I am
trying to find new ways
to deal with this
acute emptiness that has surrounded
me from the moment I
got home
instead of going back
to the same old familiar
mechanisms that have always
left me emptier than before.
Picking up the phone
and calling someone
who is actually sane
was a good first start.

laugh
because he’s just a silly boy who will
never leave her for you
laugh
because you’ve been taking yourself
too seriously lately
laugh
because your desire for romance
is just a wish to be wanted again
laugh
because you could have anyone else
and you know it
laugh
because he has no idea how much you write about him
laugh
because it’s funny that you only
ever fall for people who can’t love you back
laugh
because tomorrow is Friday or should I say today
laugh
because this is the best year of your
life
laugh
because you don’t need anyone
laugh
because you love yourself
laugh
because you are loved
laugh
because you are moving mountains
without anyone’s help.

It was the way his last breath escaped both corners of his half-opened mouth 
as if to suggest a lapse in memory or an opinion that demanded to be expressed.
It was the way the light leaked in through the slivered blinds of the half open window, causing my brother to squint in his sleep, dreams of staring at the sun without ever going blind before awake, forgetting to blink.
It was the way my mother gave me a one armed hug, mumbling a vague “I love you too” while staring off into the distance, handing me a half smile before driving off into the sunset of my vulnerability.
It was the way the music entered the home of my ventricles without ringing the doorbell, hitting the head of my heart until it was all black and blue, succumbing to the beat of its abuser.
It was the way I opened the flesh, the tiny red petals colouring the bath water red, planting little seeds as if to say: “Here. I am here. I exist.”
It was the way my skin grew over itself weeks after every wound, a thin layer of white snow covering it like an unwanted winter, begging to be shovelled, poked, prodded, or stepped on again.
It was like death on his doorstep, a couple of violins failing to comfort each other beneath a tired symphony.
It was the best way a band aid is to be removed. A little at first, then all at once. One clean swift sting.
It was a lot like 
leaving.

Like Sylvia,
I too, wanted to be important by being
Beautiful
But because I associate ugly things
With being beautiful
A sense of importance
Is purely fleeting and fragmented,
Like the sound of my mother playing piano
And not finishing the peice.

you return to the house
 of ghosts
that have taken up
 residence in haunting

you wander into the backyard

you stand on each of the graves

of all of the people you have been

that you have laid down to rest

so long ago

you take a step closer

to the newly blossomed lilac tree

that you planted

on a day you were trying

hard not to be a ghost

the scent of beauty surrounds

everything
 and suddenly
death
 is not death

but an underwater birth

where drowning is blooming

and breathing is drowning

you pluck a lilac

you bring it home

you put it in a vase

and you smell it
until you can’t 
anymore.

sometimes i see the little green light
beside your name on
facebook chat
and i stare at it for a while, hoping a little
"hey! how are you?" might pop up
wondering how long i will have to wait
for you to notice me.
but then i feel pathetic because it's like
the majority of my life has been spent on
waiting
for people to notice me
and while half of me wants to be noticed,
the other half strongly wishes to remain
an anonymous quote you happened to
stumble upon in an abandoned library, or
a figment of your imagination
where every aspect of
myself
has been starved from each of your
senses
where you are left alone to wonder
if i ever actually existed
at all.

you say it takes a whole community
to raise a musician and that what we are
is a great community. i remember that feeling.
i was innocent then.
and then i learned, it takes a whole lot
of solitude to raise an artist for
only a true artist knows what it feels like
to be completely alone. and what we are
makes me want to be
completely alone. you don’t
remember that feeling. because you surround
yourself with what you call ‘the young
emerging talent.’ i remember that feeling,
i was that emerging once, like a bud.
but the talent doesn’t stay young and
the young doesn’t stay talented.
i long to divorce myself of this city and
all of the musicians in it
because none of them make me feel
like i am part of something.
but the idea of it is nice.
if i go to a party i don’t usually partake
in the partying. i sit alone or perhaps
with one other person - watching, observing,
eavesdropping. sipping a few things,
exhaling a few things, rarely saying a few things.
you can tell a lot about someone just by the way
they behave at a party. you can learn a lot
about yourself by what you do not say
among a crowd of so-called
peers. i am not one of them.
i am one and i am alone. and it will remain this way
until i leave.
for i have nothing to prove
to them when they ask me what i’m doing
with regards to the pursuit of my creative
endeavours, for all they know, i may not be
that wide eyed seventeen year old soul
they once knew me to be. i don’t believe
everything everyone tells me anymore.
they tell me i am beautiful and i smile and say
thank you and that is all. because i know
better than to take what everyone says
for face value. i can’t even take a five cent
coin for face value because of how easily i know
it can be lost.
oh, how they are all so beautiful to watch.
and when they notice me,
oh, how i put on a fantastic show.
for it must go on, you know.

lonely people do lonely things
they make homes out of
empty theatres
while they hold
an invisible hand that belongs to
an invisible body that sits
in the seat next to them.

lonely people have lonely habits
they roam the corridors of empty malls,
finding themselves seeing
an entirely different person
in each reflective surface they pass.

