78

i'll never lose my imagination,
i'll stay young forever with you.

77: birthday tomorrow

when i wake up tomorrow,
i will feel older and more worthless,
but i will feel beautiful.

and each and every one of you incredible souls and bodies
is going to make me momentarily forget (or disregard)
how many setting suns i've seen,
how much hair i've lost on my head.

when this is over, it will be just another day,
my nails growing,
my eyes blinding,
and teeth rotting into this forgiving smile:
start betraying my heart.

76

my hands are too cold,


but thinking about you warms my heart.

75

i woke up next to a pillow today,
my arms wrapped all around,
face buried in.

i could have sworn i heard you whisper my name,
telling me to wake up,
kissing my forehead,
but waking up next to this was the biggest disappointment i had felt in a very long time.

it's only been a day,
but i crave you more than than ever.

74

i wish these hands of mine were strong enough to push you away,
because you're the last thing i need right now.

73

oh, pretty body,
grab me and lift me up!
off the ground, higher than these clouds that loom over the city today,
higher than any of that pretty blue.

then ask me if i've felt any better than this height,
and i'll say "yes, yes, yes i have! today's morning passed too quickly
but i was awake and i've touched skin,
and skin has burned holes on my body
so that i no longer crave anything but this morning all over again."

72

like winter, you're bitter and you're sweet.
and spring too, summer and fall,
i need you around all the time like i need to taste
the different texture of every november.

you're not just a pretty face.
you're not just a pretty face.

this winter is too cold,
it will be my first toronto december in two years.
yeah, this cold cuts and snow is sore;
i'd go but
my home is here and i can't leave you.

i wish i wish i wish there was away for me to drive you there,
because you're welcome with me any time you like.

71

you gave me six months of hell.
no way are they coming back.

never ever ever again.

70: six more days

i can't stop coughing,
my head is pounding.
i miss you,
i miss your skin.

is time running out?
am i going to spend my last precious days like this?
am i going to sit here and pretend i'll just ease into another year?
i am pathetic.




this is nothing.

69: my favourite song at the moment

68

picture this:

on a night like this,
you are cut and injured,
and you're so lightheaded you can't even see.

this is the only thing keeping you from falling apart:
your two friends who are with you,
one sitting to the left of you,
one on the right
in a vacant subway car.

you know that it's either too early or too late,
and a mere 12 hours ago it was crowded with people of all ages,
races,
blood types and hair colours.

and then you look down at your trembling fingers and legs,
you know you spent too much money again,
and what are you going to do about all this workworkwork and no more
no more play?
you're still speaking to them
but you're no longer thinking about the words


then you realize it's better than going home alone,
where you'll stay for the next couple of days,
again, workworkwork and no absolutely no fucking play.

it'll be like sleeping,
absolutely no soul in sight.

then ask yourself:
why the fuck is this a home?
what do you go home to?

67

slip your hands into my eyes,
down my throat,
and out through my stomach.

open me up like you would the sky.

66

my 18th birthday is in a week.
i'm dying so quickly.
i'm dying quicker than everyone else.

what am i going to do
with my last days as a child?
i have no purity, no virtue,
this life so far has had no value.
i want to bathe in cool rainwater, sleep under this layer of snow.

what is this? what are these years?
i don't need a house,
i’ll wish for these minutes back, days you've spent without me at home.

and then one day when you shift out of me, time,
there will be utterly nothing left inside of me.

65

you were right.
look at this: today is a new day.

i shivered but the snow fell all over me.
covered me, erased my thoughts, made me warm
under what i thought would only make me colder.

i feel better. a lot better than yesterday.


you're so great and
i love you.

64

i'm not an artist.
i did not create these beautiful things that reflect through my lens.
not at all, i simply locked them in place so they may never be gone.

i don't want to forget a second.
even in my death, these photographs will keep me alive.
these memories like dreams,
like this gorgeous landscape in front of me,
waiting to be captured.

