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.

Trinkets upon trinkets upon cups upon glasses.

When I drive by that street I always go faster.

Another in Oakville makes me feel the same way.

About how I felt on that stupid day.

Kisses in sheets and wet rainy streets. She didn't hold my hand but she did call me sweet.

She claims that she isn't a lesbian. But you know her now and I knew her then.

Back then she was timid and giving me eyes.
Making her laugh and making her smile.

She said she'd never felt this way before.
Took off her ******* right when I closed the door.

She lied down and wind down like never before.
She opened her legs and then she asked for more.

She said that she loved me but then went away.
She found a man and said "hey is that okay."

She liked me, she didn't, she loved me, she quit it, she kind of ****** me but then said "**** oh ****."

****** tease straight girl will always **** with you.

She had, soft hands, she had big talk but when it happened, she chose  to get up and walk.

***** said I seduced her ***** thought that I used her but really she loved it and kept coming back to me. Yee.

Don't know where she's at, because the ***** blocked me. But at the rate that I dream of her I know she thinks of me.

They say don't get with straight girls but what the **** ay, it was worth it to this very day.

It was worth it.

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.

Being in love with you is like being on a see-saw.

It's not much fun to ride one unless you have someone to sit on the other side.

One is always up, and one is always down.

And that's just how it's meant to be.

You can try your hardest to be on equal levels of happiness,
knees shaking and smiles failing to either rise,
nor fall.

It's never going to be like that.

One is always up and one is always down.

Feet planted firmly in the ground.

And then for a few minutes you are soaring and
looking at your parter with
tears in your eyes.

Whether of happiness or sadness
that doesn't matter anymore.

Because regardless,
there is someone who loves you on the other side.
Matching you stride for stride.

Like swing-sets at sunset and monkey-bars.

I guess we all learned love at the playground.

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.

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.

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.

Are these the moments that I'll forget tomorrow.

Are these the memories
that will soon bring sorrow.

How do I know when,
I am in the good.

How do I know what I'll feel
a year from now.

It scares me,

as I'm going to bed.

Things will be gone.

Nothing is easy and nothing
is what it's been.

Are these the moments that get buried.

I dreamt of you last night.

Short hair and rosy cheeks.

But you still left me.

God, if that isn't a sign I don't know what is.

Even when I dream of you, you still leave.

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.

You were, you are.

Amazing.

And when I think about the bones of the past, the time lapsed.

Notes in lockers notes in hand.

I only joined the choir because you were in it.

Night bright star light, you ashes your scent.

The sunset.

The truth is I don't think of you,

don't think of old concepts.

Distant siren, singing her song.

Gentle lover,

what did I do wrong?

Silent muse,

touched and misused.

Gone,

forever girl.

Once my world.

I really don't know what to say,

other than the fact that I want to cut but this is a better outlet.

God.

I want it so bad. Why do I want to hurt?

My girl is asleep.

Why can't I focus on her.

Instead I have this burning desire to strike pain in my own veins.

I don't know if I'll make it tonight clean.

We will see.

Because I have been absorbing.

Reading novel, after novel.

And listening to the same music on repeat.

I don't know how I managed to switch into such a state.

I went from reading nothing to reading pages upon pages of Japanese fiction.

I feel like it has done me good.

I am almost ready to come out of the rabbit hole that is Murakami,
and find my own voice.

The concept is there,

I just need the resolution.

It's been going on like this for days, weeks, years.

I can't seem to bring out the best of me.

Although words broadcast like teleprompters I can't bring them to paper, and often can't remember.

What I said.

I used to be able to ***** out such wisdom with such ease.

These days I feel like I am mocking my own talent. If I even have any.

I am a poet but I can't write poems, I am a writer but I have never finished a story.

And I am sorry,

But I feel like a phony.

At least right now.

Is that normal?

What do you do when you miss someone who doesn't want to see you.

Who doesn't want to talk to you.

Who probably never thinks of you.

What do you do when you dream about them,
night after night,
and as a result,

can't stop thinking about them.

How's she's doing?

"It doesn't matter."

Can't stop thinking about
memories.

about the

could be's.
would be's,
should be's.

"She doesn't care."

And yet I still feel a sadness in my chest.

"You miss her."

I miss her.

"You just wish you could see her."

I just want to see her.

"Just once."

I miss her.

Is this the part about heartbreak they don't tell you about?

How sometimes, you actually don't get over it? Ever?

"You would have gotten over it, but you didn't get proper closure."

But it hurts.

"It hurts."

Why does it hurt?

"She was your friend, but you loved her. But she was your friend."

I think it will always hurt, just a little.

"That's okay."

But the dreams,

"They will pass."

But the feeling,

"It wont last."

It's the one that got away.

"She's the one that got away."

