Said the woman,
with her trendy haircut,
colors of the season,
modern attitudes.

“I’m not like the others,”
wearing her tribe’s symbols,
Needing aproval,
Marking her skin with the same icons;
like words of the same language.

“My personality is unique,”
yet if they all spoke at once,
they would form a choir of millions
Millions, searching for individuality
through the same path.

Terraces, people, smoke
rising above their heads,
all of them hiding talks
in the so-needed shade.

Everyone's outside,
interior's empty, but
i think i will go inside,
into the silent gut

of this cafe that i have
been to so many times.
It's seen me when things were rough,
granted it's seen my smiles.

Two weeks left until again
the calendar sheds a year.
The volatility of Men
forces the eye to tear.

Twenty-two, although not much,
is more than i've ever been,
and it seems my time tries to catch
up to the time after me.

What is it that i feel?
hard to tell, stillness perhaps,
but pinned down with barren fear.
But had i another chance

to choose what i could've been,
with all of my blunders in sight,
i still would have chosen me
and still would have come inside.

Having been safely tucked
into the sleeve of my congenital distortion,
i do my time at mercy of today's luck
but still consist of yesterday's misfortune.

If you're so selfless,
Why does it bother you no one notices?

I thought I was good,
I felt I was fine—
everything that’s happened
was just pain that is mine.

My burden to bury,
my cross to hold,
a million and three reasons
I feel like rusted gold.

I became standoffish,
a loner at times,
never letting anyone in,
barely allowing them to stop by.

But it doesn’t have to be that way—
I can open the door.
I don’t have to only give happiness;
I can ask for more.

I’m allowed to take up space,
to be seen and heard.
I deserve people’s time.
They can listen to my words.

It was safe being small,
hiding in plain sight,
but being invisible
never truly felt right.

I deserve to be loved—
to let someone love me.
I don’t have to run.
I can stay and be free.

The way that Villard Street composes a tease I take every time,
as if I'll get all the way to Bozeman Creek;
drive my car into the culvert and wash away a year or 15...
Or how the trees on South Willson won't let me forget
the bookstore I loved before, back then--

Back when?
...when it was there. Never mind.

Leaves breeze-swaying/dancing to the rhythm of a laughter
     caught bitter in a swelling throat.

I remember a reminder. 7th & College. I'm not supposed to be here
          by now.
A future my youth had rejected.
     Never signed up for.
There's a piece of my fingerprint removed; it's shaped like
Scott Street--like rain in Osborne Village.

There's a piece of my Gallatin ghostwalk that's the color of Polo Park Mall.
It makes a Province of sense, but States nothing at all.
I'm invisible here.
                                Might be there too.
But my insides--my infrastructure--were built for Corydon Avenue
and the R.M. of East St. Paul.

You-me mailed a promise to me-you back then

     BACK. WHEN?
NEVER MIND.

from this Cat pawed zip code to R2E 1B9 and then what?

                                                          ­been a long time

Been a while for brown eyes to run dry. Drag my blue through the mud on Pembina Highway,
Dry my tired center out and sew me up, I guess, with
   a stitching
of 11th and Alderson. Try to debride these festering wounds
I gave myself, back in Kildonan or sliced open on Bird's Hill Road.

Had long enough to heal, ain't ya?
        I guess I've had long enough

He sat in stillness,
A holy book open in his hands —
Written in a language
That was not his own.
He read aloud,
Line by line,
His voice calm,
But his soul untouched.

I entered quietly,
Watched for a moment.
Then, without a word,
I reached for the jug —
Empty.
Lifted the glass —
Also empty.
I poured.
Then raised it to my lips
And drank slowly,
Eyes half-closed,
As if it were the best water in the world.

I set the glass down,
Satisfied.
A soft smile on my face.
He looked at me, confused.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“There was no water in that jug,
No drop in that glass.
Yet you drink like a thirsty man
Who’s found heaven!”
I turned to him, gently,
Still smiling.

“Sir,” I said,
“I learned from you.
You read words you do not understand,
And find peace in the sound.
I drank from what was empty,
And found joy in the act. If I am a fool,
Then what shall I call you?"