lonely people hide in lonely spaces
like the bottom of an empty wine bottle,
or the inside of an out of tune grand piano,
gnawing on the strings and getting them caught
between each bone of the ribcage waiting
for someone to come along
and pluck them just so they can
call it music.

lonely people fall in love with lonely things,
like the inconsistency of the moon
and the overwhelming light of the sun,
getting caught between which one is better to be
in love with,
over which one will keep
the loneliest heart of all
the most
safe.

it’s exhausting,
to try to put a memory to a face
to each face,
to your own face,
in each photograph that you see
that has captured
each underlying entity
that make up an entire sea
populated only by
the ghosts of who you have
and haven't been.

i've been in love four times
almost five
but i stopped myself
like the moment you feel like telling someone the truth about something
because they seem like the kind of person you can trust
with something serious and personal and intense,
but then you stop yourself before
it's too late to take it back,
it was like that,
it was just like that.

i've been in love four times
and in a way, they were all small
repetitions of the first
but i think first love is like that,
when it ends, you just want to find it again
but you can't and so you keep trying
and then eventually
you go insane
with repeating the same thing over and over again
while expecting a different outcome.

and it's like reverse repetition
when you stop looking for someone to fill
your holes. and i never thought i'd get to this point,
being content with, finding solace even,
in the possibility of dying
alone.
perhaps its because everybody leaves, but
it's not really that,
it's just that i think at this point
i would be the one
to leave them.

you spoke of romance as if it were a disease.
you treated poems like pick up lines.
you said there was no point in writing anything if the writer
did not have an audience.
you asked me who my audience was,
and as soon as i answered your question,
i stopped writing.
it's easy to stop writing about someone once they begin
expecting you to.
i still think part of me was wrong, but most of me was right.
there is a point to writing beyond having
someone who will read it.
it is a desperate demanding kind of feeling
that wishes to remain
anonymous.

i am a lost girl
the kind who will let you stare
into her ocean eyes for free
and swallow your compliments
profoundly eagerly
while always knowing
all nourishment is temporary

i am a lost girl
the kind who has sorrow burned on the inside
of her mouth
nothing can take the taste away
not even love not even people
who said they would stay
because she knows more than anyone
that they never do

i am a lost girl
the kind whose passion will tug on your heartstrings
so hard you will be able to feel
the vibrations throughout your entire body
long after she has left you
covered in kisses and invisible bows
stranded on an abandoned
railroad pleading
for release

i am a lost girl
the kind that knows what she wants
but does not have enough drive or self esteem
to keep  a solid grasp
for certainty has always been like sand
slowly slipping through her fingers

i am a lost girl
the kind that will settle on what little power
she has left
the kind that will sing you to sleep
if in turn you will tell her
just once
that she is beautiful regardless
of if you mean it
or not.

I’m watching you
fall
down
down
down
into the rabbit hole
again. I reach out
my hand, suspended in fear
you reject it and say,
“I have to go for real this time.”
this time? There is no time.
you don’t see yourself.
you can't see yourself.
I want to follow you
into the hole of oblivion just so you don’t have to be alone in this.
but hating myself is a hamster wheel
I can’t afford to run on anymore
even still, i wish i could make you see
how unbelievably perfect you are
and have always been.
I hope one day you’ll swim up
to the shore to clear your lungs,
and when you do,
I will be there, waiting for you
and we can go back to neverland
and live in the lagoon of love
that brought us together
in the first place, that seems like it was
so very long ago.

that music brought me back
to when i was sixteen and still in love with him
the year the words “let it die” should have been tattooed
in black letters across my entire face,
and the remaining years after that
up until he left for good.
that setting brought me back
to that one summer when i was
trying very hard to limit my recklessness
to a small cough or a sedative,
until it seeped out
and the stains on my hands gave me away.
i wanted to look over and sing the lyrics
with you but you were lost in your head,
you were somewhere else.
i wanted my friend to put her arm around me
and say “i am so glad we are here together” but
my friend is somewhere else, as everyone seems to be
lately. i don’t know why
loneliness swallows us so wholeheartedly
when we are among a crowd of people,
inhaling their silence and laughter and meaningless
chatter. i wanted to float up into the magenta sky,
i wanted to feel my wings carry me up and over
the city skyline,
i wanted to disappear into the abyss
of music itself.

I don’t know how to tell you
that I can tell how hard you
are trying
just by the sound of your voice,
it doesn’t rise and fall like
a never ending tide the way
it used to, it doesn’t make me
want to hang up the phone and
jump off of a bridge just so
I could feel like I was killing
one of our demons
before they could ****
one of us.
I don’t know how to show you
how proud of you I am
for going as long as you have
without slipping back into
slow suicide, without going
back to being absent from
my life like you were
before.
I don’t know how to tell you
that what you are doing
for yourself
is also a gift you’re giving to me,
for there is a strange contagiousness
when somebody starts to
take care of themselves.
I don’t know how to tell you
that just because things are getting
better doesn’t mean
that everything is now automatically
okay, because it’s not and
there are still knots that I’ve tied
in between my ribs and the backs
of my eyelids, things I have
promised myself to never give
or tell or show you
ever again.
My heart is thawing and that is
a choice I have made and I am glad
I am making it.
Life is too hard with a hardened
heart but that doesn’t mean
it can thaw overnight.
I can feel it slowly softening
with each passing day,
though I still scare myself
with what I can remember.
Darkness remains
but I am no longer using it
to fill a void.
And I am glad I can look you
in the eye and know
that you’re trying your hardest
to see, to really see
me again.

