I know that I will never marry Jimmy Fallon or Donald Glover or Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
I know that despite the myths, Brussels sprouts taste awesome.
I know that one too many tequila shots will automatically turn you into a philosopher.
I know that the sun sets in the East and rises in the West (or is it the other way around?)
I know that I am most happiest when I'm surrounded by amazing friends in the unseasonably warm March sun and a banjo is playing.
I know that a smile straightens everything out.
I know that although you can't forget the past, you can't let it dictate your future.
I know that having *** for the first time is weird, and so is ****.
I know that my hair is golden, my eyes are blue and I will never be stick-thin as hard as I try.
I know that there are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week and 12 months in a year. But it never seems to be enough time to figure out who you are.
I know that people come and go but those that love and care for you will stay glued next to you no matter what.
I know that as much as it hurts, you will get over love.
I know that I will never have the courage to rap publicly.
I know that Kim Kardashian's *** is most likely not real.
I know that travel truly broadens the mind.
I know that I'm insecure and over analytical and anxious and easily frustrated.
But I know that I'm also passionate and determined and a hopeless romantic and a picky eater and a restless sleeper.
And above all:
I know that when I look at you I see past your eyes.
I know that when you're around I smile wider and laugh louder and flip my hair more often.
I know I dress nicer to remind you how beautiful you think I am.
I know that I forget to inhale and that the butterfly on my shoulder has to fly up to my ear and remind me to breathe.
I know that I care about you more than anyone.
I know that I let you into every pore of my body, every opening: my heart, my head, my...
I know that I am willing to jump in with my whole body and risk being drenched in water for you.
I know that I can make you as happy as you make me
But I know that you're scared and vulnerable and hurt
But if I'm sure of anything (and mind you, I'm not sure of much)
I know that I will hurt and be afraid and breathe with you to make you love me.

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.

“please be as
big as your space.”

shelve
every moment, big or small for all to see
consume sushi burritos, ice

cream tacos, disappointment and success
you are both the product of your upbringing and
the slick Toronto streets:

your inherent judgement your guide
slide breath into books
and memorize landscapes

and capture soundscapes both mundane and enigmatic
ensure both shoelaces are tied
blazer pressed straight

ensemble thought through;
never neglect finishing touches
absorb Toronto skylines from an Ossington rooftop

walk through frayed soles until heels become flats
leave yourself enough buffer time after clocking out to say
yes to lakeside movies

be here now

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.
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.

a letter to myself:
(a reminder, rather),
I know it feels as though you are now in the trenches
the mud clinging between your toes,
the walls too inevitably high to scale,
the rain beating and pouring down on your body,
and you see everyone above the surface hovering,
watching you as you try and clasp the sides of this hollow grave, frantically trying to escape
and you want to just lie in the mud and have the rain drown you until you are nothing
but you must remember this:
you will be fine.
And I know it feels as though you have been butchered, gutted and cleaned
ready to be thrown on the grill by he who so carefully flayed you open over time and space
only to have all your guts and bones trailing behind you, and thrown into a stock *** to boil away
and I know you miss his furrowed brow
and his incessant organization
and his frigid room
and you want him to call and say
"go to where we met and I will hold you and not say anything more than I'm sorry and I want you and you're all I see"
but remember this:
you will be fine.
And right now, I know you want to cover yourself in paint
all colours, but especially red; Tabasco to be certain
and slather it on until all the marks and scuffs disappear
until you disappear
and you want to refuse to let it dry; apply layer upon layer of every shade of blue from sky to navy;
from lime to forest green,
from sunshine to mustard yellow
and all variations of pink,
and your brush becomes heavy because this paint is caking your skin,
a cast of plaster holding your true self in
until you are as frigid as a statue; you are clad in stone
immovable and impenetrable;
your shield
but please remember this:
you will be fine.
One day someone will see your statue in a square or a park,
the sunlight beaming off your sheen,
and will see past that paint:
the layers of Tabasco
and emerald
and ocean
and canary
and pink
and see you
because you are a light
you are the last piece of pie that you know you shouldn't have, but take anyway
you are a phosphene that never disappears, even when their eyes are open
and he or she will approach your statue,
in a stance of utter uncertainty and self-doubt
shoulders hunched, spine pulled in and face blank and wanting
and will see you
and will take a chisel to your stone
and break off the layers
reduce them to dust, surrounding your pedestal
brush, blow and wipe it clean
and they will suffer from the heat and labour
but they will see you
and they will chip until finally you emerge
that light
and all will be gathered in that square or park
and as you look around you realize that they are the people you love the most
and the person who has broken your mould, your shell
is the one you love most of all: you.
Because you look in the mirror and you love you
you want you
you need you
and I know it's dark
and I know there are drills and hammers and saws
and I know when you sleep you are erased
but remember this:
you will be fine.
you are alive.
you are here.
you are better.
you will rise.

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.

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.

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.

