days used to fly by
and maybe it terrified me
maybe because he terrified me
so it was better to look for the next thing.
but
days now crawl slowly
and it makes me groan
maybe because the next thing wasn’t there
and I was left to wonder why.

Here I sit
To write
and while the clouds move
The clock chimes
And I sit here
Still trying to write of you

Over margaritas
And FaceTime calls
She suddenly stopped
and said to me
he really is your ‘great love’
isn’t he?

to someone

my worst will be their best, and my best will be their 'meh'

it just means that a few of those someone's

were not meant for me

these so called strings
these chains on me
cannot contain
the person I'd be

the chains he wrought
are not yours to carry
these chains on me

Will have me buried

it’s almost like the sea
knew
that I couldn’t tell
or even recall
the day you met me
was the same day
that all those dreams
were swept
to sea

She told me he bought her silver jewelry for her birthday
and I felt like crying
because he didn’t ask her best friend
her sister
or her taste
and she had to sit through with smiles
simply excited for silver jewelry
while she wears gold.

But it wasn’t just jewelry, or cars, flowers, or jokes.
It wasn’t that hats, the stove, or the door.

she told me he bought her silver jewelry
so I sat there
realizing
that hadn’t happened to her before.

to wake up
in agony because i was dreaming of you
and it didn't last longer
to smack into a pole
because their laugh sounded like yours
or on days like today
when pillows
feel like interlopers
where even in the shower
tears won't grace us with their presence
and
I can't even drink my scotch
because it reminds me of you

I want to touch you
like it was that first night
I want to hear your laugh
amongst the blurry images
I want to say it's totally okay
cause what does the future matter anyway?
but mostly
I want to pretend like you're not a fish
and I a bird
just waiting for the other to give out

It is in these moments
Where I go reaching through the blundering moonlight  
That my soul shatters
Letting my mind rage
As it meets fistfuls of pillows
And shudders of stale air

When I can tell you are not there
And will not be before the sun rises
And my hear beat quiets

So I find fingers
Still reaching through sun drenched daylight

i don't know when
or why
but it changed

and it was in that heartbeat, in it's echoed refrain
i realized i would never feel like that again
about him.

and that was okay.

because the feel of my jeans grazing across his palms become better with repetition.
because the feel of his smile whisked my favourite lemon loaf into creation, filling itself with peace in this familiarity.
because the feel of his arms were not that of steel, but hearths; warming the depths of my being I did not know had gotten cold.

it would feel better

and that was okay.

I heard a little goose
in the starry sky
lost on his lonesome
not ashamed to cry.
He made me pause
as I had never heard such loneliness
echoing into the black expanse. his pleas,
I could feel his yearnings
the tickle in his throat
as he screamed to be heard
like that tree who fell.

I heard a little goose.
all by his lonesome
I couldn't help but notice, not a whisper of another
just his wings a flutter,
calling for another.

I heard a little goose,
I hope I am heard too.

i no longer believe it is brave

to sit in blood soaked misery

just so i may go out standing

instead of reaching out a hand

and asking for help

to live

in the pitter patter of the morning
I can hear my happiness
does that make sense?

the harmony starts as I hear it in the echoes of his breath
ostinato, full and lazy like a cresting wave
and in the whispers of the day
I lay awake, hearing the legatos
knowing at some point I must rejoin the world

but for now
I listen
as crescendos of happiness crest over me
and his hands staccato for me
and as his kisses draw to cadence
he whispers 'good morning'
a symphony just for me

it was simply
silent
Something never before touched
hearing the pitter without echoes on your skin
but not deafening
without millions of howls
not crippling
without thousands of demands
it was simply
walks along the sand with nothing to hear
but his heartbeat
and my own
except I was doing laundry
and the waves were simply constructed

I would say ecstasy but that’s the wrong prescription

it’s breathtaking
how love changes
growing and morphing and blossoming as we grow and morph ourselves
love goes from mums cooking to dads cocktails to friends hugs to lovers embraces
until it morphs
into 1:48am phone calls about which car soap because he always did it and I couldn’t find it anyway
and you realize soap was what mattered
Love changes
And it’s breathtaking

the knight
stands at the ready
Helmet down
sword up

ready to give it his all for those behind him

the white flag long gone
soaked with blood

back leg — staggering
roses dying by the side

and he stays there

never moving

the knight stands at the ready
never breaking

even when it’s only himself to save.

