My lover volunteers to count the amount of stairs on each staircase along campus.
Right, left, right, left, right, right-left, right. There we go.
I count the moles along her arms, like a canvas (they are not freckles.)

My lover redefines the status quo,
Chopped hair that repurposes the definition of what it means to be true to yourself
Hues of blue and pink
And green.

It’s difficult to write something that means so much to you when you are infatuated with your own life.
Obsessed, besotted, and bewitched
By a colour that highlights the boring crevasses of each day,
Delaying and obstructing our undeniable decay.

She loves cats,
Not to solidify our cat-like selfishness,
But as a reminder to remain for all of our nine lives.

Many would call me crazy,
Counting stairs and the amount of times the oven beeps to reassure myself I am not entering a deranged state of mind.
But she counts the stairs
So I can step comfortably through each day.

My lover.

In February,
Orion’s belt burns
To the Northeast.
And for a brief moment,
We face the same direction
From two thousand kilometres.

Three seconds.

The walk on the tightrope,
Doesn’t seem too different
From that of the hard, wooden floor beneath my feet.

My eyes lock with all
Three speckles in the sky,
Burning flames of passion,
Yet cars still flow by.

So swiftly and so loud,
In the quiet of the night.
The arrow in the sky,
Shining so, so, so  bright.

Three dots in the sky,
Telling me to stay.

If love was the food and water of the soul,
I am Tantalus.
This unfamiliar feeling
Is just beyond my reach.
And I wonder
How exactly I offended these gods?

Goddess of love and kindness,
Abstain me
From focusing on the pleating waves,
Instead of the beauty of the sun,
And it’s constant comfort.

Instinctually, I paint a perfect image.
With blossoming water etching the high tides,
And the bright star in the reflection above.

But you can still have sun
In the absence of waves,
And the gods somehow forgive me of my foolishness.

I grasp for the water.
It doesn’t reach my neck,
But slips into the back of my throat.

I breathe in Green.

Green eyes dance across the bay,
A forgiving light reaches out.
Frolicing reflections on the black bay floor,
Telling me to go.

A tranquil forest stares back.
Dull brown of the trees like your hair
Falling flat on your face while you sleep.

Green is a word I can’t remember.
Always on the tip of my tongue,
But Green is one moment away from slipping out,
Filling the whole room with words so thick and full of volume,
You have to cut through it to breathe.

Green is the sentence between
The distanced parentheses,
But Green is not an afterthought.

And in every life, you are Green.

A lonely shadow casts upon the green carpet,
Blossoming from nothing but a blowing seed–
vegetative propagation.
Sticks shoot through the bright green straw,
The womb of Mother Earth, doors facing East and West.

Buckets of life sit atop the straw blanket,
Blossoming with new life.
Filling, fueling, feeding–
Over and over and over.
And when we die, we become the food of the blossoming leaves,
And the bright green sheet that covers the Earth’s floor.

Yet nobody stops to appreciate
The beauty of the blossoms.

There sits a lonely table,
On the never ending sheet
Of green.

the yes would still come through fog and rain;
clear as day, the words escape your lips.
your beautiful, glowing lips;
that i wish i could touch once in my lifetime.

the yes would still push through your teeth;
even if it came next week,
even if it didn’t come at all.
you would say yes.

forgive the sinners of their sins, for they did not know what they were doing.
like a saint, you speak to me.
yes, yes, yes, you say.
you want her lips again.

i cannot wait to walk with you.
to grab your hand beside mine,
look at the ocean view.

i want to tell you “i love you”,
through whispered breaths
buried in the sand.

and when we lay for a night of rest,
my breath will follow your shallow pattern.
until our hearts
are two, beating as one.