escaped Suburbia
escaped what's to be
              expected because someone else says so
escaped moonless nights
             & cold city streets

escaped hometown ideals too close
             for comfort can't stray
                                       too far from the designated lines of
                                       past generations
                                       past books &
                                       past what's supposed to be..

just leave me on the road
                     on the highway w/ its
                     familiar/comforting yellow
                                                            intermittent lines

a light from miles away
& I recognize
& am flooded w/ so many lost moments
& so many found eyes

"..I've changed by not changing at all.."

s
   p
      i
         n
            n
                i
                   n
                      g

away the days we've been caught once before in sheltered caves catching
                                                                          shattered waves by the dozen
like it was a passing fad, a nomadic habit, a sporadic memory that will never
be searched for again:

"you have the voice of a thousand eyes & I've been cursed w/ the eyes of a thousand voices.."

our mirrors keep on finding ways for us to self-criticize, but we're all enemies here anyway
                
                  so it doesn't even matter who said what about who when & where

(life IS a fast lane..)

we march under overpasses much too low for our own concrete heads
w/ so little time left over to spend any of it thinking about our future
mistakes & what we'll never do about them.. a journey without
a destination, a marketed smile without a cost:
these are things that just don't matter (in a long series of ends..)

& you can tower all you want over zen skies, I will not answer the call
that is expected of me - change(s) flattened out the horizon & clarity
is my new virus, my new vision, my new void to fill up to the rim..

I have seen & felt the distance that is thrown on me once
that blue sign is crossed.. I want to shout at #11 for ages
because we can't keep being strangers in such a familiar place..

we can't keep being strangers around such familiar faces (anymore)

this is sublime.
          vengeful tides of occasions spent thinking too much have
          sent me spinning out of de-controlled skies again
& this sudden urging urgency to be everyone's knight in used armour
will not penetrate through my outer skin

I cannot sit here anymore
              sit here & watch as the skin turns to
              bones, turns to dust, turns to..

I remember meeting this elderly woman on Bank Street in 2007
& what struck me the most about her was that circumstances never
for a second trampled her smile.. her love of life seemed to contradict
an article I read several weeks later that stated all those without
a home were junkies, one hundred percent of them would take change
offered to them & fetch their fix..
                                                                 I knew that just couldn't be..

there are stories
the woman who gave her son up for adoption.. I think her name was Tricia..
the nineteen-year-old girl, Chloe, sitting by the Rideau Centre..
& the elderly woman, I did not catch her name..but I'm sure someone
out there has called her "Mom" in the past..

yes this is sublime.
the tides are swelling high now
& occasions spent thinking too much about
what's on the horizon are throwing me into
                                        
                                                     deafening spins..

(sub)reality:
sublet your mind, invite communication (pat)RIOTS in your low-ceiling hallways -

angry, screaming voices on a Saturday night & it's not even 11:30 yet..
I've chosen to live in anti-ignorance for any sound heard directly below
my  new picture window (which my past self is envious of, by the way..)

                                       this place: w/ hate & love all in the same day
                                       & sometimes even in the same moment

toward ourselves, our loved ones, our children
it seems like it's always somebody else's fault
for our own targeted (mis)fortunes..

I'm not a void
& I'm not avoiding the words

                             but it's such a strange feeling..

for every single moment they've wrapped us in madness
we've left them sitting under past-midnight streetlights
& they're never quite satisfied w/ their time being spent
screaming their voices from their spaced out throats
                                  to our own out of space minds

& all I can say is that freedom is coming
it's coming to find you
                       & you
                       & you

                                                  so be ready for that particular second
                                                  when it comes & remember that when
                                                  it comes, don't be caught blinking in
                                                  the middle of a setting sun..

instead,
speak the instant you think
& think the instant you breathe
& breathe the instant you..

                         these hallways are so much brighter now -
                         w/ their new walls, & the picture frames on those walls

"I'm sorry, I've been known to sink into a memory or two,
& I've been known to crash hard into the comforting comfort
                                                    of sapphire waves
                                                    of the past..
                                                    of the future.."

& these highways are so much wider now
w/ their veteran trees waiting for the season to be over
                                 waiting for more waiting to start..
another winter-to-spring romance is at hand (for all to see)

             & they're watching
             all the windows of the world are watching
             & they're ready to shout it shout it shout it
             (the truth, that is..)

endless roads
endless rogues
endless..

meet me under this machinery of stars at 2 a.m.
& we'll wait..
& we'll shake hands w/ dawn itself..

media is mediocre
media medicates us &
our minds are now
                              malnourished w/ wants (not needs)

& desire now burns like
                      summer bonfires quickly
                      spreading & destroying
                      what we see as
                                                 familiarity
another season, another round of
above ground madness because
the latest trend, we just can't afford it

              & our hands continue to clutch tightly
              around connecting pieces & our brains
              are screaming

"HOW WILL THE WORLD SURVIVE WITHOUT ME BEING IN IT AT ALL TIMES?!"

& now, it's a constant flow of
this & that & how can I make
that surge stop? there must
be a way of silencing these
bombs of technological

w
a
r
f
a
r
e

the world is a falling bomb
                  a shooting star w/ no place
                  left to go but comatose
destinations, reinvention of something new
                                         something smiling
                                         something worth the cost of

an eyesight so beautiful
a sunset so memorable
a peace
            & ash will always caress

the world is a ticking clock
                  a broken dinner plate too close to the edge
              & a memory of days spent running in wet grass
glass fills our lungs & we breathe in shards of
sunlight desperation
                                this highway is magnetic w/ joy & I'm happy
                                to go w/ these amicable tides

this is freedom
in hearts this is freedom in
             buildings thrown on foundations of
this is freedom to speak
                       to raid your mind
                       to ride your ready-made thoughts
                       to blow the sky away

one day
at a time