to disappear after saying goodbye to Mom because she had other calls to make.

And
Kim texted me wondering why Mom wasn't picking up and
I told her that she would be calling shortly and
I put my phone away and
walked on with my head down.

*

That Christmas season, we had no real family get-together for the first time, but I went with Mom and
3/4 of her siblings and
various other family members to Grandma's favourite restaurant that we went to together a few times and
everyone seemed genuinely happy and comfortable. And
I know they all missed her, of course, and
she was a doctor and
my Grandpa a surgeon, so they had a bunch of money to hand down to their children and
Grandma's family was the most important thing to her, so I think she would be happy knowing that everyone she loved and
that cared for her was a little more comfortable, was able to pay some student loans or a mortgage or a trip (which, also, she spent most of her life doing).

And
it seemed strange to me that on the day she died, nothing really changed, but as time moved on, she has continued to make all of our lives a little easier, a little brighter, a little less gloomy in the months that followed. And
this isn't an "Ode to Money," but rather an "Ode to my Mom's best friend" because all she ever wanted came true, directly
thanks to her.

fresh peaches in lined baskets, ordered
apples in individual grooves,
potatoes at three dollars for a one pound
bag. a mom pushes a wobbly cart as her
toddler reaches for
and grabs whatever is in front of her
Honey, no
but she doesn't get discouraged. An onion
floats into het hands while mom grabs and
bags green beans, and the toddler takes a
bite.
She launches the 7/8ths disgusting
as far as she can throw,
it crashes at the feet
of an older man with a walker. He looks
up, angry, then laughing
a skin crawling scream
fills the produce section, the mom
coddles her bundle of tears,
and they don't really subside
til she's home, snacking on apple slices
and watching tv while mom
puts away groceries and cooks
roast beef in a bed of garlic, onions, and
peaches, a family recipe

everything dies/ and some things are said/ to have lasted a century/ or more/ but how could that possibly be/ without variations/ changes in how things are done/or perceived/ how could a nation/ that once saw slavery/ as the norm/ elect a black president/ how could/ a nation that saw/ two centuries of change/ call themselves by the same name

everything dies/ and the world keeps/ crawling forward but we still insist/ that time does/ not evolve/or devolve/ what once was into something/else

Some days she comes home
sad, having ushered one of
her patients into the big sleep.
And she pours a drink, sometimes
telling us the medical side and
sometimes half asleep after the
first sip. And sometimes she
won't come home 'til 7 hours
after her shift, 'cause the evening
nurse didn't show and she has
paperwork to do (and management
has gone home, so she can relax
a bit), and we keep dinner
in the microwave cause even
saints gotta eat.
And her mom is becoming her
favorite patient, requiring
extra patience because my grandma
was a doctor. And she's now 92
with a failing heart and a mind
that can't quite hold on to what
it used to. And my mom is gonna
hold her hand, calmly carrying
another weakened, time-stricken
soul on her weight-thickened shoulders,
to the vacant hole that holds the
after. And she'll do it not 'cause
she has to, because all she's
ever done
                 is care.

embrace the bruises. embrace the aches that emanate from the surface of your skin. embrace the broken bones that come from the sum of your experience. embrace life's tattoos, the proof that you have used your time; the proof that you didn't just cruise through, unscathed and unafraid.
embrace the disease that coarses through your veins; embrace the pain that brought you here today.
if we were meant to end, heaven sent without a scrape, don't you think that scars would fade away at day's end?

An elderly woman signs forms
with a hand that is steadied with effort.

"It's terrible," she says,

pride turned to shame by time.

I wish I could steady
what shakes her, but
time claims all victims.
Strength today turns to,
like anything else, dust.

we were tired of the unknown,
tired of the mocking
deep blue, so we
peeled back the ocean
like an old band-aid on scarred skin,
just to see what sat beneath.
and we were
satisfied, our egos boosted,
because it was our ruins
cast across the ocean floor,
it was our waste
that the band-aid
was hiding.

