I seek a mother in every other mother,
a father in every other father

I am still a daughter
I am still not sure how to find home
I am still a daughter - but whose?

I am also just some person now
Not a girl, not a child,
not anyone’s anything

And today,
in the stark middle of this sunny day,
I can see the moon in the sky

Profound and silly to remember
that it’s always nighttime somewhere

Today I remember
it is always nighttime
somewhere in me.

They all look so **** healthy -
standing over me, staring at me,
speaking so loudly -
as though the illness is in my ears.

And I don’t appreciate being
stood over or stared at,
or having somebody raise their voice at me
yet barely hear a human word of what I say.

They just look so ******* healthy -
I think I’ve been abducted by aliens.
They want to search every part of my body
to find out what is wrong with me,

as if their perfectly supple skin
and their bagless eyes
and their stupidly crisp clothes
aren’t totally wrong to me.

I might just be a little hungry or tired
I might just be a little scared

Used to clawing for the sunlight
even in moon rays

For once
I am afraid of a good thing

I am loved and I am scared

What does this mean if I can let go,
if I can lean a little?

A little loved,
a little scared to lean a little

When will it be enough?

When one’s cheeks can smile no wider?
When one’s heart has burst itself with joy?

Will one climb all the peaks and
on the journey home from the last
say “What else?”

So - what else?
(And will it ever do?)

Why must one aim Everest-high,
when one feels ever so low?

Why must an ant exist for the crawl?

Will one ever rest at all?

Ain’t the water a drag to wade in?
All I know is what I don’t want

Off the top of my head
I can think of
nothing in particular
particularly pleasing -
more evident
with every morning
the apathy wakes with me.

Through the day
this apathy is an anchor
inside my body -

My body and its constant crashing
into sandbanks,
under unpredictable waves,
saltwater scorching through

I take all my slow walks with apathy -
it holds my hand, saying nothing
but it's there
when I swallow till my lungs are full

Anything but air

And I don’t need a sigh
for this constant exhale -
clenching my jaw,
waiting for rain

If the world was water
I think I could breathe

easier

I don’t know if you can see it

Every action of mine is a shadow of you
Every movement in movement with you

So now that I am older, now that I synthesise
I am long-lost, now I see

Every move I make for you
is a move away from me

A wildflower

Is a thing of contradictions,
Flourish in the sun and in sadness,
Asks for nothing in return
But to keep making sweet of the rancid.

Pushes through the dry earth,
Holding frost drops in the winter morn.
Asks not for admiration,
Stands quiet and soft and strong.

Ever-growing everywhere,
And through its generous sprawl,
Turns a place into a paradise,
Dotting hills like stars at nightfall.

deep talks
over Whatsapp

each turn of the year
you are brighter, darker

two pleasant surprises
in the form of brothers

mean streak
to pass on

whoever you meet
earns a mean streak

I see patterns
in everything
but you

like to tell me
that everything I do
is the first time

humble my hope

in the shadow of memories
you made on your own

And yeah, sometimes I find myself here

on this endless lake,
and my canoe is sinking

Getting creative, getting by

In the holes of the boat
I am clumping the reeds,
clutching at straws,
and wondering what I do this for

Half afloat, I ripple -
see these ****** echoes?

I cannot move without a trace



And still, the boat is sinking -

I think about how
I’ve never been good at swimming

Treading till I ache

Aching for the shore -
where could I find it?

Half afloat and rippling, as I empty
and I’m sinking

Yeah, I find myself here sometimes

they say on the news
that we'll live past eighty-five

see you slouch on your couch,
how tired you are of life

and you're thirty-two
chewing through
life - like it's a cardboard box

and I know that you will
recycle these shreds
and chew through it again

the way you do with
your lovers and friends

And you say you love me
in the hiss of coffee’s steam,

but you clang the spoon into the cup and -

splash!

coffee on my skin
and the cold shock of heat,

what a joke of sensations -
what a joke made of me.

cavernous cupboard,
with your door swung wide open
like an arm to invite me in -

if I clamber inside,
will you promise to close flush?

will you turn your key?

tidy my commotion
as though a commodity

This is a tender love -
tentative and bittersweet

Oh, I could never tend a garden
I lack the patience, the sensitivity

How could I be trusted with
a little warmth,
a frail, embering coal,
a glow almost ceasing?

I could
crush it up,
***** it out
easily

There is violence in me,
do you know?

This is fire you play with,
this glow

You know I’m quite sure
I am the Devil’s own

Yet I try not to walk down those roads

(But, oh, how they feel like home.)

