There is Love, and there is you.
I don’t know of Love anymore.
The time I knew Love,
Love lived in the distance between our palms whenever we held hands,
And used to drink the insecurity from my walk.
Love visited in the wind and came just as fast as it went.

I hear Love hated the subway.
It was something about the distance,
Something about letting others be close to them,
Something about how the destination isn’t worth the journey,
Something about how Love just isn’t the “subway” type.

There is Love and there is you.
Love took my heart for test drives in midnight parking lots
And drove off without another word.
Love has broken my heart one too many times.
When people ask me,
“Are you looking for Love?”,
My answer is always no.

No, I do not want Love.
I would much rather have you.

I want a love like Mondays.
It is coffee with headaches and early mornings.
It is work.
It is the longest day.
It is a fresh start.
It is knowing it only gets better from here.

My bookshelves still remember you.
They are full of sketchbooks that forgot you broke my heart.
They wear your name proudly across pages trying to capture your smile between its covers.
I don't have the heart to tell them.

I don't want to tell them that those eyes can't tell what I'm thinking without saying a word.
That those hands can't guide me through forests and cities, through anxiety and depression.
That those arms are not home.
That I cannot hear his laugh with those lips.

And until your smile is no longer synonymous with the first letter of "lost" and the first three of "over",
your name will be the only word in my vocabulary
because I don't need anything else.

If only I could draw on a smile,
maybe my sketchbooks would think
I'm happy now too.

You spoke me into raindrops, daisies, and fear.
You whispered the universe into my bloodstream,
Marked my body with stardust.
And when storm clouds could not
pull the tides,
but
instead
created waves of indecision,
And an earthquake in my chest,
You called a tsunami a shower
when I couldn’t swim.

When the world goes dark,
As night turns to day,
I remember that even the moon forgets its purpose,
without the sun to light its way.
You loved my flowers,
But didn’t expect the weeds.
As though the stars shine bright only for your whim and need.

If only
God was so kind.

Branches with apples
Falling further
Than you could reach;
You planted apples
But
Expected oranges.
You plucked me from my own
home and left only weeds.
You loved roses but didn’t want the thorns.
And when a tree falls
but no one cares enough to listen,
I remember
that I am not a tree
planted by your disposition
and watered by your compliments.

You cannot rush a bud
to bloom
and you cannot make
a baby bird spread its wings.
You cannot will
the universe to do your bidding
and I cannot force you
to look into my eyes
and see the galaxies.

If only
God was so kind.

We raise our kids on words like suppose and almost.
A lifetime of Hallmark cards and empty promises.
As though identity is a multiple choice question
With only two options.

To the girl with hair too short for her liking,
And a body she does not recognize to be hers,
Do not consume the venom that drips from their lips,
Or respond to the pronouns stapled into you, as though
They know you better than you know yourself.

To the boy with the aching chest,
You are not bound by the stereotypes inflicted by society.
You do not have to justify your name to those with acid tongues,
And ‘cis’-tematic oppression carved into their hearts.

To every person
Who has taken their hearts and shoved it away in the abyss of their closets,
To every person
Who was told that their identity was like the moon
On days that it disappears from the sky,
I am sorry.

I am sorry for every mother, father, brother, and sister
Who took your identity with a mouthful of  intolerance.
I’m sorry you had to come out of hiding
From a game of Hide & Seek no one was aware we were playing,
And the tsunami of fear that ensued after it.
I am sorry that some of us could not handle your freedom to love.

To those lucky enough to feel at home
In your bodies of Adam and Eve,
Others are not so lucky.
Do not be the serpent;
be the guiding angel
For those who feel trapped in this tunnel of sin and uncertainty.
Spread the love they were once fearful to express,
And respect their right to be who they choose.
Be the ally to the world’s freedom of love.
Unlock the door for those locked in.

All I ever wanted
was to make you smile.
When you smile,
the world realizes
it can too, and even the
flowers left to rest
find the will to live again.
I'm sorry all I ever made
you do was leave.

I was ready to jump into
The abyss with you,
But you didn't like the dark.
I guess you couldn't fall for
Something you could only
See the end of.

I'm hoping I wasn't
Just another laboratory
Sample to you;
giving you the chance to
Analyze everything we could
Have been without actually
Living it for yourself.
I planned on going to infinity & beyond with you, only
To find out I was your gravity.
There were places you were
Meant to be without me.

