A different kind of meditation.

Drinking black ink into black pores.

A way of settling the score,
with oneself.

A shadow of doubt,
for whim or for clout,
leeching and dripping from the rusty spout.

Through pain and through triumph,
head beating, heart bleating.

When can we do this again?

It's not like I can hide under the toadstool.

I never became cool, became hip.

But I'm nothing like my replacement.

Changing jobs, changing guys.

Changing who I can rely
on.

Today was weird.
Today was out of body.

Out of mind
out of spirit.

Am I a little daddies girl for **

Or am I
the one you can
find on

google.

The answer is neither.

See you later.
See you never.

They told me my work would be burnt to the crisp.

And yet here it is on the internet.

Like a drop of sun,
on my tongue.

Change blisters like
scorching summers.

Different seasons,
different lovers.

Missing our kin,
missing our mothers.

Under the weather,
under the covers.

Sleet black tears,
****** sheets,
ringing ears.

But we've gotten over
our biggest fears.

I see you silent raver,
quaint in the night.

I hear you secret lover,
out of mind out of sight.

Bathe in darkness, reign in light.

//

I am no longer among the fallen.

I think I must have writers block.

Because I can't even talk clearly.

There are no words in my mouth. They don't drip from my tongue the way they used too.

Everything is always so cloudy.

And I feel like I like it that way.

A cloudy mind doesn't have time to cry.

A cloudy mind doesn't have time to feel.

Except for when I do.

When I break down,

shaking.

My love wraps her arms around me,
comforts me.

And yet I still feel like a failure.

Drowning sailor.

I need a new sense of clarity.    

Breaking down can feel like

The depths of the pool,
A silence unlike others.
Strange faint echoing.
Feeling limitless, weightless.
Savoring, then ascending.

Sweet Summer time breeze
It's been a rainy season
I'm not complaining
The droplets on the windows
Remind me of better days

I miss driving with you.

Cruising down summer roads,
any roads
music up.

You ask me to
play you music that
I used to play when driving.

But I can't remember
any of those songs.

I miss the feeling,
the feeling of the steering wheel
beneath my wrists.

Miss the sounds and smells
Miss the feeling of being carefree.

We need a car of our own.
So I can drive you around
again.

My drivers license is sitting unused
after years of abuse.

I want to be your driver,
be your chariot.

There was something so sweet
about the in between moments.

Something I thought only I noticed.

But she noticed too.
In her minds eye.

She sees me see her,
hand on thigh.

I just want to drive her again.
I want to buy her a Mercedes Benz.

Just to chase those moments.

The ones in between.

Between home and destination.
Between heart and palpation.

Words are,

words are personal and stupid

all at the same time.

The only way I can say anything to you is

annugh nee nee gannufgh fgha

Just kidding.

I made that language up.

"Can you please stay until he leaves?"

I slip the note to you across the counter.

You, take one look at the man, crumple the note and nod, stuffing the evidence into your pocket.

Me, loose lips and sweaty palms.
Shifty eyes on the guy who will not leave.

You, make yourself comfortable,
take up space.

You are loud.

You make the man feel unwelcome.

He leaves,

I breathe,

you come up to me.

"What the hell was that?"

Me
in tears,
not in tears.

Shaking with fear,
fighting for breath.

"He makes me really uncomfortable. He has said things to me that are, disgusting..."

You ask why I still let him in.

I tell you that my boss doesn't get it..

because..
because..

"Because he's a dude."  you say.

"Because he's a dude."

You look me in the eye and tell me that you would never let anything happen to me, that your husband is in the car outside and it would have gotten serious if it needed too.

We have an unspoken bond now.

Her and I.

Thank you.

Drops of depth

Morning breath.

I am becoming more meat than bone.

Sleeping woman, sleeping lover,

beside me, my home.

Simple lover, simply sleeping
I missed the last lunar eclipse.

You've been mine forever now,
and I have proof in pics.

Tiny moons on the floor,
We never fight nor need the door.

Tiny baby
tiny moon
All I ever need is you.

Blankets
Pillows
Our fat cat.

Goodnight moon this is the sun,
good night moon you are the one.

These sights
these sounds,

bittersweet on my tongue.

Acid reflux afternoons.
Stomach bile mornings.

Wasted nights,
wasting away.

Vomiting for
vomits sake.

Dehydration nation.