I guess now I’m good
There are people who will go to my funeral

People who remind me I’m a tree on a hill
giving shade to a dog, being home for a bird

I guess now I’m good
I tend to say all things tentatively

I guess I’m scared I’ll miss my parents
I guess I’m scared I’ll regret
rushing forward to my chosen lights
always choosing, always rushing

Scared to look down the trap of the past
so I keep running

Once I leave I am gone

I am going

My mother was right
to say I would go and stay going

Some steps cannot be backtracked,
some doors never reopened

Why does it feel like this door is forever closing?

I’m sorry I am short of breath for you
I’m sorry I want so badly to be somewhere else
I’m sorry you were right

Drying eyes,
don’t you shut
I want to see -
I want to see it all.

up in flames,
the racing thoughts
feed this fire;
so hungry
for fruition,
for extinction

put me out -
how can I put me out?

I damaged up the tissue -
not to say that it's a scar -
it's an old wound, ever-tender
from that time I stumbled in the dark

I feel it in the nighttime!
Place the traffic cones around me,
and cover all the mirrors -
I don't need to see you leave

Is a goodbye really goodbye
if it feels more like good riddance?

My cat has learned
to love my kisses -

cats don’t kiss -

somehow he learned
that it’s a good thing.

All anybody, any lovely, can do
is to embrace the love they’re given,

and I can’t take it -

how few of these good things
do we find?

Why does a good thing
hurt to find?

send me home
send me packing

our strains have never strained so terribly

I am needed in other places
I am happy to go

deep down I know
it’s the best thing and the first thing
I’ve done for me

over our blues

before heading for home
I was finished with you

the strain never drained me so empty.

Here am I
settling in for the night -
lay myself down in bed,
to bathe in the clarity of moonlight

and I find the spring breeze
dancing shy on my face -
but I lay overwhelmed
in the trace of its embrace

for I needed this
gentle touch today;
having barely a hold
on the words I can’t say,

in these long weeks
of wrestling myself again -
and yet I find the night’s breeze
meeting me as a friend.

Then - along my spine,
the blanket agrees
with the lovingly
overwhelming spring breeze,

and suddenly so
does the brilliant moonlight -
and so do the pages
of the book on my bedside,

and they all move to agree with
my nothing inside.

And with that -
I drift into the night.

How do I put it lightly?
How could I, anything?

I see now why some words are printed after death.
Can I bring myself to wait?

In the shame of omission, a truth becomes futile -
Too late are the words which will never bring change,
which will never tell you how you changed me.

hush me down

the more I talk, the less I know
your face is a stranger to glance past
for twenty four years in a row

hear your anger in so many tones
raise your voice to a bird from the wilderness
a bird you claim to own

the threat is to go to your garden shed
to find those wing clippers,
to make this bird an object for show

silent and beautiful and alone
nothing ever to come by
no place ever to go

slice the scars into wounds again
for you never did say in what way
you would love me so
and you never did so

letting me be, till I’m plotting to leave
then to strike when I stretch my wingspan
learning to fly, trying to grow

hush me down now
the more I talk, the less I know

nothing ever to come by
nowhere for this to go

You fall asleep, phone in hand
the light of your game shines over you
in a slumber far-off and away

Tuck you in tonight
and in nights past
the way I wished to be

I am your blindside

I must turn away
or it will be the end of me

I must climb the stairs, go to bed,
I must face away from the door

No longer to lend from my voids;
consuming me inside to out

No lock will stop
what wanders these halls

For tomorrow, we will talk again
scathing speech still to cut
profoundly

still to pull myself apart
to attempt a reach once more.

my mind plays tricks on me

kitchen sounds
of false hope
and warm breakfasts
still early
cool blue

and maybe I woke
to those sounds one day
but I forget

that my mind plays tricks on me

your smile in pictures
tender words
trust in midnights

I forget

could I dream
up a life?

sometimes I remember nothing

I forget,
I know nothing -

I forget I know nothing

inside the shell
I heard the emptiness
of my ear canal

Why is it so hard to write about you?

I guess
when I search myself
I can understand

Inside me is a door
that stays open for
mostly anyone who
willingly steps in

And you ransacked the place
and I have no insurance -

Poor as they come
in stable love

Locking down
and locking out

wordlessly sinking
to the soundtrack of soft rain
and Explorers on the stereo

I’ve said time and again
that life really is a joke

but right now, as I tell you that I -

Explorers plays obnoxiously,
I hear myself speak so comedically

and we can’t help but laugh about it later.

As bad as life can be,
at least it can be funny -

I said

free me
free me from this world

I thought I saw you,
in the corner of my eye,
or maybe it was the corner of my mind?

In passing moments,
as I flit along,
I feel a familiar tether -

Somewhere,
out in the vastness of this city…
the feeling of having you.



