i had a dream last night that there was water in my lungs.
i could feel the ocean wrapping careful hands around my limbs,
caressing my thighs with soft seaweed,
my hands with gentle current.

i could taste salt on my lip,
the way a first kiss with a new lover settles and stains on the skin above your tongue,
i could taste the care the water was taking in taking my life.

taking it's time, the ebbing ocean snaked across my midriff,
hands on waist, wasting away at skin with salty touch as sandpaper
scraping away at my sense of self

i dreamt the water changing pace from calm glass coffee table top,
held flowers and coffees and your feet and mine,
overlapped and intertwined
and into
undertow,
pulling your hand from my waist
and your salt from my mouth

i dreamt that i saw nothing,
felt nothing
but your salty sandpaper hand scraping skin across my collar bones
as you pulled your coral reef body away.
the glassy water turned to pavement
and you left me in rapids under black ice.

i had a dream that i was trapped under ice,
with children skating on top
and i couldn't hear or breathe or scream
but i could feel their skates on my insides
they cut my hair with their blades
and as they spun in circles above me
i spiraled further into the depths of an ocean
that felt more like a fire.

i had a dream last night that there was water in my lungs,
and it hurt less to breathe then
than it does now that you're gone.

i never thought about how it would feel to cough the water back up,
until i realized how much it hurt going down.
and i was never scared of the ocean
until i saw it's vastness unescapable
it's arms
unrelenting
and it's love
everchanging
and i realized nothing's everlasting.

i was never scared of drowning
until i woke up puking the water i drank before bed.
and realized there was nothing more in my stomach
but salt.

hard liquor makes my stomach turn.

opening a bottle of ***** is like taking the lid off of a tupperware container full of liquid charcoal.
I swear it looked like something delicious,
but the way it folds in my stomach,
not at all like how my mother taught me to fold batter in a bowl,
tells me otherwise.

downing a shot in one go is challenging.
this cake ***** doesn’t taste at all like cake,
and fireball has a tendency to taste like actual fire,
and i’m still not sure if that’s actually intentional. maybe ironically.
but a dare’s a dare and spin the shot landed on me
i wasn’t playing, i was really just walking by
no really, someone else can have it, go ahead, spin it again
but the arrow is pointing right at me and now everyone is staring and well,
a dare’s a dare.
isn’t it?

a dare’s a dare until liquid charcoal isn’t all you’re spewing,
because word ***** and actual ***** kinda feel the same
at least after six shot of… well i’m not really sure.
that cute guy over there… no the other one. in the hat.
he gave it to me,
said it’ll loosen me up.
I suppose i believed him, half because i wasn’t really listening,
i was looking at his teeth
I wonder if he whitens them.
he must have had braces.

well anyway, i drank it and it kinda tasted like gasoline
but i bet i looked cool swigging from his two six.
probably only until the sixth chug, when the first one hit my eyes
and i couldn’t really see ****** expressions anymore
i guess that’s when i got brave

word ***** and actual ***** kinda feel the same,
especially when you’re not really sure which one is happening
oh, maybe both.
and now he’s holding my hair and i’m biting my tongue
but my stomach is heaving and he looks so good
he definitely had braces. no one is born with teeth that nice
i bet he doesn’t drink red wine
i bet he flosses twice a day.
i should brush my teeth
this doesn’t taste like cake at all.

The first time I spent the night in his room, I did not sleep.
He laughed when he came back from the bathroom to see that I had folded his shirt while he was gone, asked me why, and I did not answer him.
At four o'clock in the morning I slithered away from his bed, wearing his sweatpants.
I folded them neatly in my closet.

When you grow up with a single mom, you learn quickly that there are times when you will have to be alone.
You learn to do your own dishes and check your own homework and wash your own laundry.
You learn to fold things neatly and put them away.

There was never anything neat about you.
No matter how many times I folded that shirt, my feelings for you were always messy and they were everywhere.
It reminded me of laundry day,
Clothes scattered around my room, listening to upbeat pop songs as I gathered them to be washed.
Some things were muddy from a rainy October recess, there were white pants stained red from a ****** knee, a green sweater splattered with grape juice because I just couldn't keep my glass full.
Some things almost looked clean, but I knew better.

