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

Tree branches, swing sets and sun sets,
that was my childhood.

Bare feet in the sand, the wood-chips and the asphalt.

I wasn't like the other girls.

Maybe that's why I was bullied.

But even before then boys pulled on my curls like door knobs although I made a doorbell impression.

People have been yanking my tail since before I could speak.

Bleak.

Time passed, drama class.

I didn't know who I was or what I was.

But I was in class.

The only friend I knew was one who I wasn't fond of but I latched on anyways.

And then, someone else. A stranger. I had never seen her before.

Although we had gone to the same high school for the past 2 years.

We were told to get into groups of three, and I spotted her, coming over to me and at the time I was mad.

Like who is this random person invading my space.

I reluctantly let her join our group.

But boy was I duped.

That was the first time I saw the first love of my life.

The first knife in my back.

The first girl I look back,
upon.

It's all fine now, and everything is well and good,

But back then, it seemed like all I could do was grieve.

And misbelieve.

And be lead on.

Had that drama class not happened, had we not had the same lunch period for two years to come.

Would she still have ended up in my bed? In my head?

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.

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.

I've been hurt before, spread like a rash, but I'm fine. I still think about that clown but at least for now I can forget that face and move on ****** race like a samurai.

Don't **** with me because I can see right through you and I knew you and you knew me but at this moment it all boils down to what happened.

On that faithful day, ay. What the **** this dates back to 1955.

I don't know, I don't know.

But I do know you oppose things like abortion and gay relations.

In this day and age you gotta go.

So please kindly **** of please disappear.

Lets go back to when you weren't here.

Let's go back to the whispers in my ear.

I had you then I didn't.

Would you rat out the stoners at plinko to this day?

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.

I have finally realized why I have never felt pretty.

It is because, because...

I have dated several people who have called me beautiful.

But I could never understand why they would say that.

I assumed it was a formality.

For years, and years, some people have been attracted to me.

And I didn't know why.

Now that I am finally living in my correct sexuality.

With a fiance soon to be wife.

I am starting to understand.

She calls me beautiful, and pretty.

And doesn't under stand why I don't agree.

And it's because I never see anyone who looks like me.

So mixed, mixed salad.

Darkish skin, asian eyes, trini lips trini hips, white something? I don't know.

I look like nothing anyone has ever known.

My hair is both Trini, white, asian, and whatever else is peppered into who I am.

I am an almost complete puzzle of races.

I think only I can fully grasp that.

She's only 17.

She hasn't seen what I've seen.

I know that I am no good for you.

I am bleeding through white T-shirts.

What's a T-shirt.

I am dead like this.

I wish like this.

Don't fall in love with a person who cannot love you.

I am drowning in her words, I am starving for her words.

Please don't leave me.
Please don't leave me.

I guess sometimes you have to say goodbye.

And let it go.

But at least let me know, next time.

I love you.

And I was quiet coming home.

I loved you, I liked you, I liked you like this.

I could lie and say I never liked you but,

I loved you.

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 used to have writers block but I broke up with it.

Now I listen to sad music and upchuck ****.

I don't know where I am going or what I am saying.

But hello.

Beaches and windows.

I have never felt the sadness Mount Eerie has.

Aching bones and unsaid prose.

I was ***** last year.

He was a friend but in the end, he betrayed me.

I'm not nearly as broken as I could be.

I feel as though I am cursed.

Because,

I see her everywhere.

On the streets, on the train, at home.

I am always looking for her.

Hoping to one day run in to her one more time.

I know the chances of this are slim but I still like to dream.

...

More disturbingly I still seem to see her everywhere I look.

It's as if, she had fixed, to have a dozen look-a-likes roam the streets.

I know this isn't the case...

I just think that I see her everywhere I go.

And one tiny part of me is hoping that one day,

I will see her for real.

What I would say?

Who knows.

I would be confused
conflicted
confronted.

And I might kiss her.
Sorry.

I would die.

We are so scary in love that if one of us were to
kick the can

the other one would follow.

An almost suicide pact.

If she was taken from me I don't know.

I would probably seek out our moms.

If my girl was taken from me I probably would not see the point of living,

YES. I fell in love again.

I told you it's happened twice.

But this time she loves me too and she cares about me, and I care about her.

She aint **** and my new mami is the one for me.

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?

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.

I knew a girl who wrote poetry, and I know a girl that died.

She was so far away, and yet her words hit close to home.

She was here, and she was there.

We went to different highschools.

I was a baby lesbian.

Barley understanding what that even meant.

I went to her show. A play. A tragedy.

