i do not love you like simplicity is my end goal
under duress I might fall prey to convention, but here
my bliss is unencumbered; i look to you, and there are shadows
spaces to be overlooked and re-examined
little things too precious for a first glance

i do not love you in order to be loved
it isn’t in me,  to hope for exchange
a burden falls, but it isn’t hope
i do not carry wishes on my shoulders
i do not fall under the weight of expectation
if you were to love me, i would
be constantly surprised, even if you kissed me
a thousand times

if you reached for my hand,  i’d jolt
in happy astonishment
when our skin touched
even if my mind grew to know you as home

each touch
would set my heart staccato
each year would slip by
and i’d stare at my hands
wondering if i’d been the one charged to hold it

but:

if every time we spoke
the world faded, it would be no less than convention
i suspend disbelief when you laugh
sometimes your questions are darts through me
arrows of lost circumspection,
i do not love you to hold your heart in my palm

i would let more melancholy soak through me to
hold your ear for an hour without fear of faltering
i do not love you to give myself up

i love you like i could never say the words
only smile at you i know you know i know you know
i do
like a secret between the two of us
and everyone else i’ve ever told, unabashed
it’s not hard to see you and wish for potential to turn into kinetics
for you and me and this to move
it’s almost become routine
i put a foot forward and walk
i breathe in and back out
i reach for a real smile when i see you wrap arms around her waist
it’s simple
i love you because it makes things brighter

“there you are” , i should have said
“i was just thinking of you and i was expecting to see you
somewhere, and it was here”

and there we were and all i wanted was for us to stand closer but
i know that was impossible

the pull was magnetic i couldn’t disconnect from the inevitability that was us talking and i asked you about classes because I had to and good lord it is so nice to hear you say things and

you are some of the only brilliance i know that i can actually touch

i should have said “why would i have thought you
wouldn’t be here we haven’t seen each other in six months
don’t be an imbecile let’s discuss more philosophy
and bastardize blasphemy” but i didn’t but it was unsaid but
that was good enough

do you remember what you took from me
do you remember what i had that was really yours
do you know how much of her i now hold with a steady grip
do you know what darts through my chest when i know
the two of you are stagnant ponds?

i looked like there was something in my eyes, probably—
should i have missed you as much as i did?
my soul finds the question irrelevant
i missed you to the point of fogginess

did you ever know that i loved you like the thousand things i also loved?
in that moment i wanted something that was never us
to feel your ribs under your sweater and the sturdiness of your chest as your arms hung limp beside you
knowing exactly what your face must have looked like as i pressed my own into
your confusion

we talked for ten minutes; any multiple would still have left me wanting
and the hole in the centre our node that couldn’t be occupied was her and she’s fine don’t worry
i don’t want to picture you holding her like i never could but can now god yes i missed you

i did

and the way you smiled when things actually deserved it
and the way your hair grows long, well past your shoulders

you could swallow me whole and i’d let you and
you wouldn’t know what to do with that
that’s why i loved you, the only
real thing i loved like unreal things

secrets, pried from slack fingers
unencumbered truths; she told me
everything

almost, everything

drunk it in a distilled spirit she told me everything about
her being gone from me when we stood
together and slipping away when i turned my head
being in the room, i

—lines—

stole from her everything, spoke questions that
turned into truths, she spoke haltingly and choked,
i was
steady

“i do love you.”

and i let her pause
my breath came as steady streams
and my electric buzz under control

“i do love you.”

i drew her out from under her coverings,
limply she said
“i do love you.”

i smiled like a curve was my mouth
tried to control the way my eyes glinted forward, yes
that’s control

“but i’m not in love with you.”

revelled in the perfection of my predilection, yes

i suspected as much from the way she turned her eyes
and let me
falter under doubts

“but i’m not in love with you.”

i asked a lot of questions
slid blades under collar bones and spread her open
moved with my heart pounding, soaked in her adrenaline

but there are some things i didn’t ask




how did she
know she was not in love with

me

how did she know she loved me but didn’t
love
the curve of my skin and the way i laughed, didn’t fall and fall when i walked in the room, no

is that how she knew?

“have you been in love before?”, i don’t ask that

“are you in love now?”, i don’t ask that

and she knew when i didn’t
was grateful (still is)

she was right, when i look back and see how much she were given and how the balance was so tipped and how inevitable

yes i was entirely undeserved

I miss you when you’re next to me
And you’re too far away to touch
When your elbow is his elbow’s companion
Your smile his smile’s partner
My best efforts work to keep me from breaking
Another rock rolls up the hill

Another rock rolls up the hill
I miss you when you’re far from me
And here, you’re too close to my heart to forget
Your is figure my mind’s default
My best efforts work to keep me from breaking
When your laugh is still ringing through me

When your mind is my mind’s ex-lover
Another rock rolls up the hill
I miss you when I look at you
Your heart my heart’s tease
And you do smile without your eyes
My best efforts work to keep me from breaking

My best efforts work to keep me from breaking
When I have to look in the other direction
And my pain is censored to avoid complications
Another rock rolls up the hill
I miss you when you’re not what you were
Your eyes don’t connect, and I am hidden

Your intoxication makes fools of both of us
When your wantonness is my resolve’s downfall
I can miss you when we’re separated by vapour
My best efforts work to keep me from breaking
Another rock rolls up the hill
And you kiss me, drunk on distance

And I know you’d understand exactly
Your outrage my opinion’s mirror
Another rock rolls up the hill
My best efforts work to keep me from breaking
When your thoughts are my thoughts
I miss you when our connection doesn't falter

Another month, and maybe it’ll be easier
I can’t breathe sometimes, after your eyes meet mine
My life shouldn't still collapse when you walk in the room

sometimes the noise got too much; i’d hear everything: the people in and out of the washroom, the kitchen fan downstairs, my brother and his friends yelling outside. i’d turn my music up, hoping the neighbours didn’t mind. when i left, the relief was almost more profound than i could handle.

it can’t be static
i’ll return; the leaves will fall
clocks can turn back time

this is how a
part of my
new self
starts:

she
and i
hook up at
a party, in
November, a bit after Halloween
my costume is stars on black, hers sharp teeth
and sharper lines

she sinks them

into
me

and
I am
so much more
lost than I’d thought
I could be, not with her, not her, not her
not her, but there we were, stealing kisses
burning bruises
onto her
exposed
throat

and
I liked
it enough
to keep going
and i had another her, and a him, as well
i knew things i hadn’t before, somehow
knew what a gasp
did to skin,
to a
heart

and
i was
just worthless
lost in my lust
and in spirals, finally confirming  
what i thought i’d known, experimental
results for my
eyes, ears and
starving
mind

what
affects
the levels
of arousal
in a man, in a woman; i learned
how a moan can amplify and set sparks
running down your
back, through your
spine and
on

i
stumbled
took her hand
again, slammed
us into the doorway and hid the light
from her, closed the distance and stole something
she couldn’t take
back from me,
not just
yet

then
i placed
my hands on
her thighs, drew from
her conclusions enough for a lifetime
skin convulsed under mine; i was in control
could play her like
sin plays man
this, I
knew

and
know, i
know it still
it isn’t gone
my fingers sing, sometimes; that’s reverie

and so we danced:
i spun her, twirled her round and tried to fix her image
burn her like exposed film, but i found it difficult
not to give her true words; i’d pound messages on her chest
and rub my eyes raw, trying to be assured of what we had
which was nothing/everything, concurred with my hypothesis
that i wasn’t fit for function; the myth of us grew
and she couldn’t keep up, couldn’t lift anything from me
she hid under covers
i let her
we stumbled