Thank you for turning 'I love you' into a feeling rather than just some lacklustre phrase occasionally thrown around in poetry.

I’m from vegetable gardens, pink lemonade and board games.

From tall, golden sunflowers blooming in the summer to soaked mittens resting on the radiator in the winter.

I’m from twinkling white lights arranged beautifully in the bushes surrounding the pool and from thinking that the Canada day fireworks were so incredibly magical.

I’m from my teddy bears and dolls cluttering the basement floor to fresh cut peonies sitting on the kitchen counter and filling the house with their familiar scent.

I’m from ‘elbows off the table’ and soft boiled eggs in little painted egg cups.

I’m from wondering what the hundreds of old books on the bookshelf could possibly be about and from watching Shirley Temple movies over and over again until I could recite nearly every word.

I’m from choreographing dances to classical music and preforming them in the backyard.

I’m from ‘goodnight’ and forced bedtime prayers.

I’m from Gudrun and John better known as Nanny and Poppy.

I lie awake with thoughts of you occupying my mind

And I know that dialing those ten familiar numbers would get you here in a matter of minutes because it’s only 2:04am and you rarely ever sleep before 3.

But I will forbid myself to pick up the phone

Because although I would love to feel safe and secure I know it will just make it harder in the end.

How can I be at home yet feeling so incredibly homesick?


I try again to remember blissful moments

Moments before things got complicated and stressful

Like when you traveled thousands of miles to meet my little brother.

Or when we danced at a country bar in a small town to music we didn’t even know and enjoyed the company of people twice our age.

Or memorizing each other’s orders at every café, breakfast bar and ice-cream shop we went to.


I try to remember occasions before the shadows of your past made constant appearance in your character,

And those very shadows caused the very arguments that broke the one thing I was sure couldn’t be broken.


Now it’s 2:12am and nothing’s changed,

Just another night spent obsessing over what used to be.


R.M.