297

eyes closed running in circles on the grass in the field.
i see you there staring into the earth, trees and grass and all,
dirt waiting to get into your fingernails and all.

trip over your legs, fall on to your back, i scream and tell you i'm sorry and rub my hurt.
you flip over and give me tickles between kisses. i cry and i say i’m stupid but you say no.

296

when you ask me why i like you, all i can ever think of is "because you are lovely".
i do not know enough words
to describe
why
i am so fond of you, except for that and those.
there are maybe a thousand ways,
a thousand tiny little things you do
that catch my eye.
we're watching tv,
we're walking down the street,
we are asleep.
your skin, your flesh, your bones. and don't forget your breath on my cheek.

295: a list

summer at the cottage.
occasional breeze.
sun is always either rising or setting.
we have no inbetweens and no highlowtemperatures.
water footprints down the road.
sky too blue to be true.

294

you are sweet and i love you even though i am sad,
and i tell it to you secretly in your mouth and skin even though i don't say it through words.

i say it through my own skin and fingers and eyes: i hope you knew or even noticed once or twice.
i don't want to say it out loud,
because the sound of my voice ruins everything, it seems,
because when i whisper in your sleep it sounds so cliche
and i don't want that,
i don't want any of that,
i want only you.

293: a list

you on the roof.
autumn parade.
empty glass of iced coffee.
hoody we stole from the thrift store.

292

i never told you about this:
when we finally packed everything and moved it outside, the house sat so steadily.
for the first time it seemed, the floor stopped crying so loud
and the ceilings grew higher than before.
you were waiting in the car, honking impatiently,
broken radio signal but you listened anyway.
i took what energy was left in my fists and used them to break the windows and kick my feet at the dirty bricks of our fireplace
and smear my bloody palms all over our white walls and when you have honked more than fifty times i decided that it was time to leave
and never
come
back
again.

291

waves crashing
like broken daughters in a fight.
leave them all behind, barbarella, twisterlla, tinkerbell mouth mouse trap left in the doorway
don't step on it
it might grab you and throw you into the sea,
waves crashing,
like broken daughters in a fight.
leave us all behind, tiny little ants among buildings tall as grass,
giant footsteps,
remember the joy of sleeping.

i just miss you i guess.

290

i wake you in the night to tell you i can't stop thinking about you,
and you think it's a dream still, or it's not morning, or something something.
bags under your eyes full of groceries,
speaking of which - we need to get some tomorrow.

but i wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you that i already knew
from the first time i saw you that we can't be friends
i can't speak to you
i can't touch you
without electrocuting myself closer to death,
(you blink)
but i have done so and i did and i did,
(you blink)
i only feel elevated,
i don't even care if i die.
(you blink and kiss and close your eyes back to your awaiting slumber)

289

home in the rainy city,
a tree that never gets watered still blooms with no sunny help.
colonial education, hungry fingers
reaching for cookies
and tea.

there are three porcelain jars full of those up on top shelf.

time passes slowly here but it's december so quick so soon.
yesterday i laughed and thought about rolling down that hill in july.
time passes slowly here but it's december so soon.
that only means i'll be home a few days closer.

288

i was told once if i left you to die you would crawl back to me on dirty knees and a broken head,
but it's hanging now and it hasn't rained for weeks, you know, and i see no mud in the distance.
and i try to change the scenery by shutting out the greenery but when i close my eyes i wake up, almost too suddenly
and a jerk in my spine
and flicker of light, too bright.

i am sorry.

287: hazel

your eyes are deep and clear like planets
with forests and deserts no one dared to touch
and i want to explore them, leave my heavy footprints in the sand and dunes of the widest beaches
and break those mall twigs that get in my way, my pitiful path in the green towards that field i know of.

i know if because when i climbed the mountain side i looked back,
laughing,
and saw that peaceful grass smile back at me,
calling my name in its gentle whispers like a song (one that i still remember).

it is there i built my house from trees i cut, and mud that i stole from the roots of that shine.
it is in this house that i will wake every day to your smiling lips and crisp eyes,
i am certain of it.
and it is on this hard bed of rocks i will look into them,
recite this quiet poem, while i watch myself destroy
through your glass planet eyes.

286: for a friend

i don't think i could ever live again.
i've swallowed this and regurgitated and forced myself to swallow it again.
your words choke me at the base of my throat,
i just want to let it go, take a deep breath and release it into my fleshy lungs,
i've grown tired of the feeling of collapsing organs.

but you won't let me,
and i know i won't let myself, not that easily, to feel the regrowth of my ribs,
arms twisted around, fingers crawling up my spine, fixing each and every crack.

no, i can't, i don't know how,
i was never taught how to fight. i want to try it for myself,
taste the first bursting cell, first black blood (although i already know perfectly what it would be like).

so no, my friend, i will not pull myself up with the help of your body this time,
i haven't yet figured out how. i can feel that breeze, and to be honest,
i don't think i could ever live again.

285.

soft sunlight is my favourite.
i want to see it on your skin
when you are napping and
i am reading a magazine.

an article on a new type of sea fish they found in the atlantic ocean
last saturday. i want to feel the sun on my feet too,
between my toes, up to my palms, right next to you.
and i want to watch the dust float around and your eyes,
they move behind your eyelids
from a dream.