a sea of green
and we are swimming in it
some drowning, others floating
this park
full of bright, full and illustrious green
and we are scattered,
finding our way
searching for that one tree that calls us forward
the bench that will cradle us as we cover it in tears
the penumbra in the open space
this park holds us
a hub of nature in a metal box
the centre
surrounded by equal bursts of laughter, a chirp, a ball hitting a mitt, a hush of wind through trees, the rumble of a streetcar
once I believed and wished I could bring someone to this park
like this couple, intertwined on a yellow towel,
hands and feet so tangled it is as if they sit in a cocoon,
I used to wish that I could take someone through the green,
swimming until we find a shore,
a space for us,
instead I watch dark haired men kick a ball
back and forth,
back and forth
under the backdrop of that tower
and I watch five girls in grey and black be immortalized in a camera,
leaning on trees,
and smiling vividly,
and I see a white dog be consumed by the thought of catching this tiny ball,
it is his world
and as I watch these people.
I wonder if they watch me
if they watched me that day I fell
that day I stumbled to that bench by the diamond
two people sit on it now, surrounded by bikes
but they don’t know that I melted there
I dissolved into a pool of salt
I still can’t remember my trajectory through this park, but maybe they do
maybe I should ask that broad shouldered man what my breath sounded like
or that woman with the toddler how I walked
or that purple haired girl what I was doing with my hands
I don’t remember
but I continue to return
this sea of green
is where I drowned
but where, amongst the brush,
I pushed my way through
I dived through those leaves and pushed back those branches and let the thorns scrape my skin
and I emerged
near the marble arch, on the cobbled streets
I rose to the surface of that arch and I floated
and I must remind myself
every time I come through that entry
not to sink
to swim,
to float
in this green
to look up and see the surface, dotted with clouds
painted with blue
and see the yellow smile that brushes its way onto my face
and feel safe
I am found in this sea.
I am me in this sea.

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.

Benches are wooden or plastic or metal but they allow for a connection, a meeting place for two people who somehow become connected and intertwined and woven, like the branches of trees; they grow on each other, something blooms between them and sprouts and you believe that you cannot live without the other person, they are your sunlight and your water and that soft bird that perches on your shoulder, they see your history, the rings of your trunk, all the years you spent wishing and hoping for that one person and then:

you meet on this bench, a piece of hand-crafted wood, in a park downtown, and you talk and you laugh and you make each other smile and you sit without talking and the silence is good... but then clouds form and the silence is unbearable and you feel like you want to explode and break and smash if the silence continues so you whisper and then talk and then yell and the heat brings you closer, you retrace all of those places, you look back on the map of your connection and remember all the landmarks that you saw and lived through together and it is as if no space existed as if your hearts grew and swelled for each other and brought you back and you lie and embrace and breathe again together and it's comfortable

but then you turn, he turns back, on it all, everything, and you try and search his face, look again on that map and try to remember, you make yourself remember but he sees another path near this bench, near you but not with you, and decides to walk down it and you want him to take your hand and ask you to go but you know deep, deep down that he won't, that he can't, so you try and you say those deadly, poisonous words, those three words that change everything whether you want it to or not
and he looks at you
and he sees you

but he can't take you with him
so he gets up and lifts one foot in front of the other and
he walks away from you.

let me be her
that girl;
the one you have to block from your newsfeed because even the sight of me; even the thought that I still walk around unfazed burns your skin
I wanna be that girl that you see walking on Queen West and think:
“that will be the girl I starve myself for”
I strive to be that girl who tears out all your organs and pickles them in jars,
your kidneys and spleen and gall bladder –
and shelves them on display for all to see
“these are all the hearts I’ve stolen
are you sure you want to climb into my bed?”
I am that girl whose shampoo you buy and sniff in between gulps of Jameson
I am the girl whose grin makes your bones shatter
I am the girl whose eyes make your whole body dissolve into a river,
and then you’re swept away by my laughter
finally I’ll get to be the one who ruins all your favourite places for you
I’ll be the one who makes you put barriers up, guards and gates around your heart to prevent its inevitable breakage
I’ll get to be that girl who makes you weep at the thought of anyone else loving you
I will be her
that is my goal
I don’t want to be that girl who extends her pinky and then her hand and then her arm and then is thrown forward into your arms and is held by no one when you leave
I can’t be that girl who spins tales of you and me and my cousin’s wedding or you and me, doing the lap dance from Death Proof for you, or you and me smiling for a picture in front of an aquarium with the hashtag #thisguy
I am no longer that girl who becomes a ghost when you don’t say a word to me
I am not that girl who tells you how cute you are and how ******* smiley I am when I see you
I am not that girl who gets left
no,
this time:
I get to disappear
I get to walk away and leave you for an Asian guy (girl)
I get to unfollow you on Instagram because looking at pictures of you at the ocean makes me feel guilty
I get to be pretend that I am unharmed;
that I lit the fire but I’m not becoming ashes
I get to have people tell me they want to take me out for coffee, or sit by the water, or hold my hand at that ******* aquarium
I’m that girl now –
her:
the one your fear most
because I am
a caterpillar,
a peacock,
a fox,
and you are the forest floor,
and the desert sand,
and the thinnest branch,
and I will walk all over
and break you.

Books
stories lines pages
numbers letters
form
words
words said and unsaid
left whispered between tongues
trapped in mouths
lost in heads
unable to grasp and say aloud
but what if all words were said
all lines were recited as we had imaged them in our minds
what if everything we thought of came pouring out and we meant it
we didn't apologize for the thoughts left in our minds
sometimes I wish I could say everything and anything I feel and mean it
sometimes I wish fear wasn't a factor of life
sometimes I wish we could all be easily loved and could love easily
sometimes I wish the sun shone forever and that
I had naturally blonde hair and
I never bit my nails
and sometimes
I wish I had the fastest metabolism ever so I could eat pizza all the time
and sometimes I wish my little brother would willingly give me a kiss instead of me having to always ask
and sometimes I hope that someone out there thinks about me
and smiles at the thought of me passing through their mind
and wonders where I am now
and wishes me well
and sometimes
I think about where I'll be in five years
and if I'll be more or less happy than I am now
or if something will have happened that changed me forever
and sometimes I wonder what it will be like to outlive my parents
and if I'll be able to go on
and sometimes I wonder who is out there that pulls the gravitational force of people together
and if some guy I've never met knows I'm gonna meet and fall in love with them
but sometimes
I have to let it go
and let the universe take over
and let whatever happen, happen
and let my thoughts run free and just
accept who I am
and what I'm becoming
and be proud of what I do
and who I will be.

