got me through the rough patch,
droughts and my melancholia,
tending to the weeded, overgrown,
cut up good parts of me.
wildflower bouquets, and surprise coffees,
6 wine bottles and 2 awkward silences -
only to hold me at a distance,
never close enough to see the wrinkles,
the pore from my teenage nose ring,
or the scar on my left foot jaded.
you think about the way i fit into you,
subtext on a park bench in July,
and now the sun’s tucked away behind
mutual friends and soft playlists,
some people are facets of where we’re at,
and i never wanted a fixed address.

i’ve looked within myself,
self-help books become my mirrors,
character twisting into ugly shapes
of what i could have done wrong?
i keep looking for something,
but forgetting why i entered the room,
and they sit watching me search,
for human errors and common ailments,
that i quickly diagnose as disease.
i can’t keep a straight face,
stroking my ego to ted talks and podcasts,
while arguing about the colour of the sky.
what if i’ve never been a problem,
frankenstein wasn’t the creation,
he was the creator.

some days i don’t feel anything,
and it scares me, mostly because
i’m in the business of feelings.
but you don’t detach without warning
my mind freezes, i hope someone will call me
tap on the glass hard enough to break me -
usually in my bed, doom scrolling,
until my fingers can’t extend
enough to reach you,
the sun goes down quietly,
between the half drawn curtains
i sit and wait for the tightening in my chest
half a tear falling down my neck
but it doesn’t come,
and my notifications are turned off
can someone love half-empty?

obviously, it’s about you,
and the thousand hairs in your
bathtub, and the fact you read these
trying to decode my midnight delusion,
with a hope that it’s all perfectly fine -
and it always is, because we decided it.
let’s not read into this, you’re here,
(we both know we’re still broken)
and life isn’t going to be smooth or kind,
but i’ll try to make it sound sweet.
so trust my soliloquy's and good nature,
hold on to cheek kisses and prolonged stares,
treasure the sound of my eight alarms,
stay with my rolling eyes and shaking hands
for a moment longer you’ll understand,
nothing is ever picture perfect -
and poems are just like relationships,
everything could ****,
but it’s all about the framing.
if it wasn’t any good, i wouldn’t be
sitting here painting pretty words,
obviously, it’s about you.

quietly a mess,
my parents planted it when i was born
and every year i kicked and screamed more
and played make-believe with Emily -
that we would one day be grown too.
i still hold onto my innocence
so tightly that wrinkles are growing around it.
i try to be steady now,
twenty-five and slow to notice more of -
but every so often I turn bright red
and no one can hide from my ageless trends,
to be credible, reliable, dependable, unshaken,
but able to bend backwards, your sun mistaken -
and when the light goes out, and I turn away to rest,
will you still remember to water me,
quietly a mess.

i walk down Richmond quietly,
waking up to white crystal roof tops,
while St. Mary’s church bells
cry out for my resignation.
the fallen angel, walking on ice
with a birth control pack, Diet Coke,
and sometimes his painter sweats.
my Tim Hortons guy laughs with me
as i slip on black ice backwards.
for me, just breathing is falling victim,
to cold noses and cherry cheeks.
or to hope, long shots, and long hauls.
winter is here, i’m inside cozy,
and my mind gets too noisy,
to see things clearly.

we were suppose to be just friends,
but you count the minutes,
between our two apartments, it’s ten
maybe w’ll cross paths again,
depending on the drinks consumed
and the man i’ll be texting next…
now i think there’s been a defect,
eating garlic knots while
discussing our future apartment.
nights are pouring into each other,
now i’m lacing myself to you  -
i make a lot of mistakes, but
my favourite one is us two.

eating up inches of my mind,
the things we say at midnight -
toxic ideas about what love looks like.
please don’t remember me for this,
clinging to ideas of what could be,
romanticizing the way you look idly.
i’ve never been the easy choice
guiding my madness to digest slowly,
and i know i’m off putting in a beautiful way.
the same way tornados look cool as hell
from the comforts of your cement block.
there wouldn’t be a siren loud enough,
to make you see me more.

Who would have guessed it, not me,
circumstances and mishappenings.
Both lead to 2am texts
as the parlour doors close:
"You up?" or "How are you getting home?"
Sometimes you're with her, another me,
birdies tell me, less difficulties -
Do you ever think of me?
Missing my body as she falls asleep.
Does she lend you her shoulder?
I wonder about the life you lead,
still, poisoned words when you’re angry?
Was I only passing time,
a laugh and kiss to get what you need?
It's just a question,
but the answers never make me happy.