284

little stings on my lips,
ghost tracks on a sunny afternoon in a silent house with dust,
and then dusk,
and the reception gets weaker as i descend into a curve down beneath the sea.
i've been here, everything else is the same,
those smudgy footprints along the hardwood,
but it's definitely been a while.

this is how i can tell:
i have not stalked the land for countless days.

this time, like my every visit, is different.
i know, because when i open my mouth there is no more hunger.
when i open my mouth all that comes out is song.

283

there was music this time, wasn't there?
turn it up,
i want to hear your hands louder than this noise i've been hearing all summer long.

282

how strange is it to exist?
i couldn't tell you, i wouldn't know,
because i can't tell tales like you - i can only count sorrows.
it's sad that i know what happy is and cannot have it,
and it's also sad that i'd like to be happy again,
i'd like to wear flowers in my hair,
i'd like to see people laugh into each others arms
and speak into each others mouths, gentle and familiar words spoken in an unfamiliar way to me.
i've said these words too but somehow it has never been the same.

i wouldn't say this to anybody else,
and when i write it is like a secret,
because the world is closed like a clam but i am open
waiting to be read like a dusty old book.
you once told me, that is the only the best and most charming thing about me, didn't you?

281: life

life,
mama told me it wouldn't always be good,
and that i should avoid being misunderstood,
do whatever i can, wear a bracelet of wood,
crawl to a cliff and there i stood,

for so many days then countless moons,
seen so many loons that i know their tunes,
standing over the blackened lagoon,
my hands tied up by three red balloons.

balloons are red to tie my arms,
and make me a woman with motherly charms,
balloons are red to keep me still,
and prevent me from sleeping and falling off the hill.

"untie me" i say with no forced will,
but the words squeeze out, the words i kill,
with little skill,
i might as well be misunderstood,
between could and should and would,
life, it wouldn't always be good
but at least i have three red balloons
and a pretty bracelet of wood.

280

for a day so bright, the night was darker than i have ever seen.
i can't tell if my eyes are open or closed,
if that is wind blowing in my ear or you whispering your frozen breath,
but i don't care.

this is today, that is tomorrow,
we can save it until later when there is all the time in the world and everything everything is melting in that burning sun.
i don't care i don't care i don't care.

279: for a friend

i can't believe that i would miss you, boy with cold hands i've never held,
and i can't believe i would see you in that house of yours by the beach in a dream! it was all so close
and it was really really cold by the water, where i dipped my feet and watched your gentle body sway back and forth,
hands pressing piano keys,
black white, white white black, white.
and by the water there was sand in my shoes, crawling between all my toes, separating them from each other
like separation i felt when i finally packed and picked it up on my back
and carried it like a burden, away from you so that you would be free to be free
and i would be free to be me.
but in that house you were swaying to all those pretty notes under your fingers,
with a dog and a small child singing songs that i never got to learn,
nursery rhymes i'm embarrassed to admit i do not know.
i know if i told you that you would laugh at me with that warm morning voice like roses in the back garden,
ones i didn't plant,
and you would, with that voice, tell me i'll always be beautiful to you
and tell me i'll be alright and alright
and tell me that you don't mind at all if i don't know the sweats and rhymes and beats.

you know, i can't believe i would ever miss you,
i want you to show me who you really are, i want to see you bitter, nostalgic and inspired.

278

when i get there, i will ask no more questions,
because the rain will for sure answer me.
and when i am dead and dead, throw me overboard,
because this rocking of the boat will keep making me sick.

277

these hot summer days my palms are black from climbing trees and digging dirt,
burying the stuff i dug out of my pockets
like pocket change
a rusty paperclip or a safety pin,
some wet fireworks i never lit, but meant to ages ago.
today i forgot my multiplication table,
but i can read more words than i ever could,
biking down this narrow street,
downhill,
feet on peddle,
mouth open,
leaves getting caught in my hair and hair getting caught in this delicious breeze.

276

this feeling is so quiet in the pit of my stomach,
it lacks light and red and colours that only a dumb girl can taste.
when i cover my ears and pretend to be her,
i can only see more details (instead of taste, you know what i mean),
like the baby lines in the palm of your hands and those creases between your eyebrows when you frown at me and knit them, telling me my age is not what i act.
hum hum humming amplified from your open mouth,
i want to put mine over, to hold it there and hold your breath,
so that what you lack will not appear then suddenly disappear,
and that water will not wash away the tattoos i've carved in your eyelids when you cry that say "gloria misses you gloria misses you gloria misses you" three hundred times magnified by green glass.

this time i put my hands over my ears i cannot make it the same as before,
and i do not know what drips from between my limbs anymore...
i just know i am not going to fall back and land in the snow that has helped me get to sleep the last few days.

275

i wonder what made you this way,
shy and afraid, you look south instead of north, and east instead of west.
i have to follow you while carrying dirt,
hidden by flowers, growing through the cracks
of my back,
showing you things i like in our track.

and who told you to leave me unattended?
where's our bucket?
which way is to the gold?
who told you to tell me those funny funny things and make me laugh,
when my body is so obviously deformed from chasing you,
so obviously tired?