I’m older now so I try to forget

But I get flashbacks

Of the every weekend endless parties

The music the drinking the smoke the laughter

The audible hell that was

The garage

The pretend family that was

Us

Me walking in to play you a song before bed

Which would turn into

You drunkenly doing your best at showing me how

To play Satie’s Première Gymnopédie


Which would end in me wondering how to say goodnight

While you would cry silently about nothing

On my shoulder.

I’m older now so you think I’d forget

But I remember

The first birthday you had after your brother died when

You downed a bottle or three in the span of an hour or two

I went upstairs to make sure you were okay

Only to find your friends had carried you from

The garage to your bed

Which made for the most perfect

Stumbling distance

Any drunk could ever imagine.

I’m older now so I pretend to forget

But the memories crumble with clarity at night

You, opening the bottle at five and passing out at one or two in the morning

Only coming in the house to **** and eat and banter

Oh, the endless banter

I had fun with messing with your mind and playing with your words

When you were gone

As you so often were, every night of my

Entire span of pretending to blossom. I never knew who you were going to be -

“Your dad is a drug addict you know. He’s not perfect either. What are you staring at?”

“Oh baby, you’re so brilliant. You know that?! You’re brilliant!”

“I miss him so much. I’m so so sad and lonely…”

“It’s not all about you, you know. Don’t let it go to your head.”

I learned how to be a numb construction worker,

Constantly working on the foundation of the walls

I was building to protect myself from you.

I’m older now so you’d think I’d forget,

You’d think the memories would fade with each passing year

You’d think the wounds would have healed by now,

You’d think I could call myself a strong young woman.

But I can’t, I’m tormented by remembering, I’m haunted still

I am a ghost

The voices yell at me, tell me to throw in the towel already,

Get rid of everything what a waste of space. They sound like you.

Sometimes I miss it, I miss the hell that was living with you.

I miss the consistency, the predictable time-frame in which I could depend

On you to be emotionally unavailable. When I close my eyes, I can still see

Your silhouette swaying in the hallway, your hand fumbling for the light switch

The demon that would come out of your mouth every time I said

I love you.

But I’m older now, I try to forget.

I half succeed in daylight

But the memories crumble with clarity at night

The memories crumble with clarity at night.

I'm beginning to wonder
If some people from the past just
Belong in the past

Old friends are wondering
Where I went,
They message me and I just
Can't bring myself to answer

And I can't find a reasonable explanation
To give them other than

Certain parts of me are broken
They have vanished and I don't know what to tell you other than

Things are different now

I'm not really sorry I missed your birthday
I'm not really sorry I forgot to answer your questions
It's just I have nothing to give, or to say

Things are different now
You hold pieces of who I used to be
I just can't seem to bring those parts of myself back

So tomorrow is your birthday, you asked me what I had planned
I gave you an answer as vague as a lucid dream
Perhaps I no longer am afraid
To disappoint you
Perhaps I no longer have a strong desire
To be around you
I'm not sure what it is but
Something's lost and has been lost
For a long time

I just can't seem to bring whatever it is that's lost
Back

maybe i’ll never be able to pin down why
this feels so different from all the others
but there isn’t such a sense of doom
as there was with the rest.
perhaps it’s me - my heart is no longer
the dilapidated instrument i used to consider
a metronome - back then it possessed no concrete purpose
except to keep time to imaginary songs that reminded me i exist.
having abandoned my expectations to be completed,
i know now that that which feels forever is in fact
perpetually transitory, and though this has always been
among my most profound of fears, leaving its
teeth marks in every place of every part i’ve ever been touched -
it is also one of the most exquisite - a placeholder among other things
one may deem irrational, like the fear of success or love or happiness.
in a world where fingerprints can leave scars
and kisses can leave question marks,
you don’t see me as a collection of calamities that
you are burdened to undo.
i am not born from your rib, i do not bleed to watch you burn.
you do know this, you do.
i do not know what it is about you but there is something
inside your heart that mirrors my own and you can
deem a myth a prayer or a truth because
some people find each other and know right away
that they belong together.
and even if you tire of my muchness (as you surely will),
i will not dim myself down - i will not be ashamed
of the wingspan of my love.
but the thing is, i know yours is just as wide
and perhaps that’s what it comes down to, really.
for the first time in my life i feel
like i am made of more
than just
wax.

days are more about
reading, learning, listening
to the life that i have,
to the life i wish to live.
(instead of watching them float by,
as i used to do, drowning myself
in a mud-bath of self hatred day after inevitable day.)