63

i am dreadfully worried about you.
you're wearing off, getting tired. i noticed of late you’re drained of your pretty.

you tell me it's not unlike anything you've seen, like these sunsets in your eyes.
but it shouldn't be justified that way.
you haven't broken each and every bone.

while admittedly, this whole thing brings me a small comfort
like a baby sparrow (a bird so small that can inch through all these ripped open holes of my body)
into my disappointment of a life.
it makes me dry through my swollen throat.

what else can i do for you? i can't change anything.
nothing is mine to change.
but these nights, when the hours seem to get shorter,
when we're sleeping really late,
i'll slip inside this mold of playing shadows
and pray for you to to end this battle in your head.

62

i'm scattered, inconsistent, and all over the place.
that's the sort of girl i am.
i have a delicate body, i have a breakable mind.

look here, i am just like these feeble, trembling lips,
they match my hands so well, the same ones that fumble through the dark,
hoping to find the familiar heat of your body next to mine.

nobody knows – but there are so many things i despise about myself.
maybe soon you'll be able to taste this bitterness through my teeth,
see it on my dialogue,
feel it wrapped around my fingers, aching to clasp my own throat.
this is how hard i try to impress myself.

in reality, you don't even know me very well,
but so far you've love me all the same.
the least i can do for you is map my mind out as much as i can,
so that you'll understand me
and possibly let me love you like nobody else.

61

this is what i am and all i can be.

i can't show you, but i'll tell you: i occasionally hear the colour red.
it's the music of these pretty leaves rotting into the sea,
where water waves to us for an eternity.

it's so elegant.


i can see you running over here, why are you doing that?
with these orange feet you were given,
helping you get ahead of yourself.

yeah, people think they know me. people imagine they know everyone.
it's ok. i'll clear one thing up:
yellow could be the hue of my existence, but
when you skin this layer away i will shine three shades of green.
i am like sickness, nausea. an incredible disease.

pathetic; i can't help but latch on to you.



so then i own these tiny blue knees and violet legs.
these are things i cannot justify, and i wish i could.
you would respect me more, or know all my colours.

one thing i can’t see, is god in my bloodshot eyes.
i can only drop deeper in this black hole of mine.

sad, but this is what i am and all i can be.

60

this rain on my glass.

and so there's also this field in front of me,
painted blue tracks with white lines too concrete for smearing from shoes.
how many people can fit on this field,
if their shoulders were to nearly, but not quite touch?

will you be here tonight? will i be there tonight?
no.
today is kind of a bad day.
my eyes are blurry from reading too many texts,
but it's only only only the early afternoon.
today’s been so drowsy; even the sun has not gotten up.
grey clouds turn black clouds turn grey.
nobody is going to be anywhere tonight.

and so there's also this mirror in front of me.
it's always been there, but it's still a surprise,
because this head is so muddy and dirty now,
i no longer remember what i look like.

59

there's a place i want to show you,
but it's so far and we can't possibly go there by foot
(planes are good for this)
plus, it's so cold and bitter now.
our limbs would freeze,
i’m convinced we would regret it later,
sighing as we are looking at our frostbitten fingers.

i hope you don't mind
that where i want to be rarely sees blue skies.
it's a place where the sun is a stranger,
but everyone smiles and it warms my neglectful heart.

i’m in your heart,
but i’ll live forever in this great city.

58

when you are sleeping at night,
i slip in through your throat,
move your lips to the song of my poems,
each gentle letter of my name.

each night, i stir your stomach,
ripping open all the red i can,
so maybe your sadness will bleed through these open veins
and drain out of you.
be gone for so long
that by the time you forget about me, you would have forgotten this too.
decades.

for decades, for decades, and decades
like water splitting open a rock,
i work slowly,
but surely.

next time you hear that brushing sound in your belly,
you'll know that i am alive in there,
eating at this rawness.

it is not much,
but this is something i can do.
if i could give up this much of myself to you,
and you to me,
our feet will be warmed, everything can be alright
when we are sleeping at night.

57

you taste like honey in my mouth,
is that ok?
when you laugh, it sounds like the rustling of leaves.
ticking clocks and waiting rocks, a single dripping drop of water.
this always reminds me of a moon that is 98 percent full.

i'm too shy to tell you in person,
but you're really, very special to me;

you burn holes on my skin like no one else can.