(She’s here.)
Sitting patiently at your door,
the day you left your keys,
when the lights got left on,
and the closest fell open
(with your discomposure).
She's the equity collector,
the moral police,
and every cut led to retribution.
(It’s bleeding out.)
You never liked my poems,
so for me, it's all just poetic justice.
Karma tastes too sweet,
like my boyfriend’s oat milk lattes,
the sun between the trees,
and my three rough degrees.
(It’s never been easy.)
Flatter me with evil genius -
but I take no part,
i’ve only been cleaning my conscious,
taking out the garbage,
and making your bed,
(so why don’t you just lay in it?)

you don’t really read into,
all my worrying semantics,
entangled on your couch
with the beers and joints clashing
all the mistakes we’ve made
that led us here dancing
and i feel the lavender haze,
sneaking up on bruised lovers
someone says i’m ******
so we’re ****** with each other
all you keep saying is,
we're going with the flow
but i just want to stay,
in your lavender haze

Summer went away
a father on a business trip,
zipping up what’s left of my
vanity and one night stands.
I wait for dry calls,
clearing my schedule once again,
hoping for a soft launch somewhere.
It’s okay I’m the worst of them,
and I hear you’re bad at this,
texting and relationships.
I learn to forget, an amnesiac narcissist,
from changing addresses, to sunken pillows,
i waited summers to see you there,
i search the streets when
your bold laugh rolls past,
just to remember that you never cared,
you’re on your own, kid,
you always have been.

not the hero,
with my hair thinning,
forehead wrinkles make themselves
at home, the walls i hide in,
his midnights a soft landing
into depression sunrises and
***** soda horoscopes
i can’t stop wondering, “is it me?”
the problem, everyone knows,
but no one remembers -
ticking timers on her shapeless body
feelings i paint by typing words.
i can’t stop searching for her,
my nails are tearing,
it’s not easy being the cool girl,
awkward and unrelenting
with my broken eyes,
always the villain,
never the bride

authenticity has always come easy,
not for lack of anxiety.
merits of originality, often mistaken for novelty.
but i am not all grand gestures,
despite your skepticism, maybe my sincerity
is really that beautiful.
my mother reminds me,
that i have always been like this -
running around as a whole self.
my eyebrows pained from frowning,
my cheeks red from smiling,
knocking on a friends door to check-in.
feelings that fall flat when forgotten -
how could you forget me?
if i can love all of my shades, why can't you?

i want to apologize to everyone
and my bird of paradise plant
and the guy on the bridge who
i couldn’t say hi to back
i want to say sorry for clinging
too long to things that couldn’t see me
for all the ugly parts i am
rigidity and emotion gasping for air
i want to make amends for chasing
ideas of what i wanted things to be
and who you couldn’t be, even if you tried
(did you ever really try?)
i want to beg-pardon for saying too much
providing the instructions on loving me
as if i was a wrench or owners manual
objectifying something indescribable

now we’re thirty, and angry,
cane chairs lining cliche CB2 tables.
i’m selling the apartment i fled to then
for a generous 2brm, 2 bath in Leslieville.
my friends and i vacation in Bali;
exchanging bars for charcuterie eves.
Olivia laughs with me about our twenties,
both of us still stale, silly, and single.
i want to remember the complex simplicity
warm disorganized summers in Fort York
believing in the Toronto dream -
waterfall islands and **** toasters.
when we were in love, then out to lunch,
then back into the vortex of unknowing.
never get too comfortable in a mirage -
sometimes hurt is the catalyst for
the perfect vintage record stand.

sometimes i smoke ****
numbing the abandon i’ve felt
and once and a orange moon
i eat shrooms in a forest with friends
to feel the child like joy unlock
skipping through narrow grass
sometimes i have a glass of wine
and the body twirls into itself
the calmness sweeps softly
for when i let go of my thirty worries
ghosts of my past stir more quietly
the dangers of living move to far corners
pausing my devastation, and the loss
of what i imagined my life to be

if i was your type
would i be smaller than you in stature
the force of my words softer,
my thoughts easier to live under?
if i was your type
would i be a light read?
the picture painted black and white,
while my greys keep growing with age.
if i was your type
the stress of a minimum reaction
feels more natural than breathing,
the double texts reciprocal.
if i was your type
would you want me then,
in the same ways that i want,
for only the sake of company?