nights are more about
hoping, breathing, praying
to some kind of creator that watches over me,
who i can talk to when my mind becomes an enemy.
(instead of being convinced that my mind is God, therefore i must be
all of the horrible things it said i was: too sensitive, too invested,
too worried, too big, too much.)

jobs are more about
getting up, dressed, and out of the house
to go somewhere for four hours to interact with people,
make someone smile, and even some cash.
(instead of seeing it as a wasteful pastime or a distraction from
myself in order to continue a life of destruction while in disguise.)

friends are more about
less talking, more listening and profound fulfilment for
the few i have and being content with not needing more,
being honest and loyal, accepting that sometimes
people cannot always be physically inseparable but that
does not mean their hearts are not.
(instead of calling myself a failure for not having ten people on
speed dial, not being “popular”, not being a “schmoozer” or “liked enough”, every
******* ego boost story we’ve all told ourselves at one point or another.)

parents are more about
patience, forgiveness and acceptance
for even though i did not have a happy upbringing,
parental stability, or a healthy environment, they did
what they could with what they had and i no longer
wish to be on my deathbed just to prove a selfish point.
(forgiving the very person who gave me life for all the years
of abandonment and neglect is the hardest thing i will ever do,
and am still in the process of. it is a miracle to say though,
that things are significantly better than i ever imagined them to be.)

life is more about
living:
sleeping, eating, moving, watching, learning, sitting, singing, speaking,
listening, crying, smiling, creating, walking, asking, wondering, hoping, playing, detaching.
being at peace with the mundane and calling it growth.
sometimes i’m so filled with life my body feels like a helium balloon that is barely able to stay on the ground. other times i’m so tired i stay in bed
for an entire day doing nothing but worry i am a failure. i am learning to be okay with catching glimpses of who i am, but not always being fully certain. (instead of looking to others to validate my ego, or sense of self i had manipulated so that i could be perceived a certain way.)
**instead of believing the illusions, i choose to challenge them.

always hoping for the best
and expecting the worst,
i see the sadness in everything,
but i also the the beauty,
which is why
i laugh too hard, i cry too easily,
you will find yourself always asking me
either "what's the matter?" or
"what's so funny?"
and i will find silly answers for both
that will never suffice because
i never have any.
i am looking for them just as carelessly
as you.

and i think we both know
that you don't mean it when you say
"see you soon"
because how soon is now?
it's always later than sooner
for most things, anyway.
it's hard not to spend a lifetime
waiting wasting wondering
when something extraordinary is going to
come along, when you will stop feeling
like dry eraser remnants sprinkled across
an old writer's desk,
when you confront the fact
that you've always only ever been
a big and lonely mess
of please love me, please leave me, please show me
how to start being more and stop
being less.

i watched blankets of people
rip themselves off of you
one by one by one
you were no longer beautiful to them,
the wrong things became important to you
and so
they left and you
turned cold.

i still find you beautiful
but i have divorced my heart from you
there's not much to say when i see you,
not enough space to feel when i'm around you,
not enough affection to resuscitate
all of the moments you let me drown.

i don't want to hate you anymore, but
i don't want to love you either. both of them are
painful, so i get caught in between.

i wish i could wish you a happy mother's day
and feed into your belief
that you are a good mother, the belief you use to cover up
your deep seated self hatred
but i can't.

i will always find you beautiful
but i won't be around anymore
to tell you that.

i can’t listen to the Strokes without thinking of my first love,
and how I only fell in love with them because
they were his favourite band, and i was in love with him.
i can’t listen to Mozart, Chopin, Satie, or classical music of any kind without thinking of my mother playing piano late at night
while I fell asleep to the sound of her fingers emanating warm melodies.
i can’t listen to Elliott Smith without thinking of being on the bus on the way to high school, and how much solace his music brought me
during those deeply lonely years of anguish and abandonment.
i can’t listen to the Beatles without thinking of my entire family,
jamming together in the garage, without thinking of love.
i can’t listen to the Weepies without thinking of my best friend,
driving around in her car on our way to anywhere, how those songs are symbols of our friendship in the form of sound.
i can’t listen to Regina Spektor without thinking of myself, throughout all stages of my life, without feeling alive, reminding me of who i am,
as an artist, as a lover, as a being.
i can’t listen to Tegan and Sara, *****, Rilo Kiley, Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or Broken Social Scene without thinking of my high school friends, all those concerts we went to, all the late nights.
That was the music that made me brave.
I can’t listen to Jazz music without thinking of my grandfather, and how many times I sang with him while he played the piano and smiled.

most of these people have come and gone
and i could go on
but if I’ve loved someone, there is a song that I will always associate
with them, and that time of my life.
music is the definition of every moment.
it’s one of the most comforting truths that there is.

i need you more
than you need *****
i need you to hold me and tell me
a little good news
i can't play more than two notes without
breaking down
flashbacks of how you used to keep me
safe and sound

i must have been safe in the womb
you must have wanted me,
when i lived inside you.

all i'm saying is,
nine months must have counted
for something
something more
than this.