Please don't tell my mom.

plastic capsules
plastic manuals
plastic life

my tongue shifts,
fights
words once said

thoughts once uttered
head in the
gutter

I am an anomaly

bone teeth barren grin
paper spiders
paper skin

open window
open kin

Let them out,
see them in.

Tiny words fight against
clasped lips.

Bruised hips and
cosmic oxygen.

When life is a sin,
it's worth living in,
worth waiting for
the horizon.

So bring me the sun,
bring me my gun,
bring me gin.

Give me false grins,
and
false positives.

Tip back the flask but all you taste
is hot hose water.

Cold water turned warm by the August summer sun.

In a world of dreamers,
are you awake or asleep?

In a realm of promises,
which do you keep?

In a land of tomorrows,
when does he beseech?

Within thoughts of conclusion,
does she retreat?

In the be all end all,
why does she screech.

I think we're all dead now,
we weep
we
weep.

We're getting older.
Like the loons call from the lake.
A sense of sadness.

Darkness after light.

Cold passageways
and roads
I used to roam.

Streets I once lived on,
constant drone.

I hear the
pacing, pacing, pacing.

I am not alone.

I look past the screen
above the tunnel.

Someone is there.

Why oh why did I get high
before coming down here.

Coming down here to the silence.

I never understood the term
"silence is deafening"

until I started waiting for lonely trains
in lonely subway stations.

I used to live around here.
And yet
it feels foreign.

The cold rushing in
from the outside.

If I need to I could run.

Bike in hand,
up the stairs.

I hear the sound of the train coming now,
see the lights
enveloping that dark tunnel.

I'll be safe now.

Once I find a seat.


Commuting.

It's just something that's been nipping at me.

For a few years.

I think experimenting is normal.

All I mean by it, is that I would love for you to refer to me as a someone.
as a fairy
as a gem
as a them.

But I am also okay with being
perceived as
a female.

I love my **** and body.

But if you were to call me a they and then a them,

just know it sparks a certain amount of joy.

She/Them

I like it when people pat themselves down
to make sure they have
all of their belongings before they leave.

It's even better
when they mutter the words
out loud
to themselves.

Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, and Watch.


I like it when people's faces light up
when they are waiting for a friend,
and finally spot them.

I like it when people get startled
and apologize for it.
Like their fear may have
inconvenienced you.

I like when people look around
and make eye contact with strangers
when the subway slows down
or stops unexpectedly.

I like it when a large group of people witness something strange,
so strange
that they are forced
to talk about it
with people they may never see again.

I like it when somebody drops something,
and a stranger chases after them to return it,
even if it's just a mitten.

I like it when someone asks for a light
from a stranger, and they get one.
Even better if the stranger
lights their smoke
for them.

I like it when people ask for directions,
and the person giving them
uses large hand gestures.

I like it when crossing guards
protect grown adults.

I like seeing a couple during their honey moon phase.
All over each other and a little bit
inappropriate.

I like ti when babies make eye contact with you
as they pass by on their parents back.

I Like when several people stop
to admire a cute dog.

I like it when pedestrians
are nearly hit by a careless driver,
and all stop to talk **** about them
for a moment.

I like it when people casually
sing, hum, or whistle.

I like it when several people
have to gather around a small device
because they all want to see what's happening
together.  

I like seeing children I don't know
trudging home
in the snow
with toboggans,
rosy cheeked
and daydreaming of hot chocolate.

I like catching someone taking a selfie.

I like it when people open their palms to check if it's raining,
even though they can probably see that it is.

I like seeing people reading on the train.

I don't know.

Human's can be cute.

We couldn't be,
because she knew
I loved her.

I wish I knew why
that was wrong.

I can't be with you
because
I know you love me.

I remember her
face when I shut the door.

The way she bit her tongue
and called her mother
to drive me home.

They dropped me off in the rain,
when the pain
was just setting in.

I don't think I've ever been the same
since.

She knew
I loved her,
and yet she still
let me in.

She ****** on my heart
She played pretend.

"I can't be with you because I know you're in love with me."

She's a ghost to me now,
and that's why it still hurts.

I didn't do anything to her.

I just loved her,
and that's what I told her
the last time we spoke.

I wish this were a joke but.

It still hurts.

H if you're out there.

Please.

Give me the time
to at least,

Say

Something.

Like a river,
time can flow.

It can be stagnant.  

Mid morning nightmares for breakfast.

Some bad coffee,
from some bad place.

I face the day
like I face
my reflection.

Hesitantly,  
with teeth barring.

