The house on Hillside Ave is massive. It’s three stories tall, with a turret at the top and a set of stone lions at the front steps to greet welcomers and ward off intruders. It used to house 5 people, but now only 4, and even Christmas and Thanksgiving don’t always live there every year.

Before, the gardens the lined the house were beautiful, lining the foundation with more colors than in a Crayola box. At the roots of the flowers was a base of fresh cut grass, offering soft spots to sit and look at the clouds on slow summer days.

That was when Nana was still alive, and when Nana took care of it all. After days spent outside in the sun she’d come in and carefully wash the green of the plants off all her fingers and drink cold lemonade on the porch.

My father tried to take over the gardening, but it’s not the same. He doesn't wash his hands as carefully and doesn't drink lemonade, instead a cold beer from the cooler downstairs. Now the flower beds are a little sadder, the colors not as bright and dark patches of emptiness are seen amongst the once thriving flora. The flowers aren’t quite as happy when he tends to them. His hands just aren’t as green.

i will scream until my throat falls in on itself
falls on all the leftover "I Love You"s and galaxies and the words to our favourite songs
piece by piece my body continues to disintegrate, to implode,
and all i can see is your eyes when you laugh
and the only feeling i can grasp onto is when you kissed me;
how it felt like you were giving me your world.
a world i thought i was living in,
a world i thought i could understand
when in reality, i was sitting on the moon looking down on it,
never able to adjust to your atmosphere/


your face is laced to the back of my eyelids;
even the salt water that rushes behind them
refuses to eat it away.
*******, science./

Baby, all I want for Christmas is a blade inscribed with
"Give me Freedom or Give me Death,"
delivered with a Big Red Bow and
the Scent of Your Cologne.
Liberty is a synonym for Demise and I think
that if you stabbed me through The Heart
it will never hurt as much as when I ripped
It out For You myself.
You tried to place It back in,
but once It's removed,
It will Never Beat
the same way again.
Sprinkle My Blood in the snow
and call it Decorating For Christmas.

running out of feeling can be so relieving
sometimes becoming completely numb is comforting
ive gone through every emotion in the past 24 hours
and i think now i am dead.
dead until another memory jolts me back to reality.
there i am again, sliding my heart under the table to you
but you dont even look up
you dont look at all
you let it fall to the floor
"i broke a glass
thats all mum
im sorry"

im sorry
im so sorry
why wasnt i enough
inadequate
marginalized
who am i
im a ghost with a cigarette heart
i gave it to you
you tasted it
i guess you didnt like the love it was laced with
and you blew it back into my sky


it's true what they say,
never to fall in love with a writer
youll live forever
suffering eternal eyes poring over your
lapses
the way you touch
the way you feel
the way you smell
the way you ---

I am the narcissist that
fell in love with my own
mind and sadly found out:
It's an abusive relationship.

sometimes,
I sit at my desk and take out
a new piece of paper,
with no creases, no wrinkles,
just ready for words.

my pencil is always in reach,
sharpened and ready to
make contact with the paper to form
words
and string those words into
sentences,
and connect those sentences to make
stories.

but there are times when
I have no inspiration,
and I stare at the lined paper,
pencil suspended in mid-air.

my thoughts are jumbled,
churning in my head like a tornado.
leftover emotions,
wisps of nostalgia.
they toy with my mind,
tugging me in different directions.

I never know what to do-
poetry or prose?
first person or third person?
what do I even write about?

I get ideas.
they formulate in my brain
from one of the thoughts,
and they cling to each other
for dear life,
as more thoughts are sewn on.
more pieces of a puzzle,
more factors in the equation

my heart beats faster
as my excitement leaps.
and I bend over my paper,
pouring those thoughts and ideas
onto paper, taking extra care to
connect and loop my letters as I write.

but as more words
are added to the paper,
I realize that this was indeed
a bad idea,
a stupid one that'll go
no where.

scribble scribble scribble,
I tear my paper,
along with the ideas,
and I toss it into
a garbage can,
filled to the rim with
wasted paper, useless ideas,
and irrelevant thoughts.

"I'll just write again tomorrow,
by then I'll have inspiration."

that's what I always tell myself,
as I leave.