I depart from my class,
ending at 9:35pm
to begin the walk
back to my apartment.
I pass the downtown hospital--
its ominous fluorescent lights,
shining through the cracks
of yellowed window blinds
which sway in the stagnant air
to the ticking of anticipation.
Shining.
I watch the sky, a dusting of stars;
which lights
are the ones that have died
a beautiful death--
sacrificing themselves, not knowing
the amusement we have in their funeral.
As they shine,
I can only imagine the lives inside those walls--
ending, slowly, quickly, possibly, inevitably.
I hope you had the chance to shine
as bright as they did.

*September 2012

I’ve never seen eyes quite like yours.
So beautiful, yet so desolate.
I wonder what you’ve seen,
I wonder where you’ve been,
I wonder what you see in me.

Your charcoal pupils
and slate-gray irises.
I feel as if I could swim in them--
a pool of gray on a misty day.

Do you see your world in shades of gray,
I wonder.

Glossy with the residues of emotion,
your sad eyes have so much to say.

Do you see your world in shades of gray,
I wonder.

*June 2012

Where is my saint in the clouds
Who has fallen from ether
To reconfigure my essence?

Where is my saint in the foam of the sea
Who has evaporated into the mist
And waits to be inhaled by me?

Where is my saint in the grooves of my past
Who paints with my tears
A portrait of the coagulence I feel in the core of my being?

Where is my saint in the eyes of the stars
Who refuses to shine
Until I’m sheltered in between the chaos of time?

Where is my saint in the pores of the ground
Who tacitly unearths a grave
And convolutes my flesh into the pith of the earth?

Where is the demon
Who was born from my negligence
And taints the deeds of my conscience,
Frays the seams of my being
And lays dormant in the cellar of all my possibilities?

*March 2012

What is this poison,
that dims hope like light in a room,
caked with cigarette smoke?

The sour bath of sins
that spoils the fertility of our souls,
like the black sap,
clogging the crimson holes in our conscience.

What is this medication
that murmurs obediently in the tunnels
of your flesh like a blind fly trapped in an hourglass?

The thick soup that sinks the dredged
pulse of life as it croaks and awakens in
hesitation
for the next perpetual dawn.

A sign tacked like an eviction notice in the skulls
of your dreams, telling them:
“I’m sorry Sir, but for this magnitude of pain,
there is no cure.”

And still like an earthquake, death
trembles at your fingertips like an
old, worn man— asking, perpetually,
“When’s the next train to Calgary?”

I have not the guts to tell him
the smoke has held me
captive
all this time.

*2011

Choked by sunrise,
And the impending dew that crawls onto moss and peat,
My eyes struggle to open--
Irises swelling and pupils shifting, to escape the light that beckons.
The violet blanket of night removed,
Yet my mind is still nestled in slumber.
Yellows and whites of innocent roses open their arms to greet the foreboding Sun,
As I cling closer to my dreams.
The seconds that pass pick at the petals of my solace,
And begin to tiptoe around my bed,
Until they’re dancing with the losses of time.
And the melodies the birds sing--
I can no longer drown out from the shafts of my mind.
So I plant my frozen feet to the ground,
Rise--
Accosted by the Sun, I close my eyes.
Aching with the fear of time,
I’m quickly swallowed by the rush.
My body begins its clock-like motions,
But my mind always rests on its eternal pillow.

*March 2012