I wish you told me you couldn't
swim through my tidal waves,
Or let you fight my current.
I'm sorry my packaging mislead
You into believing you wanted me.
I'm sorry you cannot have your
Wasted time back.
Next time, I will be half of who I am,
And maybe then
you will love me.

I miss you
With waves that are too scared
To kiss the shore
On days where even the sun
Has second thoughts about waking up.

You were a Summer haze
And a winter's storm the night
Before Christmas.
You were the beat of every drum
And the harmony to every melody,
but I was always half a step behind.
I loved you
With hands that shook right before
The picture.
I could never capture the moment.
Now all that is left of you
Is a blur from when I was happiest.

I love you in words
That don't quite understand
Its footing.

My love for you
Is just like loving
The parts of myself
That have forgotten the steps.

When love arrived,
I never appreciated the colour blue,
but now I only see the world
through blue eyes.

As of right now
All I crave
Out of all the money
And fame the world has to offer,
is the feeling of your hand in mine
And the warmth of your love
To wrap around me
and protect me
From the cold breeze
Of what is to come.

Held in your arms was my closest thing to home,
and she is breaking & entering
the one place I felt safest.
I am homesick.

To the girl that now holds
every last bit of my happiness between her fingers,
i have a box that belongs to you too now,
i guess.
It's nothing special
it's just filled with all the roses
he planted in my brain in place of pain
and cocoons of the butterflies that continue to flutter
against the fences of my stomach
that have yet to hatch
and managed to survive
the avalanche of  
your arrival

i didn't mean
to take your rough edges
and sand you
and mold you
and strip you of your self
to turn you into the person
i wish was in your place

One sentence
One breath
One moment
In all of human history
Can change everything.

For me it was you.
"Hi"
For me it was always as simple as that.
"Hi, this is my new girlfriend"
And everything I knew
Changed.

I am told that I am meant to get
Rumbles in my stomach from all the butterflies that materialize when
I think of you.
Well honey, this is an earthquake.

so long as the sun shines
and rain pours,
and tides kiss the shorelines,
you will be mine & I, yours.

Am I scared or am I in love with you?

I don't know the touch of your hands on mine,
I don't know how you look at 7 in the morning.
I don't know your favourite nursery rhyme,
I don't know the weight of your arm on my neck.
I don't know how you look when you are in love,
or how you manage to laugh on days where smiling is impossible.
I don't know what you're most scared to lose,
or how many times you have.
I don't know the feeling of your lips on mine,
or why God modeled the oceans after your eyes.
I don't know why I can listen to you speak for hours on end
and never get bored,
or how my definition of 'home' is so encapsulated by one person.
I don't know, and that's okay.
You can teach me.

Dear Mr. Someday,
I am looking for something that cannot be found.
A picturesque alternate reality
where my heart isn't a punching bag for every boy who's ever
"just wanted to see me be happy".
On days where the sun is the second to last thing I have left to believe in, I realize.
There's still you.

I'd like to know how you are.
Are you happy?
Are you seeing somebody?
Oh.
I understand.
I realized that my hands weren't the best at holding onto things that inevitably leave. Everyone always just
leaves.
Maybe in another lifetime.

Dear Mr. Someday,
I will not wait for you.
I will not stare until the grains of sand forget how to fall
waiting for you to come find me.
I refuse to dedicate my life in finding a man that
cannot love me more than I can love myself.
Your hands did not pick me up from the bathroom floor at 3am,
your arms did not hold onto me as the earthquake inside me
shook me until I could no longer stand,
your words did not take the sting out of my insecurity,
after every heartbreak,
after every night spent in the corridors of my mind
wondering what the **** is wrong with me,
it was not you.
It was me.
And it will always be
me.

Dear Mr. Someday,
I'd like to meet you.
I hope the feeling is mutual.
Hopefully, we can catch up on everything we missed.

You were never good with names.
I swallowed your every attempt of choking my name
through our lies up your throat with a smile.
Your smile holds every last bit of my happiness
and now I wonder why I haven't been happy.
Oh, right.

You are the mismatched sock in my life.
You were hardly there; but when you left-lost for good-
nothing was right.
Replace my my heart now. You took that too.

