He's like a cat
creeping across piano keys.

Deliberate,
discordant,
and dear.

in bare feet i want to run
sound of skin against hardwood, fleeting, fleeing
i want to hide in a too obvious place
the laundry basket in my closet
agonize for eternal minutes
hyper-alive, i want to turn off
with the solemn resolve of a crone
steeped deliciously in self-pity
holding quickened breath and fearing
the blood pounding in my ears
in the utter darkness
will give me away
even though already i want to be found
peering from my encampment to the
vertical strip of white giving away
muted shapes of loved ones seeking
their brazen little refugee
burst open, light
tugged out by slender wrists
and held tight
with no words
and that is my curse:
to be seen always as a child
dimples and all

He's the type of knot
that makes grown women throw out their shoes.

Terribly impatient but troubled with the tempt- the sort that makes a hand tremor, not with a snare's contempt, the kind of attempt that allows a person ever slightly inside-

a ride, he's suddenly unkempt as the tangle unwinds.

Like sun through mortar, the ephemeral through opaque,
A man made of mountains, a boy made of cake
who received much less love than his daily make,
exceeding the quota, then begging: Here. Take.

He's the type of knot
that fears being cut
that dreams to be free
but sleeps to keep shut.

I'm the type of knot
that causes grown men to reach for their scissors.

I'll wrap you up for always
with a little tendril that sings lullabies, brewing tea
and tucking you in.

A fine pair of shoes we make, my dear.
A glory that causes cobblers to weep
and lovers to win.

As the seasons changed like lanes on the highway of 2013
in the colours racing By the side of the road
you caught my eye, holding drumsticks and a little cardboard
sign with the destination:

Home.

Wanna ride? Hop in. You're not alone.

If our first date is imprinted upon my memory-
our first kiss is carved into my bones
and as we tickled, and grabbed, and sighed rummaging through our pieces begging two to align- there was poetry in trading your broken heartbeats with mine. And as we arranged them upon that little cardboard sign we found that if we held them quite firmly, we could make one whole heart- breathing carefully on it to make the fire start and we vowed.

We vowed that one heart would beat for us both, if we held on tight,
and the vow made that day for a while felt alright.

I once had laugh lines
now eroded by rivers
what grows in a flood?

It is cold in Montreal
Wish You Were Here
for the city would warm.

words of love are my
most precious currency.

my heart is a silver dollar
that I keep for sentimental reasons
I would leave it beneath my pillow for you, love,
in exchange for petty coin.
The value of our objects is nothing
in comparison to what they hold.
You cannot buy the heart I gave you.
For all the King's horses, I'd not sell your soul.

I would beseech you to say anything
for your mouth is a sacred place
a thin, modest gate where even
your fits of grand or ill humour
are formed into soft, tender shapes.

I know well enough to leave that gate shut
so that no beautiful tempests can billow out, curtain-like
and sweep us off our feet, blowing us so far apart that
I cannot find you again.

And so I sit cross-legged before you,
fists under my chin like a little child.
Listening to your silence
and wondering how you are.

Even in this silence

there is solace.




                                       *I miss you.

Curious blues with little voices.
Curious fingers with little voices/

Blues long to ask. To capture.
Fingers long to tell. To liberate/

When the soul murmurs,
sometimes it writes itself down.

I want to be the crayon you choose.

You're staring at me- is it flecks of her irises?
Pixel fragments of your- your broken girl
singing in a car fatuous teenaged maddening
your beautiful agony one?

Her colours ran so deep, ocean, lightning,
I'm snared in pastel drapes, twisting, biting.

Does the bruised heart still beat
in your chest? Or in hers?
Is it that I have her poise when I walk?
Your ears- strain for her timbre when I talk?

When you hold me the tightest are you grasping at shards
of another doomed crossing of stars?
Is your future wrapped away
sterilized in gauze?

I've got a leaky rowboat to carry you
from a hurricane of nowhere.

I never want you to live up to her.

Don't you see? Don't you see?
How could I
-how could I possibly-
be brave enough
To let you love her and love her
with my little wolf heart?
Until your soul is spent
until she's torn you apart.

I -burn- to know your reckless, your passion,
in a home it can at last belong.

I howl to keep you, little fox
your heart starting fires safe in my den,
to let old love out.
To let new love in.

*what am I doing wrong?

Four days ago
I was diagnosed with
Mitral Valve Prolapse,

Otherwise known as:
Click Murmur Syndrome.

Oh, life be clever,
that I must take my name
to heart.

Dear, you see I sift
through my iron ***
of rainy-day pennies and
furled up victory flags
I feel the weight of each
piece and the cold of their
touch on my palms and I
try to pick one I want-
it is all fool's gold.
All it will buy is time.
Turn on the garden hose
and call for sun-
It's time to make
rainbows.

When you leave I ebb like Coma Snow White
Not dead, just frozen in carbonite.