"i know we must belong outside," i say, i don't care (or think) if it's dangerous.
can you sing a song?
you were holding my hand all along,
and i had to follow you carrying dirt,
because, this here, outside is where we belong.

274

well, these feelings are oozing out of my knee,
i am tightly squeezed like a tangerine,
in a glass, waiting for a hand to grab me
and drink my blood clean, before i turn nineteen.

my life is a book, too long to read,
i think i am boring, i think i mislead,
and out of the jacket, a spring bird sings,
and she will stay there - i've clipped her wings.

there are these summer fruits i love to eat,
peel them open and reveal the sweet,
they sit in my throat and make me feel complete,
like love would under the summer heat.

273

fourth of july, feet swinging in the air on a bus to downtown seattle,
my shoes were a bit too tight,
i remember this perfectly.

and i remember that day i had three water bottles in my backpack,
and a notebook with mostly blank pages i meant to fill out,
twenty dollars in my pocket to fill my empty stomach with food i could already smell.
it was great, children screaming themselves free from their mothers,
and those without mothers were allowed to wander the streets too,
walking next to me,
i felt them watching, like murderous eyes of pigeons, tasting the flesh of their cousins on grills,
waiting for the bread that wraps itself around those bodies,
ten feet above everybody else.

and seattle at night was really beautiful,
a light breeze constantly beneath my body around my feet,
fireworks outside my window, i could hear the sound of a creek with water rushing through like highway,
sleepytired, hungrythirsty, watched magicians on the tv in my apartment, families laughing through the cracks reminded me that i was sitting alone in the dark, back against the kitchen counter, and that this was the best vacation, and that i didn't need anybody to be happy, and that my tears will always be warmer than my face, and i was (and never again will be) more breathless than when i screamed out the sun.

272

you've lived every dream i've ever dreamt of,
because you belong in every one, haunting me or tugging at my heart strings.
most recently was three nights ago, you asked me where my house was,
and i told you it was back home in china where i left my little girl memories and little girl clothes,
where i spent all my spending money on dolls i never even looked at,
i'd put them in the corner and study on the glass table,
the house covered in plants,
great breathing air,
beautiful boys in the sun.

and then there was a pause in our conversation where i heard you breathe in,
then touched my face with your wet, trembling hands.
everything stood completely still,
as if i had said something to upset the entire rotation of the earth.

271

is there such a disaster?
there is such a disaster.

270

cut out pollution with your face.

269

that's not my head.
where is my head?
buried beneath your house.

268

dear feathers, who let you into this cave?
maybe you were brought here years ago when i dug this earth with my bare hands,
from the other side of the world,
through a well i fell through,
with the lid closed shut.
why did i dig? i had to dig! to get out, to see that sun again, to hear those birds again,
to be able to eat anything that was not my foreign flesh
and drink from springs not made of my own bitter blood that secretly poisons me each time i sip it.
so feathers, you must have been brought here to this cave back then,
when my hair was still short and my eyes dull,
because after traveling for so long, i have found that i now understand more than i ever would have wanted to know.

267: a lesson

i met an old woman in my dream, who stroked my hand gently,
and brushed my hair like it was her own.
her face wrinkled, mouth into a smile more beautiful than i had ever seen.
i could not help but imagine how gorgeous she must have been in her earlier years,
perhaps decades ago,
in a rocking chair on a porch overlooking an ocean of clouds and future memories.
when i finally got up to thank her, she did the same too,
and i saw these feathers fall off her dress and fly into the sky like birds,
and suddenly trees were growing faster and faster and her nails grew longer,
long enough for her to dig them into my arm, twist it all the way around until we both heard a crack.
i wanted to wipe my eyes of tears but i just stood still,
eventually aware of my surroundings, my feet on this solid ground, my lungs filling and emptying of air,
and then she tip-toe-whispered in my ear like a gust of september breeze,
"pretty girl, if you don't bend, you will break."

266

yes, a mix of sun and blood
dripping from the sky into her eyes as she said her goodbyes
to her favourite song, her favourite dog and books.
she was that kind of daughter, the kind you'd love to see burning in a fire,
wearing nothing but a smile through her entire body,
veins popping open,
my hands around her neck.

and this sunday she saw the sky, a mix of sun and her own blood,
she thought to herself, "finally,
i can feel the weight of my own damned body.
and finally, my feet are higher than any single clump of beautiful cloud."

265

how do your eyes stay bright
and your hands stay clean
all these months passing by, the back of your head knowing.
an ambulance, the back of this car,
the smell of fire on tv,
i have seen a file on you and all of what you have done.

264

i don't have anything to be afraid of,
because i have time on my side while i watch the world spin,
asleep,
drowsy drowsy into the night.
and i could write so many songs about not being afraid,
and how i believe i'll never grow old,
not old like this city, not old with the city.
tomorrow i'll grow new skin on my arms and feet,
tomorrow i'll prettier and better than ever,
watching this world spinning, spinning along into the night sky.