I'm your jester here. In the dawn of early fall
evening crosswalks, I point out my favourite book stores.
Look, the red maples, turning into dust,
paint-by-number yellows. Look, the dirt is drying up
crisping your white shoes on edges.
I walk through Ossington with you
stirring through my mind. Street lights flicker well into
the signs of cold October. Look, the fancy stores,
the cute golden retriever in the red rain coat.
Fall is when the only things you know
become the things I've named them.
Soon I can offer you a new season:
frosting window panes and shiny Distillery lights.
The first time you see me okay with change -
see me laugh with my friends boldly,
coming back into my honest self. I'm forlorn for you
to love the world the way I do, because I brought you here.

they sat hiding under the bunks
whispering babies sharing brief joys
before the mush food and the cold nights
which silenced tradition and beauty
he tried to remember his mothers face,
through stale air and bronchitis stirring,
when we forget what happened
a survivor sees the stares of nuns
on bad days, the arms of a justified priest
his sister can’t speak to him here,
where friends disappear every month timidly
for failing to exist more softly
so he can’t remember his language anymore,
what was the word for hope?

the over-functioning reservoir
of matter-the-fact delusion,
so that we can stay on the same sides
the crisp 5:35pm streetcar calls
over the sound of your Youtube videos
awkward dances around topics
we forget to make happen
and future promises that we can’t keep,
because feelings are awful
and neither of us have any left

you call me a hopeless romantic,
but at least you’re calling,
and you’ve been right for the first part,
because only an idiot hopes for things
like kisses in a BMW over french rap and
broken sentences at midnight.
the muted expressions between
muffled apathetic prose of wanting.
and i can’t help but believe i deserve otherwise,
indifference and cold shoulders.
instead i’m confused with what it means,
saying things i don’t mean.
reading between lines of madness
to guess peoples feelings -
why am i always surprised, crushes hurt.

will they always be callous and unfeeling,
cold shouldered and brooding,
teeth clenching at what's most logical?
and if this, then am i the climactic contrarian -
carrying every emotion so viciously,
that you tell me, i must be lying?
it's okay that i will never know peace like them.
because when i feel a strangers sigh,
a mothers eyes watering tightly with her pram,
the business mans shoulders folding into himself,
i can barely escape the envelopments of living.
some days my tears fall because of their pain,
on good days they pool because of an embrace,
and few days they fall for the discontented,
because what a sad life to only feel for yourself.

i don’t miss you on a Wednesday,
when i call into work sick and tired
and i can’t get up to put on the kettle.
if i faint now, who will find me?
so, i don’t miss being loved, hardly,
always when it’s stiff and inconsistent.
rushing through me, to better plans,
past the feelings i had to hide tightly.
i don’t miss the nights you rubbed my back,
and i could rest in your dependancy,
instead of reeling out what i never have.
i don't miss you at all these days,
despite my awkward tendencies to write like i do,
but once in a while i wonder what love felt like,
sometimes i think he wonders too.

affection feels like running with scissors,
jagged lines between comfort and longing,
forgetting self-control and remembering
the awkward scripture for vulnerability.
no one has ever held me for long,
always sitting on the brink of disaster,
edging my unconscious homeostasis.
cutting up the unwieldy girl
for a comfort that has already matured.
practicing how to hide my sharp parts
while he’s still reaching out for me
with all the arms of a Hindu god,
wondering why i can't hold hands
with someone who’s seen all of me -
maybe i’m just too much to hold.

I was never there in your vintage sweater,
standing at the convenience store
when you failed to toss the cigarette out, or me.
I was never there when you got us pizza,
and we did the same walk four times
just to see each other in a different light.
I was never there after you got the news,
and you looked like you were crying
when your mom called and I left quietly.
I was never there when you laid asleep,
picking up my clothes softly to tie up
the loose ends of whatever we were doing.
I was never there,
because I never let me stay to begin with.

silly to fall for you again
under the abrasive Pizza Pizza lights
with your childish blue Old Navy thrifts,
and again at the market picnic benches
where you said you didn't want me.
through prolonged stares about
what i meant last month when i left you -
you’re questioning why i don't follow you home?
i hope this is the last time again,
bringing a man to Red Room and my face
turning the same conspicuous colour.
when i tell you i have a stupid crush
and you don't even say it back
because you know that i know,
that you know too well, it’s true.
so, do we both have to have trust issues?
you’re calling me babes over dm's,
while we laugh at each others dad jokes,
except it's not all colloquial sayings this time.
if i have feelings for you, will you still think i'm funny,
or like us is it just mutually exclusive?

