Draw a map of the world.
Draw it straight onto the walls
of your bedroom
(or your cell, whichever you prefer)
into your favourite notebook
(so you always have it with you)
onto the palms of your hands
(so you never forget it's there)

Press a pushpin
into the capital cities.
The ones with names like
Most Beautiful View
Him
That Song
A Few Tears
and remember to translate their titles
to the local tongue.
Maybe
they'll read
You
Love
Feel
Him
or maybe not.

Trace the lines
of the coast on which
you faced your first ocean
or your second
or your twenty-ninth.

Doodle a hollow star
onto the hilltop where the two of you
made the same wish
on that strange streak of light burned into the sky.

Draw a map of your world.
Fill it with all of the beautiful things
that you have ever and never seen.

blessings/resentments


My body is a blessing

best seen in the sun
when shadows fall like lace
across limbs

best felt under light fingers
that tug a sock to rest
in the curve of my ankle

best understood
from a distance



A body is a blessing
to the man in the bar

the flashing of his hands, his teeth
on thighs, on necks

his hot breath worshipping
his bloodshot, heavy-lidded revering

shadows fall like cages
and a body
is not a blessing.

I wrote a poem
today

I traced curling letters
in invisible ink
tentatively
across his chest

a tattoo
only I can see

I watched the vowels fall
     down
           his
               spine
only to pool
in the small of his back

I sent the consonants to snake along his arms
the prettiest of my words encircling his wrists

my lips trail behind
erasing as they go

I turned him into a book
that only I can read

I read somewhere
that you could bite off your own pinky finger,
as easily as biting a baby carrot in half.

We think that we’re resilient,
miracles incarnate,
but we are just bones waiting to be crushed between each other’s teeth.

We are waiting to be
plucked peeled battered baked fried mashed
into something unrecognizable,
something that someone
will look at and say,
“that’s too beautiful to eat.”

loneliness preys
on those you would least expect
to fall prey
to loneliness.

he curls up
next to the people surrounded by people.

he sits down beside me
on the bus
the park bench
my kitchen table.

he murmurs soft reassurances
that are not at all
reassuring.

Don't Worry he says
No One Can Hurt You he says
As Long As You
Let No One In.

and
weak as I am
I listen.

guilt though
takes a different approach

I can feel him
when I'm alone.
At night,
face down on my pillows
he creeps.
soft fingers play piano
on my spine

the notes
reverberating through my ribcage
the metallic thud as they pound
my heart

You Did This
rings out
over and over

its rhythm
adhering itself
to the
unsteady
tattoo of my heart

until the guilt
is inseparable
from me.

Us, just you and I.
This is our world.
But these aren’t tears.
Maybe they are, maybe they are our own.
But what does this matter? We have seen each other’s tears.
We’re washed, cleansed, and no longer you and I.
We are young.
We are free.
We are innocent.
We are happy. Happy.
Can you imagine?
Thunder rolls. But not thunder.
Music that used to be our sobs, washed clean by this rain that isn't rain at all.
We play, play like the children we never ceased to be.
We run, not racing like we usually do,
neither one of us wanting to win because to win means to leave the other behind.
We love each other, but we’re not in love.
How beautiful is that? How simple and perfect.
How sublime this thundering, rainy day can be.
It’s a wonder. Greater than the sun.
Sunlight doesn’t bring us together, darkness does.
We grow from the darkness.
We flourish in the sun.
But every so often, we retreat. Just to stay honest, you see?

I miss how easy it was to smile
and not see myself
as a liar.
How easy it was to laugh
without a trace
of irony.
I miss how easily
sleep would come.
I miss how easily
I could trust.

I miss the time
before complications;
before broken families;
broken hearts.

The time when runaways
were the stuff of fiction
and sad news stories,
rather than fodder
for a poem.

The time for pitying others
for their absentee fathers
or overly dramatic siblings
has long past.

Yet another one of the side effects
of my newfound cynicism;
I have nothing
left
to give.

So hide behind your shield of smiles
and let false happiness mask
the depth
of your trials.

she is the kind of girl
to stare up at the stars for too long
to let her feet
stray from their path
because her mind has sailed up
and away
into the galaxy
with
utter disregard
for gravity

the kind of girl to abandon her body
in order to expand her mind
to get a little lost
because she’s too busy
finding something new

the kind of girl to get lost anywhere
because the stars are not the only place
for the mind
to wander to

drawn to more than
celestial features

she is that kind of girl

Do you ever think
about becoming
someone new?
About unmaking,
Recreating,
Partaking,
In the life of someone -anyone-
Who isn’t you?

Hours and hours and days and weeks and months and years
I perfected, rejected, resurrected the art
of becoming someone new.

In mere moments,
a new me.
a new world.
a new dream.

A world to be anyone
or go anywhere
Or be anything.
When I just
Don’t want
To be
Me.

New demons and angels,
New shadows and suns,
New curves and new angles,
New characters
to become.

A world not like
my own.
The trees are paper.
The people move with a blink.
Grass is woven from knowledge and
Leaves are sprouting from ink.

There I go
at a moment’s notice.
Diving, delving, digging.
Revealing
an impossible time.
Where the improbable, inconceivable, unimaginable, unthinkable
occurs every
Other
Line.

I am disappearing into the books.
Invisible to the world.
Unmaking myself,
Recreating myself,
And becoming someone new.

The truth hurts
so I lie.
My decisions are doomed
so I don't decide.
I'm not loved
so I love too much.
I'm scared of myself.
But solitude remains my crutch.

Your choice to make
My choice to take.
give in, hold out
take choice away.
Keep trying. Keep lying.
uncover.
recover.
Love
and be loved
But only if you love yourself.
Hate.
Be hated.
But only if you're brave enough.

The oppression of sadness
The absorption of madness
The stark contrast
of the black on white.

Few things are more defined
than the clear separation
the cutting edge of the "t"s
the loose curl of the "c"s

individually,
so clear
but page after page
the letterswordsstanzas
run together
to create a map
of the labyrinthine establishment
that just may be
my mind.