i can't say i wasn't warned
in high school when teachers told me
that the world would soon chew me up and spit
me out and have
its way with me
i can't say i am surprised
that the friends i had then have since
vanished
one by one by one by one

i have since been chewed up and spit out by the world
but i have also treated it like a bone
always trying to catch up with it, always
watching always
observing always
trying to call it mine
other people seem to have an easier time
at making new friends
they go to shows or bars or school
and that's how they meet
new people
i don't go to shows or bars or school
so i don't really meet
any people

and i am content with that.
people don't understand it, i mean,
what's a life without something put
before it?
love-life
social-life
career-life
night-life
what ever happened to just
life?

i don't have room to put anything before it.
i don't have room for more people in it.
i don't have the patience to explain this to people.
i don't have the patience to meet new people.

and people always say
not to cling too tightly to the things you're afraid to lose
because then the chances of losing them
are higher
but clinging to the people i have
has saved me in a lot of ways
and perhaps i'm set
in those ways but the truth is,
i am one lucky *****
and i'm not about to let go of the love
i've been given
for anything.

i keep having dreams
about you
they are another version
of waking life
and sometimes i wonder
if there is any way out
of the shadows in which
you haunt me.

I told you I didn’t want
to go out with you again
you asked me why I changed my mind
I gave you no in depth explanation
because there isn’t one
I told you that
sometimes I just change my mind
and that it just doesn’t feel right.
you asked me when it would feel
right and I said
I don’t know, man.
most people don’t like taking
no for an answer
but when you give them no choice
it feels pretty **** good because
no is a perfect answer
and sometimes yes is a perfect answer
but there is no right or wrong answer.
All I know is that saying no
feels good and I don’t owe anyone
anything and I can do whatever
the **** I want. At all times.
you thanked me for inspiring you
to write a poem and I said
you’re welcome because I already know
I’m ******* inspiring.
we only went on one date but
I bet it’s the best ******* poem
you’ve ever written.
Or maybe it’s the *******, but
either way, I know no matter
what pretty words you came up
with, not one of them could ever
sum up my beauty or complexity
because words can come close
but in the end they will always
always
fail.

maybe you let it happen because hearing the words
i love you
had more of a lasting effect on you than almost any other means
of self abuse you had tried to drown yourself in throughout your lifetime

maybe you let it happen because you liked being able
to escape
from all of the cacophony that had been
bumbling around in your head for weeks, months, years

maybe you let it happen because you were trying to forget
something
someone once told you while they were drunk and indifferent
sitting next to you at a bar, the kind of thing someone mumbles to you
right before they fall asleep and you're the only one who can recite it
word for word as if to savour the sting the next morning,
something you feel guilty for even remembering at all.

maybe you let it happen because you knew
that all of the terrible things that had been done to you
could never be proven, scientifically or otherwise
because you knew from an early age that
words were meaningless and you'd been living so long
inside the jaded surface of their hollow shell you needed
something tangible something or someone who would
scoop you up and eat you like ice cream
even if they only did it for the sake of their own
shameless unadulterated selfish enjoyment regardless
of the devastating consequences.

maybe you let it happen because you had been left
so many times you figured the words
i love you
were better than death itself
even if you knew those words were not real
even if the person who said them really never meant them
even if you never had the chance to discover
what that statement truly means
at all

but you would keep searching for it anyway
even if you kept finding it
in the wrong places
time and time again.

I miss
Everyone I was
Everyone I wish I could save
Every place I’ve been
That I wish I could have stayed

I miss you.

you brushed my hair back from my forehead and whispered,
"why are you crying?"
"i don't know." i said.
how could i tell you it was because
everything about being near you was wrong?
how could i tell you that ever since i've known you
i've felt like you tried to take everything that was good in me
or maybe i gave too much away without thinking,
and now i feel like a shell of a human being?
how could i tell you that the reason i keep coming back to you
has nothing to do with me caring about you in any way
and has everything to do with the fact that i'm too weak to feel worthwhile
when being on my own?
how could i tell you that you owe me a million apologies without
you accusing me of how many things i've done wrong?
how could i tell you to let me go right now
without you asking me to list valid reasons why?
how could i tell you that my heart is tired, that i can't
do this anymore,
that the act of collapsing into your paper-cut arms is easier
than admitting i'm not okay?

