Some evenings I'll catch myself
looking through all of the grey
messages you gave me at night
and everything goes numb and

I can smell your laundry detergent
and see the way you could not tie
shoe laces and all your sweaters
were always dark colours and oh

how well they fit your neck and
your eyelashes held snowflakes
as if they loved them so and you'd
devour depressed books because

sad made you happy and I made
you happy too you always told me
often enough that I believed you
and we always missed the sunset

and you would drag your fingernails
across my shoulders while grinning
I loved it, you knew it burned my skin
and you would slam cupboard doors

by accident, you never meant to do it.
You would notice afterward and laugh
at yourself because it made you forget
that you hated everything about you

that was something I never forgot but
it never did anyone any **** good
because you slipped away so quietly
and suddenly there wasn't any more

slamming cupboard doors.

The artists of the alleys
have all stayed home.
Their tags are fading,
they're too old to roam.
Where are you, artists?
Have you lost your say?
Painted over, your pain is over
but are you any better this way?
Your spray cans seem silent
and the walls are all grey -
this is when we most need colour,
but there's nothing bright to say.

It's like I'm learning
to ride a bicycle.
Slowly, carefully
and I don’t want to
I don’t want to
but I do, I do
I want the wind
and the rush
and the air
and the danger.
A foot forward
and a foot back
and then back again
and stop, again
again again again
faster faster stop
but then another
a foot forward
tentative but certain
a confidence I don’t deserve.
Fall, crash, scrape my hands,
my knees are shouting at me
and tears of hot humiliation
stain my shirt a new colour
but I'm up again,
back again,
up again,
down again,
and up one more time
but then I'm moving
faster faster careful
moving forward
faster faster whoa
finding a balance
faster faster look
staying upright

and oh,

down again.

There is a big blue bicycle
in the shed behind the house,
to which I will return someday.

The world
can no longer
end quickly -
it has
already
slowly
been dying
since we learned
what we are capable of.

Two people
were admiring
the sunset together.

"If the sky
were always
this pretty,
we'd have forgotten
to look at it by now,"
one spoke over the breeze.

"I don't think that's true,"
the other replied,
"because I still look at you."

I'll write you a song and
I'll sing you to sleep,
but only
if you tell me
the words.