I have never considered myself weak.
Physically, I have nothing to fear,
I believe myself capable of defending myself from any violent attack that may ever come.
Believing in your own strength is half the battle, after all.
I also rest on the assurance that I will die fighting if need be,
where not many would risk that chance, or persist to have to ****** someone.
I will die on my feet, I will die fighting,
I am afraid of nothing that can hurt my skin.

But,
and there always is a but,
I am terrified of that which can hurt me internally.
You can’t fight feelings,
you can’t hold your own against
love, or sadness, anger or betrayal.
I loathe being vulnerable,
especially when no one attempts to convince you there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Atleast they haven’t lied about that.

I have had women who have left me abandoned in glass boxes,
who have turned on a tap and let the water flow and fill up the space,
promising me they would return when the water touched my chin.
Acting as if it was an a show of affection, providing me with a warm bath to soothe my soul.
But they’ve left, I drowned,
and once discovered, not one could bother to administer CPR.
They gave no condolences to what family I have left,
nor show up to the funeral,
they did not even shed one tear.

But yet, years later they seek out my headstone,
hesitating at the wrong plot because they couldn’t bother to learn the correct spelling of my name.
But they would dig me up, pry open my coffin,
and gently part my decomposed eyelids so they had someone’s eyes staring only at them.

If you **** someone,
atleast have the decency,
to let them rot in peace.

Is there room for context at this table?
We can move some dishes and shuffle chairs.
I’ve checked all four legs and they seem stable,
but choosing a placemat is like splitting hairs.
I notice the candle’s flame is getting dim,
and my fingers pirouette in the puddles of wax,
my hair needs a cut but I settled for a trim,
and I’m donating my salary and spending my tax.

I’ve told you every thought in my head,
except the ones that matter the most,
the facts that scald my cheeks to red,
now they’re burning up like charred toast.
I’d promise you whatever you ask for,
and I’d drag myself to deliver each time,
but I’m ignoring the truth at my core,
and I’m confessing to you in mime.

Sit across from me with crossed legs,
see magnets becomes our eyes,
“come closer together” both begs,
but we’re determined and polarized.
There’s no world existing around us,
and there certainly is no group,
you listen while I ramble and make a fuss,
over the death of Lipton’s Alligator Soup.

We turned Heaven into a Hell,
we took a skeleton and made a shell,
We dragged our nails down the walls
scribbled ephiphanies on bathroom stalls,
and silenced a story we could never tell.

And all the things that have driven us apart,
in truth have only made us stronger.
and my love you are actually my heart,
I won’t question it’s beating any longer.

If you’re stuck with a choice
you should flip a coin in the air,
then listen to your mind’s voice,
‘cause your answer will be there.
When it comes to heads or tails,
you already know your favourite side,
you’ll pray for it as the coin sails,
ignore the outcome but absorb the ride.

My demons and shadows are placing bets against me,
black is heartbreak and red is destruction.
They watch the wheel spin so intensely,
holding their breath so strongly that it’s creating suction.
The winner of the jackpot round
will play Russian Roulette with my life,
it’s inevitable, fated, destined and bound,
‘cause I brought a pen to a knife fight.

I’m winning in a debate,
on a topic for which I don’t care,
it won’t change the structure or state,
for a system that will always be there.
Who are we alone? Who are we together?
Drink the marrow straight from the bone,
so you can savour my blood forever.

I lost all faith in my last name,
as a MacKenzie- “I shine; not burn.”
But I feel the heat from the blame,
and the scarred mark I was born to earn.
The funeral pyre is already lit,
the flames flicker and engulf my strife,
I’m too stupid to halt and call forfeit,
‘cause I brought a pen to a knife fight.

Empty hands, and broken fingers,
hanging strands, clings and lingers.
Sunken shoulders, and lifeless eyes,
a name in my folders, alphabetically organized.

You can’t decipher a word’s meaning,
if the word is never actually spoken.
The tree never fell but it’s slightly leaning,
surprisingly roots just can’t be broken.
And sometimes I’m scared to blink,
even though I’m unimpressed with this sight,
I’ll be bleeding out in colourful ink
as I brought a pen to a knife fight.

You know sharks don’t sleep
and sadly neither do I.
But now I’m in too deep,
“you’re gonna need a bigger boat”
just to get by.

You told me to put on my dancing shoes,
and I strapped on two concrete blocks.
You asked me to relay the news
but I went for the thrills and shocks.
Now my oxygen is running low;
my heavy head is finally feeling light.
I’ll still try to give you a good show
but I brought a pen to a knife fight.