263

i have such strange dreams in which my arms are boats and i am carried out to sea but above the trees and in the sky the clouds are so smooth and your eyes are so deep and i keep sailing and sailing on into the deepest part of your head and hope that one day i can stay there without sailing a thousand miles and getting lost at sea.

262

i'm so afraid of growing predictable.
tomorrow i will do something different, wear something different, say something different.
i'll trick everyone into thinking that maybe i am somebody else.

261

when the world ends, it will happen faster than a single second,
and i'll be sipping on lemonade in my room, watching tv,
and who knows where you'll be?
maybe you are sailing on the lake,
or in an ocean far away from me.

nothing will hurt anymore, and we won't be hungry anymore,
everything will cease to exist.

then somewhere far away as we are all dying, a new earth forms,
and we will be born again.

260

i took you inside of me, cut a line down my side,
and you can spend this many days at the bottom of my stomach,
like the bottom of the ocean,
with buried treasures like hidden emotions i've swallowed, or learned to swallow, or need to swallow.
yes, there has been so many, i can't and i have lost count.

i have nothing to fear now,
i can spread myself like wings, tie myself up with strings.
outside my window, a windmill cuts through the air, loud like music cuts through my ears,
and echoes through my lungs,
and you will be hidden there too, for me to hear your voice
even when i am sleeping,
even when i temporarily forget about you.

259

i don't know pain and i don't know joy,
but i know what i like and what i enjoy.
when i pull you apart like a pair of knees,
the sun will burn and the ice will freeze,
explorers will whine and drown in all the seas
in the world
twisted and curled,
cabin boy to college boy, education in illinois,
what can't my mind deploy?
what can't my two hands destroy?

this darkness, i know, must be in you too.

258

you are never enough, but i know i am more than enough.

257

the deadline arrived without me realizing,
so obviously while drifting down the gentle waters of the indian ocean, you looked at me as if you had forgotten my name,
puzzled look in your eyes,
asking me if it's too late to turn back now.

256

sin is the name of this game.

255

you've caught me again, thick rope in your left hand around my breath,
i've escaped once but you've caught me again and kept me close, kept me until it got so dark outside.
and even when i am sleeping you won't let go, and what strange dreams i have! they are identical to yours,
where i am glowing and growing and glowing on a hill, like a tree, no beating drums in my system.

suddenly, we were in a lake and swimming never seemed so hard,
and the water was too cold,
and fish nibbled at my toes,
and when i finally wiped the water from my eyes and hair from my eyes i looked at you and the rope has disappeared and dissolved into your arms around my waist and only then did i realize how desperately we need one another.

254

when i am healed i'll tear a cut in my stomach again
and let this cold old blood pour out into your open mouth.
i'll bleed without feeling a thing except the tugging of your arms around my neck
and you will say between breaths that you have been so thirsty for so long
and you have been waiting for me for so long,
and all i'll be able to do is smile when you thank me for my love.

253

how great would we have been?
the answer is not great at all.
i would not have brushed away your insecurities,
and you would not have comforted mine.
i know when tonight is over tomorrow is another day,
and that your hand was soft wrapped around mine, for six days and six nights until our hearts broke, and before that, it kept me warm like home.
when will you forget about me? find me in the air.
when will you remember me again? will it be as fast as the new sun arrives?

252

don't believe them when they tell you to marry a pretty girl,
and do not try to marry a handsome man,
do not fall in love because that's the last thing you should do,
i know, because money bought me love long ago.

251

when i finally see you i will wake up and live,
grow myself up inside of you, in your belly where you keep your secret shells that made you.
oh messy life! we meet again, don't we? even though this time everything is red through your skin.
i'll still write you that love song, i still owe you a good time,
when you come back, and i wake up and live,
i'll name it "untitled" and grow my hair out just to see you before i go again.

250

sometimes i want to touch your legs to check if they're warm,
will they disappear, set free by my fingers?
i wonder because it's happened before, months ago, when i let those words go between my lips,
when you let them slip inside of you through your ears,
and you screamed as if you loved me, ripped out the moon from the sky and threw it into the ocean,
in front of my eyes, a wound in the sky where you and me both were sucked inside, it was like a machine,
and where there was a hole in the sky there is now a billion eyes that watch me grow tired of you in the dark dark dark night.

249

tonight here i lie, i am so tired and undressed,
and there is sweat in my palms from gripping on to this feeling for too long,
waiting for it to settle in,
on my bed.
if you want me to run, unwind me and reset me and leave me undressed.
if you leave, please leave the window open too.

248: something i wrote in 2004

look at elise, sitting near
how i wish i could walk up to her and
express regret.

look at elise, standing now,
how i wish i'd said
nothing at all.

look at her, walking away,
oh! how i wish i weren't so
sensitive to her.

and now look at elise,
broken like a summer dandelion,
all her pieces blown away.

(2004)

247: bad dream

words sometimes leak through cracks on walls,
through the paint, peeled after years of water beneath the white.
men talking, talking, talking, until all i can hear are the sounds of my own footsteps
down the hall,
and maybe the wind through the open windows.

i look left then right while walking, peeking through windows
on those silver metallic doors with no handles,
the air is moist, i almost cannot breathe.

the last door on the left of the hallway was not empty when i looked inside,
two men standing naked, with ties and top hats, and in front of them an unclothed girl sits.
i let out a gasp and they all turn to look at me,
the men had no faces
and the girl's mouth was stapled shut.

