Cigarettes stuffed
In the worn out pocket
Of a jacket
That doesn't belong to me
A walk in the rain
Early in the morning
With a dollar store lighter
That doesn't belong to me
Soaking my socks
Inhaling smoke
I have a heartache
That shouldn't belong to me

I built this ending back in February,
Leaving work to make sure I didn't miss you,
Cancelling plans just to watch you live,
I can pretend I never loved you,
Yet I built more of myself on your well being,
Than I ever did on my own sanity,
When it is was never you that I wanted,
Just your love I had to prove I could earn.

How do you remove memory
From flesh?
If you knew the war zone
My skin has been
Would you shudder
Before every touch?

I started drinking on the weekends,
Like you always used to do,
I wonder if I'll drink in the morning,
On Tuesdays and Thursdays too,
I started lying to my partner,
When I go out late at night,
I never own up to my actions,
I'm not afraid to start a fight,
I started missing all your birthday's,
I didn't call you back the other day,
I wanted to tell you I love you,
But I would only be in the way,
Just like you always said to me,
"To be alone wouldn't be so bad"
I'll just keep letting you down,
And be exactly like you, Dad.

How dare you come back
After all these years
Just to see if I'm still here
I tried my best
You left
You ****** up
You took my heart
And left it unrecognizable
How dare you come back
Better than you were
You always knew
That I'd wait
Forever

I used to take every bit of pain,
Rage burning, building, breaking me
I used to take it and place it on Ben Affleck
A shrine for my disappointment
A religion created to spare you my anger,
Funny how I couldn't hate him,
When I realized you were both the same Devil.

It's like being locked in a cold room,
With a window facing south,
Watching everyone bask in the sun,
Oh how you know it is there,
But you cannot feel it,
Yet you know you need it,
And that makes the cold so much worse.

Putting on my outside face,
Is harder than you'd think,
I start with a smile I don't mean,
A laugh for jokes that aren't funny,
I place words in my mouth like:
"That's great" "I get it" "Oh, wow"
I place attention into my eyes,
Agreement along my lips,
I remember to swallow my pride,
And to bite my tongue,
The hardest part, though,
Is removing myself first,
The parts I worked the hardest for,
Are the ones that don't belong,
Yet I'll suffocate beneath my skin,
Just to make you more comfortable.

I share a face with the woman
Who always let me down
How else could I love myself
Except here, in the dark

I saw the worst of myself in him,
I fell in love with my demons,
Now I miss them.

Life is the burden of memory,
Forgetting is a gift of peace.

In my dreams he's still alive,
How cruel a curse,
Insomnia has been.

I responded to rage
By placing a hand
Inside your thigh
As if my body
Could absorb
Anger and calm you
My entire life
I have used this vessel
As the Ativan
For alcoholic men
What will I do
When it is no longer
Desirable?

The fear in turning off the light,
Is never finding the switch again.

A mirror begs no forgiveness
When showing you the truth
So spare me your courtesy
You can't hide intent from the guilty

I have said things I didn't mean,
The kind that you don't apologize for,
Until they know you didn't mean them,
Sometimes I pretend to feel things,
To protect someone else's feelings,
If I keep saying things I don't mean,
Maybe one day I'll mean them.

It's 3 am,
For a while now,
I've woken up listening for you,
Funny how I used to complain,
About your drunken wake up calls.
All I could say at your funeral,
Was that I fell in love with you,
At 3 am.

I remember loud music,
Shades of reds and blues,
Laughter and warm bodies,
I thought "I will never be sober again"
I remember the shouting,
The color of blood and white sheets,
Sobbing and a cold body,
I thought "I will never be sober again."

Today I knew,
My forever was safe,
If anyone can hold it,
It's you.

Do you remember the day my collar bone cracked?
The sound was so jarring, it echoed through me like my skull against concrete
It was the sound of a toy maker tinkering in the night
Creating his dolls, the ones that don't move unless he breaks and bends their arms at will
Yes. Cracking bone. The sound of my creation.
I'll never be the girl my mother made again, I'm something between yours and hers and not at all mine now.
Just metal and flesh. None of it my own .

In another life I am born in 1962
I grow up in a little house in Burt
September 1967 my mama walks me to school
I sit beside you in class that day, and all the rest after
We write poetry together during recess
We play Laura Ingalls together in your yard
Your mother makes me vareniki
Mine cooks your bacon til it's burnt
We walk to school together every day
You graduate grade 10, and 11, then 12
We marry for love and buy houses next door to each other
You have your first son when you're 26
Later, a daughter who is just like you, and in this life that means she is happy
I visit you every day, we have coffee and write our poetry
Eat our vareniki and bake our bread
If the world had been kinder, you'd have been my lifelong friend
And I could save you from all the pain that led to you being my mother

Is it possible to be born 1000 times over
In a single lifetime?
To find new ways to feel the sun,
Even brighter reflected in your eyes
The air is different in a world
Existing beside you
Knowing that you are breathing it too
Has given it new meaning
In the same way my lungs collapse
And reform with every gasp
I will take you in
You have outshone the sun
I will be reborn in this love
1000 times over

You will forever,
Be my always

I haven't been kissed in the rain
No one will look after my garden
Sophia hasn't had her first day of school
I never finished that book
I have laundry to fold
I didn't tell my mom I love her today
Tomorrow might be better



Tomorrow will be better.