"i don't know." is all
i can say.

though we do not talk anymore,
i still think of you -
not my idea of you - but how you were,
as i knew you to be.
beautiful, like a swan
cute the way you would lose things
like your wallet or phone,
the way it almost seemed like you lost them on purpose
just to give yourself something
tangible to look for, to distract you
for a little while.

though we have spent more time apart without talking
than we probably ever thought we would,
i still smile to myself when certain memories
float like little clouds shaped as animals
over my heart.
like that night we took black and white photographs of ourselves
in my mothers bathtub, beautiful pictures
of us smoking cigarettes, and you said
"two girls. black and white. naked in a bathtub.
it doesn't get more honest than that."
and i smiled because you were right
and it felt like we had accomplished
some artistic feat, like the love we had for each other
was finally depicted into something that we had both
created, in the way great artists create things,
beautiful & brutally honest,
and i felt so much joy and beauty
in that.
i still look at them sometimes,
when my heart aches for you.

though you have hopefully replaced me
with better, kinder, balanced, healthier, supportive people in your life
i still think about you,
and although i do recall how deeply we both hurt
each other
i do wish the best for you
and i hope you're really
happy and that you finally feel
like the goldmine
you are.

what happens
when your hours of sobriety
vanish ever so slowly
from
ten to six to five to two?
what happens
when you realize this drama
you keep complaining of
has nothing to do with anyone else
and everything to do with you?
what happens when I reach the age
that you were when you
gave birth to me?
will you finally cry
tears of unselfishness,
will you curl up in my arms
and ask me to sing you a lullaby
that sums up what I've learned
about womanhood?
will you feel how it feels
to have lived so long
without comfort or courage
to stay standing strong?
what happens when I can't decide
which side of you I want to be around
when I choose to stop choosing
when I feel without losing
when you love without using
up all the good parts
of me?

but I don't want you only
in the daytime
I want you all the time
maybe because I'm greedy
maybe because I'm needy
or maybe because it is one of the most
natural wants in the world.

you want a peer to get drunk with
not a daughter to fall in love with

my heart keeps
weakening
over all of this.

endless nights
spent on
wondering
if I cried myself to sleep
loud enough
would it wake you from
your nightmare of a life
and cause you to shout through a megaphone
across the sky
from your hot air balloon and say
"there is no place like home"
would the echo of your voice
be enough to convince the clouds
to let you land safely  in my arms
so I could finally whisper
"welcome home."

i asked you for money
to contribute to my trip to Florida

because i am a horrible daughter
because you haven't worked for three years
because i was testing you
because it's wrong that i have a job and you don't
because i'm 21 and you're 45
because i know you're broke and wanted to remind you of that
because you have two children you're not taking care of
because you have three children total but i don't count myself as yours anymore
because you have a lot of growing up to do
because i wanted to feel guilty for asking
because a piece of paper has exceeded the worth of our relationship
because i'm about to go on the most amazing adventure of my life
and you're not even happy for me
because i need your support
because you're essentially absent from my life
because you're dating a drug dealer who supplies you with everything
because i need you
i need you
i need you
i need you
because i'm a horrible daughter
because i'm greedy for asking
because nothing is enough.

one of the most liberating moments
someone can ever live through
is the moment where they realize
that it wasn't their fault
that they were left.
the moment they finally decide
it's time to
forgive themselves
for thinking they deserved
to be
abandoned.

when you run into someone
you haven’t seen in over a year,
someone who you loved deeply,
still do,
someone who straight up
abandoned you
someone who only gave you
an echoes answer,
and suddenly they’re standing
directly in front of you and you
aren’t afraid to look them straight
in the eyes like you thought
you would be
and all you feel is love
which surprises you because
you aren’t used to
softening, you aren’t used
to forgiving.
and then without thinking,
you pull that person,
who is practically a stranger
to you now, into
a tight embrace, that is when
you know hesitation
no longer belongs to you,
that is when you know
that something inside you has
changed
for the better
while you weren’t looking.

the wind abused me today
while i was walking home from work
it screamed at me
to get going, move along
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR
it chucked dust in my eyes
and messed up my hair
it was loud and i began to cry
because my mind was also loud
and before i knew it, they began competing
in cacophony
until
i couldn't distinguish the difference between them
all i heard was
you're not good enough no one wants you
your mother doesn't love you you're a failure
waste of space waiting always waiting you're going
to spend your whole life waiting
what a pathetic little girl you are keep walking that's right
one foot after the other keep going don't stop
nothing will turn out how you want it to
you don't deserve anything good you never did you never will
and i just wanted to scream but i couldn't
sometimes i feel like if i'm quiet enough
then the physical silence will be like a lullaby
that will slowly lull the internal thunder
to hushed lightning
but that is rarely ever the case
i hate the wind
i hate this city
sometimes living gets so hard that it's a wonder
we all don't get a million dollar reward for living
through the worst hours, minutes, seconds
of our days
when we get so tired of existing but keep existing
anyway
how do we do it? how do we keep going like we do?
is it bravery or just necessity or just indifference?
i'm so tired
tired of existing
i just want to put ear muffs on and stay underneath
the covers forever
the hardest thing in the world
is being paralyzed with fear of the unknown
and living through it anyway.

i need a crash course for how to give someone an ultimatum
i need a guideline for how to bypass bullets of guilt
that always aim straight for the heart
and lodge themselves into the core of my chest
i need a technique on how to take them out of my body
without getting my hands all ******
without the terror and devastation of leaving
a pool of blood in the beds of everyone
around me
i need a how-to-stop-needing-your-mother guide
i need to find the-thesaurus-for-making-the-truth-sound-nicer
but no matter how i try to word this,
it always ends up coming out wrong.

get sober, or get out of my life.

this is not as simple as it sounds.

