I think of all the different lives
I have lived over the years
And I mourn the losses
of all the personalities
                 friendships
                 memories
                 that I will never get back.

Time is cruel like that;
it just comes barreling through and
takes
takes
takes.

But I suppose what comes along with the taking,
is also the giving
of new faces
    new blood
    new love
    new heartache.

I cannot say that I wouldn’t have it any other way,
For I think we can all agree
that we aren’t given much of a choice,
otherwise.

White and gold horses.
Gracefully gallop away.
Ripe me is set   free.

You have to accept that some people are not made for deep conversations, or for holding you together when you’re about to fall apart, or for keeping you from unzipping your skin, or for talking you out of suicide, or to love you through the worst moments of your life.

Some people are made for shallow exchanges, and ridiculous banter, and nothing more. And that’s okay. That doesn’t make them horrible people because they simply aren’t able to handle a storm like you. It doesn’t make you a bad person because you won’t divulge all the gritty details of your horror show. It makes you smart.

You have to accept that there will be people that cannot give you what you need. It doesn’t mean they are not worth keeping in your life. You just have to figure out who these ones are before you’re disappointed. And you have to keep them at arm’s length. You cannot expect everyone in your life to understand, to be nonjudgmental, to get it.

But that’s okay, because not everyone was made to impart wisdom, or wax poetry, or speak on politics and the depravity of society, or discuss how crucial it is that the stigma of mental illness be abolished. There are times when you have to get away from all that heaviness. You have to. And you will need superficial conversation about Kim Kardashian’s ****, or a debate on the colour of The Dress. You will need those ones.

So don’t go round cutting people off and dropping your friends. You need people for all your seasons. You need people or you won’t survive this.


Trees in the yard grow alongside me.
I’ve scaled their trunks
And swung from their branches.
Fallen through their leaves,
Scraping my arms and knees on the way down.

I grow a little older,
The trees a little taller.
One oak is getting too big,
It grows in the driveway
And needs to be cut down.
One less tree.

Another gets removed to make way for a pool.
The tree lasted for decades before my parents moved there,
The pool lasted a summer.
A summer of splashing in constantly cold water.
A circular pool acting as police tape for this ****** scene.
One less tree.

One in the front yard
Poses a threat to the house’s foundation.
Its trunk is cut down,
And it’s stump ripped out of the ground.
I grew up when I ran out of branches to climb.
One less tree.

The last tree gets struck by lightning.
It falls over and hits the garage.
It’s body seared, and it’s sap oozes like blood
A wood chipper comes and disposes of it’s remains.
A dead patch of grass, like a chalk outline of its corpse.
One less tree.

Two trees remain.
One is used to hold the dog’s leash while she roams outside.
The other provides shelter
For the squirrels and birds who were evicted.
I wonder,
Which one will go next?

I’ll often hear a song that makes me think of times before.
There’s always faces burned into the memories recalled.
A head thrown back in laughter as we bounced so high; we flew!
That was the boy that I first kissed on the cheek
( he kissed my shoe)
We were on the trampoline and high was never high enough!
We screamed “I want my MTV”, it was truly epic stuff!
Later on when I partnered with a lycra’d dancing queen, we tore it up to Mel’n Kim, we were quite a solid team!
Our tay-tay-tay’s were second-to-none, Respectable the jam.
We were synchronised and synthesised, we were     fluoro, we were glam!
Later the next decade, the clubs were more the scene,but there always was a DJ, a request to be redeemed.
One young man with a strange nickname, no bigger Pearl Jam fan, could be found on a seat, tapping his feet and hollering “ Better man!”
Ofcourse the girls were always there, making the dance floor hot; and you sang the words to “You’re the One that I Want”, whether you knew them or not!
And no-one likes a mega-mix but play the one from Grease? You’ll even see a few Danny’s get up and join the beat.
These days the tunes are “retro”, but I sometimes play them still and the details might be fading but the feelings never will.

I know you think I'm not enough to go out to the world
But I might be young but I'm not a child
And I might be reckless but I know where I'm headed

I know that you're the way you are because you love me
But you don't really get me
And I'm not that kid anymore

I've always been a dreamer
though you couldn't tell by the music I play
and you'd always tell me the world was a mess
And I would change the way you saw space

And I wish that you would show me who you are
without all that pretense
But in the end you're the one I can't lose
And I'm the one who'll come back to you

So can we talk another time
Though we'll get nowhere
But you'll still love me anyway
And I love you for that.

Superheroes hiding their tortured inner lives behind primary colored-masks and hilarious one-liner comebacks.
Normal girls who were actually princesses, but didn’t act like other girls (or other princesses). Space wizards with stupid haircuts.

No one understood them, but I did.

I knew all their tragic backstories,
their hearts’ deepest desires,
the ways that they were, like, rejected by society and stuff.  
I gushed over their bonds of friendship that could never be broken, not by intergalactic politics, ancient feuds between magical species, or the infinite varieties of mind control.
I totally supported them when no one else could.

I reread the most heart-wrenching pages over and over again,
my fingers bubbling the plastic dust jackets and my toes clenching in my mismatched socks.
I couldn’t just wade in these worlds—I baptized myself into them, staying under the shallow water for hours without taking a breath.
I could never quite feel enough.  I squished my eyelids shut, trying to conjure up the tears that my heroes deserved.

Behind my wrinkled brow, they lived.
Danced.
Morphed themselves together into an ever-present consciousness, answering the questions I asked to no one.
I talked to it out loud some days, when I was especially alone.

Sometimes, I would see these friends out in public,
on a graphic tee in the hallway,
or a backpack in the classroom.
I would always greet them enthusiastically.
“I love your t-shirt!  Book four is the best!”
(With a warm, sweaty face way too much nervous laughter)
“That’s such a cool water bottle!  Which Avenger is your favorite?”
(Hands clutching hair, leg bouncing)
“I… like your sketchbook!”
(Hopeful smile, averted eyes)

And we would talk to each other (!)
About our shared interest and have a fun conversation (!)
For a few minutes.
I’d talk to them  the next time I saw them, too.
And every time we were in class together.
Then I hatched a daring plan.

My mom offered permission and a date,
my dad offered pizzas and the basement TV,
and I extended to my friends
an invitation.

No one came.