There's no question
we were made to break

but are we to shatter
in a shower of sparks

or may we fall apart slowly
after having loved a lifetime.

There are so many things
I cannot wait to tell you
should I ever get the chance
to know who you are.

It began as most things do,
with the softest of breaths

next came the leap, of faith
of risk, of character, forward

then arrived the water, harsh
the icy rush of consequence

and at the end of the chapter
there was absolutely nothing

but little traces in the wake.

Up at quarter after seven
out by hopefully eight

take the 36 or the 199 rocket
eastbound to Finch

about nine minutes
give or take, seven stops

then southbound thirty minutes
to Bloor, cut to St. George

down to St. Patrick
they're not really saints

I have my own key
even though I shouldn't

so I let myself in
and tiptoe to you

you know I'm here
because it's Friday

and you smile while
I slip into bed with you

and hold you
until we wake up.

September snaps August to her knees
with a crisp breeze and the first drops
of orange on the one-coloured horizon

spring flowers outlive their welcome
while leaves begin being beaten down
by the cold wind of the end of summer

rain sweeps her hand through your hair
taking with her the sweetness of the sun
and leaving the cool hope and beauty of

shedding one's sunburned skin
in the cold wild of the end of summer.

I write
to show you
all these wonderful things
I've fallen in love with

in hopes
that you
may fall too.

The lights flicker
every once in a while
at number 6 Sea Robin

I'm too young for ghosts
and too poor to fix it
so I will just believe in angels

at number 6 Sea Robin.

It was the thunder
that told us
her bedtime story
that night

tales of new life
of rains, spring
and morning flowers
far, far away

a storm story
to sing us to sleep.

With a quiet voice
I said my name is Joshua

they paused
for a moment
as if they'd never
heard the name
before now
(they had,
of course)

as if deciding
if this little boy
would be worth
their borrowed time

their eyebrows creased
and I saw the grin
before it arrived
nervous but
silent and peaceful

and they must have
known right then
that I would never
ever leave their side

because the grin erupted and
that's a very nice name, I'm Lindsey
and right then I was ready to offer
the entire world to them.

We slowly met the morning
when the sun was running late
on a grey-blue Sunday
at quarter past eight

you rolled into me
******* in grey sheets
doused in long hours
and too little sleep

while we hid in the covers
waiting for the alarm
I knew this was perfect
and never wanted to leave

the grey-blue pillows.

Kiss me at red lights
and memorize my secrets
hold my hand when you're tired
and I'll give you everything I can offer.

Oh
how it hurts
to trust
so completely.

Today I died on the freeway
by the overpass on the 427

a hot and relentless August rain
made it too dark to be five thirty

I walked home slowly from work
as you do when you're tired

oh yes, I was sad too
but we all are

it's easy to be sad
when it rains in August

when I reached the overpass
in the middle I leaned over

my hair passed my eyes
and droplets fell

down, down

I thought about it
twenty feet into traffic

the guardrail is never as useful
as a sweet and good-hearted hug

so then I thought better of it
and put my headphones in

I died on the freeway
then got up and kept walking.

We melted ice cream
in the golden afternoon
burning out at either end
young enough to enjoy it

we wasted away the summer
exhausting ourselves in the sun
easily friends forever
until forever was done.

Hold
the hand
that holds you.

That night
we nearly drowned
in a downpour

and when the sun
seared the morning
we didn't catch our breath.

The rain makes a warm rattling sound
on the window, like a teenage fling
sneaking in after climbing the maple
while your parents slept rooms away

the thunder is far enough away
that it sounds like a muffled sigh
from a half-asleep lover on your shoulder
mixed with the remnants of your dream

lightning, then, which should come first
flashes you out of your memories
and into the moment, your dark room
where you lay awake thinking of love.

In flirtatious quiet
we dodge eye contact
and escape studious looks
in hope that one might fall in love
with the other without even a single word.

