How do we
show you that
this is not
something we
want to be
fighting for
'til we pass
torches to
children who
just begin
fighting where
we left off?

Empty suites
and a sea of tents
on the rainy streets.

Now the oxygen is thin
and bodies lay in snow-capped caves
we'e weighted down by heavy lids
carrying today's rations
and yesterday's burden

one of your breaths is three of mine
sleeping as easy as seeing
in white-outs too far up
nowhere is warm anymore
and we're telling tales of altitude sickness
while coughing into our sleeves.

For a time I wrote poems on the subway
my eyes were bright and green

I grinned and spoke in crystal tongue
and wrote what little I'd seen

I didn't see what I thought I saw
as the seed sees not the ground

but perennials in summer fields
will watch the bloomers assume

that photos keep their colour
when instead they leave no room

for pictures on a dreaming wall
lifted out of you

now I sit writing poems on the subway
a duller shade of blue.

I saw myself on the bus today
standing slightly taller
I cut my hair, had stronger arms
and finally tailored my sleeves

I saw myself, a better version
a glimpse into another time
where I was me and not myself
and things must have been different, right?

but then I saw the look on my face
the same tired grin in my eyes
and even I from another reality
would see the same as the real me.

This idea
of gardener and flower
is the wrong idea

we are both gardens and gardeners
we tend to ourselves
and sometimes we share seeds

the more we share seeds
the more we grow into each other

so one day soon
we may be one garden
tending to the flowers together.

I saw myself on the bus today
standing slightly taller
I cut my hair, had stronger arms
and finally tailored my sleeves

I saw myself, a better version
a glimpse into another time
where I was me and not myself
and things must have been different, right?

but then I saw the look on my face
the same tired grin in my eyes
and even I from another reality
would see the same as the real me.

I was told it would happen
and I dismissed it as imagination

but now I know I was wrong then:
I see you in places you'll never be again.

Today I recall every time we spoke
and every time we didn't
and I tell myself I knew you
but I didn't

what I knew is that you were unstoppable
a force of integrity and passion
golden and swift
and I wish I knew you
when I had the chance to.

It's so nice to see you I said
but when you turned around it wasn't you
and someone else hurried away, confused
I didn't think anything of it
until I knew
the last time I saw you
it wouldn't even be you.

You blink
in the depths of a sparkling forest
full and rich with sweet colour and sound
a vibrance and power dense with life

blink again
and you are all that's left standing
hot and splintered in a blackened silence
the sky pushed away by a mass of death

blink once more
the earth and sky stay dark.

The me that loves you
and the you that loves me
are part of me
and part of you

the me that loves you
and the you that loves me
is the me that I see
when I see you in me

the good in me
is the good in you
the learning of me
is the teaching of you

the you that loves me
built the me that is you
and the me that is you
is the best of me.

Today we were
talking about
yesterday and
tomorrow we
will talk about
today somehow
even though
today never
happened because
we spent the day
talking about
yesterday
today.

A drop of you
and instantly
I am you
and you are me.

The texture of your voice
in the dark is soft leather
and coffee in the morning
stones on hot afternoons
to sweaters in the evening
but that is just a single day.

There's a little piece of you in me
and a little part of me in you

a part of me I miss and look for
a piece of you you think you've lost

when I find you with that part of me
and you see me with that piece of you

we'll approach each other cautiously
pulled together easily

by the part of me and piece of you

that will be, eventually
the piece that completes you
and the part that completes me.

That day I decided
I'd stay here forever.

No wonder
I love you.

It was sweet of you to sit beside me tonight
I needed someone to listen to the air with me
the two of our faces submerged in a mess
of cold winds and wintery spite and sounds
coats pulled to our ears covered in wool hats
shivers peddling their little dances through us
tremors from the soft of our shoulders
to the flats of our fingertips and holding tight
to our chests trying their best to force even breaths
we sat and waited for whatever we waited for
each unhappy with circumstances we dismissed
in a coat-and-glove-inducing January whisper
too early to be dark out and too late for light
but it was sweet of you to sit beside me.

