It was car rides,

lots of car rides.

Going to school in a small town required a lot of travelling.

She was my best friends big sisters best friend.

And she offered to drive me to school for a semester.

We'll call her D.

D taught me a lot of things that I still remember to this day.

Keep in mind this was almost ten years ago now.

She showed me music,
she kept me in line,
and one day she brought me fresh baked cookies for breakfast.

"Sorry I'm late! I was making you these!!"

Needless to say she was awesome.

But one day, when lamenting about the phantom that haunts this blog,

She told me about the dimmer theory.

Is a song by Noah and The Whale.


When I first heard that song, it was Spring.

And it was the Spring that I realized that I was in love for the first time.

In love with a girl.

We were friends and I would go out of my way to walk home with her.

I lived in a small town, and all paths lead the same way. But I would take a longer one just for those extra minutes together.

I remember the first time I made her laugh. It was over something stupid and minuscule, but laugh she did.

And I soaked every chord of sound that it held and remember it to this day.

Love is a funny thing. It's like once it happens you can never forget it.

If you did forget it, then it wasn't real love.

It's as simple as that.

I would walk with her to this crossroad and we would pause.

At first it was a few minutes at best, but as summer came around it was minutes upon minutes of dragging out this time together.

She was studious, and always made the excuse to go home and study.

And that time came later and later the more we continued this pattern.

But without fail,

whenever we would part ways and she would walk past the catholic school and I would descend into the trees, after waving goodbye until we could no longer see eachother, I would put on this song.

And I would revel in it, taking in every note ever lyric.

And in my young 17 year old heart I knew. Something knew...

That this song would eventually have severe and deep meaning to me.

That someday it would strike something in my heart that made me understand why everything had happened and that it had happened for a reason.

That moment came today.

On the first day of Spring.

When I randomly remembered that songs named and played it,

And all of these memories came flooding back.

Like a blocked stream finally flowing.

Connecting with my past self and knowing, that I have come
so far.

If you're read my poems before, just know that this is about the same girl.

That one.

The one that got away.

Deception is a beautiful thing.

A power, a grace.

Triggering.  

When I think of those moments, of those months of those years,

Well,

Tears have done me nothing.

Dreams,

They keep coming.  

I know I am a young, I know I am old.

But truth be told,

sometimes I still feel like nothing.

Sometimes I feel like I peaked in my teens.

And then I remember the tears, I remember those knees.

I remember every scar, and every mistake.

And I hate...

And then I forget.

Memory is a silly trait,

Dreams are such a strange state.

All I want is to go on.

Move on.

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.

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?

I like to look at life in perspective.

I'm not getting old I just feel old.

I grew up in a time period where hopscotch became snake became snake became Ipods.

Hands became tripods became selfie sticks.

I am young and I am old.
It all depends on who you ask.

For now I would just like to bask in the youth I still have.

Because bet your *** in a few years from now I'll be looking back on tonight in spite at how much time I once had.

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.

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.

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.

I chase my meds with alcohol.

She wants me to stop but I wont.

I feel as if I was the one to stop at the strange river and gulp down the water.

In place of the character in the novel I am reading.

I feel connected and yet disconnected from this reality.

As if I were born again.

I have no memories of that past self anymore.

Robotic legs, robotic arms some how lead me to the kitchen.
Once I get there, I mean no harm until I can't tell the direction.

Between what is right and what is wrong, and miscommunicated affection.

I drink the poison back as it beckons me and I can't find the description.

Between what is pain, and what is loss, and what is simple addiction.

Oh help me father, oh help me mother. I don't believe in religion.

But tonight I'll pray that the next day doesn't have so much conviction.

Robotic legs and robotic arms made me take the knife, and robotic legs and robotic arms made me write this fiction.

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.

Has the air ever tasted like memories to you?

I see you everywhere.

In my dreams, mostly. So stop thinking about me. Please.

I mean they say if you dream of someone, it means they are thinking about you.

Apparently she does this sometimes.

Because sometimes I see her.

Sometimes she tells me she loves me.

Sometimes she is absent.

I don't think I will ever get over H* fully.

But  I keep trying.

I think I see her everywhere.

I wish I could see her just once.

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

His love was like a flashlight.
Her love is like a candle.

His love beamed,
And her love burned.

His love was like a flashlight.
False. Mechanic. Operated.

Her love is like a candle.
Dripping, Melting, Alive.

His love did not last.
Once the batteries died.

Her love burned to the end.
Sparks and embers burning bright crimson
long after the wax has melted away.

Her love whisps in smoke,
filling the entire room.

My lungs, my senses blocked.
A flame stings within my heart.

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.

The though of you tastes like ***** in my throat.

I have been dreaming a lot lately.

I see you, innocent and simple, before you realized what you compromised.

I wonder if I will ever be free.

Free from my memories.

When I think of them I get sick.

That's why I taste *****.

***** at the back of my throat.

I choke.

I remember.

I probably should have known
that something was
wrong.

But I didn't see it.

I was in the eleventh grade, in love with a girl who would never be mine, and figuring **** out.

There was this teacher.

I have no idea what subject he taught I just know I was in his class.

In that class with one of my best friends.

I remember telling her I was gay in that class.

Regardless,

I am pretty sure the teacher had a
thing
for me.