My days with you were full of almost clean.
Evenings of red wine and laughing and card games that became nights of drunken giggling and pulling off my white tee shirt, stained with grown up grape juice.
And my mom isn't here to help me get the stain out.
In the morning, you made me tea and sang me Bob Dylan songs and I almost felt clean until I remembered your hands clasped at the curve of my waist the night before.
But I am well versed in cleaning up my own messes.
I lathered your sweat off my body with too-hot water and vanilla body wash, but your finger prints stayed under my skin and I couldn't remember the recipe for homemade stain remover and besides, it kind of looked like a pattern.

I should know by now that wine is not going to make the messes any tidier, but it's nice to forget how bleach smells sometimes.
You didn't notice how nicely my shirt was pressed when you were talking to her, and I guess that's when I realized that you didn't really mind the stain on her collar or the wrinkles
And I realized how harsh I looked next to the dirt on your canvas shoes and the rip in your jeans.

I guess I thought that if I folded my feelings for you neatly enough, you'd think it looked pretty,
But I never imagined that you wanted me messy, you said you like sleeping outside and you wish you could see the stars in the city,
I thought,
I wish you looked at me the way you look at the galaxy.

When you brought my sweater back to me, you told me you tried to fold it like I would, but I thought it looked better crumpled up and half-folded.
As I took in your disheveled hair and wrinkled tee shirt, I said goodbye.
I never really took my body out from under your fingers, and maybe that's why my chest bruised when you left,
And all I could do was fold my sweater.

When your best friend is too far away, a part of yourself stays with them.
I am missing limbs.

I am missing soft, blonde hair and dainty fingers and curved hips.
I find myself unable to balance when her inner ear stretches too far from mine, and I can no longer hear her thoughts no matter how far I tilt my head, lean toward the window. She is not here, and I don't know what she's thinking, can't hear her breathing heavily on nights that I still can't fall asleep in her house, television flickering on my side of the bed until the sound stops and the light shines blue.
On the nights I can't fall asleep in my own bed away from home, I watch her favourite show and try to wonder which parts she likes best,
Which parts remind her of us.

I wake up on Wednesday mornings, too grown up for eighteen, too little to be alone, too scared to be responsible.
I make my coffee and drink it alone, I wonder who is making hers because I know how she likes it and they won't make it right, they won't make it perfect.
And she deserves perfect.
I wonder how many people made her coffee wrong during those eight months.
I hope she's sleeping in.

My best friend is a turtle dove, with a stationary heart and pretty words to get me through lonely days in my temporary home.
Her voice is always soft on the phone, it is softer in person but still through crackling speaker it is more calming than any replacement I have tried to find for her here.
She flutters from place to local place with warm smile and sparkling eyes reminding people of their worth and importance. She doesn't know her own.

And she tells me not to worry. I am always worried.
Because I am not a dove, I am a black swan who has never found a permanent residence, not even in a person.
I fly from feeling to feeling looking for acceptance as unconditional as the way that someone who knows every horrible thing you've ever done can still love you like you're perfect.
Nomadic birds, as I've researched, fly as far as they must to find whatever it is they're looking for, no need for a home, just a crash pad on each coast for days when they are tired of wandering.

I wish I knew what I was looking for, so I could find it close to her.

But I sit on the bed, trying to read a map and I realize that I can only see the left half because her side of my bed is empty.
She has never slept here.
I twist my sheet in knots thinking, there is someone on my side of her bed and her side of mine has been empty for six months since I left.

No one ever tells you that when you leave half of yourself with someone, you don't just lose your balance and your vision.
She carries around my entire right side,
And now I can't read the expression on anyone's face, cold dark stares are all I can see.
My heart can't send my brain the words to any new songs so I stare at my piano and wonder why it isn't making any music.
The entire world is black and white
until I answer the phone,
and her voice swims into my ear like liquid gold.
It drips from the receiver, smoothing over my shoulder, covering the right side of my body until I am whole again, if only artificially, temporarily.
And she says,
"I am always with you."