Seaside shorelines, borderline beginnings.

I think I know what I want.

Paths between fait and faith,
forgiveness, overbearing.

Like twists and turns of tides, riptides, or undertow,
You will probably never know.

Know where you are going.

Tomorrow is like looking through a kaleidoscope of different outcomes.

Be it triumph be it trump.

Be it failure, be it sunk.

It's all in how you see it,

I suppose.

I wish I could see properly.

I used to do
something horrible
to myself.

I am sure you have heard of
self harm.

I've been good for as long as I've met my wife.

But for the first time in a while I feel like
dragging that blade across my skin again.

I have used a marker to mark where I would like to hit.

And so far it is not working.

Why is sickness as deep as it is.
Why do I still feel like slicing me flesh to feel something.

I would say everything is terrible but it's not.

I think I might have just forgotten to take my meds for a few days.

When I get in this mood to write, and write, and write.

Why does it never feel right.

I feel like a writer devout of a soul.

I feel like a story that's already been told.

I feel like just another lesbian who was in love with a straight girl.
Even though we fooled around and I loved her when I first met her.

Obviously, that is all the past, but why do I feel so compressed as to only write poems about her?

It's not fair but ******* it her hair.
You weren't there.

Eyes of green and visits so rare.

I know what I felt and I know what I saw.

As nervous and young she was still in awe,

She told me I was beautiful and falling in love.
For me that was a blessing from a goddess above.

Of course she left me for a white man.

Little did I know she was just an experimental
white
girl.

There was one night when things were still bad,

Bad as in
I was still dating a man although I'm a lesbian,
and still not eating properly.

Or,

at all really.

We used to drink the hunger away.

Be it one dollar iced coffees, or a beer.

I knew how to fake it.

If I didn't get what I ordered, the gag reflex kicked in.

He didn't like that.

I shouted at him
that I have
an
eating disorder.

-

Things are better now
I've gained 50 pounds
and I look
healthy.

Except now my family is telling me to lose weight.

It's like I can't win.

I know it shouldn't bother me
but it does.

Would they rather me be on the cusp of death than have me with a pudgy tummy?

My mother told me to lose 20 pounds.

Doesn't she remember when I needed to gain them?

I thought she would be proud.

But,

whatever.

When I step on the scale I smile.

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

What do you do
when you become
one with your demons.

Once they've been there
for so long,
that you no longer fear them.

I'm sure at first it felt as if you were under attack,
or
imprisoned within the walls of this cell that we call our minds.

What happens when you start to get over it,
when you start to leave
that demon behind.

What happens
when you suddenly find yourself
associating your self
with it,

not knowing how to be yourself,
without it's prickling paws,
it's suction cupped claws.

Is this some kind of mental stockholm syndrome?

It must be.

Feeling like you can't face breakfast without your baggage.

I need to learn how to detach.

Scratches, scratches at the door,

where am I?

I know the bed, I know the floor.

But I have never been
here before.

I am trapped,
I am guarded.

My nails dig deep into the paint,
aesthetic disregarded.

Help.

Where is my family,

I am alone I am

Dying.

I haven't eaten for days,
it feels.

Oh wait,

My human came home.

She has pets and dinner.

Disregard what I just said.

In the theatre,

two years of knowing her.

I was in love,
I was in
love.

She was serious and so delirious,
She got good grades but couldn't tell that I was
crazy for her.

Crazy in love.

And then she started inviting me over,
house of cats and parent's leaving.
I though there may have been a reason.

It took almost five years, but we kissed. I kissed that mistress.

That untouchable soul, the guarded.

It wasn't until she sent me songs that boys sent her.

I only realized that in the future.

Dear H, See how strong your pull is?

It means nothing now.

Just sirens,
in the distance.

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.

Drifting off to sleep,

when rain falls like sheep.

Wait, are we sleeping or is it raining.

Caught between dreams, nothing seems,
seems real.

Have you ever been there?

Dreams are more than they seem, I am telling you
from
experience.

Eyes closed, mind faded until you're mind is open and your eyes are faded.

It's only then you have total control.

When I was young,

I had my hair done for me.

Ponytails, pigtails, whatever.

And then it being the '90's.

My hair was chopped off due to lice.

I cried, and cried. I was in the second grade.

"I look like my grandma..."

I thought.

Years go by of growing it out.

Boys used to pull on it,
as if
I were a
doorbell.

My hair was long but I did not know what to do with it.

I would spray it with foam, or spritz.

I did whatever I could to it.

I burnt it with a straightener.

I was even silly enough to use a curler on my already naturally curly hair.

Like I said,

I had no idea what I was doing.

Then I chopped it off.

Like it was nothing.

And I didn't care.

It's growing back now.

Almost to my *** which is what I wanted from the start.

Sometimes you have to lose before you gain.

