I miss you
Do you miss me?

We used to be so close
We were best friends
Talking, texting, being together all the time.

But I realized a harsh reality.
I was the only one to make an effort.

You've moved forward with your life
Living in a new place
Making new friends

While I'm miles away
Wondering how things changed from one second to the next
Trying to figure out why I'm not good enough.

We used to share everything
All our secrets and our dreams
All our fears and our nightmares

But somewhere down the road
You ran ahead and left me here behind.

You left me here behind.
Now I'm alone
Trying to move forward
With an emptiness where you lived.

We're all mirrors in our fragile states
Enough pressure against us, our surfaces
Cause cracks across our faces
Some have shattered beneath
Shards of us fall to the ground
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who's the most broken among us all?

I have a closet
In the back of my mind

It is where I chose to hide
All the things I want to deny

The problems
The hurt
All have a place
In my mind

The closet

Sometimes it doesn't close
Because of an overflow
But I chose to ignore it

When I'm depressed
The demons break free
And they control me

The closet door is broken
And my self control is lost

The hurt
The pain
The loss
The problems

My demons

They strangle me
They tear at my heart
They tear at my soul

All because my closet door
Is broken
Shattered

Hope seems lost

But I work
And so does my construction crew
To fix my closet door
To contain my demons

To give me hope once more

Diaspora
From the Greek

When I heard the word I felt it
And I looked it up
In my old red dictionary

I could have used the Internet,
I suppose

But I like to run my forefinger down pages
Of words

I read the definition
And I felt it
Oh

Oh
We are diaspora.

Am I using it correctly?

We are a diaspora.

Diaspora
From the Greek

From the green valley of Ottawa
From Scotland
From Ireland on wooden boats

From the French village thirteen children
From the mines in the North
From Poland and from Germany

From the churches and
From the Blueberry patches
From the Island Manitoulin

From the dark lake Kagawong
From Kinburn and Arnprior
From Markstay and from Sudbury

From Waterloo
From Kitchener, Michener
From the Suburbs

Oh

From the Suburbs
From the red bricks, red currants
And geraniums
From green island cabins

From the desert

Oh

From the desert
From the potholes and pipes
From the salty wind
Cracked Caspian Sea
From the middle of the east of nowhere.

From the mountains

Oh

From the mountains
From the crystal water fountains
From the tram bells
On the cobblestone streets
From the torrents of the Rhein

From the white cross

Oh

From the white cross
On the green hill
From the river Laurence
From the French and from the English
Plains of Abraham

We are diaspora
We are a diaspora

Diaspora
From the Greek

How did it end up here on my tongue?

It is diaspora.
It is a diaspora
Diaspora is a diaspora

And I wonder if it misses its other pieces
The way that I miss mine

Ours

There is no
Roping us back together now

There is no
Home to go back to

There is no
Point of meeting
Of reunion

No
White steeple in our old town

No
Yellow slide in our backyard

No
Old folks on an old farm

No
Walled house on a hill

No
Luzernerring 93

No
Familiar riverwater

There is no
Ancient Greek anymore
Diaspora

Only fragments of fragments
Of roots of stems of words
In different dialects

There is no
Place for you to belong,
Diaspora

You’ve been sliced to pieces
And scattered
Into the wind

But
When people ask you
Where you are from

You say simply
From the Greek

Oh

From the Greek

And
When people ask me
Where I am from

I say simply
From the diaspora.