I once knew a girl who dragged cheese graters across her ribs
just to hear them clatter against her skin
she would repeat on end:
if you hold your hand out the window long enough,
something might rip it out of its socket

when she was young she would poke the pin of a poppy under her palm on the 11th
and jump from one barrel of hay – she flew for three summers;
someone came one night last month and clad her in stone
her face was pressed in a pillow and she didn’t scream.

she pulled her nail back farther than it was meant to
she was told she’d see a map of her thoughts underneath
she just saw the marsh where the grass used to brush her
-- the pussywillows

if you push a button she will slide down a conveyor
right in front of you
you can take her clothes off with your teeth
put your ear near her mouth to feel –
proceed

a zoetrope of faces, bodies
if you press hard enough you might see
her blood line pulsing
if you find it, track its beat.

I am searching for my bones;
fissured and brittle,
scattered haphazardly amongst full, upright skeletons
between the hairline fractures lie Polaroids of moments,
I slid them between the spaces so they wouldn’t fall out,
I took the sharpest point of lead to all the surfaces and traced the pattern of our descent;
– mine,
have you seen my bones?
I am sifting through dirt and sand to find them,
through shrub and bush,
through strewn sweatshirts and muddy shoes;
the archaeology of my body is missing,
I am weathered;
decayed and holed
I give each bone away in the hopes that maybe later it may be rediscovered
I gave you my wrist for you wanted to write upon it how much you want to hold on to it
and I gave you my pelvis to grasp and grip as I feel yours slide against mine
and I gave you my foot to pick up and place where I should be.
I feel extinct –
do I exist without that which holds my mass of muscles?
I collapse under their weight
I strung up my fingers and hung them around your neck to feel them on your chest when I couldn’t
I broke off that rib and moulded it around your coffee cup to see every morning when you inhale its bitterness
do you read what’s written on the fissures?
I know my writing may be illegible but you must strain, as I did, to see –
those Polaroids are fading; the landscape of the ocean you once photographed is disappearing into white
I am aimless, frameless without them
I am searching for my bones
to gather,
and pile
all in one pit;
a hole of calcium:
built, hollowed frames
and take a hammer to them all;
a mallot,
send shards of bone soaring
I cannot have them in my possession,
holding my poor structure,
my amorphous figure,
and neither can
you.

you are post-apocalyptic
cluttered with debris
ruins
under siege,
destructive.

you are filled with nothing but smoke,
I fight for you,
search for one flash of light,
for one hidden memory of brightness within you:
the lights are gone at Yonge & Bloor
the 501 to Roncesvalles has disappeared
the condo showroom at King and Blue Jays Way
is no longer filled with your hands on my hips.

you are empty,
vacant,
save for the souls of those who choose to remind me
of days long forgotten:
a hand grasped at Harbourfront,
tears littering the patchy expanse of Bellwoods,
your laugh at Queen and Dufferin.

you are a nightmare;
a poltergeist,
you are breathless
and soulless
and hopeless:
nothing

you are cavernous
Toronto –
so encompassing,
you will cut me in half
before I heal
and gain
the desire
to fight
to stay.

I’m anticipating the day when I wake up with no eyelashes
or when the four ones of my clock turn into two’s
or when all the stars are reabsorbed into the blackness of the sky
because I’ve used them all up

I’ve tied a wish around every lash, number and star
and sent it off into the space between us
in the hopes that you have done the same
and our wishes will collide and be real;
tangible

on those four ones, I wished that
tonight,
more than any other night,
I could hold you in my arms
in my bed, or a bath, or a fluorescently lit parking lot,
and melt you into me;
grasping at your red t-shirt,
inhaling your scent
tonight, more than any other night,
I wish I could run across the distance that separates us
and just simply touch you,
run my fingers across your skin
and feel you flutter and sharpen when I reach your heart

all the fibers of my lashes;
tiny hairs of my DNA,
are covered with wishes
to see your whole body move in sync with your voice

and all the ones are wrapped with the hope
that I can see the expanse of pink and purple sky sitting next to you
and to no longer look at the same one together
but from afar

and those stars only brighten when I think of
how badly I want to kiss all the words and symbols that cover your body

but
I only have so many lashes
and maybe one day my clock will skip the ones before I can see them
there are only so many stars that remain
so I only have so many thoughts
and hopes
and wishes
to attach them to
before soon enough,
I will only be wishing on blank stares
and ticking stares
and tar-coated skies

I only wish on these because I can feel the memory of your escaping me
some days I can’t remember what your laughter sounds like
or how your fingers felt across my back
or how your voice quivered when you asked to kiss me
those moments are escaping me
and I want to be reminded
I want to expose the film of all the photographs I took in my mind
of our time:
T.O. and B.C.:
you and me
and I want more than anything to take more pictures
and record your laughter
and put paint on your fingers as you drag them across my skin
so I am never apart from you.

and so my lashes and ones and stars are laced with thoughts
and hopes
and moments
with you
to come back
to be near
to envelop me.