246

kept awake by the sun,
kept away by the hungry men,
we left that rancid city behind.
this is how my heart beats,
how it pumps blood,
traveling from north to south on the back of an animal with the same kind of heart as me.

245

show me which constellations you know
and tell me the stories you'd rather forget.

244

tell me what this is all about
whisper it to me and let the words dance around my head.
like my memory, in which the young leaves kiss my footprints, in northern towns, living well,
a wife in a little summer dress, black,
a landlord.
this is where we used to live, sugared hospital beds,
carrying the strangest news of tiny newborns the size of how the moon looks in the sky, from the ground up.

it could be great this way,
it would have been great this way,
living quarantined, crossed out. the hills are violet,
and your words are too,
dancing around in my head, whispering,
waiting for sunset to follow the sunrise.

243

sometimes i sit completely still in bed, eyes searching for salvation.
i can't believe the things i have created with my own two hands.

242

before the winter came, there was a small snowfall
that met the autumn wind, of a billion snowflakes,
dancing until they saw the sun.

and from where i was standing on that chilly day,
i could see bits of the blue sky through the thick grey clouds,
heat trying to come through to my skin, under my clothes,
i breathed in and out deep,
but it was anything but calming.

and the next day the sky was opened up by a pair of old hands,
and on the road, it seemed like nothing had happened the night before,

cars honking,
people running away.

241

what great places we could conquer,
with our house by the sea, in the morning, a translucent film of fresh day.
among the grains of sand and those trees that refuse to die, even in salt water.
a certain morning will mark the return of the birds we chase,
incomplete,
it's far too early and without my glasses, the world is far too blurry.
i want to tell you all about my dreams,
but as usual, i've forgotten how to speak.

240

smiles are meant to be lent out.

239

i still like you more than the sun.

238

the sea is living,
the sea is rising!
why why why can't you see,
we'll all be swallowed by the sea?

237

if i tell you you are made of a pretty checkered pattern,
would you believe me?
such beautiful tapestry, soft against my back when i lay down my bones for you to wrap.
they're loose and fell apart into a mountain of arteries and pieces of my memories...
i've never been so far away from myself.
but thank god i have this thought of you, to keep me still in my days,
thank god i have you to help me through this maze,
because without you i wouldn't ever believe the weather forecast
when it tells me to wear a coat to wear myself out.

236

when there is no song to sing, i'll sing to myself,
from dawn to dawn, animals running out of my mouth.
little by little i will grow,
the grass will turn greener,
the fences will sink lower,
i will soon see myself in you.

235

the sound is so slow and the sound is so low,
drowning out the storm, a solo,
too gorgeous to share with anyone else,
i know i must have selfish ears.

234

my day is born when an old one dies,
over and over and over, for three hundred and sixty-five times into the next year,
and each new year seems shorter than the rest.

i came into this world alone,
crawling out of a wish, a city at night,
from the dark into the dark, splashed white by the artificial lights that break the cells in my eyes.
i wish i could remember what it felt to open them the first time,
to see all those colours, and right away understand, that this life is my life
and this life is a hard life and this life is a good life.
like a book is a movie.

if i could somehow do that again, i know i could be anything you want...

fitted.

233

so we sat at home.
instead of learning what we could have learned,
we gave up. this is way easier, windows open, feeling the breeze,
music turned up,
loud enough to mask the sound of the time we wasted.
but i am not like you, and i can sleep,
i am not like you, because your stomach is constantly empty with regret.

232: smitten again

i want to take a bus up north, or a train, if i can afford it,
hours and hours into your head,
and what a great journey it will be! i'll travel all alone - it's ok.
so many trees and open fields, the sun, then rain, then maybe even snow (if it takes that long),
but i'll get there eventually, song under my breath,
no water in my lungs.
so friend, i'll be seeing you soon. i don't mind the distance or the cost,
and you know, i won't have to tell you, you'll know when i arrive.

i know you're around
when my room smells like burning at night, or when the sun goes down an hour too early,
or when my feet burn from walking in my sleep.
you are the illegitimate claim,
i just cannot wait and i cannot justify the things you make me do.

230

today what woke me up was a familiar sound,
not of a roommate slamming her door shut,
and not of chatting or giggling from the kitchen.

no, today the air is warm and the clouds are heavy,
and there's a billion people outside, gathered, blowing smoke from their faces.

toronto rain is not soft enough for their fragile skin.
and in my head i'll tell them, "you can waste your youth away all you want,
because today i don't need any of you!"

229

melody, melody, you are the night!
i'll take my fingers and create a billion of you, i'll take my arms and wave them about,
because you sit silently, attached to strings that await my heavy weight to stroke them,
to wake you, interrupt your horrific dreams!
i just need so so so much of you all the time all the time.