The headlights, as always,
were blinding.
The End
was carried in discomfort between us,
its warm air pushing sweat
from our pores.
Some lost cells lead us to this point,
the word "tumor" hanging
                        numb
                        in the air.
There, we had no choice
       but to leave the conversation;
       unsatisfied, but now
       more aware of what lingers
       in the shadows cast by
       headlights at dusk.

Get up.
Put on clean pants, a clean shirt.
Brush your teeth, god ******, and floss em
too.
I know, today the demons are howling
poison in a ceaseless ringing in your skull; every appendage aching heartily with each movement. Keep moving. Don't be
consumed by it. Don't listen.
Drink your morning coffee, have
your morning ****. Wipe til the paper runs clean.
Get up - go outside.
Breathe deep; count to a thousand, listen to the wind in the leaves and the honking of busy people that can't wait. Listen to the soft coo of morning doves and listen to the ceaseless coarsing of blood as it runs in circles throughout your body.
Watch birds float, intertwined in a back-and-forth that may be familiar. Watch them
swoop this way and that, pecking and chirping.
Get up.
I'm pleading, begging
please get up.
If not right now, if not today,
when?

To talk about race.
It ain't my place
to talk about murdering innocent people.
It ain't my place
to talk about chaos.
It ain't my place
to act in anger; it ain't my place.

It ain't my pace,
to heave headfirst into battle with a burst of hatred.
It's dated. Antiquated. Don't devastate the devastated.
It seems senseless to fight this menace
that is our own. That we have grown
using ignorance.

It ain't my place
to presume to know what anyone is going through.
So to you and you and you,
I'll take a step back before I raise and fire
the crack of a whip
that is born from hatred.
I refuse to take the bait
of the crimson painted faces
whose hopes are killed at the hands
of their brothers. I refuse
to fire back, bullets crack
at the community
filled with emotional action.
It's wasteful, and frankly faithful people
look to each other. So look.

A minivan sits in a parking lot.
Nothing exceptional
but 3 red
"don't text and drive" bumper stickers
and another white one
too.
Projecting
angst and loss, they want to tell
the world what to do.
Can you blame them?

I hear you,
and I'm sorry that someone
else
wasn't listening.

Stay naive.
Keep believing in people. Keep believing

that destruction only creates more
destruction.

Keep looking for
the beauty in every second, even if

you work for $11.25 an hour and don't really like

what you're doing. That reminds me,
don't do anything

that doesn't make your heart work when you think of it.

Love.
It's simple and nothing is more important.

Finally, do yourself a
favour and create. Create, create, create.

I sit in a coffee shop
pump pump pump
goes my chest
pump pump pump
goes my diaphragm
pump pump pump
goes these hiccups
pump pump pump
it's rhythmic and
pump pump pump
obtrusive.
2. I lay in bed
pump pump pump
unconscious, unresponsive.
pump pump pump
A stranger presses two
pump pump pump
metal paddles to my chest.
pump pump pump
It's rhythmic and
pump pump pump
obtrusive and
pump pump pump
temporary.

Burn the acrid tobacco.
Pour the bourbon
all the way down.
Empty the memory
bank
of whatever you choose
not to remember.
Hold on
to what time won't take,
and what you
refuse to give.
Breathe in
and out
or don't.

My landlord is renovating the neighboring room.
I inhale, eyes closed, and I'm faced with God. Unable to speak, I listen as he tells me that life is worth living and that love is worth loving. He says that I'm doing pretty well despite the circumstances and that often an ounce of a smile is worth ten tonnes of agony.
I inhale, bleach and other cleaning solutions siphoning reality from my extremities, replacing it with a calming alternative.

Today, I ate rice
and sauce. I woke up at 2 PM
and decided to shower
tomorrow
maybe.
I brushed my teeth, spat on the brim
of the sink, and
left it.
I went to
0
of my classes
just cause
I think it might
be cold out.

Thousands of pounds
of dark, shiny, heavy
metal light soars over the
moon-glittered mirror.
No shadows block
water from the sky.
I float, eyes looking
inward as I hope that
today will be forgettable.
For hours, I have no idea where
I've been or where I'm going,
hearing only engine and
praying its whirring doesn't slow.
I'm a chicken ****.
I keep trying to
fade away from my own
mind. Terrified.
Hell-bent on tomorrow,
I stumble off to sleep.