i can’t do small talk about climate
and share my timid feelings,
i force delay my texts back,
pressing patience into place.
like guiding myself to reality
where i control how i am,
which has never been easy.
but in the challenge of acting normal
in the prolonged stares at the beach,
after the time someone held ice
on my scrapped teenage knees,
i prepared a novel then too.
even then i lived in prose, never knowing
how to be simple, small, consumable.
instead i’m harder to swallow
than the complete truth,
i want to be like them too -
carrying joy and ease in undertones
instead of an AirTag for a brain,
running lines before getting lost
and like a three week trip in August,
i’m still unpacking how to act right.

nobody has to know about us
sharing longer stares at dinner,
kissing in the elevator up,
wondering about the next mistake,
knowing each others secrets.
trusting it's going to be different,
singing now on the walk home
and eating chicken fingers through confessions.
while i'm still scared to hold your hand,
and it takes four walks a day
to believe it's happening.
we're just a couple teenagers now,
at the skateboard shop on Queen.
trying to draw a line in reason,
so i can finally learn patience, so
nobody has to know about us.

you call me to check in,
assuring me of your new composure
and make bad jokes for hours,
galloping between Dundas & Augusta.
i’ve known you since you were fourteen -
you’re still tormentingly silly
and too easy to lay with.
you never really made me nervous
until this week -
feelings growing out of cement
in age and moments between memories,
falling into places painted over.
i don’t think we ever wanted this
to really be together,
but we can’t seem to get
rid of each other either.
Flinging back into comfort -
do i like him or is it familiar,
why not both?
Let’s sit a while longer this time,
and see if the paint dries differently.

I stayed so long I began to look like you,
and started shrinking into myself,
amnesia to the cold infantile display.
Promises from my own imagination,
and gifts of pretty projection.
Laura you can't change people -
but love, love comes so easily.
But like an expired library book,
with overdue charges and a cliché cover.
You can't blame me for judging.

We belong in this time
of wonder and questioning,
calling strangers home,
and dripping wax seals
on unsent DM's to Diplo.
My algorithm is broken
because I felt safe with you,
after we swam naked in the
Mediterranean Sea at 3AM,
and gave up on planning.
We belong to the sweaty beats
at Electric Island, and the
voices that tell us to slow down.
My voice is broken but bold,
carrying you to solutions
that look like truths.
We belong to no one
but ourselves.

I write about the middle aged
bald guy, giving the finger
to the citibike business bro,
holding a pack of Pabst.
Or about the cold air in August,
when we ran down Ossington
screaming “Feral Girl Summer!”
Maybe I do it to pass the time, or
to relive feelings I can’t forget.
To me it’s all the same -
words pouring onto the sidewalk,
pieces of my Milky’s iced coffee
with painful oat milk affliction.
I write because I’m always bitter,
or because my memories melt?
But mostly because I want you
to read this, instead of me.

sitting with myself,
endless feelings of love,
warm sentiments of care,
no one else to give them too.
as if it goes to waste -
the longing i project
it eats me up inside.
can’t hold this in,
30 elephants sit on my chest,
a lion roaring violently,
with me -
the circus is always in town

if i have a daughter,
will she have my thin hair
and sneer at social niceties,
will she hug strangers tightly,
or hide in the corner at awkward parties?
would she have called him back,
or blocked the number, before
it all got so bad.
if i have a daughter,
will she have my imagination
and mold words into minds,
like holding onto herself wisely,
carrying confidence that glides past,
those who haven't met themselves?
or will she trust in the bigger picture, before
it ever gets taken.

you say you don't want me,
between texts about
who i'm talking to these days.
ways of holding space above me,
and dark matters to hide in.
to my mind you say "terra nullius",
invading open corners of my lands,
as if to cheer for my loneliness
with a batting swing
making sure you're still around.
"What are you up to?"
context is the killer here,
knowing that I'm alone in a new town,
thinking it will make a difference.
and it always does.

the red power outlet
with the drawn on deathly hallows sign,
the 1960s oven
with the ancient lead knobs,
creeking ceilings,
passing passengers of thought.
calculator clicks from the left room,
taking care of wall marks from
the Muhammad Ali success poster,
past the humming radiators
singing hushed whispers of
youthful experiments of doubt.
i'm twenty-five, and three years late,
but i still wonder if they've figured it out.

the seven season show
is coming to an end
four months out of
a massive break up
new chapters start for me
the final episode airs tomorrow
i pack up to my masters in Waterloo
i become another version of myself
a grown adult woman
she has her **** together
i am a home owner now
i am so confused
how to pay any bills
i can't pay you any respect either
does Rory end up with Logan,
or does she choose her career?
I choose myself.