a schoolgirl found me in
High Park with my hands
clutched to my chest
on a red

sheet, under a dead cherry blossom
the dress I was wearing was
the one you gave me to celebrate

our underwhelming tax rebate
and the fact that I was eating again
the examiner said I looked
apathetic,

like dying was the next item on my to-do list

I could have sworn I had only taken
                           2
                         (22)
pink

ones to match the blossoms
the *** sleeping on the bench was my new best friend
and the barista at Starbucks asked for my name

and I realized
I hadn’t been asked that in months;
                       my name
                      my blood type
                      my ETA
what colour was the mole on my stomach?
and when did I first learn to

ride a bike?

the last time I smiled was
June 17, 2013.
In the paper they put a picture of it
and wrote “Woman Found”
they should’ve put a close-up
of my hollow eyes.

there you are:
brown mop of hair,
glasses you refuse to keep on,
teal green eyes,
broad smirk,
thin body stretched over 206 bones
a man
not my little brother –
no,
when you were little
you sat in that carriage and I read to you:
hours upon hours of stories you probably don’t remember,
but that I cherish
and when you were little
I would ask if you were a boy or a girl
and because I wanted a sister you would always say the opposite of what you are
and most of all when you were little, I shielded you
I carried you
I picked you up
but now you are a man
trapped inside his head
I see this shell of you, my brother,
but sometimes I can’t find you
sometimes all I see are your teal eyes
and not behind them
and there are moments where I wish I could peel back your skin
layer by layer
and go into your mind and see the chaos
like a busy city,
your mind,
cars honking
smog emanating from the tallest buildings
people milling and shouting and cursing
there is no pause
there is only go
one man in your brain carries in a black briefcase your fears
those worries that stop me from seeing you behind your eyes
and this man with a grey cloud overhead,
cloaked in a hood,
wanders your mind
and passes this fear from one person to the next
until slowly,
and gradually,
your whole brain is filled with grey clouds
and cloaked figures
and black briefcases
and shouting and whispering and laughing
and you disappear
from right here
back into your mind
“come closer”, they say,
“why live in this world when you can live in ours?”
and I hate these men; these people
distributing your fears
when it started, it was simply a fear of food,
but then it was
a fear of the world,
a fear of an illness,
a fear of yourself,
my little brother,
who smiled so brightly and vividly it was distractingly beautiful,
who draws so intensely and maturely and incredibly,
paints pictures of wisdom at sixteen,
who has rules and standards to the depths and validity of music
my little brother is trapped
and my stomach sinks when I ask:
“are you okay?”
and he only replies
“…yeah…”
and I feel so helpless when he looks so tired with his sunken eyes
because those men control him
they take all of him away and leave only a shell of my little brother
my bravest brother
my inspiring brother
my strong brother
whom I wish I could wipe clean of all the briefcases
and cloaked figures
and men
and fill his mind with a string of white lights,
Christmas lights,
and layer it with the smell of brownies baking in the oven,
and screens on which are projected his favourite shows and movies and videos of him,
my little brother,
who fights these men every day
and he deserves a medal of honour
because there is a war in his mind
and he battles incessantly
and I know, very soon,
even if only for a little while,
he’ll get a break from this city of his mind
and he’ll win.

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.

the musician on stage in front of a

rack of shoes looks like you,
although it may be

the fog of the free beer.
It smells like the 70s and even though I
never experienced it firsthand,

the red velvet pants on the rack next to me
take me back in time.
Surrounded by a trio of girls in striped shirts –
the three blind mice –
**** on lollipops
and there are too many jean jackets to count.

I can’t stop thinking about my arms around your neck
on a park bench

let’s go to Niagara Falls, or Pompeii

there are some soaps in the shape of fingers at the store next door
and I can wrap them around your arms
while we listen to Born Ruffians
and they’ll sing:

It ***** when you find someone
but they don’t find you.

unfortunately for you,
this poem is based off of real events, places and people
for you: D.H.
to look at your name makes me sick
physically incapable of breathing
keeping down the rise of poison in my lungs
infiltrating my veins,
slowly cracking my bones
this poison is a gnarly concoction of anger and guilt and hurt
for you, D.H.
of which all of this should not be wasted on
but alas, such is love right?
love is willingly letting someone wait for you as you walk the streets of this city with another
that’s love, right?
love is letting someone waste away, miss meals, sleep for days and never have a dry face
that’s love, right?
love is sitting not a month later with someone else on a streetcar while I watch you hold her hand
that’s love, right?
if that is love, then so must be
promising not to hurt someone
telling someone to stay when all they want to do is go
cooking too many meals for that person
too many salty meals
I never told you this, D.H.,
but your first potatoes were too salty
as was that coq au vin
and so are you:
too salty
not enough sweet
I have never wished ill will on anyone
but I wish that for you
I hope one day that you see someone that you believed you might have loved,
if given the chance,
walking down the street with someone else
not a month later
and your heart stops
and you try to breathe
and calm
but your left side goes numb,
as did mine,
and your heart hurts,
as did mine,
and I hope that you fall over
and you gasp and you clutch the Queen West sidewalk
and you look for help
but no one rescues you
no one saves you
because if you don’t use your heart,
why should you have one?
if you don’t love anyone, why should you still have that what makes you love?
that what skips two extra beats when you run a hand down a spine?
that what aches when that person is gone?
that what stops when it’s over?
if all you do is keep and gather and amalgamate secrets that others give you
willingly
and all you do is store them on your hard drive to save
but you give nothing in return,
why should you have a heart?
truthfully, it makes me sad to see you without one
falling from one person into the next,
slipping slowly but gaining nothing but secrets
and giving nothing
but I give e v e r y t h i n g, D.H.
I never forget what is said to me
I never forget what your touch feels like
I never make promises I can’t keep
but evidently:
you can
and if that makes you happy
(which is ******)
and if you can continue on as such
(which is ******)
and if you can live with yourself
(which is ******)
then good riddance
because although an earthquake erupted in my chest
and black crows swarmed into my eyes
and I tasted nothing but too much salt
and I almost fell back into the arms of my former pitied self
I remembered something:
one was that your tattoos are stupid,
two was that I missed your cat more than I missed you
but three was this:
I may love too easily,
but at least I love
at least I let my heart shine through my chest and beam
at least I let it be ripped out again only to build the muscle around it stronger
at least I can say I have loved and I am loved
maybe not by you, Dylan Hopman,
but you missed out on this insanely resilient
and endlessly beating heart of mine.