I want to lie

but really, I  miss that first year
the way you held me with adoration and curiousity
call me selfish but those moments
where you put everything into showing me how you felt
I miss the smiles we both held
when we didn’t know better

the laughter and kisses and god the innocence in it all

I revisit those days
like a loved book
stained and loved and torn
still a little warm from the last time I held it

pretending like those chapters
Were all those characters ever knew

Some to appreciate beauty must see the best of the best
the immeasurable
the greatest heights
The treasure of all men
something to covet and keep hidden

And some
my dearest
can glimpse perfection
in raindrops
and dandelions
or his smile as the dawn breaks

I want the echos of starlight to be captured in the lenses you chose to view the world in
I want the heartache of violet to hit you so profoundly you must ask
Why

I wish the beauty in the alphabet could crash along your deaf ears

and shake you like thunder

Friends after work
Sipping Bellini cocktails
swapping the drinks and tales
Some are better than others
As glasses sit empty

A man of many talents
walked through my door
God I hope he walks through once more

forget me nots
lay littered across my room
just as punctuation
to all I’ve done
and yet to do
cause forget me nots
won’t let me forget you

she sways to the beat of the drum
picking up speed
Feeling the spice and the ***

You wake up and realize with ache on your tongue
it was a night to remember
she could’ve been the one

she told me it’s just your brain
protecting itself

because it’s only good when you look back on it
but I can feel the way your fingers felt playing with my hair before tracing freckles in the sunshine

but tucked around the corner
like a child snickering about stealing the last chocolate bar

I can hear the whispers of arguments
of resentment and frustration

I know it’s protection

but it’s hard when perfection was replicated when there weren’t words or clothes to get in the way.

wrapped in sunshine and caressed by fantasies we both wanted to come true

the acknowledgement of needing more
has a cavern
with depth like grief
and vastness like fear
and stepping outside the door of lacklustre
is terrifying
but the peace of more reaches further than the deep and vast cavern could ever stretch to

amongst the leaves
and the whispers across the sea
in the shadows
and trailing through the trees
it was in the moonlight
the shimmer of the dawn

the echoes of your pulse
splattering dirt through the lawn
kettles screaming for release
murmuring kisses into skin

oh darling
let me hold you
forever and a day.

god I felt like an idiot
sitting looking at the different strands of carpet
her hair brushed back behind her ear
when she waited
to hear me ask
“did we even have anything in common?”
she shrugged

“your curiousity”

I laughed, rolling my eyes.

“and your need to be loved”

and god I felt like an idiot

“oh it’s touch and go, you know”

now I understand why I hated tag.

Some days a little bit of liquor
and a bonfire with heat
makes a night to remember
and really good sleep

it’s funny
how every once and a while
it will
creep
back into your periphery
like a shadow you forgot existed
Because the light was so bright it couldn’t be seen
but every now and then
when it’s time to lay my head down
it creeps
back into the sheets
into the wind
as you turn
restless
waiting for the sun to come up
so that it sneaks and
creeps away

I can’t help but giggle
when you come across someone
who just doesn’t get you
and every other word
you both speak
gets lost in the cross wires
neither of your brains have the connection points to

someone told me it was fate
that your name was the echo to
my tangled daisy chain dreams
so I laughed
nodding along like your name wasn’t seared into my every atom
every fixture, ligament, lung
nodding along like the second I saw your face
Every other flower became obsolete
no longer wanting roses
But daisy chain dreams

I thought you were engaged
she told me

I laughed, no not really.

wow have you not talked since?

I laughed, no not really.

how are you doing?