i am so done playing this game
i need a ******* mother who doesn't go from being
kind then manipulative then cold then apologetic then attacking
all in one hour
i need you to grow the **** up and set a ******* example
i've given up on you
i can't believe i just wrote that
i don't know how to tell you any of this
hoping hurts too much and i am trying
to convince these wounds to heal a little softer for once
i'm trying to be gentle with myself
and no matter how much i wish you could be a part of that -
the healing -
you still make me want to die.

everything about this is so wrong
so wrong so wrong so wrong

i'm not certain of a lot of things
but i am **** sure that the devil
is at the root of addiction - of every kind -
and i'm sorry for those who love someone
who is sick like this
there is no greater pain than this
there is no greater pain
than this
and i have never understood something
more deeply
than i understand
this and sometimes i wonder if it would be easier
if i never understood it
in the first place.

In one year we went
from being two planets
that revolved around each other to
one trick question written in braille on a blank page.
Only one of us could not see.

I sent you three poems
that reminded me of you
that were written by someone else
to remind you
that even after all that’s happened
you will always be important to me
that even after all that has
been left unsaid
sometimes someone else can
sum up
how I feel about you
better than I ever could.
and for once I am not
eagerly awaiting a response
from you
because I actually don’t need anything
from you anymore.

I am okay
without you. And
I really do hope you’re happy.

ever since i stuck that letter in your mailbox i have:

cried myself to sleep
slept for 12 hours straight
felt sad for having to wake up
smiled at people
listened to my coworkers complain about being overworked
folded napkins
broke a candleholder and swept up the glass
walked into a table and felt the brewing of a bruise
spilled coffee all over the bathroom counter
missed you
wondered when you would read the letter
or if you already had, then i wondered how
it made you feel
came to the conclusion that i am a terribly clumsy person
when i tell the truth.

i remember when you handed me a cloth
and a bucket full of soap and said:
"scrub."
i started to cry and said:
"you're treating me like i am Cinderella!"
you got so mad i hid in the living room closet
for four hours before you realized
i was gone.

i remember going grocery shopping with you
just so i could ride in the front of the cart.
you would always let me eat a chocolate donut
from the bakery section and i would always
make sure to be finished it by the time we got
to the till so you wouldn't have to
pay for it.

i remember the first time i stole a pack of gum
you didn't realize i had taken it until you watched me
unwrap a piece and stick it in my mouth right in front of you
when we got to the car.
you took me by the wrist and made me apologize to the
cashier, you told me i was bad and to never
do that again.

i remember being little and not wanting
to go to school because i didn't
want to leave you. sometimes you would let me
stay home and cuddle and watch movies with you
when i felt especially sad.

i remember you giving me piano lessons
and telling me to count out loud while
i practiced, meanwhile i had already
memorized the entire piece and was
making up new songs of my own.

i remember you telling me that i could always
tell you anything, that you would never judge me,
that you would always be there to listen and
comfort me. i remember believing you
and i remember the first time i realized
you didn't even know you were lying.

i remember sitting in the backseat with your
head on my shoulder while my Father drove you
to the detox centre. you kept saying how scared you were,
lighting cigarette after cigarette, squeezing my hand
so hard it cut off my circulation. your tears stained my sleeves,
and your vulnerability stained my heart.

i remember deciding it was time to lose you, finally,
on my own terms, for i had so many times felt as though
you were already a walking crime scene without the yellow
tape to ward people off. i tried but i couldn't make
a home out of that. it was time to learn the meaning
of safety, again.

i remember hearing your voice over the phone
after not hearing it for what felt like years,
and although you were a mess of tears and withdrawal
and ******, i could hear the love in your voice
and for once i felt my heart fill
with the temporary thing it has always wished for
consistently.

I haven’t been held
by anyone for a long time
I’m beginning to wonder
if I have been held by anyone
ever at all
and how many things I used to have
that I now miss
more than anything in the world
like being held and being
kissed
and if any of those things
have ever actually
existed. Lonely
refrigerator.
Tap water
over hard boiled eggs.
Ice cubes sliding down your
shirt.
Being pushed off of
a very tall building,
everything must serve
a purpose I guess.

pockets full of pointless poems
slipping out from under my tongue
i walk home with my arm around the moon,
cold feet finely balanced on the sun
thinking about
my eyes on your lips,
your hands on her hips,
a flash of potential,
a smile that fades,
my hand, lighting your cigarette
knowing full well
that’s as close to you
as i’ll ever get.

my downfall will always lay
on me putting too much emphasis on having certain
people in my life. it is terrifying,
because as soon as you let someone be the place
your mind wanders to when it’s bored or sad or lost,
you are in vulnerable territory.
and if it’s not
reciprocated, you’re *******.
i’ll never forget the first time i cut myself on the edge
of his indifference, my friend kept asking me
“why does he matter so much to you?”
and even though that was years ago,
i still can’t come up with an answer.
that’s the problem with caring too much,
you end up feeling like a deformed piece of pottery
touched and moulded by someone who never intended
on taking up a new hobby.
i confess, i’m not as i seem,
i can manipulate the perception other people have of me
so as to avoid the possibility of ever getting hurt.
when did i associate being myself with being hurt?
i do not know.
all i know is that with you i don’t pretend,
and i am more than aware
that that could be potentially
annihilating.