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.

it takes 8 hours and 1 minute to get to Gansevoort Street

they say to truly love someone
you must know them through all four seasons

barricaded branches prevented you from coming February 6th

black leather interior seemed like the perfect place

to evaporate
like a cigarette outside Baby Huey
punch holes in your arm like a belt
so a finger can’t trace it

without being caught
hornets under Dixie cups
razored wings carve out this body
phantom knee, nerve extension
push your thumb into its stump

regret pushing the willow
walking the length of dead grass to a childhood hub
a reminder of which sits on your bedside
as an 8-year-old pilot
spearheading a UAV to TOR

Dundas Square sees you in an amber light.

how often I wish for 91 Brunswick Ave
compressed together in a claw foot,
your flesh my home
cakes baked in too shallow pans
I forget what song was playing when
you told me you loved me.

how often I wish for the freeway between
Cocoa Beach and Orlando,
a friendly chaperone asleep in the back
hands knotted thinking:
“this is ours”

how often I think of August bonfires
the terror of an international move
“you would be a day ahead of me for ten weeks”
I felt stronger than the 100-year-old ruins we were
standing in

how often I wish for The Standards,
High Line and East Village,
bacon cocktails and antiquated photobooths and
windswept harbour panoramas
my insubstantial voice begging
“don’t turn the red light off,
I need you to see where my bones shattered
and pierced my skin”

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.”

two MTA

workers play invisible baseball across platforms at Union Square

the runs in my tights mimic the skyscrapers
whose marks I see across the black sky from the rear

window while he ***** me in the backseat of his Audi

an alley in Brooklyn,
the threat of a subway slasher,
the likelihood of getting lost,

but the questioning by tourists for direction

if I say “I am one of you”, it

discredits my memories here:

[pumpkins on 34th in July
kisses in bathtubs in Meatpacking
top of the Whitney]

but I am not (yet) one of you:

impatient drivers,
L train riders,
rainbow bagel obsessers

I still feel a hand grip my throat when walking down 5th
and throw my bones off the Chelsea Pier
before I spend 11 hours wondering why I haven’t yet committed myself to you.

animal heads float above the surface

sheep’s matted wool and dead rats amongst the debris

worst rainfall since 1911, and

I am all alone.
the confines of this bucket dig into my lower back
and wet metal indents my calves

I hope you, too, have a bucket
my love

for although your legs are sturdy
you cannot hold yourself above the roofs
the plaster walls breaking off and sticking to your skin,
imprinting

memories of others onto you

but remember:
the crème brûlée at 3 a.m. after you returned from the docks
and the drunken dances in the kitchen to BB King’s voice

maybe my wedding dress is drifting

between the gardens and
I can wear it when our buckets meet somewhere along this natural disaster
-- the fragmented filled canal --
and you would immediately recognize its bell sleeves

amongst the damp wood
and loose shingles

I am reflected.
every day, I sit framed
or stand,
or walk past
a frame
reflected,
me
at times I pass this frame and see all of me
other times, I am missing
other times even, I recede
to a former self
I see me at fifteen:
brown haired, blue eyed
starving for love behind the pane of a computer screen
I used to watch myself framed
and dissect every feature
too many hairs out of place,
metal upon metal inside a mouth that either spoke too much or hardly enough
no mind of my own
sometimes I see her,
fifteen,
through the reflection of the subway doors
as a couple tenderly caress each other behind me
fifteen whispers softly through those doors:
“love me too”
as the train pulls into the station
and other times, I see ten reflected
ten,
rabbit teeth and soft hands
a burst of fireworks
disappearing between pages
once I saw her by the harbour
floating on the surface of a body of water holding three islands
the sun was gone
she saw me crying and said:
“don’t leave me”
ten,
and rain fell on her cheeks
I couldn’t tell if they were my tears or the sky’s
and other times,
rarely,
I see five
blunt bangs,
shining smile,
brave spirit,
she was the beginning of my strength
hearing very little but feeling it all,
seeing,
I saw her in a jewelry box,
five,
bold and brass
strands of pearl and gold and emerald might have clouded her otherwise
but she s h o n e
she said, as she always did,
“tell me a story”
I used to tell of a mermaid lost at sea,
or a doll brought to life,
but all I could think of this:
a woman is trapped in a mirror
twenty-two
fixated on this face she has witnessed evolve
she sees the specks of blue laced with green of her eyes
documents the crackled skin on her lips
breathes in the musty and city smell of her hair
she sees the lines and cracks on her hands
and the way she hunches and fidgets
but she cannot move from this mirror,
this frame,
because she is afraid to move forward without looking back
in this mirror lives
twenty-two
fifteen
ten
and
five
and she loses herself in them
trying to lock in all their features
once, before becoming trapped,
this woman walked by the window of a vintage store
and when she turned to catch herself, she saw nothing
she wants to see everything
always
catch glimpses of
twenty-two
fifteen
ten
and
five
everywhere, always
but she wants to be reminded
and not haunted
“show me your teeth”
she wishes,
“let me see you smile”
and now I am – the woman – is coming to realize
that maybe she will never be free from the trap of the mirror
maybe she will always see herself reflected
but that, in itself,
is a gift:
to see oneself reflected
to know where you have come from,
and where you are going.