Having you…

Sometimes,
occasionally,
or were you ever?



I think of you in your apartment alone,
I think of the state of your room,

Somehow,
I feel that you are gone from the world,
and I am fearful of the feeling manifesting as truth

Yet through your local haunts I pass by,
quickly -

As quick as I can -

God forbid having to face you again.

Here, take my resumé -
I hope you will take me

I give you my choices, my history

Justifying myself
to a chain of perfect strangers

Yeah it’s “just a job”
(my time and my life)

represented so neatly
in the attached PDF, 30KB

(hours, and body, and mind)

I just hope your computer screen
makes these corporate words pretty

I just hope you will throw me a line

I just hope it will make you see

that I’m just a person
who, given the chance,
will try.

Sincerely,

last summer
when it began
the air wafts of its smell again

and I can’t remember any other summers
before the one I’ve spent with you

only a day here and there -
in fact I don’t remember much
of any of these seasons

every extra hour
we rewrite
the way the winter chills down to my bones
the way the rain sounds when it falls
the way the short-sleeved shirts come out again


this might just be
the longest year I’ve ever had

and now I’ve been through
almost every season with you

still, our summer never ends


I like to tell the story
of how we both heard the same song
and tried to Shazam it -
mere happenings in parallel,
two years apart

and I don’t believe in fate
but I do believe in
the coy humour of coincidence

how our summer never ends
because we took the sun
and shared it between us

how the song Summer Girl
has nothing to do with
a girl wanting to be anyone’s anything

at least not to me

Lines on the road,
heart beating,
and you in the passenger seat
like we've been doing this forever.

Am I the rhythm
of broken lines on the road -
how it all feels ready for collapse?


Sometimes I forget I exist,
and I can't touch enough
to know this isn't true.


But you touch me
and I am part of this world -

I am the lines on the road,
I am the wheels turning.

The sadness clings to me like lint
and brings the cold to my skin

But among the lint
stick the warm words of friends
to say this will not be forever

And I’m felting quite a coat now
from these accumulating words

Sometimes in secret I see
the sadness forget itself,
I see the sunlight incubating me

Sometimes, I look
and there,
among the wool of friends,
is my pain
padded up on all sides
like a winter newborn

I keep my door open -
for you, I always do

People like to say nothing’s that deep,
but I find nothing but the depths of us
in our little actions -

Please don’t shut me out
of your room, of your life

a magnolia tree
on spring’s eve;
bare branches blooming.

Little rock in space,
you float and you yearn and you spend

Hitched your wagon to the wrong star,
burning out before your journey’s end

The embers catch you, wasting -
you’re not enough for yourself

But you’re not home yet
and it’s all you can do

to ration the last of you
to the seemingly endless length of life ahead

Maybe you will never see another soul again.

They say “know when to quit”
but I haven’t yet

Moving forward into days ahead,
the flesh melts off me
with a velocity I don’t have
but expel anyway

Sunday shut-in

thoughts like moths
in the basement

beating their wings
on the sores in my mouth

I am terrified of moths
I am the dark

I am all the plagued things
that I didn’t think I could be

I used to believe I was made of sunlight,
being born to a summer Sunday’s sunrise

but right now I lay in the dark
to the sounds of everyone else having dinner

thoughts like moths in the basement

I am a low-hanging light bulb,
I am slow-burning toward the inevitable

dust settling

I can still see us there in the distance,
us in my eyes as though it were yesterday -
the icy wind and my clammy hands,
trying somehow to reach your heart -
or at least your hands.

You ask me for the only money I have left -
you know I don’t have anything but you.
You don’t see it, I buy the guitar for you
hoping this instrument will bring us together,
the way music usually would.

May the stroke of midnight lose me again
in the new year’s eves to come

I remember forgetting time and looking up
among the laughter, the smell of soda,
and my quiet fear -
it was six past midnight into the next year.
I didn’t know this would be
the year I heard my darkest voices
and dared to reply,
to be left by my fighter’s will, high and dry

Here now, this new year
is marked by the midnight
my friends and I missed,
grabbing for the remote control
to watch the fireworks broadcast
in a room dimly lit.
We laughed -
it was lovely
to escape
that dreaded turnover again;
the false promise of magic,
that last digit switch,
the secret wishes -
secretly superstitious;

May our future year endings
slip by us

May these minutes
make safe passage through our lungs

May the moment pass quietly by me
in the new year's eves to come.

Who am I now if you’ve changed,
and you’re better,
and every second sentence you say
isn’t just a way
to tell me that I am the face of all your regrets?

Now that we get along,
and my mother is gone,
I have a tentative friend
(and walls and countless methods of defence
and guilt at not perceiving a single threat)

Now that we get along,
what do I say to her about you
and the transformations you pushed her to?

