coffee tastes better in Spain

a simple hello is groundbreaking

comfort can be a warm bed or a “like” of a picture

the cold is different in the UK (you can feel it in your bones)

they will always give you a knife and fork to eat a hamburger

sometimes you need to eat at a Hard Rock in Lisbon to be reminded of home

if you eat the bread, they will charge you 1€

crying alone in a hotel room or at a Chinese restaurant in Italy is perfectly normal

never doubt the power of distance

now you can never say you didn’t try

just because you don’t speak the same language, doesn’t mean “*******” isn’t universal

sometimes sleeping next to someone who peeled your outermost layer off is the most intimate you need to be

“I’ll never see these people ever again”

have pride

ask me now what it is that I want

I have come to loathe all brown bags and black suitcases

vulnerability does not necessarily equal intimacy

remember that you pulled yourself out of the sea

your feet tread castles and cathedrals where thousands walked

art galleries are best enjoyed alone

now you understand when mom and dad don’t answer how agonizing it is

write it down if you want to forget it

acknowledge buried truths

eat paella and shnitzel and pizza and fish and chips and don’t think

go to movies at the tallest cinema

slip a little on the cobblestones

lay for hours on the beach

then

go home
be humble
remember
reminisce
teach
embrace

Glasgow – 1/8/15

I peel

away the enamel mask from your hollow bones.
when the bullet hit, you

said it felt like “a glass
bottle dropped into a porcelain bathtub.”
I mould a

foreign flesh around a sunken cheek,
and you wish to still make love to woman
under a willow tree

and run into a tattoo
parlour to engrave moments across your chest
your breath escapes between your porcelain teeth

glancing over at the wall of borrowed expressions,
you ask which one will

be yours,
covering the blemish.

I paint a new disguise for you:
afraid of water
fond of caves
enamoured by hurricanes
down to delicate hands

I hope it fits

I hope to see you buried in this mask
and not by a second shot
through the skull to gray matter
below the surface of your skin.

it rained the day after Christmas and

you said you’d prefer snow.
it reminded me of London

so I kept my mouth shut and pushed your hands
further between my legs.
“eat my pineapple,” I instructed
as the *** coated my tongue.
“carry me through

the tiki bar and do pushups in the empty
space while I brush my lips on your temple.”

we were married on the corner
of Queen and Dunn;
our officiant on one knee, clad in blue knit
I

never thought I’d be here.

across oceans you recessed
further into my insomniac brain.
your eyes are green, right?
turn around:

it’s less romantic if there’s no eye contact.
track our distance across my sternum --
I’ve never been to Azerbaijan.
I took advantage of the fact that you were wearing black
and forgot to outline my
shape in chalk.

I couldn’t

be further from the truth now even if I tried.
We broke up

on Sunday and one week later, C tells me that a moon is now

orbiting her planet.
When we were young, I would always complain
that she was growing faster

my breath was taut
the rain was enraged
and the car was thick
and she had thought it through.

and on Night One I drank
myself from Tiny Beaches
back to Toronto
in my mind
to see you

and on Day Two, C swelled
at the sun and I remembered
our summers lining Queen Street
to see famous faces in June

and on Night Three:
a strummed aria,
twelve cigarettes,
mason jar tears,
warm bodies
and bear rugs.

C was too tired to drive home
the apathetic sun
and foreign limbs pressing
behind her eyes.

I.
you never saw me in winter:
shearling fur and kettlebell boots
my outer crust cracking from one step outdoors.

I wear socks to bed
and smoke Belmonts to cover
my breath with toxins
instead of you.

II.
I never wear pants when I’m with you
mostly because I’m hoping to re-enact me walking
over the Millennium Bridge
in May.

if the wind pushed any further
up my skirts, it would force my lungs right out my throat.

my hotel room called for us
but you were on a plane to Norway
and I was in my head.

III.
the last time we had ***
you told me you’d finish me off first next time
but I’m always like your backup song for karaoke,
in case someone takes your first choice.

you never:

acknowledged that my rice was shaped like a heart
and yours like a star at dinner,

ask me what my tattoos mean,

but always ask me if I’m pregnant.

you’re a roll of film that needs be developed but
I keep smearing the edges with my fingers
and scanning the red light over myself.

making do with what we had, we rolled dank ****

into receipts from the bar.
For once, I wasn't worried about getting

caught smoking in a bus shelter.
I fixated on the cheap shots of tequila
and this paper joint
and heckling overdressed blondes
on a Sunday night in

November.
**** "cuffing" -- latching onto a person for warmth and
intimacy as it rolls into December.
For now, I'll stand against this graffiti wall while those

closest to me take ****** iPhone pictures of me
covering my face.

For now, I'll walk up Bathurst
and discuss whether or not beards are a dealbreaker.

I'm picture-locking every look,
every turn
and sound

One day I hope one of my closest
calls and says:
"Remember that night when time stretched out?
Our three sets of footprints cemented a time when we were
in our bodies
and not in our heads."

We left our heads on Queen Street that Sunday.

you said you came twice but I
never felt you tighten around me.
I

wish you would look at me when it happened so I could see
what you looked like when
you peaked.
I couldn’t take my

eyes off your ribs as you
pushed each breath between
the bones.
You look happiest when you face away from me.

I’ve counted the pale hairs on your arms and I know

exactly what you look like the moment you fall asleep
but
you’ve pushed me into corners at parties
and
you hit me with a pan last week
and never apologized
and
when I tell you I miss you, you say
“How? We just spent 5 hours together.”

The first time I saw you
you were sitting in an empty bathtub,

a beer in one hand, and frat boys smoking joints around you

you said you’d never seen Star Wars
and you used to catch moths as a child.

You repeated my name twelve times that night
while I grabbed your hair
and your nails carved letters into the bark of my body.

Your face pressed my chest
and now it presses a pillow.

Your sighs sound exhausted,
not exalted.

I told you I loved you and
you said
“That word is used far too often.”