There's a well-worn scratch
just below the old brass handle
on the door of forty-six Jopling Avenue

my keys knew it as well as my feet
knew the ancient wicker welcome mat
left by sweet tenants decades before me

take the lucky seven bus to Finch
and there it's hidden behind mid-rises
obscured by traffic and ignored by most

the fading brick harmony
matches the exhausted panel walls
when the door creaks open for you

it was as if it wanted you to be there
the way the little room welcomed you
all the warmth a tired frame could offer

large enough to fit a bed
small enough to hit your head
and perfect for a lonely poet like me

but now my home is packed in boxes
and I'll never again be warmly welcomed
by the door of forty-six Jopling Avenue.

This is why we need poets:
not just to write sense
from the chaos of earth
but to understand ourselves
and what we can do about it
as so few of us truly do.

They said you'll go places, kid
I heard it so often I believed it

I could be this shining spark
hope for a fire from nowhere

but like nearly every other spark
I crashed lightly into the grass

flared up once
and flickered out
into the darkness.

With a great silent sound
as station after station passes
a woman in a rose-covered satin shawl
gingerly rests her head against the glass

the papers that will bring her home here
in a backpack hugged desperately to her
the beaded bracelet from her daughter
slipping down her waning wrist

with fearless eyes and steely jaw
she slows her pulse to just over normal
the black columns holding tonnes of city
whipping past her rattling window

clickety-clack
clickety-clack
clickety-clack

the tired train track
beats like a weary old heart.

If I saw you on the same train
stranger as you'd have been
I might wonder your name

if I glanced your way
and you caught me
I'd die in my tracks

and if you sat next to me
without a word or a smile
I'm sure I'd never forget you.

Since we last were here
the chairs have greyed with age

they, like us, were once a gentle blue
now they lay aching in the pre-show

the walls quake with the noise of decades
and the air is stained with concession salt

like living memories that were never ours
dissolving in the flicker of the picture

we remember so many first dates
and missed childhood kisses

that we forget the film
is even playing.

The rain drapes the windshield in sheets
and the radio doesn't reach any stations

cold integrity darkens the interior
of Alex's rusty crimson Camaro

it's never this quiet on the highway
sliding between light and lightning

laid bare by a flash across the sky
naked at the sound of thunder

what use is running away
if all you can do is drive.

Today
I took
a new
way home

and I'll
never
give it
back.

I said It's just so easy
what is, what's so easy you asked
the words slipping from tired lips

we lay in pitch black
your back to my chest
our eyes not adjusted

being comfortable with you I said
you laughed, the best sound I know
no it isn't you said

we could see silhouettes now
each of us tangled in the other's
breathing in tandem

who made you the expert on me I asked
you did, silly you whispered
and I understood.

You outgrew me
and I didn't mind

I grew at my own pace
and later left you behind.

It's okay to
question love
sometimes

you can't
find answers
without questions

and solutions
don't start
without answers.

Sometimes I'll catch
a sentence of a song

and all at once I'm seventeen
open-eyed and wide-hearted

taking the bus home from work
late in my dad's leather jacket

worn out shoes and transit tickets
and that stupid Pink Floyd t-shirt

with hopes high as the buildings
I dreamed of living in someday

on my way back to homework,
leftovers and a messy room.

Your midnight conversations
wrap beautifully around
our early morning
silences, warm,
well-rested
and soft.

We sat quietly in the car that never moved
covered in the busy shadows of the garage
you told me I'm proud of you, you know that?
and to silence we returned.

That night we fell asleep
to the sound of soft thunder
and the crash of quiet droplets
on the sheet metal porch

sheets wrapped us up in each other
and blankets held me to you
over the rain I breathed in your hair
over your breathing I held in my heart

you smelled the colour of your toothpaste
your laundry detergent and soap
dissolved me, slipping through my senses
as we stumbled between now and dreams

my arm laced gently through your t-shirt
the grey one you always wore to bed
while your fingers traced a silent code
in the ringlets above my ear

we should grow old together
you spoke with half words through the pillow
let's I mumbled or was certain I'd said
and I'd have smiled if my lips were awake

it's the night I tell you about
every time you ask me to detail
a night I distinctly remember

I don't have the heart to tell you
it's a night I'm beginning to forget

let's I mumbled with a sleepy grin
and you whispered oh, we did.

