You must tire of waiting in dreams
for imagined colours to meet you
sleeping through monochrome alarms
with sprites that don't make morning

when you wake to black and fade to grey
and arms of temptation lull you back
you recite prayers to keep you awake
just as exhausted as the day you missed

red wishes you a way to wake to colour
the greens and blues that wait for you
day misses you as much as you miss her
so must you keep hiding in night lights?

We spent all our free time alone
and so our time together cost us.

I have to
admit this
while I can

I will look
for you in
everyone.

You can write about me* you said
and that way I'll never really die

I don't want to write about you I said
*If you can't ******* be here to read it.

Touch your earlobes
let your toes turn to ice
think of ships that sink
and aspirations that
sail into hurricanes.
River down 45th
swim like a taxi
up for air, up for air
flowing between here, there
everywhere, everywhere
fishing for metaphors
catch one, it’s seaweed
cook it up anyway,
you’re starving.
A tower with hands
touching your ears,
losing your feet
in the sea.

Reaching elevator doors
heart crashing to standstill
breath ripped from lips
cold twisting, poison heat

no no no no no scream your ears
pounding the walls, ground floor
down down down shout your hands
clattering earthquake on steel

your eyes swimming in disbelief
ground floor get to ground floor
slow descent watches free fall
where is the ground, tell me please

they are not gone doors opening
are you okay stranger you've terrified
run run get out get out they are not
gone gone gone echo rattles your skull

panic tearing throat from neck
you could have done more say walls
burst outside cars screaming like mother
lost child gone gone gone no no no

suffocating outside too no escape
not today no no no there is no air
black go lights you've hit your head
it echoes gone gone gone gone gone

gone gone gone gone gone

Oh you
feel more
like home
than home.

At the fatal intersection of Jopling and Tyre
you're able to look up through creaking maple arms
to see the flawlessly vertical snow raining down
falling to earth the way you convince yourself you did

your walk home is a distant everyday memory
a dream you wake from as you twist jagged keys
time to think it used to be you used to have time
and now this is your only chance to stop thinking

but today take a breath take a walk take your eyes
look around as if you do not see this everyday
because frankly my dear you haven't in years
looked really at these overgrown maples

the wooden hands that lift you and your hopes
at the fatal intersection of Jopling and Tyre.

Hospital flowers
don't live very long

and frosted windows
will miss your reflection

we give up when we know
that we will never win a fight

but today I hope to bring you more
red and yellow flowers to fight for you.

I still sometimes wear
your sweater
to sleep.

I keep trying to **** myself
and I keep not dying* you tell me

do you have any idea how frustrating
this is you ask but expect no answer

I know I say what else can I offer
I don't know how to do this

but I don't want you to go I don't
*I can't stand to let hospital flowers die.

You can just have me
take whatever is left.

And
don't

soon
you

we
love

will
being

run
able

out­
to

of
just

air.
*breathe?

The way
you look
at me
makes me feel
so **** powerless.

They do this because they love you,
your parents* I tell you over and over

see I don't know but what else do I say
they just don't have experience in this

wouldn't it be reassuring to believe
someone loves you in any situation I ask

as hospital flowers wilt in your window
we wait for everyone to understand

but we have been waiting forever
and a lot of eternity will soon expire.

You step into the dark
and you continue to walk
forward and it gets colder
but your footfalls follow
your feet further and further
further and further forward.

That is the easiest thing to break
something that is hardest to build*

you took your time with your words
since there was little time to say

what you had to, you drew out
each syllable, a razor blade

long and thin like your fingers
soon your sentence would leave

with it everything you wished for
and you will arrive with nothing.

I've become one of my stories,
twisting, developing, growing

as I tell myself
over and over

the life I led
became lives

the lies I fed
met reality

sincerity blur
narrative overlap

the story of the end
of the storyteller.

I wish
I didn't
know why
not one of us
is okay anymore.

You are not going to die
they were shouting at me

I couldn't really hear them
but *you are not you will not

terror fell from their eyes
and that is what I heard

then I saw blue and black
more more and more until

you are not you will not
you will not leave me dark.

Dear man in the moon,

all I wish for
is that when it ends,
you might tell me
I fought bravely.

I've been to too many funerals* I say
my eyes meet yours in the window

please don't make me go to yours
is what I didn't say aloud.

Dear man in the moon,

all I wish for
is that when it ends,
you might tell me
I am brave.

I'm going back to the hospital
you tell the train window

that's good* I say to your hair
it's best to be safe

I don't know what is best
yes you say but you don't know either.

Pick a daisy
in a field
of daisies
and you have
offered purpose.

I tried to **** myself again
you said into the subway window

clickety-clack* said the train
in December said your reflection

I know I said but I didn't really
I didn't really know anything

you should probably stop
trying that I mean I stammered

I know

I had nothing else to say
you had nothing else to do

we sat in broken silence
until the train found my stop

clickety-clack
it whispered to me.

I saw
my reflection
in grandfather's
   old whiskey glass

                            when I
                                was not
                                     looking.

"It's cold out here,"
he told me.
"I'm cold.
Coffee will make me warm.

"It's what cold people drink to be warm,
but it doesn't warm them up.
Because they don't feel the cold,
they are the cold.

