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

In a world where natural tendency
And temptation is feared
But hatred and ignorance
Make us comfortable
We that love and we that see
Are crushed by responsibility.

Falling, catching
Falling, catching
Falling, catching, then
You hit the ground, and until you're found
You'll never fall again.

I don't like when men
Make women uncomfortable.
As an observer,
I've little confidence to step in
But I see so often
These women can handle things.
One such man
(You know the type all too well)
Shouted a complimentary obscenity
At two women who glared back
With a heat that scorched even me
On the train a few seats away
They seared holes in the man
As he scurried away
Then they laughed
And kissed eachother.

If life is death's coping mechanism
Love is life's way to say
"Sorry about all that, friend.
Here, have something good in the end."
And it will be no fun sometimes
It will hurt as any journey does
It will teach you, learn you, sear and burn you
But when life gives in to death's warm hand,
You'll know you've loved, and it'll be grand.

I can't
Help but
Keep her
Toothbrush
Where she
Left it.

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.

"What are you even doing?"
I asked the boy in the mirror,
a recent friend
(and forever a mortal enemy).

"Trying.
And it's mental,
but we're getting getting there."

He sounded convinced.
I turned my head to the side,
his eyes followed mine,
glistening in the dim light.

"Are we a we?"
I asked him.

"No, you idiot,"
he replied, laughing.
"We're just you."

If you seek adventure
You search for something
You never want to find
Because if you find adventure
You are no longer seeking it;
If you are lost,
You must stop searching
To be found.

When heaven and hell collide
Then we'll both be satisfied
Until then, we should stay
On our own.

(A poem over a few thousand miles)
by JAC and JAB

We never age in memories,
But in stories, we do.
Our words mature with us,
So our stories do too.

Our days grow older
And our pages unfold,
Until we become the author
*Living a story untold.

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.

Overcomplicate me.

Make
Mountains
Out of my dust.
When I inevitably go,
Don't let me
Go easily.

The t-shirt
You sleep in
Is mine.

There is an inherent musicality
To your bare humanity
A soundtrack to what makes you human
There's a rhythm to your movements
There's harmony in your breathing
There are chords in your voice
There's​ a deliberate delicacy to your touch
As if you care deeply about an instrument
There's a tempo to the way you love
And notes in your laugh
And there are so, so many kinds of music
In your solo act.

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 is
An abundance
Of beautiful people.
We all know this,
We see them everywhere.
You can be one too,
If you are not one already,
Simply by stating something stupid:
"I'm a beautiful person too."

I suppose my words
Might mature with me
But they might stay young
As many of us so badly wish to.

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.

I still sometimes wear
your sweater
to sleep.

If a writer falls in love with you
Your pockets will be poor
Should you choose to love too.
If a writer falls in love with you
You'll never get straight answers
To questions that matter.
If a writer falls in love with you
Your tears will be ink
And their ink will be tears,
But you will remember everything.
If a writer falls in love with you
Sometimes you'll hurt
But you'd hurt anyways
Had you loved another.
If you love a writer, it may just be love
(Though that, in itself, entails enough!)
But if a writer falls in love with you
Know you'll live forever
No matter what you do.

We stood in silence
Staring at the water
That sparkled, black
Far enough away that I knew
It matched that sparkle you held in your eyes
The one you held from other people
The one that needed hours and hours
Of seemingly pointless conversations
Of my tired serenades
Of laughing arguments and long messages
Of silences that bettered us
We were so high up, see
The wind didn't even reach us
On the balcony of the building
You know you can't afford to live in
We stood in silence
Admiring the feeling
Of being overcome by wonder
Overcome by patience
And overcome by comfort
Over black, sparkling water.

The boy who waved the boats from shore
had still never set sail,
but he was lonely.
One day or morning,
a sailor's sunrise,
a girl approached the boy on the pier.
It was a long walk
and they could see each other
on each side, approaching.
They watched each other,
each studying the other,
as if other could learn about each
before even speaking.
Eventually, she arrived,
and they looked at each other again,
faces full of curiosity.
"What are you doing?"
asked her eyes.
His replied,
"What's it to you?"
"Well," she blinked,
"You seem all alone here.
Boats leave, but you do not."
She communicated across a short sea
of rotting, sun-dried boards
between them.
The boy said nothing.
Instead, he cocked his head
and flicked a smile
from the corner of his lips
across the metre-long lake of boards.
She asked him after a pause,
"I've nothing to do,
may I please sit on the dock with you?"
The boy nodded warmly,
and they sat,
fewer boards between them than before.
She pulled off her shoes,
her socks too, pink and blues,
and dipped her toes
in the water she knew was cold.
They spoke very little,
but they would inevitably fall in love.

Love
is wasted
on the loved.

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.

Don't be defined
By what you don't want to be
For you were designed
To be more than you see.

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.