the one thing that really keeps me from being myself is,
well,
me
traits, quirks, moves that are innately built in to my genetic makeup
are also the things that prevent me from who I am
the one thing that really keeps me from being myself is this tight kilted skirt
so tight, in fact, that because I can hardly breathe I find it hard to say what I need to
held in by this waistband that divides me in two
the one thing that really keeps me from being myself is this bottle of wine that I have lost myself in,
one, two, three times
alone,
unfocusing the lens of my present onto a picture of the past,
to recede,
the one thing that really keeps me from being myself is this profile that I hide behind
this picture of me, head cocked, sly smile, eyes wide
is that really me?
the one thing that really keeps me from being myself is my big mouth that drags me into unfortunate situations,
reveals too much or too little,
gossips, quivers, spits fury and turns upward in a forced motion of supposed happiness
am I –
happy?
am I –
myself?
this city keeps me from being myself because I’m afraid that around every corner that I might see the face of someone I long for or long to harm
the subway keeps me from being myself because there are too many bodies pushing against mine that I am afraid if I touch one more person I might mould into them
the sun keeps me from being myself because in its light I shut my eyes so tightly you can’t see into my soul
this stabbing pain in my stomach keeps me because it’s the only thing I feel and it prevents me from ingesting new moments
my mind is the real culprit:
stories,
stuffed to the brim with tales
chock full of figures from back then and now
blurred visions of faces begged to be forgotten
she steals my eyes sometimes,
my mind,
pulls them out of their sockets and reverses them
to see the gears turning
“I can feel you disappearing”
I am gone;
a cyborg,
my body disintegrates but my mind lives on
transhuman;
transcendent
“myself”
is in photographs ,
imprinted in the sand,
(I always look back to where I sat to remind myself that I leave a mark),
and in words
in –
words
yes,
the curvature of my transcribed thoughts
I live in
words
how foolish I am!
they hold me like my favourite old sweater
smell of my skin
breathe with ease
but now: words on page should mimic words from one’s mouth,
no?
I should speak what I write and write what I speak,
should I not?
guard only my deepest secrets, but speak honestly and freely
then, will I be myself?
fine then, the truth:
once, when I was seventeen I grabbed the hand of a boy I liked and held it in mine to know what it felt like to feel another’s warmth,
when I was four, I lost my hearing to a monster that lived in my canal,
and I never speak of it because although I can’t hear well,
I can feel the vibrations of dishonesty and hate
last week, I broke a bag, my headphones, a mug and a chip in half and cried because I literally felt everything around me fall apart
there:
the truth,
now:
can you see me?
or are the pages of my body still slowly filling up with my stories?
perhaps I will never be “myself” until I lie on my back drawing my last breath
and I reread the words on my skin
and finally find
me.
until then, one last truth:
the one thing that really keeps me from being myself and the one thing I fear will continue to do so:
is me.

we ran out of gas as we pulled
into the marina
and I thought
“how lucky it was
we weren’t stuck at sea”
it mimicked the moment
you called and said
“I didn’t feel how
I was supposed to.”

the dog was stepping on my toes
on board
and
the bare-chested captain
bounced me out of my seat
going parallel along the waves
the salt air kept catching
in my throat
it felt like your hand
was still clasped around it

I am at ease knowing
that sardines don’t swim
in these waters
I wonder if your fish pillow
swims sentinel –
no school surrounding –
watches you scroll past
pictures of my naked figure
with newly acquired tan lines

I am shallow water:
feel comforted knowing
you can wade in up to your knees
and not get in
too deep.

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.

hands
clasp
grasp
yours, mine or a stranger's
line of life, line of head, line of heart
it is said that the hand is the map, and the heart is the guide
but how come whenever it is that you hold my hand you also hold my heart?
(in your hands)
feeling the strength of your hold
on my heart
and my hands
letting go
of my heart
but please,
not my hands
I need to keep that clasp
and grasp
and hold I have on you
I need to feel your roughness
and clamminess
and softness
between my fingers
yours fit so perfectly
what if I never find another fit?
what if the next fingers are too short, too long, too bristly, too smooth?
I only remember yours
and what if their lines tell too different a story?
what if they crossed an ocean to find me,
or have never picked up a knife,
or have never lost themselves in another?
and I am left holding my own hands
too familiar
when all I yearn for are yours
I should have never let go of yours
even that one morning when you said it was too cold to hold mine
I should have locked yours between mine and assured you that I would make you warm
now I am grabbing for something in the dark,
a phantom limb; your hands
I wish I had clawed up your wrist to your elbow to your shoulder to your neck
and held on
because my hands are empty
nothing I hold bears weight
nothing I touch, feels
nothing I stroke shudders
nothing I scrape bleeds
my hands hold nothing
my lines of mind, head and heart have blurred
I can feel the reverb of my heart's beat as it left my hands and fell into yours
they are bony and frail and stained and drained of colour
what do I do with my hands?

top 5 things I miss about you:

1) the sunburn on the back of your legs
    the
    way you flinched at the touch of aloe;
    peeling off your skin
    layer by layer

2) dancing high in your room to Pulp Fiction;
     trying desperately not to wake your parents,
     standing in your
     driveway as minutes feel like hours

3) our horrific inability to take
    a single good photobooth picture

4) driving
    driving home from the beach,
    sand
    coating your mats
    sitting in cars writing poems,
    while you wrench tires underneath me
    pulling into parking garages to photograph
    torn stockings against the car’s blue
    exterior
    your hand on my thigh driving back from Ludlow,
    as I am fast asleep
    breaking your backseat as I ****** myself into you
    you naming it after me

5) your drunken texts;
    your colloquial musings at 3 a.m.
    your
    professions,
    your proclamations
    waking up your grounded words,
    despite your swaying body.
  