Her words, still touched me.

The first time I used the term 'touched me'
I got snickers from the crowd and had to say "not like that..."

It was sixth grade.

I knew a girl who wrote poetry, and I know a girl who died.

I am glad that I told her I was there for her.

But I still know a girl who died.

But you also liked boys.

Remember the summer when I was your number
one choice.

When I had you in my arms.

After dark, sparks sparked.

Do you remember watching Mulan with your sisters, do you remember slipping your hand under my blanket to grip my thigh so sweetly.

Do you remember kissing after dark do you remember going to the park.

Do you remember when I picked you up in an illegal car and you got in and gawked.

Do you remember calling me beautiful.

Do you remember kissing and laughing, do you remember the sweet kisses against my ear.

Do you remember me, and whispering in my ear.

Do you remember that summer holding me and asking me to tell you a story.

Do you remember me falling asleep on your thighs and you taking me up to bed and resting my head against your bed. Draping a blanket over me.

Did you ever love me?

Or did you lie.

Either way, you made me

cry.

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.

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?

I'm not sad anymore,
Well maybe
sometimes I am.

I used to cry for you each night.
Wondering what had happened.

I'm not mad anymore,
my anger is through.

I don't cry anymore,
Don't waste my tears on you.

I know it's been a million years,
but for me it seems like yesterday

The tears, the moon, and the rain.

The love and then the hopeless pain.

I'm not heartbroken anymore.

I've served my time.

You were once the reason of rhythm
and reason of rhyme.

But now you're nothing but a ghost.
Or
A host of my memory.

If I was stressed out before I am more so now.
The world is ending and I don't know how

to go on.

To leave behind familiar faces and places.

I am finally at peace.

Or am I.

I miss the days of not knowing. Of not growing.

I miss the days of being a complete fool in school.

Why do I feel so much dumber than then,
with way less friends.

I want to fill my brain with knowledge.

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.

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)

Itches itch and scratches scratch.

You would still relieve that urge without questioning that, right?

Well that's how I feel about my scalp.

My brain the main domaine that carries me through my days.

I don't pull my hair or wash my feet three times a day anymore.

The meds help with that.

But something I can't shake is scratching my skull.

Short fingernails because I am a lesbian.

But also has made it easier to attack my soft skin.

Blood and scabs and sore spots.

I have derma linked completely to my scalp.

Hats and beanies can only do so much.

My fingers always find a way to slip there and pick the day away.

Invisible illnesses still make you sick.
You can still fall in love with the one you didn't pick.

I am a heathen and I am an angel.

I give and I take, and I take and I breathe.

Goodnight.

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.

I was playing at the park waiting for my spot at Violin lessons.

I was not a member of this school.

Girls in unifrom I was probably like 10 years old.

I was taking violin classes at a super fancy school.

I remember going to the playground and two girls in uniforms tried to beat me up.

I was nimble.

Another time at a public school on the time two girls tried to beat e up.

I don't know if it was because I am half black or what.

I am glad I am no longer there.

You, frequent writer frequent soul.
******* lover ******* roll.

Gentle as the night touches you,
memories upon memories.

The fragmentations of reality and dreamscape blend.

How do I mend.

What was once scratches on paper, becomes public.

What was once teenage hood infatuation becomes stoic.

There are moments I forget who I am,

and then I remember.

I used to write better poetry.

** took that from me when she took my heart.

Am I a trick writer?

One of those writers who doesn't make sense.

I call myself a writer through agony,

but am I?

I try to be but I don't try hard enough.

I need to be the kind who finds sunshine and unleashes a dragon of words.

So far all I can do is check the spelling and punc

tuation.

The moon changes it's shape to please your eye.

I know you won't believe it.

Even if the moon is eclipsed or out of sight, it will change it's shape to suit you right.

Stand under it, right now.

Even if you can't see her she's there.

And when she appears looking broken and uncompleted, in your eyes it will change to a perfect sphere.

Just for you.

So pay attention to that, and appreciate her for all that she is.

Because for you she would change her entire shape, just to please you.

The moon always hangs in the sky.

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.

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.

Like a delicate flower she was,
hanging in a french cafe.

She could have been so much more than she was.

Highschool sweet hearts.
At least, it could have been that easy.

I asked her to prom as a joke but she said yes.

But because of the over bearing hetero norm town I was living in, I said yes to a boy as well.

That was my first mistake.

I should have stayed with her.

I was never straight nor bi, never will be.

I am a lesbian to the core.

But I let the wrong person in.

For too long.