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'll never understand
All of you, no
I'll never even
Understand some of you
I simply want
To understand
Enough of you
To be somewhat worth
Your beautiful time.

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

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.

They told me,

"leave
until you miss
being home,

go home
until you miss
being gone."

I listened.

I'm a boy made out of wood
And with you I know I could
Be painted better than I am now
To befriend an artist like you somehow
My hair and shoes are made of clay
Molded carelessly, messy, you'd say
Fix me, bend me, make me new
But please don't make me into you
Someone made me, someone great
But made of wood, I know my fate
Will be met in a fire, so easy to catch
For I know I'll fall in love with a match.

Remember Diana
With the sailboat of dreams?
I know she's out there in the great blue sea,
But she's lost her way, it seems.
The trouble with sailing
When no one says you can,
Is that when you set off,
You lose your hat and some of your confidence
When the first great blue wind blows.
If you're made to doubt, told to doubt
You'll still sail, but you'll sail without
The parts of you that hadn't a doubt -
So when your anchor is fused to uncertainty,
You think you're destined to sink.
To sail, you need a great blue sheet,
And spit and grit and piece of meat
To give to the great blue shark you meet -
But you can do without those, if you're clever.
What's essential for sailing
(And Diana knew this quite well, I can tell),
Is the awareness and understanding
That your boat is built with dreams in mind.

What use is a sailboat of reverie
If you haven't any imagination?

The fact of the matter, this is not.
You forgot: she's lost at sea.
The great blue doubt overcame even me,
And I stopped believing in her sailboat,
So it stopped sailing,
For she was the last great blue believer.
She fused that to her identity,
She was wrapped in her sails
But things got tough
Blue seas got rough
So it wasn't enough
And the blue called her bluff.
She escaped from land,
But didn't understand
That the waves of the deep
Wouldn't hold her hand
So her great blue view
Sank smaller and smaller.

Dear Diana,
What on earth do you do
*When the next wave is taller than you?

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.

It was suddenly twenty-eight minutes
                 after three in the morning,
and I found myself in your bedroom.
     Your sheets were cheap and creased,
                     your quilt was older than you,
                   and your pillow cases didn't match.
There were three pillows, and you had all of them.
                                                                ­       I didn't mind.

Your breathing was the steadiest thing in your life right now,
              and your back rose and fell
                          as regularly as your hopes did in the daytime.

                    There was nothing on your back -
           whatever was there
an indefinite number of hours previously
     had joined the convention of disorganized stress on the floor
              that slept a mere seven and a half inches from us.

                      The mattress was as warm as we were,
           and the whole of it held tightly to the scratched hardwood floor
that was probably still owned by those that lived here before you.

                                                           There was an appalling lack
                                            of glow-in-the-dark stars
                              on your dull, cracked ceiling.

As thunder rolls across the sky
Though I know, I wonder why
We faded away, you and I
Like thunder, rolling across the sky.

Then one day I'll meet someone
Who grins at the ground
And knits their eyebrows the way you did
When you didn't know what to do.
I'll be thrown forcefully back
To when you tossed me lightly
With the sweetest of intentions
And the warmest of smiles.
I'll smile sweetly,
Warm my intent
And stay the hell away from them.

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.

Am I
allowed
to tell you
    I love you?

'Cause I'm afraid
                   you'll say
                      you don't.

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.

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.

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?

Dear man in the moon,

It seems I'll not be joining you,
certainly not anytime soon.
You needn't worry
or wonder why,
for I'll cherish my days
below the sky.

We'll both fall apart
If we try putting each other back together.
Our pieces are limited
And once we start to lose them,
We can build only with what we have.

He looked at me,
The helpless boy in the mirror,
And said,
"You can't do this on your own."
Then his shoulders shook
Not hard enough for their burden to fall
And he in the mirror
Sobbed like a broken man
But he was just a helpless boy.

When you write,
What do you offer?

Life to the lifeless
Power to the powerless
Voice to the voiceless
Love to the unloved?

Or are you
Simply
In need of all that too.

Now I'll walk down that grubby old road, the same one I'd always run through when I was happy to go home, when I was free enough to be inspired by the expanse of greyed-out asphalt that led me home or away, and I'll feel nothing. I've never liked the word "nothing", because it was a useless answer to any question and a waste of a loaded word. Nonetheless, that was undoubtedly what it felt like, sliding my shoes across the pebbles, litter and pollution coating the aging path toward what used to feel like my home. Now it, and this asphalt, was a sort of limbo - a space I inhabited between paychecks and numbing social catastrophes, the place at which my deliveries of obliviously impersonal mail were dumped. When you find yourself lost (ha) in the standard crises you know every human being has tasted in one way or another, it feels juvenile, childish, frivolous. But we feel that way anyway.

All at once, it was a rainy day
Chilling and grey,
And I wanted you to stay
But you had to go
So I took back my "hello"
And kissed you goodbye
While the clouds in sky
Continued to cry,
"Oh, who am I?"