Lips curled,
into a suggestive
smile.

Stagnent,

like a swamp.

Of some forgotten tomorrow, over

yonder.

At least I remember the sweet song of the mourning dove.

the

Morning,

Dove.

I guess,
instead of anger
I feel sadness.

I guess,
that is apart
of growing up.  

Memories slip between cotton sheets, plaid underwear.

Voices seep between thin walls, thin thighs.

School bus rides.

The ones on the way to a field trip.

Belly's flip, sun kissed.

Sitting in the back of the bus just to feel it, to feel the...

I don't know who I am anymore.

Memories passed like green grass

green screen, green memory
greened out.

Fade to black,
or so she thought.

So she said.

Maybe it's all in my head,
maybe it's a nursery rhyme,
a rhyme or a reason,

maybe I'm late, maybe it's the wrong season.

Some days I want to look femme, and cute, and pretty.

Other days I want to look as masc as possible. Hard, tough, scary.

And then there are some days
in between,
where I guess I feel
most like myself.

I am learning to accept
and love all aspects of myself.

And to not hyper fixate
on my gender expression.

Some days are easier than others.

Some days I go to work in a skirt
and halfway through I feel
incredibly uncomfortable.

But other days
I feel ****.

Some days I got to work
in basketball shorts and a T-Shirt
and feel relaxed and hot

but then halfway through
I feel messy and underdressed.

I think it's my in between days
that I feel the most myself.

Little Pants, Big Top.

Big Pants, Little Top.

Big Pants, Big Top.

Little Pants, Little Top.

We went for a ride
the other day.

And something within me
woke up.

Maybe it was the wind in my face,
the hot sun beaming down on me,
or my hair cascading across my back.

Or perhaps the sound of the cicadas
singing in the trees.

I have a tattoo of a cicada on my neck,
and nursed a dying one back to flight the other day.

It was the way we took one turn
and all the sounds of the city
were cut off.

There was silence,
and there was peace.

It was the way my heart fluttered
when we stumbled upon an old park.

I asked her to ride the see-saw.
I hadn't been on a see-saw since I was 11.

We only went up and down a few times
before deciding not to test our luck
any further.

We picked up lunch at a supermarket
and ate it in the grass.

I had to swat away ants,
and those tiny red spiders
that look like laser pointers.

I decided to start romanticizing my own life a few days ago.

It's going well.

My little sister has a boyfriend but she told me that she doesn't know what love is.

Has never felt it, and wonders what it's like.

I laughed.

But what I wish I had said was;

Love feels like falling.

But in a good way.

Love feels like your entire body is on fire, a live wire. It feels like you're on top of the world.

Love is magic. And it feels like a blanket fresh out the dryer draped over your shoulders on a cold winter night.

Love feels like a long sip of ice cold water after winning a race.

Love feels like your favourite band singing on stage.

Love is love, and love will do.

Love is important, love is true.

My sister is straight so there is only so much advice I can give her.

Dating straight men, god what a trigger.

The only time I dated a man,
I was not in love,
I was just passing time.

When you fall for a woman,
it knocks down walls.

When you fall for a woman,
it's either nothing or all.

I can't believe the girl in red beat me to it.
But maybe that's for the best.

I have never been so targeted by a song.

Oh wait I have.

Vampire Weekend's Hannah Hunt

And GIrl In Red's I wanna be Your Girlfriend.

Why do we all have a girl named Hannah.

One of the last conversations I had with her, she told me that she might be bi. But that it didn't matter.

She told me girls were softer.

Despite the fact that I am happily engaged.

I'll forever be hurt by that *****.

I don't want to be her friend I wanna be her *****.

I wonder if when she listens to this song she thinks of me.

I once spent 50 cents for
a box of a dozen used
white
candles.

I saw a new use in them.

They were from a garage sale,
up the street.

I burned those candles
for years.

Baby witch things.

I wish I would stumble across
a dozen white candles
for 50 cents now.

I again have use.

I've been unpacking old things and I found a letter I had written to you.

Most likely the last letter I ever
wrote to you.

It was tucked in between newspapers
and clippings of some of the writing I had done
over time.

Even though it's been almost ten years,
reading those words
and seeing how gutted I was
by what you did then

makes me feel those feelings all over again.

This is why it's so hard
to look back on my old writings.

or really,

anything I've ever written before.

After reading the 3 page letter I had written to you,

and noticing that it was

tear stained,
written in two different types of pen,
and folded several times

it proves

I had read and re-read it several times
before ultimately deciding
to never give it to you

I realized I never want to be that sad again.