But I'd rather feel you through this pain
than feel nothing at all, because then at least I know it was real.
I'd rather remember you as teardrops
because at least I'd feel you on my skin again.
I'd rather hear you in my screams
and speak through pen and paper
than to realize;
you're gone.

Since the first day I met you
I've compiled a list of ten things that I wish I could tell you.
ONE: I wish I could wipe that stupid grin off your face whenever you mention your ex-girlfriend because if she's your past, I'm your present and to be honest I don't know what's coming up next, but God knows that I will fight for you. That somehow, some way, although God managed to create the sun and the stars in seven days, you gave me a life's worth of love in the first two seconds I met you. Arms outstretched, eyes not quite reaching mine, your stride as you passed me in the hall was brisk, you looked as though she ****** my name from your lips,
you looked at me,
you smiled and said 'hey'.  You see, there are moments in your life you know you will remember as your mind grows old and fades into nothing, and that was one of them. You said a three letter word in my general vicinity and until today I crave the three worded sentence that will validate everything I wish I could say in the three years that I have wanted to know what you sound like at 7 in the morning.
TWO: I want to **** the name of your ex-girlfriend from your lips because it's just another reminder of everything I'm not.
THREE: I'm sorry I'm not her.
FOUR: Let me backtrack, I'm sorry you can't have her.
FIVE: I love you.
SIX: I don't think I could stop if I tried
loving you. But I can trace my name into you as many times necessary for it to make an impression, indentation on you.
SEVEN: and I will choose you every time she didn't. I will choose you at 2 in the morning and you can't sleep. I will choose you when you are drunk and everything that I'm not falls out of you. I will choose you and hold onto you as though it is the one thing in this life I am meant to do.
I will choose you until the sun doesn't rise and ice freezes over the world because there is no way possible that I could get cold feet when I am with you. Wrap your arms around me, smile, and wake me up in a way words can't, until I am singing with the birds, "good morning". I will choose you, I will choose you, I will choose you. I will choose you when you can no longer remember my name and all that remains is her.
EIGHT: Don't text me at 3 in the morning. Call me, or better yet, come visit me so my dreams don't have to be dreams, they can become a reality. Dreams are great and all, but I'm not about the material, fictional, idea of you. I want you like how I want my tea; pure and without all these little filters. You see, love to me isn't always about the physical. Teach me how to paint and I will paint your name onto every part of me that doesn't remember your touch. Teach me to see the stars and don't stop until I can speak in angel.
NINE: All my poems are about you. The way you are set in an irreversible state of gratitude and how God must have spent two years longer on you just so he could paint each mole on your body in hopes that I would be there to connect them. Or how you never try to stretch too high  so your belly doesn't peak out of your shirt, and wear sweaters in the middle of summer when it is 30 degrees. If you see him, you'll know it's him. He's probably wearing his favourite outfit; heart-shaped sleeves and stars for eyes.
TEN: I wish I could tell you that I see your face in rain clouds and write you into every poem, hoping that you'd somehow find a way to become closer to me. I wish I could tell you that I'm not much of a poet, but you are my favourite poem. You give me writer's block, reminding me that you have to work for what you love, and that if your really, really, really love something, you can't will it into being.
That love is harder than you think it will be, and sometimes it will be messy, and will feel like it's impossible to write again. But all those poems were just practice, helping you get to a new level you never imagined you could get to. You see, in every poem I write I hope to find a better understanding of how you have the audacity to love when everything in your past tells you otherwise. Why your lips are like the composers to my melody, we make the best music. I wish I could tell you that it feel like my heart plays jump rope whenever the ground splits in two and my name slips passed you lips, just before slapping you across the face because not even God could have made my knees fall to the floor and beg for mercy. I wish I could tell you that I am horrible at math because there isn't a number large enough to quantify love. But if I really, really needed a number for the things I wish I could say,
it would be
one:
I love you.

You gave me a guitar string heart.
Every word you played me with reverberated in my chest
making me feel like I was something worth listening to.
As though I had the power
to drop the crescendo of your eyes,
to mine,
and love you to the beat of your favourite everything.
I was wrong.
Now all that's left is an out-of-tune guitar
that hasn't been played in two years.

I want to dive into your thoughts,
and see the world from your eyes.
Tell me your favourite flower,
learn the little things.

What do you think of when you wake up?
Your favourite word?
Favourite memory?
I was kind of hoping
that it would be me.