228

i can hear you think to yourself now, about that quiet squeaking sound,
the street lights pouring in through dirty windows,
a small isolated shelter, rusty ceilings through the roof tops,
i saw stars that night i hadn't seen for years, and felt them tumbling down
onto our bare skin, bare backs, not a single broken bone,
and god! how good and great is the night? temperature closing in faster than the distance between you and i
and the floor
and the pavement
and the grass
and the same stars in the night sky.
so of course i can hear you think to yourself now,
about that quiet squeaking sound, and a voice
leaking out of my mouth like water through a cracked dam.

227

fake fake fake fake break fake.

226

what about the blood that flows around my wrists?
is all of that gone, all the gold that i've touched and all the lead that i've broken?

no, not at all.

225

i need to be in seattle's arms right now.

224

i felt my breath evaporate through the tips of my fingers, between my nails
they escaped up high towards the ceiling and the roof of this rusty room,
and i touched all the spots where i had been burned on my body from your fingers,
and it was so quiet outside but so loud in my head,
and i thought i saw shadows moving like animals in the forest at night, but it was just the sound of the wind brushing against trees that are newly planted,
like a seed in my heart,
and the bones in my chest.
i have only been alive for eighteen years, but it feels like an eternity.

223

my veins are calm words buried deep inside me,
a triumphant script,
and before today i had such trouble reading it.
to think! for years i've had such beautiful letters with me, everywhere i went,
no wonder i've always felt a push, telling me to move onward, onward, onward.

222

this morning i woke up and remembered being very young and very, very foolish.

221

raise my fists in the air,
tie them up, so you can take stabs at me,
and still i'll be fine, because i've got the most beautiful life.
yeah yeah, and you can steal my house, i've still got the most beautiful night sky to cover me with its breath.

are you sad that i moved on?
the stars are going to be bright all night. i'll hold my breath and not your hand.

220

i watched myself in the mirror, holding up the sun,
and all my friends went wide eyed and fell, dizzy, then climbed back up only to fall again.
i said to them, "this is how bright i can shine! this is how far i can walk!
this is my human gift,
a parallel lift
into the sky of a thousand black spots, waiting to be lit up."
and spiraling down some stairs, i fell into love and then into a ditch (in that order),
lightspeed, these red rumours can't bring me down,
not even if they explode into a billion square feet of roots of plants that climb through hunger to my sun.

hey blue jeans, i want things too soon and i want so much of it.
that familiar beat in my arms, and those notes in my stomach, i'd take it any day,
my feet will tap themselves against the floor
to the same tempo as your heart beat (or close enough).
and i'll say "turn it up!" as loud as the sun at noon
because i'm smitten like this song.

218

she can't feel what he left in her brain,
but it's there,
and so far it hasn't bothered her.

217

i'm tripping and falling through.
i can't see the bottom and i don't want to.

life sure goes on.

216

these violet dreams, so good to me.
perfect weather, green sky, just one huge sheet stretched over the world.
i didn't want to hold your hand but you insisted until the sun woke up and shone through the crack in the curtain,
so we watched it reflect off the orange buildings orange into our eyes.
i was reminded of closed eyes facing the bright light.
and we listened to this one song that i like and the rain drops hitting my roof top,
until that same calmness between our fingers belonged to us.

215

in a dream i was alone, bathing in the sun on a hot august night
my tiny room, staring at the ceiling.
there were such big holes in my walls and so many bugs, sound of girls laughing through them,
and there were vines downstairs that move like waves in the wind, billions and billions of leaves.
hours later i saw these hungry plants spiral and curl and climb up the walls of my apartment,
tied me down, creep into all the pores in my body,
sucking me dry of all my water and flesh until i was a piece of metallic skin draped over an unmade bed.
i did not struggle. inside my room, it became winter.
and i was so scared, couldn't scream, and there was so much snow falling to the earth and realized i had forgotten what it felt like to be alive.

suddenly there was a flash and my dreams, they melted into memories.

214

before we ever met, i was a cat.
and my body was dumped in the river.
now all of my friends lie in the water.

213

all his sentences rearranged themselves into words that i could sing,
he kept spitting his draggy bad news, tied me down with a string.
when his mouth finally closes after one last sigh,
i am going to take a swing
at the space between his eyes.

212

waterwings for rainy days,
i am choked by a cushion,
and poisoned by a feather.
it's so easy to hurt me today.

my shaking hands are completely immersed in something that looks like snow,
it cuts me and i bleed.

when i cut it, it bleeds.

211

reincarnation,
there is no other option.

210

clever fever,
don't take my hand.
there is no need to lead me;
i am already in tomorrow.

209

open your arms and show me my home,
because i had the saddest saddest dream last night,
and woke up to disappointing air.
your voice is honeyed and silver and frozen like a january sea,
and my fingertips burn like feathers on fire, attached to a small traveling bird,
flying north instead of south to catch a cold.
open your arms and show me the north,
i will sigh high into them
i will sigh whenever, wherever i want.

208

today i saw you scanning groceries at the check out,
and your arms were like trees i wanted to climb, barefoot, in the dark before the dawn.
i saw and thought you were probably scarred on your bones, or you scarred me to make my breathing so weak.
and then you turned around and looked at me, with a smile and voice that broke me to a billion pieces i would have liked you to pick up and try to reassemble into a shape, whatever you want, as long as you like it and i am it and you want me.

