snow has melted from your front yard
chocolate hovers warm, still baking;
sweets for parties i am not invited to.

i am cold suddenly and all at once
in places the outside air doesn’t reach.

the laughter of hello, proof of living
just opposite my corner table;
i am noticed but not spoken to.

i thought they said winter
was for the death of things.

i have a great affection for admitting the truth
and the truth is this:

i have a fondness
for words
but often find myself struggling
to string them together
in the right order.
on certain days, in any order.
i simply cannot sway them;
they do not operate as a medium
for what i am meaning to say.

the truth is this:
words do not obey me
as easily as they do you.
i can turn dying leaves into new grass
and ash into glitter
with careful effort and mild pride
but you create
galaxies out of nothingness
and just as easily erase
predetermined notions of my existence
by humble mistake.

A favourite mug with a chip at the top of the handle and the depiction of a city never visited by me directly but by you, missing me;
a cherished item put back each time with silent worry for wellbeing and the fearful notion that hands other than mine will not care for it properly and my return will find pieces of Paris instead of a whole skyline;
one of a near matching set, a half gift and one of the only physical ones given to you, with love, from me.

the way I suspected it in March, the way I anticipated it in April.

I knew it in May that I would not mind another whole summer of burning if the flames were my cheeks flushed red and your crooked smiles; a sip of coffee too hot for the tongue from across a table; a sacred place shared miles and miles from either of our residential states but entirely a home.

I knew it in May that the heat would break with the rain and I would dance to a list of songs with your name written as the label; it would get easier to breathe on days you were present and harder to speak on days I was not; I would never mind if good mornings continued to bloom flowers behind my breast plate while good nights lingered through soft dying rose petals.

I knew it in May that I would love you; that I may have already loved you for some time since but I certainly would never not love you again.

sometimes i lie aloud,
about me, to myself;
knowing full why, who it’s about.
sometimes i pin my hair to the top of my crown
underneath is more lost, less found.
sometimes i place my fingers to my bones -
wonder how a face becomes a house -
when it starts to feel like a home.
sometimes i debate just cutting half to self-preservate,
pretend it’s all considered the same.