You made me feel like I
was something someone could actually
picture themselves being able
to love.
But I'm not.
I am baby teeth,
training wheels,
and first loves;
things we thought we needed.

A friendly reminder that I want to be yours
in your ever present state of bliss and intrigue.
I want to sit under stars
and feel the warmth of your arm on my neck,
as we sit and ponder the possibilities of you and me.
I want to hear your laugh as a welcome home,
good morning,
good night,
hello,
but never as a goodbye.
With laughs and minor accents of home.

You remind me of airports, plotted plants, dogs,
and Saturday morning cartoons.
I remind you of puns, the smell of paper, and your favourite movie.
But I want to  remember you lying on he couch half-asleep
curled up with a pillow
and disheveled hair covering your eyes.
Remembering your sweatpants, long hair, paint stains, and stickers.
Sneaking sandwiches and comics,
text messages, and knowing smiles,
tight hugs.

Just a friendly reminder, to remember me when you leave.

Subject to the inadequacy
as result of one faulty gene that resides within me,
I smile.
I smile with teeth too large for my small mouth,
and dimples like caverns
that remind me
that some holes are meant to be there.

His eyelashes flutter against my cheek, awake,
and I can feel the two years away from him.
He is rainy days and the first snow fall of the year.
He is the first time I lied to my parents,
he is the summer carnival,
and the 3am shoulder to cry on.
He comes when he is meant to come,
and leaves when he is meant to leave.
But that doesn't mean that when he does,
it doesn't hurt, because it did.

And then I realize
that no matter how tightly
he can hold me,
or how many poems I write,
he is the last fallen leaf of autumn,
and I am the first frost of winter.
Almost,
but not quite.

Unwillingly,
I will spend the rest of my life
looking for something that cannot me found.

The way you never cease to smile,
the way your nose wrinkles when you're confused,
or the way you grip my hair when you
fold me into your arms,
and laugh to hard,
and get too close for comfort,
and manage to brighten a room
without doing a thing,
and never understanding the use of a semi-colon.
Or, how you could never seem
to write your sentences correctly
and end up rambling on and on
until I can hear your thoughts through cold lips.

Can I just say,
I will spend the rest of my life,
hoping to find another you.

But maybe,
just maybe,
he comes back,
and everything is for the better.
Late nights, between flights,
early mornings between shifts,
and mid-afternoon talks about comic books.
Maybe he comes back,
and maybe we're okay.

Maybe he never left
and he still loves me.
Maybe he wants to be with me,
no matter the distance,
years, or people
telling me otherwise.

Maybe,
just maybe,
he's still mine.

It would be an honour
to have my heart broken by you.
Tell me you miss me,
and I will bleed every promise you've carved into my smile.
You were never really mine,
so tell me why the **** losing you hurt so much.

You were never good with words.
I didn't realize that what you meant was
you could never say something you actually meant.
I get it now-you were never good with the truth.

I see the stars in your eyes
and the universe in your smile.
I wish I understood
the secret of the galaxies,
just so I could understand how someone
could make me feel this way.

More often than sometimes I'd like to know
how it would feel to see the world from up high.
A hot-air balloon stuck in the sky,
but not because it's broken or the wind isn't right,
but because in the sky
it is limitless; about the red skies and black lies of the realm below.
Is it a blessing or a curse,
a truth or a lie?
The sky in its deception,
the balloon flies high.

I found you when my knees hit the bare tile floors.
You only truly find God with sins professed.
Hands stretched high, falling to the ground in remorse,
Choking on breath, heart crawling out of my chest,
digest my sins and pray on those paper planes.
Send love with my tears and hope for better days
when my heart doesn’t beat poison through my veins.
Tell me your name to love you, let me count the ways
You were baby teeth; things I thought I needed
on nights spent carving caverns from compliments.
You pray with hands clasped and sins to be pleaded,
until God takes the doubt from your confidence.
As your flesh meets the barrel of the pistol;
Hands high, knees to floor, surrender all, take none.

I died daily but you resurrected me with every good morning.
I'll tell you that love plucked me like a guitar.
Love made me feel beautiful, but I only got played.

I'll tell you that love cannot do math
because if he did, he'd know that
subtracting himself from the equation would leave me a 0.
I'll tell you that love is a game of tag.
They always end up running away.
I'll tell you that love has engraved his name on my soul
and when I die I'll only see the mark that he's left on me.