I want to tell you that I love you
but it feels almost insulting to us,
as we have discovered a feeling
that is new and uncharted;
something that far surpasses
the conventional and widely known
concept and notion of just “love.”
We have created a new word,
a new feeling, a new experience,
a new connection,
a new world that’s all our own.

The word love;
it just doesn’t do this justice,
as when I first met you I realized
the reason the sun rises and sets.
It rises to compete with your beauty,
your natural radiance, your light
and your warmth.
When it sets, it gives up;
desperately craving rest as it
spent many hours trying to outshine you, which nothing in this world could ever hope to do.
At very best it could try to match your breathtaking sight,
but still it sets every single day, because it could never even come close to your effortless luminescence.
My darling, you have exhausted the sun,
a basic necessity for all life to grow,
and the centre of our known universe.
But to me, you are what causes growth, you sustain all life,
and you have me spinning in circles
in your gravitational pull;
twenty-four seven, three sixty-five.

It sounds cliche,
but the moment I saw you everything both stopped and started.
My heart stopped,
my breath stopped,
even time stopped.
But my soul was birthed,
my mind was resurrected
and then, my heart was revived.
Within a split second I felt everything; all at once.
Everything in this world suddenly made sense,
I found the puzzle piece to the incomplete picture I had decided to settle with,
I discovered an ***** I never knew existed, but now that ***** is so vital, I could never live without it.
I became a new person that day:
I was finally made complete.
I never knew what happiness was,
but that day I basked in.
I inhaled as much as I could,
even if it would drown me,
because I was absolutely terrified
and paralyzed with the fear
that I would never know that feeling again.

You’re my first thought when I awake,
picking up where I left off the night before,
and you sneak your way into my head all throughout the day.
No matter how close you are to me,
you will always be too far.
It’s frustrating to have two hearts and two souls so intertwined and locked,
that the barrier of our bodies almost feel like a nuisance
as they create a thin wall separating them from meeting
and melting together as they should.

If I could list off my biggest accomplishment,
it would be any time I was the provider of your smile.
If I could list off my favourite hobby,
it would be the times I make you laugh.
If I could do one thing
and only one thing for the entirety of my life,
it would be to look into your eyes
and listen to your sweet voice;
it always leaves me so intoxicated.
And if I was given the choice;
see you hurt or be gun down with a barrage of bullets;
I would tell the firing squad to start loading their guns.
I would die for you; without hesitation.
But the more impressive thing,
I think, is that I live for you,
even though it hurts so badly some days.
Pain goes hand in hand with love,
but it is also tantamount to it.

So you see, I want to tell you that I love you,
every single second of every single day for the rest of my life,
but the words are just words,
and no words, no matter how descriptive or beautiful or powerful,
could ever fully articulate what I feel.
Just know that I am yours,
even when you doubt that I am.

Dear Mrs. Frouin,
(atleast I think that was your name.)

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Actually, I don’t believe I wanted to be anything, especially when I was younger,
but writing chose me.

For you see,
I conditioned myself unable to verbally express my emotions, or my thoughts, since I was old enough to have them.
I know the words I want to say when I want to say them,
but I never felt anyone wanted to hear them.
I believed my constant analyzing and emotional dissection to be a burden.
I knew most people wouldn’t understand, if they even bothered to listen at all.
And so I taught myself to alter the disease of emotions, and the curse of memories into dressed up words.
I turned my pain into similes, allegories and metaphors,
whether hidden and veiled or transparently exposed.
My pen became my bestfriend
and paper evolved into a therapist.

It didn’t always do the trick, I admit.
Especially when I was fifteen, the year you taught me,
the year I tried my first pill
and found an alternate reality I could escape to where everything felt good, all the ******* time.
And that’s where you caught me.

It seems petty, immature and egotistical to still remember this fourteen years later,
but when someone attempts to crush the only aspiration you have,
the only thing you really have felt good at,
it tends to stick with you.
Especially considering I remember everything.

As per usual, I had shown up to your class ******,
there wasn’t many classes I showed up to sober.
There wasn’t many classes I showed up to in general.
I had zoned out during your lesson, probably doodling, talking,
sleeping, listening to music, writing or staring at some pretty girl.
Everyone had left and you asked me to stay behind, and as much as I was a professional **** up back then, that wasn’t common.
You sat across from me and asked me what I wanted to do with my life,
immediately I answered “I want to be a writer.”
We talked about fiction, journalism, poetry, song writing,
the things I “excelled” in according to you,
but with softness in your voice you stated,
“I believe you have the talent, but to be brutally honest, I think you lack the motivation to do it.”
I hear that sentence every two weeks or so.
It haunts me.