When I searched you on instagram,
I could see that I am still blocked.

Only a small picture of what you look like now,
a window into the unknown.

I tucked the unsent letter into my scrapbook of you.

A scrapbook I'm not even sure I want to hold onto any more.

But I do.

Because I still remember the smell of your breast.
Your hair.

The feeling of your eyes on me.

You forgot it so easily.

Moving on is impossible.

Forgetting is something I hope for.

But I wont.

You will always be my could have been muse.

Even though I am no longer in love with you.

Why does every moment with her
burn
holes in my heart

but

allow light to seep through
till I see the stars .

Shine through my eyes.
Shine through my soul.

This is the art of not letting go.

I look past the truth
for the lies that I crave.

Twisting and changing
never ending rage.

My mind sees bike ride and grassy fields.

It started with knees and it ended in pleads.

"Stay."

I've never quite fit anywhere.

Like those japanese games shows where they have to bend their bodies to make it through to the next round.

There was no next round for me.

I am neither black or white.

Neither Trinidadian or Polish.

According to my family and friends.

Apparently I don't belong anywhere but the arms of my lover.

Only there does it make sense.

We are designing our own flag.

One for mixed lesbians.

I think I can wave that one proudly.

Shifting thoughts like melodies,
songs we once sang in choir.

As happy as a bee returning to her nest,
to her queen.

My heart thumps to the beat of it's own drum.

It remembers,
it breathes,
it renews.

Knowing that I was in" love" with her.

And knowing now
and truly
being in love with Vanessa.

It makes sense to me now.

How the heart can expand and change.

I will always have love for her. The girl I fell in love with ten years ago.

But now I can cherish it. And look at it fondly.

While I gaze at my sleeping wife.

Her physique,
her peaceful face,
her beauty.

I think this must be the lesbian experience.

Blocks, cells, and blocks,

we are all cells.

In cells.

Cells of ourselves.

Cells of sides of someone
we thought we knew well.

I can hear conversations echoing
in the hallways of my hair,
or perhaps

It just coming from upstairs.

We can't see each other
but we can hear each other.

We can blow bubbles from the bottom floor
and know that they reach the top.

I can hear people telling their dogs to stop.
Telling children to stay back, and be careful.

All these sounds ringing.

Apartment quarantine.

Home life limousine.

Someone plays music for all to hear.

We stand on our balconies,

We applaud, we cheer.

From this tiny lonely life that we are all now living.

Remember the happiness, remember the giving.

I've been in love twice.

Once with permanence,
one with lice.

The lice was the worst to cure.

Every moment
of her,
shiny torture.

She hid out,
snuck around,
grated my mind.

Made me think that she was mine.

She lifted my bike
up over her head.

Our love almost blossomed,
but then it was dead.

Then I fell in love another time.

It snuck up behind me,
no reason no rhyme.

It made me who I am today.

But bottom line is,
I'm gay.
I am gay.

I have never been in a place that feels so much like home,
until the day that I looked into your eyes,
made you mine.

I smell things, feel things that I thought were long forgot
Ranges of emotions that were once long sought.

I didn't know that my senses could be controlled.

I didn't know happiness could be put on hold.

But I do know that when I walk down the hallway of my home,
and see, smell, and touch things that are my own.

Take in the scent of impending Spring.
Wonder what I did to deserve everything.

My eyes burn with happiness now,
the tears that fall are from wondering how.

This is a reflection.

Of time.

I can't believe that I was ever with a man.

I look back at the photos and i can't.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

That was a different person.

I look back at old photos of us and I just cringe.

I don't understand how I let him in.

It makes no sense to adult me,

I wish younger me could have seen.

That I am a lesbian.

A woman seeking women.

Why did I put myself through that whole undoing.

In love with a straight girl,
dating a straight male.

Mess.

All I know is that I don't cry anymore.
It still hurts my heart but I can ignore.

I once knew what sunshine was,
I now know what sunshine is.

The heart always wants
what the heart can't forgive.

And that is kind of
the beauty of it.

Once you know when to cross a line,
when to put on your boots
when to finally resign.

All else seems to make sense,
but that doesn't mean
you've fully
put up the fence.

Of boundaries,
of withdrawal.

You will never have it all.

You can miss her,
and miss her well.

But that will not do you well.

Because that wont change the past,
the memories relapsed.

Breathing in your scent.