He was one of those,

what do you call it...

"eccentric" teachers.

He was all indie
and didn't give a **** about
what was in.

Including the teeny boppers
who smoked and cussed.

But, he liked me.

And my nonchalant attitude towards school as well as my taste in music.  

I let things happen.

Nothing, too weird.

Just the fact that I folded an origami swan and he kept it all year,
or
the fact that I left his class one day singing Crimson and Clover,
and I came back to a note on my desk from him saying
"Over and Over..."
with clovers drawn on each corner.

Yeah that should have been my first sign.

Later on I'm on "the bench" with the girl I loved, and what does he do but shove his way in between us, and put an arm around us both.

We exchanged panicked glances before this teacher took his chances and
called out to another teacher saying,
and I quote...

"Look! I'm in a chick sandwich!"

And of course, the other teacher nearly gagged before bolting into the principals office.

He didn't speak to me for the rest of the year.

It was only when I graduating and picking up my repot card that I sought him out to say goodbye.

I found him in the tech lab drinking whiskey.

I saw the bottle.

I saw the LCBO bag.

He was drinking and he took one last drag up my body.

What would have happened if I had been even more stupid?
More vulnerable?

In the year book as a joke I listed my secret crush as him.

I thought it was funny.

It was certainly not.

And never will be.

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.

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.

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.

For me,

it happened twice.

Once when she asked me to tell her something,
or to tell her
anything.

So I told her I loved her,
and I wanted her,
to be mine.

And her eyes widened.
She got scared, was
unprepared.

The saddest thing she ever told me, was that she could not be with me.

Until she was.

Again, and again.

She kissed me, she held me.

Until she said don't talk to me ever again.

That was the most heart breaking moment,
of
my life.

It's almost like separation anxiety but long dormant.

When your spouse leaves the house and doesn't come back when she usually does.

Your heart physically aches.

Aches to be held and to see her face.

Of course, you know she is safe but there is no where safer than lying next to me in bed.

Being able to stroke her head and feel her presence next you you.

Moments like these can be scary, and at the same time, quite refreshing and beautiful.

Knowing that there is someone in your life that you care so deeply about.

Almost like breathing.

You cannot live without oxygen, and I feel whole heartedly that I cannot live without her beside me.

Some may call that crazy, and crazy it is.

To be crazy in love with another human.

To feel almost apart of them.

It is a dangerous game to play, the game of love.

Because you have not only your own life to be cautious of and worry about, but also that of another.

Without this love, you may be stress free.

But when you have it, and if you have it you know.

That you would rather stay up waiting for that other half of your self to return to you,

than to sit alone, in silence,

wondering what that could

be like.

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.

If I could,

I would like to capture that summer.

At least, what I can remember.

Right now I am drunk and thinking about you.
And even though I know it's over and what happened for a reason I...

I don't know Hannah, maybe writing to you like this can help with passing by you.

They say time heals all wounds but it's been a thousand moons since I've last seen you.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not singing this song because I still want you.

I mean I still love you but I also love someone else for the right reasons.

For sure.

But still, I can't get the colour of your hair and eyes off my mind.

Sometimes... Anyways.

If you could have at least given me the common decency to let me down easy.

You didn't have to drop me like a beached tree after Christmas.

I think the reason I still think about you is because you never said goodbye.

And although I don't cry about it anymore...

I still think about it.

Thanks for the poems I guess.

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.

I remember the first time I made you laugh.

I was trying not to say the word "like"

But I like couldn't do it.

You laughed so hard so hard you snorted.

I used to walk home in the wrong direction just to be with you,

I remember the time you yelled at kids throwing **** into the ravine.

I wonder if you ever considered the fact that I was in love with you.

Well, sure you did.

But you chose no.

I took her to my best friends house,

Was hard to convince her,
but eventually she came out.

Picked her up in my best friends car,
didn't have a license but,
it wasn't far.

She came to see me, and I was glad,
Best night that I've ever had.

I sang some songs and then kissed her, I held her in my arms
and whispered.

When I took her home it was 4am,
said I'd love to do this again.

She messaged me to say thankyou,
and that I made a
purple sweater look cute.

I loved her then, and I love her now. I know its crazy but thats the truth somehow.

Yellow sunglasses, hockey puck, love notes and a special rock.

You hugged me when I told you so.

But closed your eyes and then said no.

Still think about you sometimes though,
and hope that you do the same too.  

YoU hAvE * uNrEaD mEsSaGeS

"*, you make an oversized magenta hoodie and a purple beanie look beautiful"

", I'm falling for you,"

"I', sorry, I can't be with you..."

*beep, beep beep

I used to work at Zellers.

Back when that was a thing.

I think I worked there for three years.

And as bitter as I am about not making any real friends there, or not getting invited to Zellers parties because I was the only one who lived across town...

There is one memory that stays with me.

It was a mother and a child.

The mother was always stressed, but the child was so happy. Glowing.

They loved dolls and dresses, and was the cutest and most polite child I met there.

One day, when the mother was checking out, buying some dolls for her child, I looked at them and then at her and said,

"They are so cute."

And she immediately teared up.  She was so overwhelmed that someone might look at a child who is gender non conforming and be okay with it.

She thanked me profusely.

I never saw them again but I hope they are both doing well.