    I long for your surprise pronouncements
    while I sleep alone 551 kilometers away.

how I fall in love:
unexpectedly and uncertainly
usually under the guide of wine or whiskey, depending on my mood
drowning in a blur of voices and bursts of bright lights
an aura surrounds you; something jumps out at me
tattoos, or a woollen hat
a remark is made,
obvious or otherwise,
about your person
I can’t really see you clearly but I can tell who you are
your eyes are bright
rimmed with red, just like the amber Jameson you’ve downed
but they shine
you shine
I fall backwards into the ocean that are your eyes
I am smiling
when you hold me, I m e l t,
blend into you
I feel stable and erratic all at once
afraid to disappear completely into you
but wanting so much to
your arms are warm, humble and all-encompassing
you hold me
my tongue finds your both inside your mouth and out
it freely expresses how much I need
for once, we are speaking the same language
of patience and comfort and ease
and although I feel free and easy
inside, I race
my heart and thoughts
am I in love with you because you are in love with me?
afraid to
wait,
to give in to your attention to detail to the shape of my body moulded against yours
to the unease and confusion that plagues my mind
to the baggage I am carrying on all my limbs as I am lifted into your arms
to me and what I want
I can’t give you everything just yet
there’s a lock on what I will save until the perfect moment:
when we are laying in bed
yours or mind, no difference
and that secret or feeling or thought is pulsating, vibrating, screaming to be said
and because you are warm
and bright
and a knight of valour
I will say it
all of it
and I will fall backwards into the ocean that are your eyes
and allow myself to be saved from drowning by you.

“the beauty of life as seen and created by a person.”

we draw shapes in

steam on each other’s backs

worthwhile chatter and brave silences between us
our home is wood-paneled and

rehabilitated

tell me you love me in the kitchen
between hot breath and under salt water moons
pull exoskeleton from steamed baths and sunshine beds
sleep soundly on chests;

your moon and mine are the same, the same sky

I long to
crawl and lie in the hollow between
your shoulder and collar bones

sew roses on your jacket

I’d pluck out all my eyelashes so all my wishes
were yours

slide under my word covered sheets
hear my thoughts as you duck under them
of all the songs I’ve heard, yours is the most tantalising
even in a snow covered maze I’d find you

heaven is coming home to you at my table with a cup of coffee.

In this world I am taught that if I am weak no one will love me
That if I search for it, it may or may not find me
Love, or otherwise
I am taught that to speak loudly or roughly or brashly is unladylike
I must cross my legs and keep my mouth shut
In this world I am told that when I turn sideways I should disappear
That a pile of flesh beyond my hip bones is too fat
That if my bones don't pull against my skin and show I'm not fit
I feel like in this world I have to sleep with anyone who offers just to be touched
To rely on everyone possible because I'm scared to be alone
To say everything, spill it all, to avoid missing a connection
I feel in this world that my brain is too big for my body
My thoughts are lead weights, pushing
That even when silent there is too much noise
and if I wrote down every thought I had, the book would be too long for anyone to read in a lifetime
I wish I could take a flame to every thought, every person, every place that haunted me
enchanting and blessing my brain with a new scent,
a new thought to replace the toxic one
most of these thoughts repeated mean the same thing the second time as they do the first
like on rotation; a rotary
"what can I think of now?"
must keep her occupied
nothing must be blank
think e v e r y t h i n g through
once, twice, three, maybe four times
continue to analyze and dissect and ****
until it is a slab of meat with slices, cuts and bruises over it all
and yes, I meditate
and yes, I breathe
and yes, I gaze
but that does not mean that behind every moment are those thoughts
"what did he mean by 'no feelings'?"
"how can I afford all this?"
"what do I do when I get over there?"
permeating
like black gloves reach from nowhere
take me out of one moment
brilliant and strong and vibrant
and drag me into another so sordid
and destructive
and bleak
back into my head
to the continual rotary of destruction
again and again
"you are not thin enough"
"he won't love you, you're damaged"
"she doesn't like you because you're a *****"
knives and swords
how can  a skull withhold all these punctures?
how can a soul, either?

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.

Lights are on,
off,
inside and out,
shattered and steel,
sturdy and delicate,
like you and me,
flowing past our eyes as we drive through a tunnel,
as we walk along Yonge and Dundas,
Christmas lights; your favourites,
green and red,
lights that make you want to go out of your way to see
lights that you would be late for work for
lights that shine on this time of us,
this new development,
the next step in this ladder which is built of solid wood
solid,
sturdy,
structured,
able to hold an enormous weight
it pushes down my spine into my sacrum,
it's like all of you is pressing on me,
into me,
and I want it,
not the weight of your body but the weight of your want for me,
need for me,
don't you feel that weight?
it sits on me and it says
"this is what you want,
don't run away,
too long you have tried to run"
but wait
here I am:
in your bed,
my legs tangled with yours,
my lips close to yours,
my heart racing,
and when you kissed me I said
"this is it.
this is right.
I am safe,
I am where I'm supposed to be.
With you."

if I could be any one of your body parts I’d

be your fingertips.
when you break my gaze on screen, I yearn for it like

a lost child.
keep pushing others out of the way at aquariums so I can
touch the stingrays

and nudge my calves with your nose when you
want to be brushed

I promise to always remember where your car is parked,

if you let me keep that photo of you as a young pilot
in my pocket

in public spaces, we fill the

air between us with supernovas.
you are Sirius
you are the lobster
you are the look across the room at a party;

feel my phantom hands on your shoulders
I’ll crawl into the nape of your neck and make a home

plaster myself across your skin so you can find me

in the grooves of your hands
I’ll sew my words into your sheets so you will never be without them

promise me you’ll comb out your tangled hair if it gets too much

and wait for me by the Whitney
as I walk 341 miles for you.