Hair I mean.

Choking,

choking.

Never mind.

I'm okay...

The blue has turned to grey.

There isn't much more to say.

Do you remember those ****** skies.

Do you remember the hellos,
the goodbyes.

Do you remember  
being my first love,

Do you remember the face you made
when I told you the above.

We were smitten then you were gone,
We were right and then we were wrong.

Talent show,
pavement,
basement,
precipitation,

Questions, answers, after school choir,

Hand brush hand, you are a liar.

I know you and you loved me too.

Still I don't know what to do.

You asked me about Sam Mcgee, and how his cotton blooms and blows.

And when I said I wanted you, all you could do was let go.

I'll never forget you, cicada lover.

I'll always remember you.

First loves are hard.

The never really,

go away.

I tell too many stories.

I give away too many secrets.

My mind is mush, my mind is
mush.

I don't know how long,

how long.

But.

The cloud is big.

The weathermen have been killed.

I take these pills to try and reside
somewhere close to
here.

Sometimes I feel the end is near.

Years go by without warning,
I'm getting older,
I'm getting boring.

Dear someone save our souls.

We're powerless in this world.

There were a few.

Let me say some key words.

Mall, Down Fall of rain. One umbrella shoes off.

Totoro, I already loved you.

Lockers, notes,

I asked you to prom.

Talks of *** and talks of love.

I finally made my move.

Hand on your knee, you saw right through me.

Kisses after dark getting no sleep.

Goodbye, goodbye.

You found a man.

Goodbye, goodbye
why are you still in my bed.

Goodbye, goodbye hannah.

I'll probably never not have you on my mind.

First love, you.

Blankets by the stream, lunches outside.

I took your side against my best friend when you threw a banana peel.

Anyways. My dear. My could be best friend.

I still see you in my dreams and I guess thats enough for me.

I know her and I love her.

To the point that I dream about her and look for her.

Nothing feels right when she isn't there.

She is my everything she is my..

I can't go a day without talking to her.

We live in the same house and I could not imagine greeting anyone else in the morning.

She is the sun and the moon.

She is a sunday afternoon watching cartoons.

She is the love of my life.

She is everything and all of it she is my wife.

Being in love is like winning a game,

You feel so proud and you never feel the same.

You want to scream her name from high buildings.

She is my angel, she is my baby.

Foolishness
can only lead to
more foolishness.

You draw the card of the clown,
the card of the fool,
the jester.

Thinking about things that do not matter.

And dreaming of useless banter.

Fog in the windows,
isn't always romantic.

Hand on hand,
after school hugs,
dancing in rain,
flipping of thugs.

Anonymous locker love notes
you kept in a box,
driving past your house,
and always having to stop.

We rode in a horse drawn carriage
at this time of year.

Autumn will always be close to me,
and make me feel close to you.

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.

I have a lovely wife.

But I still write about her.

She was a true dinger.

There's whiskey in the jar.

Some people like to count how many women they mount.

But for me?

There's whiskey in the jar.

I've been in love two (2) times.

Once with a ***** and then with a beauty, the one in my nest.

I love my beauty but sadly I'll never forget the *****.

Don't lie,

She who must not be named.

(Her name was Hannah)

I would be confused
conflicted
confronted.

And I might kiss her.
Sorry.

Time knows no one, and no one knows time.

Empty streets, waxing and waving moon,
lovely moon.
Falling for you.

The smell of death.

Back of the cabin.

I burst through flames.

Wax and wave.

I am just a child.

I am blind I am blind folded.

Can anyone come, come...
Come to my rescure.

Before it's too late.

I walk these streets and I before I can fleet I need you to come,
come, come, come.

Oh Boy.

I don't know.

Come, come, come, come.

Boy, the boy is too young.

The boy is too
young.

When you are the stranger in someones house.

How can it posses you to touch what you do not know.

You have come into my house and been a stranger in my space.

Do you know not boundaries.

You are a curse in the form of a damsel.

Why did you touch me when I did not ask to be touched?

And then, when, confused and...

Who are you again?

I miss the familiar. The one who made me smile. A friend, a sister.

You are a heathen and I hate that

the next time I

open my bedroom door.

You might be there,

smiling and

maybe

waiting.

I used to be scared,

scared of everything.

Maybe it had something to do with being the first born child in a sheltered family.

I never saw anything raunchy until I was on my own.

So I didn't know.

I had to sleep with the lights on and a movie playing for years, for fear of something.

Something I never knew.

But these days,

after the death of a child, I've gone wild.

I want nothing but horror.

I want to gore, the mystery, the blood, the autopsy.

I was everything dark.

I've always thought that I was special.
that I am here for a reason.

I can feel something bubbling inside.

I can feel the ride.

Something wicked this way comes.