Lessons I learned from 22:

1) You may be a cat person, but that doesn’t mean you love everyone’s cats. This is simply an indication that you should never take your cats for granted again.

2) Lobster grilled cheese sounds fantastic to celebrate a new year, but if it leaves you up all night in agony: don’t eat it.

3) If a guy calls you up and asks you to come over and **** him on his half hour lunch break: don’t do it. You are not a ******* and are worth more than a half hour.

4) Don’t ever go back to places that take you out of your body and back into your head, replaying moments that once were vibrant but are now clouded with noise. Don’t ever set yourself up to feel your skin boil or your eyes shift back and forth between the spots you once sat in or, or kissed in, or fell apart in. Instead, surround yourself with bright lights and warm fires and laughter because you must always be reminded of everything that has built you up and not struck you down.

5) If he burns a hole through your stomach, he isn’t worth it. If he makes you worry over the smallest text back, he isn’t worth it. If he hates that you dressed up for him and “no one comes here in anything but jeans”, he isn’t worth it. If he makes your re-evaluate your sanity he isn’t worth it. If he gives you the love you want but not the love you need, leave. You don’t deserve to have holes where you used to be.
You don’t need to avoid entire streets and parks and spaces because you see his ghost there.
You are allowed to inhabit this place you’ve called home without fear of shattering.
He is worth nothing and you are everything.

6) If you slay yourself open and paint the pages of your books with your blood and breathe heavily into the ink and produce something that makes you proud, than that is worth its weight in gold, pearl and sapphire. Do not allow one person or group of people’s words undermine the guts you have to put yourself on display.

7) If she holds your hand and then severs your limb, allow it to grow back but never to fit in her palm again.
This goes for all limbs.
She cannot squeeze your hand tightly with the intention of reminding you of your self-eruption and then expect to tenderly caress it with words of apology.
If your limb is gone, then so is she.
You will grow a stronger one in its place that will be impenetrable.

8) Sometimes you have to stand in front of a wall inscribed with all of the worst things you have said and you must read them and ingest them and take account for all of them. Even those said drunkenly. Because those worth belong to you and you can’t walk away from them. Besides, they will be a reminder of how ******/******/annoying/****** up you can be.

9) If you look into the future and see no image of what are you are doing but see where you are and who you are doing it with – that is happiness. That is your goal. The missing pieces will turn up later, maybe somewhere you didn’t expect.

10) Your family is your ultimate confidant. They have seen where you have come from and will unapologetically support you and carry your weight when you are nothing. They will wait in the ER with you when they have to work at 6 the next morning, they will drive to your apartment to pick you up and feed you your first meal in 4 months, they will remind you of what you were and push you back to where you came from but encourage where you’re going.
You are transparent to them and that is only good for you.

From 22, and now for 23:

1. Swiping left on a superficial app connected you with the person who now consumes your thoughts. The person you want to share grilled cheeses with, whom you want to take to your favourite places, and the person you wish more than anything to call your own.
He sees you. His glasses only shield him from the light he shines on you. Don’t forget to look down from the pedestal he has put you on. Feel the crown he has bestowed upon you.
Don’t think of the distance as a curse but as a blessing.
Don’t think of time as expansive but as a succession of moments built up until when you finally see each other again.
He is an anomaly, he is air, he is a sunset.
More often than sometimes, I say go for it.

2. Although you might not want to admit it, the energy you have put forth out into the universe has finally been rewarded and you need to grab onto it and turn it over and over and examine every crevice and inch of this place you have dreamed to go to and come back with exhausted eyes from seeing its landscape and your fingers bruised from feeling its people and your breath elongated from speaking your truth.

3. Don’t be afraid of switches being turned on and off and people entering and exiting and being pushed out of a wardrobe and into a new room you’ve never been in.
You’ve never been good with change, but you should embrace it to continue your path.

4) Light, not darkness.
Replace and recharge the battery if it empties.
Leave if you feel like falling.
Go home if you forget who you are.
Laughter and dancing and lights and sparks and yes and breathe…
If you can’t remember what you look like there will always be something around to check your reflection in.
There will always be someone there to tell you the story of how you sat by a planter and made him weak in the knees.
There will always be a voice on the line that reminds you that you are a dog, not a duck, but that just means you have to work harder to shake off the water.
Always remind yourself.
Remember and read your mind.

