Today my father is 50 years old.
Today I am proud to say
That I have the most
Compassionate, inspiring, healing, understanding, supportive father
I could ever ask for.

He continues to teach me what it means
To be brave,
To be motivated,
To blossom,
To be alive,
Every day.

I am so proud to call him my father
I am the luckiest girl in the world,
I really am.

Happy birthday daddy.

Someone I once loved
Ran his finger across my chest and traced
The outline of my moles and said
"They look like an anchor! When you connect the dots, they are the shape
Of an anchor! You are an anchor. It all makes sense now.
You are going to be okay."

At the time it was like some big epiphany for him,
Like he was telling me something about myself
That I never knew when really, I always knew
It was just
Something I didn't want
To admit. It is something
I have been running away from for a long time now, thinking
I could be an anchor for someone else
Because then THEY could be my problem, my project,
My ocean
So then that way I could leave myself, fallen by the wayside
To wither away, slowly, subtly,
Secretly disappearing.

I am attracted to people who are made of glass,
People who shatter easily, who shatter willingly,
Who are reckless and brilliant, beautiful and dangerous
People who I unconsciously think
I can save.

I can only save myself.
I can only be my own anchor.

I am nowhere near strong enough
To be with someone again
I am so terribly fragile, I break my own heart
So easily. Too willingly.
All I want is to keep realizing things like this,
To admit my mistakes and learn from them, not
Repeat them.
To hold on to the people who keep me on the ground,
The people who actually love me, who don't put me on
Some pedestal where I am liable
To float away.

Because if I'm not careful and let myself
Float away again,
I
may
never
come
back.

I struggle with understanding the concept of
"Coming out"
as being gay
as being bisexual
as being anything.
I get that it is important for some people to inform other people
about their personal preference,
but at the same time,
no one feels the need to "come out" as being
heterosexual
or being
smart or talented or sad or confused or angry or irritable.
If someone asks, of course I'll tell them,
but I have become a rather private person in the sense that
I don't feel the need to make a huge announcement to everyone
on all the stupid social networking websites with regard to
how or what or why I'm living.
I guess that is a contradiction because
I am writing this poem and am clearly releasing it to the world for a billion strangers to
potentially read, but I'm a writer, whatever that means so
cut me some slack.
I like boys and I like girls and I love
whoever walks into my life at the right moment and it's
as simple as that.
It's nobody's business and I like being okay with that.
I don't love someone so I can flaunt them
I don't love someone so I can make other people jealous
I don't love someone so I can feel good or validated or worthy.
I love because I love.
Boys are simple, and I have grown rather tired of them I must say.
Girls are complicated and emotional and gentle and sensitive, and perhaps
it would be easier if I had a preference,
but I don't because
my love has no preference
my love has no gender
my love has no conditions
and if someone isn't okay with that,
then that's fine because
it's their problem, not mine.
And that
is just,
that.

Missing the bus and
Being late for work
Is the #1 day ruiner of all time.

i have an endless amount of patience at the beginning of december
right when all the trees and wreaths go up
and all the holiday music begins to play
i even have enough patience to sing along and enjoy
the predictable chord progressions.

by the middle of december the sadness begins to set in
the what-ifs-but-it's-not-this-is-how-it-is-and-how-it-should-have-be­ens
flashbacks of when things weren't broken
so then i try to make myself less sad and send christmas cards to people i love
and i try the "it is what you make it" approach
which only lasts for so long and then slowly
fades away.

by the end of december, five days before christmas
my patience has vanished
people irritate me
decorations irritate me
facts irritate me
i irritate me
i have no stomach for any of it and just wish i was a bear
so i could hibernate until all of this
holiday business is finally over with.

"I'm going to the washroom. If we lose each other let's meet at the bookstore, by the entrance. I'll be right back." I said.
But when I came out of the washroom, they were gone. And suddenly, reality hit.
I am alone surrounded by people
In a mall
Blaring christmas music
Where did they go
I lost them
What if I never see them again
What if someone among all of these people has a gun and we all die before we can hug each other goodbye
I'm alone I'm so alone I'm so alone
I'm ******* alone
I can't breathe.
It was like being underwater with my eyes open
Swimming in a sea full of unfamiliar faces
And blaring christmas music
And the sound of my pounding heart
And failing lungs
Screaming at me
YOU ARE ALONE YOU ARE ALIVE AND YOU ARE ALONE AND THAT IS THE TRUTH WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT.

So I bought a coffee because I choose to believe caffeine calms me down
And then I stepped outside
And cried and cried and cried and cried
I cried for the fragility of life hit me harder than it ever has
How fleeting it is
How terribly tragic it is that all of us love each other so much
And yet we will all die alone.
I cried for how close I felt to death at that moment
I cried for my inability to pinpoint exactly what had made me so upset
I cried because I felt like a lost little 5-year old wondering why no one was holding her hand
I cried because I missed you so much especially at that moment
I cried because I realized how incredibly weak and ridiculous I was acting
I cried because I couldn't even make one lousy phone call to someone I love so they could calm me down
I cried because I felt paralyzed
I cried because the time it takes to say "I'll be right back" is enough time to lose someone
Forever

Once my lungs & heart finally came alive again, I went back inside that stupid mall
Full of stupid people shopping for their stupid christmas presents in sync with that stupid christmas music
And you were standing there, at our meeting spot with a smile on your face and
Relief and relief and relief and you said
"There you are! We thought we lost you!"
And so did I, I thought,
*So did I.