Across the ocean, you meant nothing to me.
You were a destination, a photograph, a wish.
You plagued my winter woes with your heatwaves,
jumping into creeks in your underwear while I wrapped myself in another blanket, cold Canadian ice princess.
You slept under stars in close contact with beautiful nature, beautiful life, beautiful people, while I stared at them, upside down, from my window.
And then the big dipper dumped you into my lap, head on my chest so you could feel my heart beat and I could tangle my fingers in your hair.
Photographs aren't supposed to come to life.
Beautiful smiles and messy blonde hair are for fantasies and dreaming and rainy days, and not for my bed or my guitar or my lips
But there you were.

For two weeks I thought and rethought and plagued my heart with goodbye is coming. He will fly away from me. We are not birds meant to be caged
We are wanderers, nomads, free-spirits who need no tying down or tying knots,
And I want to tie myself to your bed post with barbed wire because it hurts that much to leave you anyway.
But you leave me.

And there you weren't.

There you weren't as I made up my mind that it's okay to love a nomad, as long as you're one too.
And it's okay to love a bird of flight, just build yourself some wings and follow
But I was mistaken, I was wrong and I was three steps behind you.
Because when you said "I'll see you later" you didn't mean later
You meant get out.
And I still don't know if you're scared or if you just don't want me,
You don't ******* want me.

High as the plane that brought you here to leave me, I stand lace clad, smoke screened and alone.
High enough to feel my lungs contracting with each breath that made my tongue taste less and less like yours,
High enough to feel my knees click where you held them once,
One time,
Because that was all it took.
I couldn't get high enough to stop retracing the lines that your fingers made up and down my sides as you felt the curve of my body for the first time.
My limbs were barren, cold, antarctic as you left them when you took your warm, summer hand away.

So I turned the shower up all the way, until it burned enough to feel like I was boiling my skin, baptizing your sinful touch off of my innocent body.
I burned my arms and legs until they cracked.
They cracked from dryness, even after I wet them with my tears,
And my first,
fourth,
tenth glass of wine.
And I threw the bottle against my bedroom door.
Watched it smash,
Wished it was me.
I'll clean it up later.

It is a beautiful day in my world.
The sun is shining, my skin is glowing,
Everything around me sings into my heart
In red, yellow and orange.
The world is playing me a beautiful song, in the perfect key,
And I wish I could save you.

I wish I could save you on days like today,
Days that are worth all the fight.
On days that chocolate tastes even sweeter than the day before,
And every hair on my head falls into place,
When I have all the answers to every question I ask myself,
And all of my thoughts find correlating words,
I wish I could save you.

There are days that make me so happy to be alive,
Days I know don’t come very often for you.
And on these days I pray for you.
I hope that one day the tiles in a new place won't make your skin crawl,
And I hope you’ll go to your grandchildren’s graduations without feeling unsafe.
Because no one can hurt you here, not with me around.
I spend these beautiful days hoping that you’ll make it to your next.
On my favourite, most rewarding days,
I spend the night wishing I could save you.

But it’s always the hard days that get me.
On days that make my stomach turn before I even leave my bed,
I think about what it’s like to feel this fear persistently.
When I wake up woozy with unease for no good reason,
And my body is too heavy, my heart is too weary to brave this world,
I think about how it must feel to always feel this way.
And I wish I could call you to tell you I’m too scared today,
Too scared to appreciate all that lead up to this.

But I live with innocence that you never had the privilege of having.
And I want to save you.
I want to absorb all of the things that you feel into my body and suffocate them with my love.
So I don’t, I don’t call you and I don’t tell you about the pain in my heart because yours is bigger,
So much bigger that it envelopes me,
Covers my mouth and pulls at the pit of my stomach.
On these days I wish I could save you out of my own selfishness.
Because I want to call you,
Want you to tell me I’m safe,
And no crying.


There are days when everything falls apart,
There have to be, or else how would I learn to put it back together?
You told me there are some things that can’t be fixed,
Like the traumatized mind.
Because you can’t fix your brain, only learn to live with a broken one.
I could listen to those words as many times as you repeat them to me,
And I know you will,
But I will always want to change them.
And I will always want to save you.

I am so ******* sick of hearing songs about boys.
I am tired of looking into the eyes and into the hearts of beautiful, lovable women,
And finding emptiness that shouldn't be there,
Voids left by lovers who should have never been let in.

I'm sick of poems about the way his hand felt on your chest.
I'm sorry that he wasn't reaching for your heart,
I'm sorry that you were blinded by the first person who pretended that *** means love.
I'm so sorry that you carried the weight of him on your back as he directed you in digging your own grave.
But he is not poetry.