Together
we watched
the sun

rise deep
into the shallow sky.

Like well-worn denim
we got so comfortable

then were taken by surprise
when we ripped at the seams.

With you it's so easy
to dance in the middle
of an empty road
with a song on repeat

it's simple with you
to lay on the couch
with my hair in your lap
and feel complete.

For a moment I
heard a small laugh

trickle down the quiet
stretch of crumbling street

across the rusted bicycles
broken down garage doors

overgrown sections of grass
scattered with sun-worn toys

and there I finally found it,
all the riches in the world.

You and I
we are better
at being strangers.

Was
it
really
that
easy
to
leave,

or
are
you
just
as
hurt
as
me?

When I was fifteen years old
I was a pacifist and I knew everything

a boy I knew from school
caught my ear with a right cross

hey ****** he said
it was all he said

it hit me as we were walking
to the baseball diamond half past four

it spun me around
and I recognized him from class

quiet panic froze my feet
facing him in stunned confusion

a ringing bounced through my skull
my chest tightened my eyes wide

I felt another before it fell
as wordlessly he swung his hand again

this time it hit my stomach
my bottom rib to the left

I tried to stop his hands again again
but it never works like the movies

and it hurt
when ringing in my right ear cut out

this I didn't know
I thought I knew everything

it hurt
when he hit my nose

there was immediately blood
on my good blue sweater

it was muffled frenzied silence
I wanted him to say something

say something say anything
tell me why you're hurting me

tears burned in my eyes
but he couldn't see them

maybe he would have stopped
but they were easily missed in the red

on the ground now I covered my face
stop it I finally said please I said

if he heard me
he made no mention of it

and then there was fire in my side
his foot pulled back again

I turned away from the hurting
then fire in my back above my hip

then nothing
footsteps toward my eyes shut tight

another kick and I heard it coming
and I was ready for it to hit my face

but instead a barrage of little rocks
the gravel I lay in now in my hair

then the footsteps left
silent as they arrived

I lay there three or four eternities
aching and still so so confused

I didn't go to baseball
I hid under bleachers in the other field

man up my dad said that evening
as I wept in the passenger seat

I was a pacifist and I knew nothing
and it hurt.

In the flashes of passing streetlights
I carved out sentence after sentence

the endless noise of the slipping road
flickering into the highway I knew
was beneath my feet but I couldn't see

I was a child searching for solace
looking for a new imaginary friend.

Just out of curiosity,
what was it that
killed the cat?

We used to dream
in my father's old car

a dusty 1974 Camaro
red as a candy apple

we talked about driving to Chicago
with stratocasters in the back seat

but we each escaped the town alone
and the car never left the garage.

I'm not sure I'll ever have a home
in the way I imagined I would

maple trees and softball games
silverware and a chess board
and a leather chair that remembers me

I will always be an unsteady train
on tracks that diverge and separate
where will I work and where will I go
I will forever ask out the window

today the ground is too concrete for roots
only money buys you soil
and that too will **** you
slowly, slowly.

Always a writer
always running
out of things to say.

Sometimes I'll
come to you in pain
but I won't know
how to tell you
where it hurts.

The ghost of your hand
held mine as I walked home tonight
I saw you smile on the street twice
but it was just streetlights
through car windows

the humid air tasted like your exhale
and every person I passed
must be using the same
detergent you used

the way home
was sad.

Your bed is too big for you
yet you lay in the same spot
every night without fail
the imprint of you
reminded over and over
of your shape, size, your outline
your mattress will never forget you.

You will catch me up on things
I hadn't even caught to begin with
a rain of pieces of puzzles and prose
with gaps wide enough to fit your hand

and partially understand what you would
have been holding, had your hand held it

we will chase trains and hop thoughts
tongues exhausting themselves untiring
lengthy discussions on whether or not
we would find ourselves bored of one another

we never were.

If everything happens for a reason,
surely not every reason is a bad one.