I laughed.

no not really.

god it’s like walking through the ashes of my home
finding all the pieces I no longer can pretend work for me
or even fit
collecting ashes even though they slip through my fingers
over and over

so how do you cope?
you know…
figuring out what ashes I want to smear across my skin
who she is
and who she’ll be

i just know what she won’t be
as i sift through ashes of me

I didn’t realize how much I changed who I was

until my head hit my pillow and the clock kept moving
while I stayed still
or a metaphorical semblance of it anyways

trying to sleep like I hadn’t trained myself
like a dog with a bone
to text you goodnight, or call when you got off

I wasn’t aware how much you soaked into the fibre of my being. Which is why before midnight is so ******* hard.

because all I want to do

is ask how your day was. like a dog with a bone, trying not to beg for more

and as I moan, regarding perfect little deaths
his voice makes me cringe
and I’m transported back into that late november night where you just held me.

The ease in your morning breaths was everything to me
Because for once
I was no longer focused on the evening schedule or the afternoon chores
I was focused on the sounds
I was focused on my cold toes anchored against your calf
I was focused on the taste of last night lingering in the air

The ease in your arms was everything to me
Because for once
I was no longer focused on anything but now

In the darkness
I sat
Waiting.

I sat waiting for me
till I stopped waiting
And upon reaching up
Through the cracks in the walls
Heaving
I push through
And In the light
I stood there

Finding
Me
Waiting.

you left me tools
I don’t know the names to
and anchors
without their mates
manuals without starts
and windshields
without rain

you left me.

and I suppose I have to figure it out myself

The flame licks at my toes
Prancing
Daring me to come closer
If only for a taste

Just like you
When your eyebrow raises
Where no words are spoken
But a conversation continues

And as fingertips graze
Grins become growls
And giggles turn to groans

Where gasps become grabs
And grabs become tugs

Where I love you’s are I want you’s
And I need you’s are demands

No longer are eyebrows raised
No words remain spoken

Just fire and flames
Daring us to come closer
As we taste some more

we lost you
and part of me still doesn’t know that
but when I cried
speaking to him about how nothing will be the same and you’ll never get to hold little laughter and wipe little tears away
clinging to birthdays and little voices
he told me
that my hands
are extensions of you
so you will hold it all
the packages, the smiles, the screams, and the giggles.

and it made me smile—

thinking of the day you get to hold my Theo, with me.

he got me flowers

just because. or maybe not just because, but because I asked him to.

but he got me the ones I actually liked. and paid attention to the way I smiled.

he got me flowers. and I know he wouldn’t hesitate to set up a reminder,

to get me more

we both were screaming
to pick up more speed
running from ourselves
in the ******* getaway car
hoping to crash

Please tell me why the scotch
Swirling around the glass
Stokes the fires in my soul
As it swirls playfully along my tongue
To incite the words brushing against the smoke as it leaves my breath

Till the glass is empty
and fires go cold

I wanted to say something poetic.
to capture the sheer depth of emotion brought forth by that goose
I wanted to evoke the pleading in his first note
to hear the panic in the second
I wanted to let you feel the hope
to push towards the potential of having a reply
I wanted to tell you his lonliness
to hear his cry.

there is such a difference between laying the cutlery out on the table for everyone to see
and putting it back in the box, dropping it outside, and writing a ‘free sign’ — laying it down, and letting it go

feels lighter
free

I hated the set anyways

Oh twist my arm!
you know I can call?
Well just a button or two
you raise the bets
stakes are high
**** pinch and release
She’ll twist and writhe!
you know I’ll call
your bluff…
Tapping
you out?
your call
I’m out OKAY
well i knew that
anyway

home
Sprinting of feet
Dances in place
Food placed to meet
The needs of those
Both near and far
home

House
Decorated
Exact
Collected
House

but safe
Safe is home of people
With a hearth
With heart
With laughter
And with love
but safe
is what I love the most

A constant
constantly in motion
I thought meant constant speed
constant weight
constant thought
but that you treat
as if it’s at rest

without any external factors
and we know that’s not possible
But more than that
I don’t want rest
not that kind

so I spend my days
learning that a constant
May be constantly in motion
but varying speed
Changing weight
adding friction and moments

that bring complexity
a little joy
and hell a lot a pain

but god do I refuse for me to be stuck
in a perfect swing
of constant
predictability & rest