rivers of salt; saccharine silicon and
iridescent nightmares;
kids carve their names into trees
because their concept of forever is
three summers forward;
entropy demands a tithe, a
forfeiture of lives; decimate your herds
and still
no, it is not enough.
know it is not enough.

don't keep your sweet little mouth
open too long; sugar attracts flies,
and pretty soon your
teeth will be teeming
with maggots and rot,
streptococcus sanguis
cheerfully wearing down your enamel
like you wore down my inhibitions.
"it'll be fun," you said, dropping
one hundred milligrams
on your tongue, firmly grasping the back
of my neck, and applying your lips to mine.
one hundred milligrams
slide down my throat, and despite myself,
I laugh, because even when I'm scared
I want to be with you.

the Black Angel is God On Earth; she is
lonely beyond belief, and I give her a hug.
people forget that monsters have
feelings too, and
God?
God is the biggest monster of them all.

God is entropy, and she is
unimpressed by the pyramids
on your dollar bills; she will devour
the stars and the planets and newborn
babies swaddled in blankets,
and she yet hungers:
redwoods and sequoias and aloe vera,
microchips and inkjets and MacBooks.

we are crowded around the bonfire,
s'mores and cheap liquor, your hand on
my thigh; the heavens have
opened up, drenching us
in starlight: I have never felt more
beautiful. you raise my wrist to your
mouth, placing a gentle kiss on my
scaphoid and my lunate; you swipe
your tongue across supple flesh
before clamping down with your teeth;
I am seeing stars and feeling lovely
and I am so, so enamored with you and
so, so happy you are here.

“She couldn’t help for feeling a little sad,
for the wolf she had hurted so bad.”

- Staun

it was nice while it lasted
but i guess you figured out
that it was best to stay
away from me, since
i'm nothing but shallow
water left on the bathroom floor
and you are an ocean
twenty leagues deep.
you dreamed that i'd dive straight
into you, not looking back,
but both of us knew that
i wouldn't be able to
breathe at the bottom.

sometimes, girls with monogrammed
backpacks will hold the boy with
the tattooed arms a little closer
than you want them to.
remember that there has to be a girl
who gets movie nights with her mother
instead of a date with the boy
with the candescent eyes. and sometimes,
that girl is going to be you. but not always.
oh darling, not always.

there are bugs on my pillow case
And flowers in my sheets
Every time I close my eyes
It's your face that I see

I miss your touch
I miss your kiss
I miss your glowing eyes

I wish I could be taken back
To a different time

Where I'm from multicultural means multicultural and not just “lacking in white people”.

Where I'm from people say they're from Toronto even though they hate the Jays, Raptors and Leafs and hardly ever go into the city itself.

Where I'm from any day can be cynically mundane enough to read The Catcher In The Rye and mistake it for the Gospel according to Holden Caulfield.

Where I'm from everyone hates the mall, but everyone's a mall rat and if you ever go you see everyone, at least everyone you hate, and buy nothing.

Where I'm from there's signs that say “Flowertown” everywhere and an unremarkable amount of flowers. Unless there is a remarkable amount of flowers and where I'm from everyone's just spoiled.

Probably spoiled.

Where I'm from you could walk to Tim Horton's but you drive to Starbucks anyway.

Where I'm from everyone's considering a career in rap. Even the people who aren't considering a career in rap are considering a career in rap.

Where I'm from every teenager will tell you their Michael Cera encounter story.

Where I'm from is where he's from too, or he went to school there, or near there, or now his parents live near there. He's been there, multiple times, I'm sure.

Where I'm from there's an old quarry that everyone calls a lake now. Swimmers used to circulate the urban myth of a dead body at the bottom, until they found it. Now they just circulate the stale news story.

Where I'm from there used to be trees. Nature put some there until we cut them down to build. Then the  people put some there to accent the houses until Nature piled ice on them and cut them down again.

Where I'm from someone needs to have a good talk with this Nature fellow.

Where I'm from the brand new hospital screams, “good things come to those who wait, and wait and wait, unless you need to see a specialist. Then you're ******.”

Where I'm from there are streets that have so many young kids playing on them that ice cream trucks aren't allowed to go there. They go anyway.

Kids learn early that the law is optional where I'm from.

Where I'm from people don't pronounce the “gua” in “Chinguacousy Park”. Kids used to spend time there splashing around diluted *** in the kiddie pool in summer and tubing down the landfill mountain in winter. Now they just pass it by on the way to the mall.

Where I'm from car insurance costs more than cars because everyone's late, lost and angry, but none of them would call themselves a bad driver, just unlucky.

Where I'm from boys take pretty girls skating at Gage Park. I guess they take ugly girls there too, I just know the one I took was pretty.