'Have you ever done it to a woman before?'
My throat runs dry, suddenly I'm a fourteen year old boy
shoving my hands into my pockets
dumbly shaking my head.
'Do you want to?'
The boy shuffles feet and casts down his eyes.

'Are you-'
               '-monogamous? Yes.'

Her eyes narrow.
My face suffuses with blood which
suffuses the air a startled electric pink.

The scent and hue are unmistakable.

I feel betrayed.

Don't come any closer.
She draws near. Her lips graze my left pinna.
I groan an ancient groan.

'I'm not going to make this... easy for you'
Her voice is more air than vowel and as thick as red meat.
I shut my eyes.

When I open them, hours later, I peer through my fingers
at the Straight Girl in the mirror
and wonder who keeps
changing the ****** rules.

Unspoken words drift snowly white
Ashes from this Vesuvian relationship
First they blanket, then they catch fire,
As she slips away from the embalmed desire.

Dear _,

It's been hard to write. You were always the muse.
I'm no longer Anonymous. Anonymous is no longer mine.

Once, he smashed my lamp. I heard the sparkle of cheap IKEA glass fanning out on my floor like a miniature Arctic Ocean. When I came back to my room, he had a broom in one hand and your mug in the other.

I told him he could break anything in my life, but not that mug.

I am bound, my dear _ . Not because I wish I could tell you how much _. Not because I , or that I miss when we __ , but by sterility, latex gloves, telegrams. I am bound by the distance and detachment that keeps us safe as we venture inside other humans, other hearts.

The only way to survive terminal love was to induce a coma. Sleep until fixed.  

At best I will dream of your laugh.

Do you weigh 50 milligrams of intimacy
with the pros and cons of an Advil?
Do I NEED one? Pain happens for a reason, right?

Though, it would be nice to forget for an hour.

Until of course, you think about it again.

You said: someday when I have you
I'm still waiting for "when"
I've been missing your name
I've been needing a friend

We pushed aside our plates
both left wanting more
I've put on my hat but
I can't find the door.

anguish (as a species)
is a most fearsome animal
came to visit my abode

it is bigger than life and
at once too vibrant and too shrouded to define edges
save the glittering Chesire rictus that splits its skull
like broken mirrors
reflecting original sin as if you were the author

it characteristically blinds its victim
before inserting a single spine into the cardiac muscle
paralyzing both beat and brain

you may open your eyes once
(it will allow you that)
before the end

so you may appraise its shark-like maw
jaw dislocating wide wide wide
to afford room for your entirety

when it closes,
it is not like going to sleep.
it is no gentle light.

a worser fate, it lets you live
in the acid of its belly
peeling away your skin
pickling your eyes

until from yourself you can draw a sword
tear from the taut and distended skin of malice
and ******* forgive yourself.

To break is an abstraction.
To break what?
A noun?
Tangible?
Phoebe fell down four flights, fracturing her femur.
A verb?
Felt sharply in a sudden absence?
Singing Schubert and feeling a spasm of sorrow, his voice shattered.
Direct object?
A being, a destination.
I am. I am (what?) I am (broken).
Don't tell me I haven't failed
in the same sentence you tell me I'm not enough.
And watch me leaf-like tremble, fumble hands, cover mouth
A paper mask over shaking gasps that wrack me naked.
Don't tell me I'm not broken.
When I am (broken).

Put my heart on hold a moment,
while I pick up the other line...

... Are you there?

lift vase, draw back arm
cast with the strength of living
hear glass scream aloud

I am a November bird
There is no rest here
no, not in this nest
no, not anymore.

Hollow bones to the test.
First the beginning, then the rest.

I played Icarus so long
Had a head full of sea,
but now I am a November bird
The time has come to leave this tree.

If you stare at the sun too long,
you know, sometimes you forget what it means
you forget to sing your own little song.

Take me to nor'easter winds
my feathers won't dull.

I'm a November bird,
cross my heart:

Ready to fly.
Ready to start.

I shall go to the Mountains
and play my guitar
in the rocky spine of my land
and sing to the provinces
like ex-lovers.

I shall go to the Mountains
as the trees bronze over
and stand there,
sharing their lonely.

For a while.

I shall go to the Mountains
on an errant without fear
and hold myself very tightly
shiver in the waxing October light.

You have no idea
how much I've changed!

Oh, when you're on the edge
on the edge of clean
I'll make space for you darling
come closer to me.

And I'll tuck you down
and tell you how very good you are,

how very good you are.

And I shall ready a place,
waiting for you to
wake up
wake up
from our love, half-asleep
the curve of your hand,

from our love, half-asleep
in the Purple Land.

I bought my sweet boy with
a years worth of eleven-elevens
and an apron-full of white petals.

I won him from an army of ghosts
by leading him by the hand
and never looking back.

I earned him for a price
that I, vagabond, must rent
his heart in which to live.

For I have nothing of my own.
Not anymore.

floating delightfully with a million rounded
colours, a deep and delicate pressure
we gazed through our collective transparencies at
a magnified love; full of a single breath until
suddenly we-