I write so I don't slice.
It keeps coming back to me.

That stupid demon that tells me to beckon a knife.
And to just make one small slice.

God I hate it.

One moment I am fine and the next moment I don't know whats come over me rhyme or reason but I wan't to take my blade.

And...

I don't know.

When I go to work my manager bought us box cutters.

And although they are convenient I avoid them.

And when he asked me why I just chuckled and sighed and said I don't know how to use them.

When the real reason was
every time I held one
I was
contemplating how deep they would cut.

Like the idiot I am, I sprained ******* on the side I most use to write.

Is this some paradox?

By the way if you get the chance could you do me a favour and define paradox for me?

****,

This is hard. I keep typing things I don

t mean too.

See what I mean?

It's strange how one single finger can change the entire way you do things/

The entire way you type.

It's getting to be too much trouble to try and fix the errors.

But I suppose that is how life is.

My finger keeps trying to move in directions it cant possibly go.

Understandable.

Listen, I'm fine don't worry,

um.

I have it figured out don't worry.

um.

I have the support the jury.

um.

I think I am sinking, no worries.

Help, I think I'm stuck on my tongue.

Help, I used to feel old but I'm young.

Help, I once was a child but that's done.

****,

I thought this would be more fun.

****, I'm still feeling old wounds.

****, I still love cartoons.

****, the world is ending,

typhoon.

See you soon.

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

I feel kind of awful and I don't know why.

It's like something isn't sitting right.

My stomach churns but I'm not hungry.

My lungs burn but I'm not burning.

I feel hot, I feel cold, I feel young, I feel old.

Maybe I am just feeling too much.

Maybe I just need a touch.

Maybe I just need a glass of wine.

Then maybe I can tell myself that I am fine.

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's bad either way so I don't know.

I got a mood ring on my finger.

It's telling me that I am cold,
winter.

I decompress, recompose.

Like the green bin I find a new purpose.

Anything to feel like I'm not worthless.

To feel okay.

My eyes hurt,

and my chest hurts.

And I know it's been many years.

I cannot begin to explain to you how sick you become when you fall for someone who does not want you.

It's strange, and it's saddening.

In my defence. She did kiss me. And she did tell me that she wanted me.

Five years is a long time.

And yet it was not enough time to let me get over her.

Even though I can be happily in love.

It does not stop the memories, the wandering.

Her eyes. Her scent.

I have never again smelt something sweeter, or more toxic.

The sun sets in the east.

and,

the weeping willows are starting to cry.

I drive past flowers, across rivers, across lilies

Nothing will ever be as sweet as you.

Butterfly shoulders and waterfall heart.

It's all in the beginning.

You don't know me.

You don't know how much I want to slice my skin.

You don't know this type of adrenaline.

I want to take a knife my skin and have no mercy.

I want to see blood run I want to see gory.

It's a terrible sickness that I have kept at bay.

But today, right now.

I want to drag a blade against my flesh.

Forgive me though,

because I live life in PG.

And I won't do that to you and I won't do that to me.

Good riddance.

When I was last in Trinidad,

We stayed at our aunts house on the hill.

It was bliss, it was
private.

But our next door neighbours bore a secret.

Within the windows of dancing curtains laid a girl.

A girl I never knew.

From what I heard she was very smart, and talented at chess.

She was a friend of my youngest sister.

But something happened,
the worst.

And she is now bedridden.
I never saw her.

But my youngest sister did.

I can't imagine how much that must have
hurt her.

And yet we all went swimming.

In her pool.

While she laid there,
totally unaware that we were
there.

It was our last night in Trinidad and our uncle came to visit.

We were all hyper fixated on going underwater.

That we all but ignored him.

Yet I have never met this daughter who suffers from something affecting her brain.

She may or may not be still lying there.

Or perhaps she is dead.

Sometimes I realize I am more lucky than I feel.

I saw your face,

through what felt like a foggy cafe window.

I saw you, and yet you probably don't know.

Every day I hope to run into you.

Even though it's been several years.

I just believe in deserving private closure.

You look the way you used to when I was in love with you.

I wonder if you ever think of me.

I feel the fog coming in.

Disassociating, disassociating.

I forget what it feels like to be truly happy.

No, that isn't right...

I forget what it feels like to feel, all right.

100% alright, okay.

It's been a constant battle for the past, forever.

Dealing with the demons at my doorstep.

I get better, I get worse, hit rock bottom, empty purse.

I get worse I get better,

I get numb.

Numb is how I can best describe it.

When I look in the mirror I don't even see me.

I see a skull with baggy eyes.

I see a face without a mind.

I'm not sure which direction I am going in.

I have everything I ever wanted,

more or less.

I have a roof over my head, I have a pet, I have a girl.

Can someone tell my mental health that?

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.

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.