I’ll tell you that we’re all just stars in the sky. Just because there are nights you don’t shine through the city lights doesn’t mean you’re not there, remember, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost the purpose to create beautiful things, so don’t burn out just yet. When there are nights you can’t seem to push through the negativity that clouds you, remember; you are more than your current disposition.

ONE: I’ll tell you that you’re made of stardust and have galaxies for eyes, giving me the faith to muster up my doubt to look at the sky and expect for more than just this.

TWO: To the boy who told me I could do anything, except the one thing I love to; your words held the knife and cut through me. I am not a statue cut in stone any longer. I can grow, change and evolve into someone greater than the smile you chiseled into me. I am not a tree planted by your disposition and watered by your opinions.

THREE: I’ll tell you that people are not hospitals. They can’t enter your life and heal what isn’t broken. They are not hands with vacancy signs scratched into their veins. People aren’t  pills for a quick fix to ease the lonely. You will only end up more sick of the placebo lies that are stuffed down your throat in attempt to heal you.

FOUR: I will tell you that love is just a game of hide and seek. You will look in the wrong places and feel lost in the dark, but you don’t stop looking. You don’t stop until finally, they’re it. Why do we fear when the scariest thing we can imagine resides in our own mind? When we feel broken, our scars inked onto porcelain skin are simply faded encounters with fate. You’ll fall flat on your face, but at least then you will know it was real. You are a story, novel, art in the human condition, 600 words per minute, but you are not a puzzle waiting to be completed. You are an incomprehensible metaphor for tomorrow.

Maybe I don’t know much, and maybe I don’t know anything at all, but I do know this;

FIVE: When we feel helpless, hopeless, and on the brink of nothingness, that is when we know we’re still alive. It’s just another reminder that we’ve still got work to do.

I am who I loved.

To you, I am childhood innocence.
I am pig-tails and the jungle gym.
I am the park and mismatched socks.
You lit up a room and I was your shadow.
For years of recess I thought you were always It.
I am positivity and enthusiasm.
I am childhood fantasy dreams.

To you, I am practice.
I am a bus transfer that took you to your next stop.
I complained every time you refused to play a song for me.
In the end, I was the only one that got played.
I am painful loyalty and forgiveness.
I am mistaken.

To you, I am a fresh start.
I am the butterflies in your stomach and comfort.
We made sense. Everything that we were worked.
I am sensible decisions and logical emotions.
I'm sorry that wasn't enough.
I am independence.

To you, I am an adventure.
I am late night conversations and the first time I lied to my parents.
Knowing you was like the moment you reach the top of the swings all the time. It was discovery and unexplored territory.
Neither of us understood.
I am recklessness and helpless romanticism.
I am not quite love.

To you, I am familiarity.
If you are the joke, I am the punchline.
I am who I always wished I could be.
For the first time in my life, being with you terrified me because I never wanted to lose you. I am knees that can't help but buckle whenever you smile, and eyes of reassurance and safety.
I am risks and rewards. I am blind faith and belief for a better tomorrow. I am sleepless nights spent crying from laughter. I am awkward hand holding and hiding from parents.
I am confident and protecting.
I am young love.

To you,
thank you.

do not confuse comfort for love
do not mistake the way he makes your stomach twist, for butterflies.
you will learn three months down the line that there is a reason why you are never at ease when he is around.
do not lie to your friends about the way his words grab you by the throat
and stop you from breathing
this is not love.
do not make a home out of a boy who cannot be bothered to be there.
do not make homes out of people.
do not let him cheat you of time.
do not deceive yourself
and take his obsession for love.
do not say yes.
do not let him tear you apart
and mistake his company for building you back up,
if he really ever ******* cared, he wouldn't have done it to begin with.
he only calls you when he's high
and only cares when he has nothing left to lose
do not lose yourself loving him.

i cannot write about you
because you've taken all my words.
you've taught me that emotions cannot be substituted with things
that are said in the heat of the moment
and forgotten just as quickly as they are said.

Kudos to you
for ever make me think you were true.
You lured yourself into me like a lost bandit,
but it was my mistake, you were just another bad habit.
You broke my heart but that's okay
because it wasn't real anyway

-m.b.