Boys play football in my heart
Their ball falls in a canal in
Venezia.
It's lost in
Venezia because I closed my eyes,
Guidebook in hand--
Phrasebook at my side--
Dictionary omnipresent somehow--

Mother calls them inside, it's time to learn again.

While the wine and cheese and skinny upturned mustaches
Were all there,
Wrapped in gold tissue paper and tied with white bows
The passion, desire, and spark
(which were promised by the $24.99 guidebook)
Were nowhere to be found,
Not even floating down a gondola on the Seine
(or am I thinking of Venice now?)

I wrote home in two postcards
(not because I had so much to say)
But because I thought my family should see the Eiffel Tower in both day and night
As plastered on the pair of plastic, flimsy cards I mailed away.
Being away from Mom and Dad, I thought I’d enjoy it
But after investing in a French-English Dictionary
I learned that the love letters I’d been receiving here
(voulez vous coucher avec moi?)
Weren’t so lovely after all.

I told them that I’d tried French Onion soup,
That I’d walked down that street featured in Midnight in Paris,
and that between the guns slung over shoulders
(worn like fake Louis Vuittons advertised by desperate venders)
and the solicitors outside the Moulin Rouge
the city of love
had shattered my unprotected heart.

This is an apology.

No, not a notes app apology.
You deserve more. This apology
is a thank you.

So thank you.
For being the people I needed, right before
I needed you. Thank you, for showing me
to the stars. Thank you, for teaching me
how to feel.

You arrived as a black wave, a dark abyss
coating the horrors yet unknown to me.
You held me near, a guidebook of pages.
I focused on you, blind to the evils surrounding me.

I loved you. I love you. I thank you.

The horrors haven’t left me.
I don’t think they ever will.
A mask will always hide my face,
I will always come running back to you,
I will always think of you when I’m alone.

But these days are brighter than when we met.
These days I look towards
the blue sky, not a dark wave.

These days I focus on joy.

These days, I let my love for you,
be a background, not my home.

So, to you,
I apologize, and I thank you.
For everything.

An anxious person's life comes with a set of rules, a guidebook on how to survive that is  etched between the neurons of said person's brain.
Each day fits neatly into a schedule, clocked in by the second and placed firmly into a time slot that is fixed and immovable.
Each thought is churned and questioned before finally being spit out.
Each sentence is perfectly manufactured as it has been sent down an assembly line and thoroughly checked before being spoken.
Each situation is analyzed and placed into a pros and cons power struggle before being decided upon.

An anxious person in love is a difficult thing.
Love can't be placed into a box, can't be precise and planned and prepared for.
Love can't be controlled or put into an agenda, can't be narrowed down into a certain time frame or date range.
Love is bigger than any person can hold in their hand. Love can get away, slip through the cracks and get scattered and messy.
An anxious person does not like messy. It makes them anxious.

Nobody ever wrote a guidebook for me to read
I'm the blue in the red world 
They hate what they don't understand
They criticize what they don't understand 
Give me a cue, doctor blue
The reds seem like a supressing fed

The fuselage must gleam
in a pink Pacific sunset
at 29000 feet
inside, I am brought puffed cellophane pouches of tamarind by attendant ladies and men
and a sanitary case wraps my pillow.

Bangkok’s taxis are driven by a man with bones for a neck on cracked
roads that vanish into blind ways.
Later a child – spying left – pulls me through a curtained door into an ante-room to
sell me cling-wrapped copies of Japanese slasher movies. “Cheap!”
Flies circle a mound of meat spiked to a vending cart -- “special for you.”
A sea of mopeds rumble up the road and chase me between parked cars
Tattered hunks of plastic bag blow past off the beach.

At night gut rot infects the air, and I walk in brown puddled streets.

The tar sky smothers above the neon and the barkers and the *** for $10.  This last part was in the guidebook.

A woman sits, cloaked in a shawl, selling women’s apparel, all arranged on pale and chalky mannequins, angled at attention.
They wear the rouge of the truth-telling jester.
Their mouths are gaping, smiling, lurid, laughing, howling.  Eyes wide, piercing and empty, excited.
They look like me. And I look away.
The woman’s throat moves.  Or does she chuckle?
“For you.”

5 dollar bill curled like a tunnel
a ****** kicks a toonie kicks a dime
the tunnel is built into the mountain
of my Lonely Planet guidebook to
Barcelona.

the laptop cord slithers above like
a stiffly frozen waterfall. The world
is an okay place.

With 2G phone in hand
No sign of a ring-light stand
The un-influencer comes to the table

He doesn't tweet when people die
Says negative things that will make you cry
Gets stuck when logging in
Wears holes in his clothes that really should be in a bin

Writes bad poetry that nobody reads
Writes bad blogs that would make your eyes bleed
States the obvious when asked
Laughs and then makes you gasp

Doesn't check his look before zooming
Doesn't check his volume, it's booming
To be avoided at social functions
Should be served with a court injunction

The first time you flew
you told the birds how unfair
it is that the air is so much
thinner up here,
that below they have to breathe
the crushing weight of the
stratosphere
just because they’re accustomed
to it, and your gasping
for breath doesn’t make
any noise yet
every day you choose life,

man and wife
man and wife

placed in a gunfight with a pocket knife
and a guidebook of expectation.
You don’t remember filling out an
application for this life, for
now-flightless wings and for being
their daughter,

I will love you
come hell or high water

and the first time you flew
you heard birds laugh at you
and the air was so thin
you fell right through,
and the silence so thick
you landed hard,
lungs aching,
but you were never afraid of the dark,

in the high water
watch out for sharks

because you aren’t one for stark
contrasts and it’s nice to feel
like nothing at all,
keep falling.

The first time you didn’t
write a poem you drank tea
out of a paper cup, no mug
in the sink, no need for anyone
to look up when she came home.
The first time you used the key
in your new house’s door
it fit so perfectly that you didn’t feel
at home anymore,
and the first time you were afraid of the dark
you weren’t,
because it can’t get you
if it can’t see you’ve left any mark.

The first time you didn’t
write a poem the *** boiled
even though you watched,
and you drank tea out of a paper cup
and no one looked up, it was
biodegradable and then it was
gone.

The first time you flew.
The first time you really saw you.
The first time you heard that
song called poison oak,
the first time you said what you
meant to say,
the last time you spoke.

The first time you flew you told the birds how unfair
it is that the air is so much thinner up here, that below
they have to breathe the crushing weight of the stratosphere
just because they’re accustomed to it, and your gasping
for breath doesn’t make any sound yet every day
you choose life,

man and wife
man and wife

placed in a gunfight with a pocket knife and a guidebook
of expectations. You don’t remember filling an application
for this, for now-flightless wings or for being this daughter

I will love you
come hell or high water

but the first time you landed you didn’t write a thing,
you just drank tea out of a paper cup, no mug in the sink,
no need for anyone to look up when she came home.  
The first time you used the key in this new house’s door
it fit so perfectly that you didn’t feel at home anymore.
The *** boiled even though you watched, and you drank
out of a paper cup and no one looked up, it was
biodegradable and then it was
gone.

The first time you flew.
The first time you really saw you.
The first time you heard that song called poison oak,
the first time you said what you meant to say,
the last time you spoke.