He’s been stuck at 25
since I’ve been around 6 -
planning to go through life
top of class, breezing by

And I come down the stairs
just to tell them I’m alright

He waves off my little heart -
rinses and wrings it -
as he leaves behind
some things for she and I to do;

Writing me into history books.

the mahogany red
of these sticky beads,
they stick to me
and stain the sheets,

even here in bed,
even in my dreams,
clotting in my head -
a book that won’t be read
words printed large and wide
as the blinding of dread

could I make out a letter?
backing up on the bed,
hit the wall with the back of my head,

peeling, scraping the scabs off
old wounds I don't know how to tend

just once, could I
peel, and feel
my skin again?

our singular imaginations
share one shy dream;
to breathe again, and be again,
in the thrill of possibility

some of us timid, mouths tight,
holding the hope in our throats
some wild-eyed and fanfaring,
indulging the smoke

we all felt it coming;
the wind and the rain
bring visions, and lift resignations
away

I wish I were a tree
giving shade to a dog with my leaves
and never asking, nor needing,
to be told how good I have been

I wish I were a tree
but I am the rain
(lately too much,
people running away
to find a tree, for its shade)

I love and I love -
I have drowned the roses
in my neighbour’s yard

I did not mean to, I swear

My neighbour’s dog does not care
if I drown a rose, for a rose
does not smell like a bone

My neighbour’s dog barks out the door
She stays inside when it pours -

And it pours and it pours…

Why the endless machine
of my broken dam heart?

I have failed to stop
since my very first start

My love is the rain,
people running away
to the shade of a tree
till I go away

Why is it too much?
My love, like the rain

I am good and yet never
quite good to embrace

Still, I can’t forget
how you would like to tell me lies
just to see if I’d believe them
and you knew I always did;

a body built of blind faith
the skin of our arms touching -
two forsaken parallel lines

hands to never meet or hold
your body plumed too deep
within a cloud of cigarette smoke

And selfishly
your bold-lined letters came,
dusting off your guilt-laden coat -
you tell your tales, such make-believe,
to make belief of old false hopes

I wake sometimes remembering
our years-long fever dream
broken out in sweat of dread and shame
at having fallen for so grand a scheme

Of all things, I did not believe
in love but common decency,
until you shook me to my senses
shaking off the rosey lenses

Did you cage me or set me free?

Sometimes,
when it’s quiet enough,
I can hear its vibrations

A taut string I will not play
A pillar
that one could almost see swaying
when the knots are high

Haven’t I turned every leaf in my garden?
Doesn’t the grey turn back to green?
Or must it all fall before it grows again -
Too soon I feel it’s been
since I raked up the parts which made me

I look out - I’ve painted over every piece
And still,
in just enough silent nothing
stands the imprint I appease
Oh, I’ve tried and I try to make peace

In these words
do the valleys
open into plains -

in these words
are the sounds
made silently,

as these words
are not easy
to speak in earnest.

So here I am
putting thoughts to paper,
to the sounds of my bleeding heart

And it’s so silly in its drama
but I can’t do it any other way
without shrivelling these petals;

it's all so delicate.

i

Could I just take a peek inside?
What’s the colour of your blood? Could I take its temperature?
Could I examine you inside and out, head to toe, just take my time to figure it all out?

A human, healthy and vital in all physical regards. Radiating with what I could only call temporary immortality. I know I’ll never see it fade in my lifetime…

So won’t you stick around?



I don’t mean to be cruel, it’s just...

How I envy your physical freedom - your need for so little sleep, the way you bounce back after a night out, accidentally missed the bus so you just walk home. What I could do with that kind of power… my body feels so much older than you.



ii

Humiliated and betrayed by this heavy casing I carry, have carried and cared for, and defended from hands with no self control.

How could you do this to me? I thought I loved you well, I thought this transaction was forever. A permanent wrench in the system, what can I do but accept it all and push on?

The alternative...well, it’s not something I can accept.

I didn’t carry you all this way, all the way through childhood recklessness, years of kicks and stances on hardwood floors, basketball games, over oceans, and through forests of trees, all the way to shifts at the diner, at the cafe, or the book factory, and on bicycles through streets (almost ending it), through crowded cities and up countless flights of stairs, all the way, for this.

A physical self-gaslighter, fixing problems which aren’t even there. Talk about the placebo effect - a self-doubting, gaslighting mind, and a body with an attitude to match.

I’m sorry I doubted myself so much - criticised and never gave slack to my mind or my body - convinced there was always something I was doing wrong, never trusting the idea that my instincts could actually be right.

And this all leads me to ask… did I do this to myself?

Here I go again.