"I meet a lot of cold people out here."
He grinned, coughed,
and held out a coffee cup.

The man outside the coffee shop
was always right.

You
are
my
best
days.

There is a song called "Gina"
that is banished from my headphones

but sometimes it returns, feeble
hidden away until I think it is gone

then I am in the sun
my retinas, tear ducts alight

the song is over too quickly
and there is silence again.

The mind is clay
but body and feelings
are the many, many layers
you must be careful not to break
on the way to soothe and mold the mind.

We let it
get too easy

to slip and fall
into the sun.

There have been

seventy six million
nine hundred forty two thousand
three hundred and fifty one poems

about falling asleep
next to someone you love

that was a lie, of course
but by God is it ever wonderful.

Seventy six million
nine hundred forty two thousand
three hundred and fifty two.

The sun travels
in light circles

sometimes
it brings you along

and sometimes
it eats you alive.

Your blank canvas birth
was long enough ago for you to laugh at.

Now look at you,
skin rich with life,

formed and developed,
a moving, articulate photograph

of crystalline lightning
coursing over you like water

blank canvas death
is now impossible.

Steeper hill
and darker valley,
descending to climb
new disaster after another,
ricocheting from high to low
the tunnels whisper you are a fighter
as you’re up for air, grinning with a migraine.

                                    Echoes of the shouts of down
                                           fade as you crest a tidal wave,
                                           and in these weightless moments
                                                        y­ou built a home, a whole life,
                                                           ­   you fell in love over and over
                                                           and carved strength from the iron
                                                             that allowed you down once again.

                                Rational heartbeat of the never-ending
                   keeps your will steel and your eyes hot,
           but when tunnels whisper I see an end  
          it is easier to smile at comforts
      and it is okay to be scared
  on a rickety roller coaster
with an expiration date.

Your grandfather’s cold cup of coffee.

Breeze on your toes from a hole in the door.

Dust and cobwebs on glass Geisha figurines.

A staircase the creaks twice every second step.

Beads.

Mildew and paper holding hands.

Milk crates with records in them, three.

Sinatra and Woody Guthrie.

Lavender.

Dense wooden chests of cloth, linen frayed.

Threadbare towels.

Woodrose pink.

White duster’s gloves.

Floorboards that whisper epics.

Bookcases that smell of mahogany dreams.

Cardamom.

Brown sugar.

A television older than you and your mother.

Playing cards, missing the six of hearts, neatly labelled.

Another cold cup of coffee.

Lace, white.

Winter sunlight and swirling dust.

China in a locked cupboard.

Skeleton key tied to the handle by a faded ribbon.

Paper, folded, an incomplete crossword in blue pen, lazy scrawl.

An armchair, plaid, brown, yellow, comfortable.

Hand-knitted blanket, stained in the top right corner.

Wine glass.

Sleepy.

Quiet.

Take off your shoes.
Wool sweater.

Messy hair. Step forward.
Fill your lungs with cold.

Open your throat. Empty your ears.
Check behind you. Nothing. Shiver.

Check once more. Shiver.
Your spine this time. Pulse.

Goosebumps. Back of your arms.
Raised like hyenas. Cackling.

Toes to the edge. Reflection. Shiver.
Look back, look up, look for land, look for green.

Grey. No clouds. Quivering breath.
Exhale. Watch them leave you. Clouds.

Toes to the edge. Down again.
Shiver.

Shiver.
Grey. Shiver.

Reflection. Shiver.
Stop. Shiver.

Reflection. Shiver.
Listen. Shiver.

Toes to the edge.
The edge. Shiver.

Blink. Ripples.
Toes to the edge.

Exhale.
Reflection.

Ripples.
Shiver.

Fog.
Shiver.

Stop.
Stop.

Stop.
Shiver.

When her slippers don’t make
the sound she knows so well
on the scuffed, yellowed linoleum kitchen.

When the telly tells her
a boy that looks like her grandson
was out breaking windows last night.

When the kettle misses its turn
When there are no car horns
When her boy has not called since Wednesday.

When ice wraps the fading window
When her ears turn the colour of autumn
When she can’t find her glasses on her head.

When weather reporters don’t smile
When Stewart does not come home
When she remembers he will never be home

she worries.

You have
wasted
your time
on me.
Thank you
for that.

In a place
where a light
isn't easy to find,
it's wonderful to be
able to see you glow.

Take off your shoes. Wool sweater. Messy hair. Step forward. Fill your lungs with the cold. Open your throat. Empty ears. Shiver. Check behind you. Nothing. Check once more. Shiver. Your spine this time. Goosebumps. Back of your arms. Raised like hyenas. Toes to the edge. Reflection. Shiver. Look back, look up, look for land, look for green. Grey. No clouds. Cloud. Shake breath. Exhale. Watch it leave you. Toes to the edge. Down again. Shiver. Shiver. Grey. Shiver. Reflection. Shiver. Stop. Shiver. Reflection. Shiver. Stop. Shiver. Toes to the edge. The edge. Shiver. Blink. Ripples. Toes to the edge. Exhale. Reflection. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Meet me
at the bottom
of the world
and we'll
climb up
together.

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.