I am hungry in the way
That a ghost longs for their body

I lost everything with the secrets kept,
Now all I have are the secrets keeping me.

What words can I carry when I meet you in the dark,
I have whispered so many nothing's to you under moonlight,
I know not the weight of the truth or the people that hold it,
Writing stories about you so that I don't have to live them out,
It all reminds me of a poem I read 7 years ago that left me empty,
I didn't know I could relate to these terrible, petty horrors,
I became a poet that loves nothing other than not being loved back,
I swear I used to be in pain long before I needed it to just to write.

If all I could ever give,
Was just giving up
You'd still say it was enough.

I wish I would have said thank you,
Instead of goodbye

If I told you the truth,
Where my heart sleeps
And my mind wanders,
Would you still call this love?

It's okay not to fall in love,
Some of us must climb.

Now you've found a name for them
All the elephants in your head
Memories stampeding
They won't get off your chest
Try to forget what you remember
They will still remember you
These elephants will crush you
If you don't put them to rest

...and as you fall in love with yourself,
You might lose your love for him
Do not apologize,
You deserved your own love more than he did.

After a death
It is the living that haunt their homes
All the lonely cries in the dark
And sleepless nights
Trying to feel the dead in anything
Other than memories
Recalling them endlessly anyways
Stories told like seances
As if somehow it will keep them here
A little longer
Eventually forgetting to eat
To breathe
Exist
Quiet whispers
Endless pacing
Silent visits
Rearranging the cutlery
1000 times in the night
To pass the time

After a death,
It is always the living
That become ghosts of themselves

When you said you loved me
I saw the end credits roll
Write me a new script
Free me from the sequels,
Bring resolutions and a new story
Looking at me with that smile
I know it's the opening scene

It didn't hurt to say his name
This is it,
This is when life begins.

To see you in all of your light,
Basking in this stolen warmth,
I wonder if I ever should have left,
If I'd have stayed planted,
Maybe I'd be with the sun now.

I was recovering,
But today I collapsed inward,
Light building inside of me,
Until I could not contain it,
I was not made to hold this,
Only to shrink,
To consume,
Addiction a supernova,
Eventually a black hole,
Yet here,
In the middle of it,
I feel only the warmth.

I wanted this so badly,
Until I didn't.

My journals are a graveyard
I cannot help but dig back up
I wrote you a thousand love poems
When I read them now
They just sound like the eulogies
I didn't have the heart to give

I'm cancelling our plans again,
I listened to your playlist,
It was the first time this year,
I felt anything at all,
Happiness,
And then,


Guilt.

I can't ask you for the truth
In case you ask me for it too

There will be others,
Maybe that's just a part of love,
Choosing not to fall again,
But instead to stay.

I hate to say that you're always right,
Sometimes anxiety is just truth,
I'll keep you calm anyways,
Tell you you're not always right

How do you tell someone
You'd rather sink to the bottom
Than get in their boat

I don't know how to apologize for the bruises that are gone but I still remember, for the grooves you didn't make but fit into so well, and no of course you're not like him, but god knows he was nothing like himself either when we met, my body feels at home wrapped around your legs, but I still have to cover my throat when you lift your arms, I do not recognize love unless it is curled up inside of violence and if you don't hurt me I will so I feel like I still deserve you, you don't know it yet but even when I'm with you I will be with him, he will stand behind you until you both look the same and then I will leave you both behind but only he will follow, and I will be missing you but tasting another in the back of the throat, nothing, oh nothing, will take the taste of him away, and it's not that I can't love you, but that I can't love the part of me that loved him, and so you will never have a home inside of me, I burnt that shelter long ago.

It was the last night I loved you,
I let go before I ever arrived,
It was the first time you held on.

Fingertips brushing along a bent spine,
Grazing ribs and collarbone,
Not breaking, memorizing,
Show me again,
And again,
And again,
Love, how to love.
I didn't know I wasn't supposed to cry after,
I was just relieved it didn't hurt.

I imagined a life without you,
It looks the world did,
Before I got glasses,
Still in color,
But insignificant.

When reduced to a body
By the man who held my worth
I thought
"This is what an apple tree feels
When reduced to paper"