Yesterday I wore boots and a winter coat.
Today, running shoes and a sweater, and
today I lost a friend that I met last fall.
It lingered on a branch long after
loneliness took hold. As cold and wind
tried to dim its golden glow, this friend
shook and slimmed but never did it go. It held on through fading warmth, fighting with every inch of its existence to see another day. Time passed.
Every blast of icy breeze cast doubt on
my last remaining leaf on the tree
just outside my house. Today,
I lost a friend that reminded me to hold
on.
Tomorrow, though, I know that in its place a green bulb of life will take shape.

The battle will not have been in vain,
because together we lasted
through the darkest shade of rain.

We're surprised when our 93 year old grandparents die of old age.
And we don't seem to see failing fires
in our relationships until
the Passion for battle
is the only thing keeping the couple together.
I'm no exception; my dad died three years ago
and I still laugh at the joke he told 3 times,
5 years removed. I still hope to make fun of his beloved Maple Leafs.
But, I guess I'm saying that
some couples just need
to alleviate their molten skin
from the furies of battle.

I know that fire
fades to ember,
and that ember
cools to coal,
and that coal
is pushed to diamond
with enough pressure.

Sleet seems to fall in sheets.
It covers all, sometimes even a blooming
rose on a cold Spring (or warm Winter) day.
New life, now passed but still preserved.
It seems to evade death,
only until the sun returns from
behind the clouds. The icy casket melts.
It leaves behind a wilted image of
circumstance.
Some flowers wilt too soon
only to be remembered as gemstones
that brought
colour
to a glazed wasteland.

It's so easy
to write while grief spews from
the greatest depths of your character.
Everyone, too,
needs to read about the heartbreak,
the lingering heartache that makes
life decisions feel like clouds.
And it's so easy to give in
and put pitied pen to paper,
and the beautiful only
blossoms with agony, angst, and anger.
Infrequently, though,
can you really find the blood curdling words
that turn ache into anything but
agony. Only then
is a poet born.

Someone you know dies. Or someone that you know has someone die. You apologize, as if it's your doing. You send them your thoughts, whatever that means, and it does nothing to relieve their grief or your own sorrow. You do it anyways.
They're in a long-term rainy day and your thoughts and prayers do nothing. You say the same things each time, even after having gone through a similar even in your own life. And the cycle goes on.
Grief fades through time and
your or their loved one continues on only as a memory. The sorry and the prayers fill an awkward gap where we feel something should be said.
I see no solution, it's just strange.

"No one asks to die" she tells me.
I listen, eyes glistening as she pains
even just to feign an ounce of joy.
"And no one asks to be born,"
I answered curtly.
She laughed.
I thought it was odd, but decided
to continue on
"And no one asks for a peanut allergy.
No
one asks for a midnight shiver or
a hungry night or
a lifetime of accidents
or cancer."
And she stopped laughing. And she
looked at me, all serious, eyes shining,
and she sneezed.
Debris flew all through the room,
and a little got in my eye.
We laughed, and the hospital bed that held us up finally gave way to something
important. We stopped looking
towards my bitter closing end, towards
the tunnel and the light, and we
spent thirty seconds giggling about a poorly timed explosion of nasal debris.
Thank you, dust particle,
for a second of anything
but silence.

A fourteen year old borrows five bottles of his dad's daily beers, puts them back with ache at a brisk pace, and spends the night growing acquainted with an unfamiliar porcelain throne.
He wakes up with the bathroom spinning, and laughs with friends of friends about all that stuff he pretends not to remember (because that's what alcohol does, he's told).
And he does it again, and again
and one time he ends up alone
on the ground on a brisk autumn morning,
and he's moist and chills define his spine.
He goes home and still alone,
he lays on a bed that his parents bought.
Hours later, he wakes up to a glass of water and an advil that appeared on his nightstand, as if delivered by an angel.