"to prove how
fast things change,
this is still the same
box of Corn Pops."

sometimes I'm not sure I know
how to love. and if I don't know
how to love, I wonder if I love
you. I something. I am-thing.
I feel you like carved wood. I
am in you so close I can no
longer tell. sometimes I'm
not sure I know how to
love. and if I don't know
how to love, I wonder if
I love you.

I love you like I love myself.
where do 'I' reside?

hi
ro
sh
i
ma

I can blame her all I want-

but she only ruined me

because I let her back

inside.

a lover is supposed to make
you gaze at the world with
wonder- - - and spot all the
beautiful prognosis of life.
why is it that, instead, you
make me gaze at the flowers
and wonder how they, to,
will end up crunching my
heart in a mindless
ggggyration
of hips

I blessed the flowers upon your
dispersal, and you tell me I should
have sunk into sad indifference- -
that feelings hurt your feelings.

my eyes glaze over in reckless abandon
to whatever sanity I once achieved.

you did this to us.

*you did this to us.

nervous glances,
kisses of confusion,
and a "Guide to
Drugs in Canada."

I'm not sure
what I'm getting
myself
in
too.

the closest
thing I have
to an enemy
is my
ex.

forgiveness is
pain, so I
think
of her
less

day to day
to day
today
I tell her
to move
so I can
clean-up her
mess.

stay up till 6
sleep in till 2

realize..
not once
was I thinking
of you.

between the cushions, there's
nothing but a black hole.

smoke another bowl and
contemplate the facet.

underneath that world map
lies a part of the world- - -
unmapped.
unmarked.

left to the brave pioneers
who remove the push tacks
and gallantly name the space
after themselves- - - soon you
will find my wall next to
Vancouver
in the atlas

and my head will be a city
long forgotten to history.

this coffee is excellent. black as space and bittersweet as
last night- - - I wish us both well. I will miss you. I will
seek for you in other intimacies in ways they don't deserve
- - - in ways I should not.

"so you're okay?"

"well, no. not really. not at all. And I apologize for the absolute mess in my place.. fruit flies and all. I've been in a state of depressed apathy at dishes for the past 2 weeks."

"it's a little gross, but nothing I haven't seen before. Listen.. you're gonna be fine. As deep as you're hurting, you're gonna be fine."

"I'm just not sure if I believe that kind of rhetoric anymore. It's almost political; 'you're gonna be okay. don't **** yourself, don't **** yourself,' it'd be an inconvenience to the whole structure of what keeps us alive.. how do we explain this fellows misery to the point of self-inflicted death? how can we keep things flowing if everyone's looking over in anguish at this little ***** corpse?"

"it's always been your choice.. to live or die. it's a spider-wed effect in the way it impacts others, though.. it gives them something heavy that some become anchored with for the rest of their lives."

"then you're telling me to live for everyone else. that's all I live for sometimes; because I can't stand to think how the people who have hurt me would feel about themselves if I took my life. The endless blame game they'd play in their heads.. and the questions those who loved me would have.. not regarding my death.. but regarding their lives in the wake of my blood-stained absence."

"I'm not quite sure what to say to that."

"Listen.. I've considered drowning all of my misery in a nihilistic dance with life.. ***, drugs, shameless self-promotion.. but I just don't think I have it in me to stop loving. And that means I don't have it in me to stop feeling. And that means I don't have it in me to keep living. Not forever. Not for long. I'm just waiting for me to save my life, but I'm not coming, because I don't exist. I'm at the hotel counter waiting for the clerk to come out from the back office so I can check out."

"don't move on past me, darling. move on with me."

let the world fade

like ice melting

in a glass of

whiskey.

you'll agree

some day.

"I dunno. Some belief just told me to hold you."

encouragement was a
bottle-neck broken
bottle-picking ***
you dropped the
bottle from the
blue bin. the
clerk denied
you the
deposit,
told you
not to
tear the
labels,
told you
it was
shattered,
told you
to take it
all the
way to
the depot
south of
town for
disposal.
you
glared
at him
a moment
and lit a
cigarette.

the
conversation was over
like the
monarchy-
it no longer
had
any
say.

it
had
to
answer to
public opinion.

blocks of fluid motion
unlike ice.

moves and carries the package deal like FedEx 24/7,
ivy grabs the Empress in a flat embrace
waits like a dead red coat for the British to reinforce its garrison.

if happiness were sold as madness
how many of us would be architects?

for some reason, I've been sleeping on my couch
all week- - stolen the over-sheet from my bed
and plodded it over the cold leather so I don't
squeak and freeze in the night. I can't tell if it's
because I'm too tired to make my bed, or if
sleeping in the living room gives me a sense
of not being so alone like being next to those
loosely shut closets full of clothes and nothings
(and the memory of you) in pitch darkness. the
same lethargy has struck me with dishes. beer
bottles and empty yellow tail all sit where they
were abandoned after a night of silent-drunk
-chat-flirt. sometimes I forget to turn my coffee
maker off, and the coffee literally cooks to the
bottom of the *** like some disgusting carcinogen
pancake. ***** clothes lay about like fallen soldiers
on the dismal battlefield of my heart- all unaware
that even if one fights to win, and victory is attained,
the whole countryside has been devastated with
thousands killed who will never return to the
comforting silence of their loved ones reading
books in the living room.

for some reason, I've been sleeping on my couch all week- -
stolen the over-sheet from my bed and plodded it over the
cold leather so I don't squeak and freeze in the night.

avoids
me

like
the

plague.

you believed me once. I was once
believed. of all the integrity's born
of cigarettes, there are none that
come close to the way the world
sunk like a shattered lillypad the
day we parted offices. offices. if
I could do it all over again, the rain
would be in space and the sun would
be what masks the wet. instead,
optimism demands my attention
like an angry vocational counsellor
(thankfully I ignored that job posting).
receipts, tissues, medication, torn envelopes,
iPhone, guitar, empty mug sticky stained
bottom and sticks of cancer- please tell me
there's a reason I should live to 100.