He is not the way that music lifts your heart outside of your body when you dance alone.
His hands are not the hands that pulled you off the floor when you didn't think you had the strength to stand.
His mouth is not the mouth that keeps you breathing,
Alive,
Singing,
Kissing,
Laughing.
And his heart is not the heart that beats in your chest,
No matter how much heavier your torso seems since he left.
His body is not poetry.

But yours is.

They were your legs, weren't they, that walked you home,
Even after he knocked you to the ground,
Even after your knees buckled for him.
If I recall, your arms threw his **** down the stairs
And out of your life.
It was your lungs that screamed,
"I deserve more. I am more".
And it was your heart that bled.
It was your heart that prayed.
That hoped.
That loved.
It was all you,
Always you.

And that is poetry,
You.
You are the poem.

I was seven years old the first time a teacher told me my tank top was inappropriate.
To cover my shoulders,
Cover up,
Close my mouth.
I was seven years old the first time my body was sexualized without my permission.
My body was sexualized without my permission
Before I even knew what that meant.

In the fifth grade I wore long sleeves,
To cover up a different kind of shame.
The kind of shame you give yourself when you’re tired of everyone else’s.
The kind of shame that bleeds before it heals into perfect pink lines,
Parallel with one another because something had to be perfect in my life even if I wasn’t.
But my teacher only noticed the sleeve that fell off my shoulder,
Told me to cover it,
Cover up,
Close my mouth.

I stood in the streets of Paris in eleventh grade, not feeling romantic at all
As I escaped an uncomfortable encounter,
Approached by a man on the subway.
My teacher tugged on the hem of my skirt,
“You dress like this because you want attention”, she said.
It was my fault, she said, because my clothes told him I wanted it.
Wanted him in my personal space, close enough to my face
To smell his breath.
Asking for it.
I should have been covered up.

What I heard in school were the words
****,
*****,
*****.
What I heard my teachers say was applied to girls,
Not women.
Little girls being taught that when we are born female,
We are born with shame engraved into our skin,
Into our hearts.
The only anatomy I ever learned in school,
Was my shameful own,
And to cover it.
Cover up,
Close your mouth.

You're the way you look at 4am when you've woken up for the umpteenth time,
And I don't know why, but I rub your bare chest with my cheek and hope you're alright.
You're the way I feel when you take my hand before I take yours,
And you're the speed of my heartbeat when we kiss, no matter how long it's for.

You're the way the stars seem to tell me that you love me at night,
And how even when we're fading that same love always shines.
You're the way I drink myself to sleep in thoughts of your pain,
And no matter how hard I love you, you always feel the same.

You're the sand and I'm the ocean when the tide comes in each day.
And you're the ship that promises to take me far away.
You're the salt on my lip and the sun on my back,
You're all that I am, and you're all that I lack.

The first time I kissed you, you felt like home. I kissed you again and again, all over until we realized at the same time and much too late that you’d had too much to drink. I would have kissed you when you left, too, but I was shy and you were beautiful and sometimes it’s scary on your first night in a new house.


You started a fire and I got there too late to put it out, to tell you I’m sorry they don’t understand and I’m sorry I don’t know your every crevice quite yet. The second time I kissed you, you welcomed me home and said sorry, I’m sorry that you don’t know how it started or where I put the lighter after I lit our home ablaze. 


I spent my heart pouring water on the embers of a grease fire that I thought was wood-burning. You threw sparks at me when I tried to tame the heat of your coals because I didn’t know how. The third time I kissed you, I called the old tenant and asked her how because I didn’t want to light myself with your manic flame. 


The fire turned to ash and the house got cold when I let myself in to rooms I hadn’t seen before. I used bobby pins to unlock the door instead of asking for the key; I suppose I should have known the abandoned nooks would have chilled the whole house. The fourth time I kissed you, your lips were blue and your eyes were open and I knew the flames were gone and I wasn’t sure I was glad. 


I don’t know when our house fell down. I was wrapped up in your eyes and how they don’t change when you smile at me when I looked around to find the walls on the ground and the roof blown away. The last time I kissed you, you said goodbye instead of goodnight and left me at the bus stop to find another home.