207

today is a young girl, shining,
wearing her virginity like a crown.

i am sad for her.

206

footsteps made of mud smear as you crawled away
and i watched you disappear, as if you were escaping from me.
today my hands are shaking from being so fatigued all the time,
let me leave myself alone for a while, catch a train, wind in my hair to somewhere far,
because if you threw me into the world now,
i would sink like an anchor, and drown like a child.

205

angels,
i have never seen one, but by the end of tonight i will,
and it will be in my bed, asleep like a corpse in its shell,
sunshine on its wings, lemon-coloured warm spilling over a hill.

when it dreams, its body does not rise and sink,
and when it stands, it stares and does not blink,
and outside they will shove and mock and laugh at it,
at its face that buries deep into the earth, body split.

the skin around my aging skin will only get darker,
searching the earth for its sweet mother.

203

how can i think of anything again?
i'm too in love with a city,
its warm air to wrap around me, so tight that i cannot sleep,
and then wander its streets under orange streetlamps early in the morning,
watching flowers open.

how can i hear anything again?
i'm too in love with a song,
its rhythm and melody stringing through my ears,
lifting my soul but dropping my body so that i may sleep
and then wake up to it whispering.

how can i dream of anyone again?
i'm too in love with someone who does not exist,
and he is as pretty as a the sun in the sky,
tells me stories of what it feels like to be alive and living, in the city i love,
humming that one song, strumming it in his fingers to make me shake and make me well.

202

the sky weeped and yelled out profanities in hard white rocks
that hit umbrellas, pedestrians on the sidewalk
and my window too. it was a drum beat and matched my anxious heart.

but the rain that came along with it was soft and gentle,
and i pushed my arm outside my window, so desperately trying to feel it.
and then it came, each drop was like a tiny gift in my palm, reminding me of that rainy evening in seattle,
across the street from that tiny cafe with empty chairs, near the harbour
i saw you for the first time then behind two deep blue eyes that sat so pretty,
and that's where i had left my fingerprints and blinks for you to find.

then today i missed you and woke up suddenly, this rain praying to death.
i want to say goodbye to lonesome, hello to the air, no sun, no moon,
sing a bird song for the tiny balloons that grab on my wrists and lift me up up up
into the sky and let go suddenly, so i can dive into the deep blue sea.

201

before the sun rose, i heard you count to ten in your head,
like retracing footsteps, or memory, digging it out from a grave.

this one time you traced my fingers on your body,
and it was so soft like ripples in water,
and i could have sworn i heard these girls laughing outside, at me, and at my scratchy skin.

yeah, i have terrible eyesight,
and i can't see between wrong and right,
but i know for a fact that yesterday was right and today was wrong.

200

you said lift your arms up and then your shirt,
so i did,
in japan, that wind shares its pretty with me so eagerly.
as eager as the first time your fingertips touched my burning skin,
and i drank you up through my pores, a bird, a drop of ocean.

now i can see (but who can't? i'm laughing)
you left me at the train station in osaka, buried in strange people who are now stranger strangers.
you left me at the train station long, long ago
folded in a brown paper bag, leftover lunch, little me in the summer, and summer was last year.

just tell me i am not so charming anymore, you beautiful tyrant, you eyebrighted knight.
the forecast on the news, isn't it going to be a cold winter this july?
you left me in osaka at a train station in the summer, which seems not so long ago but we both know it is,
because summer was last year.

and no, i don't mean to destroy everything.

199: a good poem.

"now leave me alone.
now learn to do without me.

i'm going to close my eyes.

and i want five things only,
five favourite roots.

one is endless love.

the second is to see autumn.
i cannot be if the leaves
don't fly and fall to earth.

the third is solemn winter,
the rain i loved, the caress
of fire on the wild coldness.

in fourth place, summer,
round as a watermelon.

the fifth thing is your eyes.
i don't want to sleep without your eyes.
i don't want to be if you're not looking at me:
i'd give up spring
for you to keep on looking at me." - p.n

198: a dream i had last night

the flood ran through three houses down my street,
and four on the next one, metres west from where i am standing now.
this was yesterday, and it has calmed already, the water,
what used to be angry oceans - they are now like skinny springtime streams.

what brought the water and what brought the storm?
it came so suddenly like it knew too many people were born on that day,
crashing these parties and these walls, and i remember yelling, begging you to tell us what you wished for.
you warned me to be patient, i know, and that must have been my fatal mistake.
i also know these words cannot mask what i feel now. i can no longer tell between remorse and regret.
but i can pretend anyway, neighbour,
because i would have loved to see you turn forty eight.