see me without a pen,
shaking out emotions, reeling
run on sentences, trying to catch
a moment as it’s passing.
i’ve tried to live in the moment,
but they leave me too soon,
and i can’t hold anything in -
thoughts fall with gravity.
i wish i was mysterious, even secretive,
harsh questions of wondering what
she might do next -
that facetious woman with
a superiority complex.
i break the binds of open books,
kiss and tell to voids beneath me,
and i’m not obscene, just obvious -
okay, give me my pen back.

i don't want you,
not really,
i just want a compliment,
and some matty's patty's,
and i want to kiss you,
so maybe hold you?
okay we could walk
to christie and
talk about our feelings
i don't want you,
not really,
okay but maybe we could
go see the new marvel movie
and laugh at failed CGI...
then touch knees on the curb -
don't patronize me
and make me feel seen,
tell me about your
childhood dreams
okay i want you,
but not really???

it was 3am and I sent four texts
to four people i've slept with,
and my childhood bestfriend
is dating the owner of the bar
so im wasted and wasting time.
all of them are sleeping,
except the next morning when
James jokes about being too cheeky,
I remind him i'm barely holding on,
so he hangs onto my hollow words

smelling your back
as i hold you into my body,
loving you quietly,
rubbing your shoulders
as you fall gently to sleep.
picking up the lint in the morning,
and folding your laundry.
remembering your sisters
birthday from last week,
that you forgot a gift for,
like the flowers i wanted
for my masters acceptance,
was your love lost in the mail too?
i gave you safety and comfort,
you gave me distain and distrust
with a twisted sense of humour

i am a firecracker,
once lit i am sent
into the expeditions
of fanatic joy,
turning and spinning,
spectacular to watch,
hot to the touch.
burning up into
pieces of carbon
which we are all made of,
but sometimes forgetting
how beautiful we are
before we crash,
rather than upheld,
we become a spectacle.

i write to you when i forget
how my feelings work,
and when their nicotine addiction
curves into lost sentiments that break.
they don't know who they are,
so i was born with a strong sense of self,
and the assurity of my next breath,
despite my chronic asthma.

people think you need to be sound,
so he plays spooky guitar noises
to silence the idea that life is quiet.
we are always running for safety,
looking for constance,
some find it in a glass of control,
but i've made peace with not knowing
practically anything at all.

waving hips with you to Machine Girl,
drinking terrible mixers of orange juice,
and whatever ***** my friend left last,
sometimes i let my head rest too long.
kissing my sunburn from Sunny Side beach,
trading my iPhone over tasteful r&b,
chasing memories of being loved,
tonight, you kiss me like i am.
your friends are all way cooler than me,
i’m awkward, preppy, sitting in my flaws
with excessive layers of honestly,
but still they never want me,
how can an onion put back on her layers?

your the one to blame,
for my frontal lobe spinning,
for the jack of trades tipping
the waitress twenty percent

to show me you are solid
teaching me boundaries
i sit patient and still
for the drawing of cards

when i packed up our apartment,
and said goodbye to final memories,
ones i lived in alone for months,
i noticed all the little things i gave,
to make you significant.
the things i bought for our love,
that i thought we’d do together
from the pan set, to the rug, to the vaccum,
i cared so deeply for you,
anything you needed i provided you,
i gave you my future,
and that’s a reflection of my love
that made you seem so special
surrounded by neutral items,
turning into a person,
i no longer believe in.

you felt like my cabin,
when the wood sank under.
loyalty doesn't take time,
it takes character.
seeing fallen branches
crating to one side of it,
like rough patches,
which I saw him through too.
and there i sat with you
with 3 drinks too many -
and saw the way you spoke to
strangers under the canopy.
did you notice me watching?
i knew it as soon as we sat down
and shared battle stories,
like coming back to comfort,
then into torrential feelings
i found parts of you in me,
shavings of pain and joy,
contingent to democratic debate
and i found parts of me in you
pairings of ego and art,
conditional to romanticising realism
did you notice me too?

her dads car rammed on the ttc tracks -
drinking a spicy caesar on the road,
looking out for the Toronto police cars.
we ended up at Seoulshakers,
tap danced at the pizza parlors,
and I texted friends a picture of my rings.
i bought the bartender a shot,
but couldn't get steady on my longboard.
reminding locals that i'm an addiction therapist,
over the sound of tequila crashing into marble.

He never told me how he felt,
when he invited me to his old car,
and I shook his honesty and hugs off,
like i did three years before.

Only because I didn't know otherwise.
You're expecting the unexpected,
a new feeling without being earned,
like my respect which left then too.

Why should I care that your upset?
I named my truth again and again,
my boundaries were boastful,
if you didn't listen, am I the perpetrator?
Some things can't be fixed.