Some say
the moon favours
those who listen to it

and some
have never listened
to the moon.

The first few trains in the morning
in early January are still so dark

you'll feel as if you're still sleeping
trying to make out familiar buildings

we're only now recovering from holiday glow
so no one here wants to be here

but out the window is a hint of comfort
a whisper that the week will so soon end

if you blink they'll wink right back
the flickering blue and yellow lights

of home.

Tonight I'll swim in your sweater
and I'll dream of waking up

in a soft nest of white gold
with your messy hair

teasing the freckles
off my tired nose.

I had a space
in the shape of you
before I knew you
were even a shape.

I'm aware that we construct our realities
I guess I just stopped building when you left.

To the old blue bicycle
chained to the pipes
on the corner of University
and Dundas street West

I saw you first in early October
showing off my new shoes
walking to work on Sunday
you were prized and new
a little scratched but true
with speedy silver highlights

the next time I saw you
you had lost your front tire
someone needed it more than you did
and perhaps you willingly offered

by the end of the month
you had no more silver
and both your tires were missing
you hung by your chain
your paint peeling in pain
but again I just walked past you

when it first snowed too early
I found you again on the ground
once sturdy, gleaming and fast
now rusted, robbed and hollow

you and I have much in common
old blue bike on University avenue
we both were once so strong and proud
but little by little we were pulled apart
someone needed each piece more than we did
and we thought we could help so we gave

now we're both our own rusted frames
scattered and empty in the busy street.

Let's hold hands and skate on the river
we'll waste away the winter together

not just in the sweet sugar snow
in before our toes get any colder

but in the awful wind too
in the ice and the dark

when the roads and sky go gravel grey
and the spirit of giving fades quickly away

we'll spend all we have but stay by the fire
until the worst of winter gives way to May.

I want you
to tell me
how you feel
but right now
I still only
want you to
tell me how
you feel when
you feel the
way I want
you to feel
and it's hard
but I'm trying.

We fall asleep sometimes in the snow and you sing to yourself in the wrong keys
sometimes we don't speak but I have everything I've ever wanted and so much life left.

I will not make you last forever
forever is too long a sentence
imagine

writing you down
will not immortalize you
don't you know pages tire too

how selfish of me
to think I can preserve
a force like you

so you can tear yourself up
whenever you want to be forgotten.

I.
Some of the leaves are still green
crawling between cold alleys in morning
thin wind stringing them along
carrying them towards December

II.
The trees are decorated too early
every year is an unsurprising imitation
but still you are warm inside with your family
making up for the colours you lack outside

III.
Cocktail dresses flash like little winks
hints of resolve so ready to be broken
the gold flows like goddess ichor and smiles
kissing like lovers who will leave tomorrow
loving as if we aren't

IV.
Love is in the air like chlorine gas
and no one is the wiser for it
the streets are still covered in old, dark snow
but we're too tired of it to notice
it's only a few sleeps until spring.

I fell into you
like the first snow
fell into us

at first
not ready
unsure of what to do
sliding and slipping
but we both stuck around

soon we found
each other beautiful
we spent time together
in the dark and
in the mornings

eventually
you covered everything I knew
in a soft and wonderful blanket

sometimes
each of us tired of the other
when once we were graceful
now we were relentless

but now
by the fire
I see you out the window
and remember
our lovely dances

so I run to you
and you welcome me softly
like angels in the snow.

A chill whispers in through the doors
at Summerhill station in the dark
deep in a November evening again
when you're hardly halfway home
and nearly half asleep
listening to someone else's
favourite songs.

Love
is wasted
on the loved.

Kiss me in the back of the train
share your tangled headphones

show me your favourite songs
and you can laugh at mine

we won't say anything
I'll let you in.