Why did I take that for granted.

Because you smelt as sweet as a spring rose.
You smelled of poetry, of prose.

It was of second hand book shops,
it was getting you to notice me.
It was everything in between.
ye
I was in love with you,
I was starstruck, blue.
I was everything you wanted and more,
but I saw you to the door.

You were once the apple of my eye,

You made me see the sun shine bright.

I dedicated myself to you, my darling Rarity, through and through.

Is it possible to shift from love to hate.

The thought of you fills me with disgust.

In the tiny photos I see of you I feel anger.

I wish whole heatedly that I had never met you, never experienced that pain, that game.

Your game of lies, your game of sin.
Your game of fine for now,
but not the end.

I hate your stupid naked cat.
I hate that compared to yours,
my voice is flat.

I hate you,
I hate you.

Because you were a terrible friend.

I hate you,
I hate you...

Because it's never the end.
*
You made me seem like the crazy one.

Even though you were the one
leading me on.

I remember your father at 6 in the am,
he didn't care that we had just spent the entire night awake waiting

For you sister to go to sleep, at 5am in the morning,
...So that we could finally kiss, only to have sweet nothings.

These memories are real and that's why I put it down on paper.

I loved her deeply, it's stupid, I'm learning.

If I were to cross her path one day, I know for sure that I would say,

I miss you.

Body against body.
You smell amazing.

You smell like summer time and sadness.

The smell of you, is one I wish I could bottle.

In the middle of your ******* smelt the sweetest.
hThe sweetest scent I have ever smelled.

Do you remember yelling at the kids throwing litter from the bridge?

I remember everything about you.

Darling muse

Heartbroken fuse.

Your ******* smelt like sunshine.

I have all I want.
I've a woman and a cat.
That's all that I need.

Like the cicada,
I awaken once a year
to scream and then die.

Through a frosted window,
I may have seen your face.

Once,
about five years ago.

I still have the framed painting
you brought me from
Newfoundland.

You mentioned something about the landscape.

Signed with X's and O's.

It sits in the back of my closet,
and I make the excuse
that I need a nail.

But really, I just
don't have the

desire,

to look at it.

This will be the last thing I write about her.

The last poem that I put my head
into.

Because the storm is over,
I have gotten through the worst.

And now it is time to put a line through her.

Cross her off.

It's over.

I no longer see her in everyone I meet,
I no longer look for her in everyone new.

It's over.

I put a line in it.

A line through her face, she was just a phase.

Whatever.

A woman came in
and read me like a book.

Taking in each piece
of ink,
of scar,
of flesh,

that is stained.

She read me like a sapphic poem,
dissecting the inner meaning of;

each line,
each dollop,
each stroke.

She looked at me as if I were sheet music,

Deciphering
the vibrato,
the crescendos.

I bask in this newfound admiration.

Allowing her to peer into my soul,
and make sense of the marks
on my skin.

She loved a skeleton

flesh and bone, bone and flesh

she liked a skeletal version of me

with no hair.

But I loved her.

I loved her hair up and glasses on.

I tried to wear the earings she gave me

but they burn.

Between the glisten of tinsel,
the weight of the stocking.

Someone is crying,
and someone is knocking.

Mixed in with the raisins,
the cookies,
the milk.

One dressed in flannel
the other in silk.

Dressed in textiles and six feet under.

One
In the dirt.
And
One
Under the covers.

Tonight one child goes to sleep with hope.

And elsewhere a mother is trying to cope.

One is young, so fresh and alive.

One is grieving the death of their child.

So hug your loved ones close tonight.

Because somewhere,
someone
does not have
that right.

You can feel it in your throat.

Your Chest.

The feeling of wanting to scream,

but you can't

so you cry.

But I don't want to cry

because

I am strong.

I dream of the animal parade.

The one from the Teletubbies.

I dream of simple times.

When I would burn oil over a candle and it would smell like summer rain.

And it would smell like the first girl I loved.

Sometimes my own poems trigger a panic attack.

An attack from within.

It's because here,

time does not exist.

Nor does the vape,
the glass of wine,
the time.

Anxiety and panic attacks are trying to come for me.

I prevail.

I think what scares me the most is being forgotten.

But forgotten by her.

If she were to one day wake up and not recognize me,

I don't know if I would be able to go on.

Distant siren, singing her song.

Gentle lover,

what did I do wrong?

Silent muse,

touched and misused.

Gone,

forever girl.

Once my world.