I can understand your reasoning,
as I said above, I was a professional **** up.
But you didn’t bother to talk to my media and film teacher,
who personally tracked me down one day when I was cutting class in the woods getting high with friends,
pulling me aside to beg me to start showing up to any class more often,
that I had missed 84 classes in one year, and that he personally,
intercepted to principal to discuss me and stuck his neck out for me,
“You are far too unique to not make your mark here.” he said.
You didn’t bother to check that even then, when I wasn’t attending 90% of my classes,
I was still on the honour roll for English, History and Math.
And that even after your words,
and even after more partying
and attempting to **** my brain cells
I came back that next year and stayed on the honour roll,
adding 16th Century History to the list as well.

But I do see your original point,
maybe I do lack the motivation to “do it.”
Whatever that might mean,
because like all things in life,
it’s all about perception
and personal expectation
and interpretation.

You see, I can confidently say that
my writing has evolved,
and dare I say, at the risk of sounding pretentious and cocky,
it has gotten better.
And while I may not be getting paid a dime for any of it,
I have people reading my work,
for some reason,
and most importantly, I have people relating to my work,
experiencing it, and above all,
feeling it.
That’s all I’ve ever wanted to accomplish from writing;
it may have started as free, comfortable, liberating therapy, expression and self reflection,
but all I have ever wanted is to know I made someone, anyone,
feel something.
That’s all everyone should aspire to accomplish,
an act that touches a person,
makes them feel less alone.
There’s nothing more noble in this world than helping another person,
no matter how you do it.

Whenever someone has tried to show positivity or support for my writing,
they make comparisons of being the next (insert famous female writer here)
and all I ever think is that I would rather be the first me.
Almost every artist wants to “famous,”
but I have always thought that I would rather be respected than famous.
Maybe one day I will be,
but maybe I won’t,
that really isn’t the point.

You believed that I lacked the motivation to become a writer,
but I always have been one.
My motivation is used everyday to get out of my warm bed,
where dreams are the only plane of existence where I feel peace and bliss.
My motivation is used to create something from everything negative,
instead of letting it beat me down
and turn me into the kind of person who would look at a
troubled teen with a glimpse of aspiration,
and tell them they couldn’t do it.
My motivation is used to support others and if I’m lucky enough,
guide them even half a step closer to the path they want to take.

Mrs. Frouin, if you read this,
and I doubt you will
because you probably don’t remember someone who you thought you read so well to make assumptions on their potential,
please laugh at the irony at the
fact that you failed me in your “creative writing” class
and I’m still a writer.
And maybe, if you’ve read this all the way through,
the student “lacking motivation”
just became your teacher.

Rest the sterile smile plastered falsely on your face,
eyes set to the mile while mind is not in place,
place self on cruise control and be astonished by a crash,
anything to leave the hole that is filling up with trash.

A landmark embodiment of mundane reality,
I built an essential pyramid but not of food groups or of needs.
It resembled a tomb, but one far too good for me,
but I ensured that it suffocated all potential seeds.
I blame myself and my own hands
for whatever I unintentionally create,
but lacking blue prints or floor plans,
it’s impossible to have a clean slate.

Erase the transparent barriers that line all the small talk,
they say “the more, the merrier” but it’s getting hard to walk.
Greeting sad dark skies when I sleep and when I wake,
so I’m rubbing my eyes hoping it might give perception a shake.

Anonymously me,
it’s clear and everyone can see,
neutral yet so angry,
is there anyway else to be?

A landmark embodiment of mundane reality,
I built an essential pyramid but not of food groups or of needs.
It’s still magnetic North, but it’s South I wish to see,
as downwards is my destination due to my deeds.
I shame myself and my own hands
for whatever I unintentionally create,
and when you’re covered up in brands,
it’s impossible to have a clean slate.

You asked me to write how I feel,
or atleast my every single thought,
so my fingernails made my skin peel
and my organs were exposed with rot.
My flesh lost all it’s remaining elasticity,
but true to form it provided struggle and I had to pull,
and imagine you had the audacity
to tell me my decomposition was still beautiful.

Atleast I can thank you for that moment,
admittedly it came extremely late,
no matter the present, I’ve already blown it,
you know it’s impossible to have a clean slate.