caution:
please don’t tell me I’m beautiful
because when you leave I will let the tracks of my tears stain my face for so long they will bear holes in my cheeks
and I will sit in front of a mirror and draw on it with lipstick all the features you loved but I now loathe
please don’t tell me you get lost in my eyes
because then I will have to dig them slowly out of their sockets and throw them in the ocean so I don’t drown in them
don’t tell me you love kissing every inch of my body
for then I will have to place an X on every space until I am covered in marks and no one else may ever kiss me where your lips touched that X
please don’t hold me too tightly
for when you’re gone I might have to wrap tape around all my limbs to remember what it felt like to not fall apart
don’t cook for me
even if it’s my favourite: grilled cheese
because when you disappear so will my appetite and my palette
don’t tell me you love my new tattoo because instead of a heartbeat I’ll see your name next to my heart;
the sharp and blunt sound of it causing irregularity in my rhythm
don’t tell me you dream of me
because when you’ve left I will try and sleep forever so maybe I can find you on a school bus or an amusement park in my dreams;
you’ll become a monkey
- mon petit singe -
don’t send me pictures of your face in a content expression
because it is tattooed on my brain and when you choose to go it will be a slideshow of your face gliding its way in front of my eyes
I wish you wouldn’t tell me you want me
because as soon as you said that
I wrote letters with all my stories and sent them floating to you on the lake you go to every night
and I documented my face in all of its varying emotions to assure you that sometimes you may not “want me”
and I called you – long distance;
the space stretched over miles –
while you were watching planes land
and with every word I said I felt like I was nosediving on that plane
I’m stretching my arm so far I can feel my bone separating from my muscle,
expanding across the distance to touch yours
even if I only feel your fingertips
I want to graze them;
feel the spark,
because when we met that spark was dancing around us,
taunting us, breathing us in, zipping past our faces
and I thought you wouldn’t kiss me
I thought maybe your face wouldn’t mould against mine
and I was foolish to think that this was what I had dreamt of
but you asked to kiss me
and when you did the reverb made me lose all thoughts;
I was emancipated from thinking
-- from thinking --
but caution:
please beware,
if you place a thought into my mind it grows roots and sprouts and branches and the leaves drift to the base of my skull
and I am filled with them:
you coming to me
you staying with me
you holding me
the branches grow stronger,
critters stay in there from the past
the birds carry the old memories and sit dangling on the tree,
bearing them;
new and old,
beware my thoughts
caution: do not read
but although I place this disclaimer,
I want you to rake the leaves and climb the branches
and water the roots
and sit by the trunk
and read the book of my thoughts
to absorb all my information, acknowledgments and table of contents
don’t flip through:
read
but beware:
do not plagiarize them to say to another
and don’t copy them word for word
and please don’t highlight them
my leaves are falling around you
smell the bark
and breathe me in.

a wall has been erected in front of me
“new construction, do not pass”
right now it is made of bricks and mortar,
but in the past it was made of wood and bamboo
I have slaved away, day and night building this wall,
a barrier,
in front of me
because I would rather look at bricks than my own reflection
this wall protects me from my greatest fear, which just so happens to be myself
myself, particularly, in love
I spent months constructing this wall
slathering between the cracks all the food I haven’t eaten
painting on all the brick the words I should have said
and tacking pictures of myself in different positions of aching:
curled beneath blue sheets,
inhaling scents of a ratty sweater,
and so this wall is a reminder of who I become when I fall in love
and I have been walking around, behind this wall, with contempt
with ease
because I can laugh and engage and smile behind it
but no one falls in love with me
and I fall in love with no one
right?
until…
you
a six foot small framed high-octane energy bright spark sees me
he saw me
looked through me
past that wall
an anomaly
before I felt my bricks burning at the thought of another looking at me
and the mortar oozed out when a stranger’s arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me closer
and I boiled over and erupted
and I frantically built that wall right back up
stronger mortar, rougher brick
and continued along,
I have braved the inevitable
I was free from love
yes, finally
but you:
who forget words when I speak
who challenged me to a thumb war to feel my hands before my lips
who wants to make me smile above all else
you are a rarity,
you are air finally entering my lungs,
you see me
you’re chipping away at that wall so slowly
but I am so afraid
before, if someone showed me any sign of love I would leap into their arms
I yearned for warmth and space and heat and rush
I drank bottles of truth serum and I spilled it all until I was empty
this wall never existed
but now:
when you asked me when was the last time someone told me I was beautiful, I cried
and when you told me you wanted to know my past without judgment, I cried
and when you said how you fell asleep looking into my eyes and looked into them hours after yours were closed, I cried
and my chest keeps swelling and sinking and pushing
and it is because I feel as though I am so tainted that you shouldn’t want me
I feel so much; I am a walking hurricane
I breathe nothing but fire
I no longer see stars at night
because I want love more than anything
but I am so deathly terrified of it
this familiar coat of all feelings; a patchwork of combined thoughts
I’ve worn it so many times before that it has ripped in so many places
it’s lost its shape
so I pinned it to the wall
but you,
you stood on the other side of the wall
at a distance, where I kept you
and you took the smallest hammer
and began chiseling away at my brick
and I panicked
because you said I was beautiful
and you loved my eyes
and you see through me
but I stopped myself from building it back
you see through me,
past me,
I should let the rubble surrounding my feet be a reminder of my strength instead of a weakness,
a break,
demolish me
break me into pieces until I am surrounded by dust
you should see all of me
tear down the wall.