despite how much i’ve learned and lost
again and again from love,
i will never be the girl who does the things she should
to protect her own heart.
the moment i know i love you,
i will hand it to you, in a box marked
“FRAGILE: Handle with care” but you won’t.
you never will.
i won’t pretend i don’t know this the entire time.
i will only dress in red just because i know
it is your favourite colour,
i will ask you what your middle name is because not knowing
little details about you will drive me insane.
i’m not the girl who moves on if her feelings are not
reciprocated.
because love for me is not an easy thing.
it is everything. it is the only thing.
when i love, i love hard.
i live and breathe love,
i dream love, i am love.
i will try to kiss you when we’re both drunk and delirious,
i will keep trying to kiss you even when you say
no, that it “isn’t the right time.”
i will shower you with profuse apologies for things
that are not even my fault to begin with.
i will touch your hand at every chance i get,
because i know one day soon i won’t be able
to touch you at all.
i will become calloused by your rejections,
despite your obvious forbidden returned affections.
i will consider myself a ******* because of how painful it is
to not give up.
with me, giving up is not an option.
giving up has always been the curse.
the curse i will forever wonder why i was not
blessed with.

the best thing for my heart
is the worst thing for my mind
it just can’t wrap itself around the fact
that now is the best time
to stay away, to cast a tall shadow
on the silhouette of my hopes,
to let you have your space
to hurt and bleed and heal and do
whatever else you need to do
to feel like yourself again.
time and patience and distance
is the only cure for that.
me and my selfish desires play no part in this,
i know, you don’t have to tell me.
it’s the best thing for my heart
but the worst thing for my mind,
i’d be yours in a second if only
you’d see the ties that bind.

once you embark on the journey
of healing
you can’t really go back.
i mean you can, but if you do,
you have twice the work to do
if you want to start healing again.
and it’s terrifying.
every day i’m faced with the choice to either
wallow in all the things that make me sad,
or count my blessings and revel in being happy and present
and every day is a
fight.
some days are like jumping through puddles in rain boots,
other days are like climbing the tallest mountain in bare feet,
but i have come to learn how to
appreciate the sad days
because they always teach me something i didn’t know
before, about how to be happy again.
there is still such a long way to go
and nobody can do it for you
so be brave,
be brave,
be brave.
you know how.
i promise you, you do.
you are worth all the stars in the sky, the moon and the sun combined.
you are a million candles in an echoey cathedral.
you are the three part harmony in every one of your favourite songs.
you are every kiss, every embrace, every scar
that smiles like a warrior when people notice that it has
healed.
you are not the things that have happened to you,
you are not your sadness or your loneliness or your thoughts.
so be brave,
be brave,
be brave.
you know how.
i promise you, you do.

want, need
heal, bleed
skim it over, pretend to understand
let go of my love, grab onto my hand
tell me you’ve listened to every despair
pull it out of my throat, cut it out of my hair
demand for a reason, cling to the silence
question every decision, imaginary correspondence
if i could only dream up a single way i could breach
myself without turning to destruction to teach
me the flow of the stream, the ways of the wind
a calm way to turn my legs back into fins.
if there is such thing, if fear is not truth,
then with ease i shall release
the string of my youth.

it's not my job to "let you" mother me
that's your ******* job, regardless of what i
feel or act or think or say
to you
you're supposed to fight for me
you're supposed to do anything for me
i'm going to push you away because of how much you've hurt me
and you're supposed to pull me back as hard and as meaningful
and as sincere as you possibly can.
because that's what good mothers do.

you're not supposed to say it's my fault
you're not supposed to make me feel this way
*******
*******
*******
*******

you hurt me in a way that does not
fill me with anger and resentment or a desire
to get some kind of revenge on you
it's the kind of hurt where i feel like it was all my fault and it's hard
because we have a history
and there's an automatic attachment that comes
with that
but somedays i just get so scared that you might hate me and i think
in these moments i remember the few instances where you made
me feel loved
and i try to hold onto those memories for no
good reason at all i'm just so afraid
of not being loved
because i don't feel worth loving
because i'm not very good at
loving myself
and even though
you are the last person i actually need to be loved by,
for some reason i just can't let go
of the fear that you don't love me and i think that's because
of my refusal to accept that you never
loved me at all

waking up beside you felt like a failure,
talking to you felt like a compulsion,
you liked me because i was unavailable in every way
except physically
and i liked you because you were unavailable in every way
except you provided an inconsistent comfort
that i hadn't felt in years

i don't know who to blame
to must be you
it must be you
you were the first person who removed my insides
and stuffed me with false reasons for why
you felt like nothing needed to change
and i believed you because i have a heart
that is easily manipulated
i don't like thinking about it
but it sticks to my mind like a moth sticks to a lightbulb
and there is no switch
to shut
it off.