a woman
dreaming a couple of tattoos
on her body

is lighting candles
on the ship deck
throwing them onto the sea

"the sky is dark here
and no one remembers
how much i loved
the Little Dipper"

"Things are good
kids are happy and divine
the past is gone
stick to the present
look forward
history is complicated
and tangling
Let's build a shining future now!"
and those words hit differently
they hit hard
when Kokum remembers them from a letter the Indian Residential School Principal had sent home one year
Kokum knows what the letter meant by
"happy, divine, past, gone, tangling, and let's build"
They hit hard
Kokum reads them anyway
like she has for years
Oh my child, she says, oh my child, I cannot tell you now how I exactly felt back then
Because they took our words, our ways!
Can you look into my eyes?
they carry the truth
they do
Can you hear the mountains weep?
Can you hear the rivers call?
Can you feel the burden in the wind?
Can you hear the mountains weep?!
They carry the truth
They do
They will
Remember, my child, remember!
They took our words
but they cannot take our voice
they cannot take our valor
our willingness to move
to move
move

It's been a battle
you got hurt
and went unhealed for so long

sometimes it was a "friendly fire"
and sometimes you ended up losing a part of you in this war
they called it collateral damage
they called it
life


You might be wounded inside
I can't tell
because you've forged such a thick skin
an armor
that shields you against
all the judgements
sympathies
involvements
and the diggings
the diggings
that often turn into a scene
in which you throw up the passion you had for "focusing on the future"


i love that armor though
it isn't just a makeup
it's an identity
and rightfully it's not see-through
so, it's safe inside
I get it
I do

I wear mine every morning
or night
or day
I don't know
whenever I am up
I mean, down

“this is the end”
she carefully whispered onto the wind
and hoped he would hear it soon


and would say nothing in response.

I am a melody of winter
thirst flavoured
with a checkered pattern of ash grey and date black
that sounds like a heartbeat

but when improvising me
you use ferocious colours
you tear me, you take me
you sing me
“Come darling! Soup is ready!”

A nostalgia
that squeezes your soul...

Your squeezed soul
gets buried into the casket of your body!
on your bed

it plugs you to yourself
and unplugs you, a little later
plugs you
unplugs you
plugs you...

eventually
you’re toast!

what is love
if not the vowels
between
thousands of consonant miles

she doesn't know
that I have seen the moon in her eyes
and it was so elegant
her eyes lighting up the moon

and if you ever come across me
remember this crooked song

"wild strawberries in the woods
not the only fear at the neighborhood
bad apples, cookie monsters, and crows
cashew farts, peepholes, and human toes
we shall fear not, as of today, as of now
we stop, stand, run, jump, and bow
whatever we need to want to can
whatever we need to want to can"

tell me about the skies

I am tired of the earthly prose

tired of dust, distance, and stories of the seven kingdoms


- up there

it's freedom through and through

star riding is free for everyone 

and belonging is the funniest word.


our age depends on our velocity

breathing is not that expensive

and no one has yet discovered the end of life.


similarity, a superstition

originality, an irrelevant matter

and art is the only religion.


it's always 7 p.m.

somewhere in the galaxy

eight, twelve, a quarter past three

"anytime that works for you".


storytelling is the most popular profession

and the night, always young.

when i am gone
plant me in your heart
go for a run when it rains

i will be the strange line on the ceiling
or the smallest dot on the bathroom wall
or the type of cologne you smell on a passerby

i will be the strange tune no one knows why you like

when i am gone
it's no one's fault
it's just default
some die now, some die later.

as ruthless as my words
is the truth
that takes more than it gives
and we are asked to live with
what we have
or specifically, what we don't have

and, truly, instead of thinking
i would just
water my plants