When I was young, my life was like music that was always getting louder
Everything moved me
A mother with her child
That made me feel so much
A homeless person sitting on the sidewalk holding out a ***** cup for some spare change
I could have cried over it
I did
A calendar that displayed the wrong month
The way the moon followed me everywhere I went
How an unmade bed looked like home
Where the smoke coming from the house across the street disappeared into the sky
Frost on the window of my mother's car
How the earth tirelessly orbited around the sun
The way the city lights looked from afar
I have spent my entire life learning to feel less
Every single day I feel less
Is that growing old?
Or something worse?
I suppose you cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness
But how do you balance yourself between the two without forgetting how to feel altogether?

They sound like fire crackling
or cutlery scraping against a plate.

Yet silent and spinning;
a sigh swept from the chest.

Slow as a feather falls to a lake;
a kiss on the lips, a hand to the face.  

They sound like frost caught in the night,
like the static friction of your gloved hands.

Morning diamonds, damp with dew,
and trudging on in old heavy boots.

The sound of the world turning
is in the echo of each falling leaf.

Wavering, drifting until they come to the curb,
crisp and brittle and easy to break.

They sound of scarves and hats and gloves
in that constant fight for warmth.

But in the wind they sing, they’re alive,
the sound of whispers, the colour of fire.

I kept pretending
That I couldn't remember your name
So determined that you weren't
Worth the time of day
I guess it's a reflection
Of my own sorry self
Such pretentious invention
Of isolation's hell

forgetting you (us)
is like trying
to bury a legend

every time I write
it's like my fingers have to
dance around your memory
sweeping your substance
under my keys
not even an ounce
unearthing you
could so easily swallow me

the anonymity
of our crowded cafe glances
grows stale
sitting in my memory

forgive
my hesitation
the crack
of my rusted smile
the escape
of my gasp
It has been a while
I'd almost forgotten
how to laugh

I want to cut off the parts
of me
that remind me of you
I want a breath of
something
besides the cold hard truth
a drink of anything
to forget these bruises

your not so distant
memory
is so much more
than I bargained for

tell me how our story goes
(or went)
I'll keep pretending
that I could ever
forget

I stay clear of words that
sound too soon
questions that
will hurt too much to ask
I can **** down
a lifetime of
lies or *****
but I can't move on
while leaning on the past

How about
we explore
and expose
the underbelly
of our drunken tongues

I want to fall in love
with your ugly
and
forget why
once morning has begun

I won't take one more day
of being dulled down
to your level
Suppressing the rest of
what keeps me from hell
because your fragile grasp of power
is just that tangible

You say I stress on your spine
I know it's just that
my existence
escapes the boundaries
of your mind
when this exasperation
can't escape
when you so refuse all reason
I ache to break
the balmy surface of my skin
(in the end
I cannot win)

I know I owe you
for a life I never got to choose
for all these years
marked by faded bruises
though I love you
you've barely got
respect to lose