gnawing

at my lapel, you beg for me to stay

you push me further onto the pavement on Lexington
and your hot breath

glistens on my neck.
“you’ve changed,” I say,
as your eyes lose colour and hair sprouts behind your eyes

I used to sit on your chest and
paint your body with my favourite

colour
and you would carry me on your back
so my feet wouldn’t be wet when it rained

but since the full moon
you hover above me while I sleep
and your hairy

hands feel foreign on my body

and here, on Lexington, my new silk dress is ruined

no more thrashing
no more howling
no more public indecency on 29th and 9th

“you’ve changed,” I say,
as I heave you off me
and grab my bag off the floor

I always feared when I was young

that my blue veins would bulge out of my hands

like yours
they are now deft with our flesh
you prop us up,

tchotchkes on a shelf
talk of your impending spring funeral,
peonies and tulips

take off
“***** donor” on your health card
because they’ve already been given to us

at seven in North York you
danced to Elton John by the front window,
ducking at the sight of headlights

I can avoid you like
rush hour traffic if it would save you
the trouble

I want you to consume me as I do you
put me in your mouth
chew me up
swallow me to be absorbed in your system
because you have been drained of me

the smell of cooked meat is
too strong in my nostrils to ignore
the sizzle of oil in the pan is
your fingers running across my stomach
the steam from that *** is
the way my heart flurries when you look at me
I can’t consume anything
because I want to consume you

and you can control the temperature of the pan
and you can check the doneness of the meat
and you can whisk the homemade gravy until it thickens
but can you find me hidden in your meal?

we marry together
like pork and apples
like steak and potatoes
like crepes and dulce de leche
but my shell is cracking
and my form is melting
and my alcohol is evaporating
I am being sautéed, julienned and sous-vided by you
I am losing my flavour

do you promise your pigs you won’t hurt them
before you carve the meat off their bones?
I don’t wish to be hung in a cellar with all the other carcasses you’ve left
hanging by a hook and swinging,
the blood draining from their bodies

I can’t cook
but I would cook you:
reheat your stock,
and rehydrate your fruit,
and flash fry your heart
so your colour returned
and you were mine,
on my plate,
at my table,
holding my hand,
and I could consume the only thing I want:
you
yes, chef
you.

you look purest in blue light
I sway constantly between self-assured

and broken hearted

every question I’ve had covers my walls
your answers arrows
tied with affirmation

I’ll fill a room with photographs of us when I tell you I love you
catalog every expression
why am I calloused and you so smooth?

promise me you’ll fly me to the moon
I’ll hand paint golden flecks in your eyes

will you maneuver a tweezer through my pink matter –
**** out the burrs?

slide your hand on my thigh
while we drive into Brooklyn

I’ll push myself off screen when the fear takes over

pull me in
wrap me
I am yours

you

tried on my suit that night to
“see

how much space you took up” in it
your yellow dress looked like a hazard in the

moonlight.
turn head once, twice
your slight hands, like china,
foreign now.
In January, you tasted like cinnamon.
Now, in

August you taste like wheat.

You fold my sweaters like packages
and always offer to peel my oranges.

To you, attacks and bombs have rendered me incapable.

My mind is your Brillo pad,
and like my suit -
overwhelmed and ill-fitting -
I don’t see you in it.

I feel like a field of land mines are going off in my chest
like a poison has strategically been injected into my veins and my heart is struggling to beat
all I see are splotches of grey and black appearing on my lungs; an X-ray laced with bad news
a wash of thick and viscous sludge poured into and onto my body,
the struggle to push past the gunk
a pile of questions and answers and thoughts and concerns growing exponentially until I
ultimately
e x p l o d e from stress
I sit silently at this desk for a table and hear scattered conversations about dream kicking and the Super Bowl and acting like a zombie
but inside my head are bees creating so much noise I can feel it behind my eyes
and I am checking in with myself,
my outer body telling my inner mind
you are fine
who cares? it's better to sleep alone
who cares? you are working on this one piece
who cares? you can wear your hair however you want
but also I'm coaching myself to breathe, as if I've never learned
one  inhale one  exhale
two  inhale two exhale
three
clear it all
wipe it clean like discarding snow and ice from my mind's windshield
I have never wanted more than to think about nothing at all
to be clear and free of all thoughts
all this noise
whatever happened to silence?
white noise would be preferable at this moment
truthfully,
I would rather be floating in water
the sun shining past my closed eyes and shedding light into my brain
and I am just filled with this l i g h t n e s s that is completely inexplicable and yet so distinct at the same time
as if my outer body is floating beside me
brushing my hand with hers and saying
isn't this just wonderful?
you are f l o a t i n g between reality and fantasy
without a single care
isn't it wonderful?
and it is.

a folding table bearing Super-8’s
sits outside as we leave lunch

pressing viewfinder to your algaeic eye,
you aim it at the sky,

at the soles of your feet,

at the dishevelled seller

but never
at

me.