56

i'm riding on a heavy, black wave,
wind pushing gently westward.
i thought i'd like it but i don't.

i've changed my mind!
take me back to where i came from!
let me crawl back in this sticky womb!
i don't want my very own pair of eyes.
i don't want my very own pair of lungs.

just
let me go let me go let me go.

55

there are so many things i'm doing wrong.
i'm stuck here, in this shell that has hardened too early.
i am convinced i should be spending this time to catch my breath,
so that's what i do,
all these things, all wrong.

i want to be morphed into something amazing,
when this shell breaks,
when my ears pop open again.
on this day, this artificial song will stop repeating.


oh beautiful earth,

i will be born here, i will be dead here,
but everything i do will be so, so right.

54

my room is getting messier and messier.
my head is getting heavier and heavier.

i love you, winter,
but why must you make me so so cold?

53

i want to be flipped and read and scanned like a novel.

so wrap me in all the books you've read,
all the pages, stained with your greasy fingerprints
around my thighs, eyes,
my vibrating and swollen vocal chords,
the tips of every hair on my head.
but replace the words with your arms and veins;
pour this story all over me.



hey, it was raining again today.
you know i'll miss you like i miss the sun.

52

it's going to be the worst feeling in the world,
watching you walk away
then lying on top of the print you made on my pillow.

51

stabbed my index finger on a prick
of my little smiling cactus, just now
while thinking about the speed of clouds traveling south
on a rainy day.

blood squeezed out of a tiny hole,
formed a bubble on me,
like a freshly plucked berry from its tree.

so i smeared my wound on my legs,
spelled out your name,
eyes followed the bend of an s,
and i wondered why you have so many curves in your name.

it hurts so much now,
like burning when i washed my hands,
but it's no big deal.

it's nothing a band-aid can't heal.

50

what does a painting sound like?

"ringing in my ears, and the taste of rain."
an old woman would whisper through her toothless mouth,
breathing in a foreign language i don't speak.

when i'm around people i can hear their bones shrinking away with age.
i can smell their deteriorating brain,
i can see their skin peeling, taste the tears they've shed,
for one hundred years of solitude,
one thousand vessels in their arms.

it scares me, you know?
makes me sick like winter,
feels like a bug
that accidentally flew through the crack of a museum window.
can't ever never ever ever leave.

but i have you,
and here!
here is the pretty sound of your young bones,
squeaking as they wrap around my cold shoulders.
our birthdays glowing pink in our bellies,
burning a two digit number through us when our mouths open.

yeah, i want you to know
that it's all ok when you're around;


but this only makes me miss you more.

49: why i'm straight edge

i get so tempted sometimes to fuck up my life.
smoke my brain cells,
shoot, drink, through my cuts and bruises and veins,
until my intestines wrap around my neck
and choke me until my eyes bleed.

but i'm stronger than that.
i have self-control.
i have inner-strength, inner-peace.
i'm tough as nails,
i've got the straight edge.

it's pink and purple out right now,
if i had none of those things,
my soul would be rotting the colour of the sky.

48

i woke up this morning with a large cut on my left leg,
bruised green all around,
and red scratches blanketing my chest.

i don't recall a nightmare.
in fact, my dream was like honey.
on a boat in italy, jumping in holding hands with you.
ancient waterways straightened out my bones,
and wrapped around the smallest curve of my waist.

i thought it was your arms at first, holding on to me,
but i looked up and saw you were already in the purple sky,
waiting with your eyes wide open,
mouth spread into a smile.

which is why i was so surprised today,
waking up to blood stained sheets,
and a tingling feeling in my head,
making me so dizzy i almost thought my trip with you was reality.

47

your soul like fire,
your eyes like stone.

(i do miss you but sometimes i don't.)

you smell the same, even under the sunlight.
your sweetness clings to me like a needy child,
with each awkward gasp, it clutches tighter,
urging for some salvation in its mouth.

46

i've left a place for all of you in my heart.
i sectioned off each bit,
unequally, but there is room, i promise,
for all your antique furniture,
and records (even the broken ones).

don't worry about food;
you can feed off my affection,
and i will pump blood into your veins
and acid into your muscles.

the air i breathe is not perfect,
but it will have to do for now.