I still look for her face in crowds.

Maybe one day we will reunite.

But until then I have found the real love of my life, my future wife.

This was a lesbian fairy tale.

Writing poetry that isn't laced in pain, laced in
solitude.

Writing down not names, writing down absolutes.

I don't know up from down at this point. Am I listening to the same song can you pass me a joint.

I used to be so loud and confident.

Even though people saw me as ugly as a loser.

And that I was but who cares lol.

All ya'll aging like cheese so please let me be as I age like wine hahaha.

I'm FINE?

Or might delete in the am

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.

Blue, blue

raspberry.

Is that a real flavour?

Summer time, sun shines which is rare in Canada.

I remember changing outfits several times.

Sweat dripping like regret lingering, and being totally unsure of the whole situation.

Was she who she said she was?

But after driving my car up to the train station and seeing her there, leaning against the concrete so obsolete so complete. Hair spiked into a mohawk, sunglasses covering her eyes.

I took her for ice cream in my whip. I didn't know it then but she liked that.

After icecream we go for a walk but don't get very far before I say um I'm parked illegally.

So we go back and I drive her to the pier. Nothing to see here.

But she did ask to hold my hand.

Have you ever been on a first date so pure?

And we were no where near done.

She asked to hold my hand and I said yes.

And then I took her minigolfing.

I dropped her off at the station around 7pm.

We have not gone more than a week without seeing eachtother since that first date.

Im fact we live together,
and are getting married.

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.

There's always a girl.

That one,

girl.

There are always simple things in life that we cling onto for no apparent reason.

But maybe for those same reasons, we think about that one girl.

It could be the most simple of things.

An umbrella, a pair of sunglasses, a hockey puck, a used towel, a plastic dinosaur, a novel, a feeling, a kiss.

It can be burned in forever.

Only to be melted away by the warmth that is Spring.

Only thawed, never burned.

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 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.

Distant siren, singing her song.

Gentle lover,

what did I do wrong?

Silent muse,

touched and misused.

Gone,

forever girl.

Once my world.

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.

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.

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.

The other day I was asked,

if I had ever been in a toxic relationship before.

It was a conversation between manager and managee, but we don't see it that way.

We are friends.

And we got onto the topic of crazy exes.

And so I told my story. About the one man I dated before coming out of the closet.

And how he threw me into the ground, after pulling a knife on me.

To be honest I threw him to the ground first.

It was after a concert.

And we were both drunk.

But after a slip up I made we ended up on a train going the wrong way.

And I had a panic attack.
He didn't like that.

He took my phone and pretended to throw it across the tracks.

So of course, I was in distress.

And I cried, and I cried.

And I had been on the phone with my mom, my one true confidante and he stripped that away.

To this day, I still look back on this moment as abuse. Why did no one help me?

He pulled a knife from his pocket and said if I did not stop crying he would slit his wrists.

At that I lost it.

We had a mutual friend who had killed himself.

How dare this ******* threaten the same thing.

Despite the fact that he was an ex MMA fighter I took him down.

I hooked my leg against his and shoved him down into the ground and screamed at him, saying he shouldn't say such things.

And rather than hold me, he flipped me into the dirt and pushed mt face down. I tasted gravel.

Anyone who wanted to help was barked away by him.

Why was I so alone.

Why did no one come.

The rest of us ended in similar situations.

He then proceeded to sleep with my best friend.

And I broke up with more than one person that day.

She looks like a bad idea I'd like to try for one night.

She looks a danger,
she looks a delight.

Dark bar, long legs, open notebook.

I should have seen
what you were doing.

I'm guessing you wanted
me to kiss you.

I would have let you touch my hair,
but you were calling him
daddy.

Maybe we will cross paths again.

Or maybe not, sadly.

Or you might inspire the best
lesbian romance.

Or maybe,

you were just a chance
encounter.

Your move,
artist with sad eyes.

Your move,
towards me, towards sunrise.

Your move,

mystery girl.

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.

Why is it so hard for the flower to bloom.

Why does she have to beg for room.

She has already spread her roots, and is fertile with happiness.

How do the weeds not see that?

The weeds, they come. And they disguise themselves.

The appear to be a fellow flower, they are polite, they are safe.

But then when the flowers guard has gone down,

the fellow flower strikes.

Not a **** but a poison.

Leaving the flower trapped.

Shedding a few layers,

to just be left alone.

And then Autumn comes and the flower droops with sorrow.

Waterfalls like water falls.

Slowly and yet all at once.

I feel the same way about falling in love.

Once I see her I fall or I

fall.