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.

that summer I tasted music for the first time
I loved a boy who said my knees knocked together like

commuters during rush hour
in his eyes were waves against Barceloneta
and

he slid lyrics in between my ribs at every traffic light

when we made love I saw sound
and

his breath coated me

like varnish

I dreamt I lost him between books at the Rylands;
sliding in and out between hardcovers
I found him soaking

in a clawfoot
masked in steam, coaxing me to slide in

there is a bustle of him in the square,
gradient beard and all

I visit it when we’re apart

despite the stone,
I feel his warmth

light
this light casts a shadow on me,
one side,
one half,
but I am trapped between the light and the darkness,
this penumbra
a shadow draping itself across my cheek,
cloaking my left arm
and covering my hips
this shadow of the past
from yesterday, last week, last month and beyond
it is so warm and inviting
I feel safe in this cloak of my past
all that has happened up until now
the moment the colour rushed to my cheeks when I saw you
and when I was drained of my blood completely, when I saw you
(with her)
when every meal I ate was a plateful of screws and nuts and bolts and slowly my energy escaped from my shell of a body
when I was pinned up against a wall and swords were thrown at my body by my best companion,
my soul mate,
this blanket of darkness pulls me further back,
it grows arms and legs and claws and grips and seizes me
but I see this light,
this aura,
it is unclear of its shape but I see flashes of myself in the future
in a city where no one knows my name
but where I have found myself
surrounded by faces new and old,
who have lifted me above their heads and are passing me along, in a crowd
until I see you,
whoever you are,
you are so opaque
but I can see your smile from this darkness
and beside you, whoever you are,
stands me:
buoyant, vibrant, clear, strong
my head no longer swivels on my shoulders but is ******* on tight
and my eyes are fixed on one point and breathe life into whatever they are fixated on
I look so sure of myself,
I look like me
and this light brushes my right hand,
and my right temple,
and my right thigh
stroking me gently,
summoning me
she is so vivid and kind
but this darkness,
he is so strong and rough
I have been back to the umbra many times,
****** back into the blackness until the light disappears
it is the only home I’ve known and where my mind wants to go
but this light is so new,
I can stand in front of her,
move into the antumbra,
move in front of the darkness, escape the grasp and shower myself in her
in this new me,
who I want to be,
the struggle persists,
he is my serpent in the garden of Eden,
the Jekyll to my Hyde,
the strongest bottle of absinthe,
and so I am stuck
in this penumbra
shadow clutching; light washing
and I must turn my gaze inward and decide:
which force will I allow to win?
which force will rule me from now on?

based on the painting “Prince Pig and The Second Sister” by Paula Rego

my hooves meant nothing

to her. She sat in my lap and stroked my chest
as if she was the

prince. It took everything in her power to reassure me
that I wouldn’t be slaughtered in the morning, but she looked
past me – an empty

gaze. Come dinnertime tomorrow I would sit on a platter and
she would feed off of me with an apple stuffed in my mouth
and a knife in

my shoulder. On some level, I cannot blame her – her hair is
caught between my hooves when we make love, and my grunting
keeps her up at night. She is worthy of soft fur

and slender fingers. I am desired, but only until I am fat enough to eat.
Her legs tighten on my hips but she is cold, like the chamber where
my blood will drain.

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.

Ribs close
breathe
heave
and between the spaces lie pieces of others,
memories you cling on to and never wish to let float away for fear that you will never find them with another
that these memories will be the last you have of this nature with this person who knows your ribs,
can feel their fragility and light weight,
who sees the cracks that others have caused and wants nothing more than to crawl in between your heart and make a home, safe, where you know you can always go
but over time they become restless and struggle to break out of the cage,
they have willingly pushed themselves in the cage but now,
oh now, suddenly,
they want out
and they push past your lungs and puncture them
and bruise your heart on the way out until they
lift out of you, squeeze out, breathe someone else’s air
and for a long time you are crumpled on the floor,
a mass of bones and muscle that don’t connect,
that are no longer one but are just a heap of sadness and guilt and pity
and people walk by your bones and kick them and trample them and get dirt on your muscles and spit on your organs and laugh at your disconnected, dismembered body because
they have picked up their bones and muscle or maybe,
if they were really lucky,
they never had to
they could stay together and breathe in each other’s air and have another person live beneath their skin and inhabit their thoughts and be the main feature of their dreams and the hero of their nightmares
but you are not them
you are
bones and muscle and ***** and
discarded, scattered thoughts on the floor who gasps for air and begs for structure and yearns for fusion of her being together,
wants nothing more than to return to being one, to become a solid again
because why should one person push their way out
and walk on two feet
and kiss girls
and wear banana hammocks
and dye their hair red and blonde and brown
and then somehow, so slowly and so unexpectedly and so amicably and so generously
slice back into your skin until it almost smells like him again
until it oozes with his promises
and his words
and his laughter
and his voice
and its almost as if even when apart,
in separate beds, on different sheets,
you are together
and you feel his skin on yours and you can feel yourself
slowly
but then all at once
melting into him
fading back into his breath
fading into his hands
you place every word into his palms with the promise to hold them like eggshells,
“don’t break them”
and he sets his thoughts into your scrambled mind,
words he’d never utter out loud any other time except now, with you
and
does he miss you like you’ve missed him?
he says he’s lonely but he doesn’t realize you’ve never had anyone between your sheets
or
in your bathroom
or
in your kitchen
but you have inhabited those spaces in his
it might be a different place now,
a new air and smell
but he has probably had her there,
not you,
her,
and you think all of the time of what it is –
full of garbage and clothes and his guitar and exactly $100 worth of groceries
and you want to inhabit that space so badly it consumes you
you want to rub your smell all over so no matter where he is, he will think of you
and you want to lie in his bed with no clothes on and just make him stare at you,
watch you
and you want to write notes and place them in unexpected places
like in his couch
and
underneath his sink
or in his leather jacket
notes that say:
“you inhabit me”
and
“I dreamt of you last night”
and
“I love you my first love I love you I love you I love you”
repeated
and he will find them when you are not there,
maybe not in the near future,
maybe months from now he will see the repetition
and it will rattle his brain
and he will wonder why he ever pushed,
prodded,
and pulled his way out of you
and into the arms of another