Maybe tonight I'll fall asleep
to the sound of sailboats
sweeping through the stars
collecting their life and
generously handing it out
when they reach the harbour

of course, maybe I won't.

A little rain never stops you
from walking to the bus stop
and getting where you need to go

until one day it does
and you're tempted to stay inside
where your blankets cradle you
and house plants help you breathe

your own music can play you to sleep
the heat of where you call home
filling your mind with everything
that is not the weather outside.

I forget how much I'm a fool sometimes
when I'm struck by something beautiful
a thousand locks of tangled brown hair
or the sights outside a blustery window
I have to catch myself falling in mid-air
slow my mind and attach to my thoughts
the rules I am supposed to initially apply
when made a fool by something beautiful.

A soft hat makes it considerably easier
to avoid the inevitable purple headache
it's always too warm in the winter here
everyone wears their coat and sweater
but the heat stays on for courtesy

don't let the voice wake you
as often as it wakes everyone
you know it's coming so drown it out
with something sweet in headphones
like Tom Petty or the Nutcracker Suite

sometimes peacefulness surprises you
on your way to Rosedale in the dark
submerged in December outerwear
falling asleep against the cool glass
of the southbound train window.

Some nights are not as good as others
for example I have never loved Thursdays
no Thursday is what you want it to be
and no Thursday night offers enough rest

some nights, maybe Thursdays, I'm awake
laying where I'd sleep with eyes closed
but mind wide open, wishing to be empty
or filled with whatever rest has to offer it

I lay lucid, still as sand, wishing gently
for your warm hand in my hair, shirt
wrapped in me, pressing me into oblivion
on a stupid sleepless Thursday night.

They felt
like raindrops

a fall night's cool dark air
gently pushing me backward

the unexpected satin drip
down my cheeks and
the side of my nose

blink

and one
before the other
they burst on my shoes

one, two
three

four

marks on
black leather
as I walk home
in October wind.

Dear man in the moon,

I wish to know what it is
you've to teach me from this,
and would you perhaps consider
taking unsolicited requests?
I seem to have found myself
the happiest I've ever been;
please allow in the thought
of not taking this away
from me, from them
I'll not say this lightly
but I need them.

How
musical
we feel

brushing
against
each other

a slow dance
of clumsy graces
a waltz in soft touch

socks
on the faux hardwood
kitchen floor.

I am home in the embrace
of a home that misses me
returning from long days
among the cold rejections
of the great, dark outside.

A headphone splitter cable
for a late-night neon dance

like fools to the rest of the world
fully content in our own rhythms

the lights swirl around us in streaks
as we peacefully forget we're not alone.

I wish you knew how often
I wish for you to know
how much I wish
for you to know
how much
you have
to go.

I enjoy the way your hair
is always kind of everywhere
and the way your mind is like that too
as if everywhere is nowhere for you
the way you explain so nicely
just what you have to say, precisely
while your smile, beaming like an eclipse
hides conversations behind your lips
so thoughtful, so understanding
with a presence simply demanding
that I smile around you
and so, I do.

--

I miss the way your hair
was always kind of everywhere
and the way your mind was like that too
as if everywhere was nowhere to you
I miss the way you'd explain so nicely
just what you had to say, precisely
while your frown, the moon in an eclipse
kept conversation far beneath your lips
you were thoughtful and understanding
with a presence simply demanding
that I be there for you
but I wasn't.

As crisply as new shoes
meet ancient pavement

confident and certain
but not yet broken in

we set off into a sprint
hand in hand, grinning

and we could run for miles.

There is not a single solitary sound
in the apartment under the airway

until the booming rush of departure
fills the little walls with great noise

all at once the whole world trembles
and so quickly to silence I'll return.

You love me for who I am
or I am a **** good liar.

Close your eyes
and listen to the sound
of eternity circling you

it dances in swirling steps
in rhythm you can feel
with fingertips outstretched

when you stop a moment
it will always find you again
if you want to befriend reality.

if you don't, that's okay,
it'll wait forever for you.