197

i know i now speak no real words; molten lava pours out between my jaws,
onto paper, burning these books you used to read to me to keep me interested
on those long nights, the same ones when i could not sleep,
and watched myself tug at my stretchy ruined skin like a diseased, starving infant.

and there were so many bugs around summer time, not sure if you remember this,
they were crawling in and out, one ear through the other on your pretty head.
it was you who knew me best, and knew that i hated the sound of those critters, hated the feeling of their legs digging into the pores of my flesh,
so you took a razor and cut me open so they could crawl all over my insides.

and then once or twice i told you i wished the sky was red,
to match these red hands i have from choking my sister.
weeks later, maybe months after her funeral it got cold very suddenly and we shook and shivered and shook under a blanket which turned out to be the softest snow i'd ever tasted,
even until today.

too many ghost live on this mountain, hey? - they constantly whisper something that is not my name.
when i told you that one of them was tugging at my leg one september, you laughed, very very sharply,
kissed it away like a wish, as you murmured those sentences from books (same ones i burned later), until the moon rose and sun fell into my eyes,
as deep as lakes,
as far from you as tunnels into the centre of the earth.

196

when i die, i want to be absorbed by plants and eaten by animals,
because that way, i'll still physically live
not in my current body but alive in many beautiful things at once.

195

can i kiss your nervous bones?
i know you both feel sea sick like death.
one summer to the next summer, you've always been safe, under swimming stars.
you can destory volcanoes,
but isn't it sad how you can love each other?

194

my name is gloria,
and i slurp on skulls of the dead,
because in people i see beauty and love: it makes me sick, the dead,
they have no melodies, they only go out when it's warm at night,
living evil,
i can't take it
i can't hold so so still like them.

193

i've done a good deal of missing lately.

i miss so many people,
people i would have never admitted i miss,
but where has the sound of their breaths gone?
underneath books that have become dusty and pages crusty? and?
i miss my tall boys and my busty girls, my twee girls and my free girls,
running on beaches, pouring cups of herbal tea on raw feet, puff stung by bees,

and i miss the summer time, accidental rainbows under sprinklers,
dogs running wild chasing cats never scared to bite their tongue.
i miss that sunshine and rainshine and that pretty design
underneath familiar eyelids like bloodveins and riverveins and grindgrind grinding that sweet candy between my teeth.
and do you know that smell? do you know what i'm talking about?
that smell of the calm sitting water next to home, drifting through open cracks on my walls and through the window,
helping bugs find their way to the light
in my stomach
because in the summer time i swallow suns.

192

bodies are like sand, aren't they?
they live to be drenched in all the oceans in the world,
head to toe, arctic and southern,
fingers and arms and fingers, pacific and atlantic, then back to pacific,
and legs in the coldest parts of the indian ocean.
our hearts beat like drums in the waves that come crashing onto us,
each and every one, glittering like rain drops under a street lamp, all linking arms on our big empty earth.

we're smiling, glowing, underneath stars that drift along shores,
where men on boats cry, staring at a pictures of their wives, standing bare feet in the sand.

191

i wish i were in seattle right now, sitting on a bench by the docks,
no home to go to.
listening to fleet foxes, watching the sunset,
smelling that fishy ocean breeze, i don't even care.
i'll sleep on the bench if i have to, rubbing my hands together occasionally for warmth, comfort, and human contact.
even if i were to freeze to death in my sleep, i would die happy,
because i miss that city more than i will ever miss anyone.

190

tonight boys become men,
and i will watch them grow, thirteen year olds getting hit in the face the first time,
tasting that satisfying scent of sweat on each others bodies.

yeah, i know exactly what that feels like.

and by the end of the night, they will walk away,
hands shoved deep into their pockets, heads hanging, staring at their shoes.
they won't say a word to each other but they'll murmuring to themselves,
"no pain, no gain"

189

lend me your hand, get me through these nasty days.
i didn't mean that, please let me rephrase:

i'm finally ready
to admit that
even i
get
sad
s o m e t i m e s.

188

give me something to live for.

187

we are now strangers,
but your voice is in my head and it scares me.
just let me breathe, please, let me rest,
you're like a rock in my stomach, waiting to digest.

186

how can you fall asleep
in this sea of noise, baby?
with your window open, cars passing by,
i heard them through my walls, through my blank computer screen.
your heart beating too fast too, like a buzzing hummingbird, and i also remember this from putting my head on your chest too many days ago.
this world is beautiful, and in dreams you can't feel anything except happy,
head wandering, you won't feel nauseous, but hold in your stomach anyway because you will wake up feeling cold like i do.
every night, when you are sleeping, i'll still be awake for many hours,
playing my guitar, a melody about an young boy, a war, a cliff, waves,
"oh you, oh you, oh you."

185: a dream

i dreamt that time passed by and within a normal hour, it had already been one thousand weeks.
we backed up, staring stupidly at the sky, backed up confused.
then i almost tripped on a small rock, missed it just in time,
lifting our feet high, heavily dripping with mud.

and from the sky it rained thousands of paper strips,
a ripped up list of our memories from those one thousand weeks, laughing as they fell.
so we hurriedly gathered them, holding hands, falling and slipping in the mud and crying dirt away from our faces and screamingscreamingscreaming,
louder than any ocean.

within minutes we had a bag full of paper,
and then the sky was still low as if it was falling towards us, but now a calm colour like concrete.
we leaned against opposite sides of a tree, panting, grabbing handfuls of paper and chewing it,
not because we were hungry,
and not because we longed for each other at that specific moment,
but out of desperation, doing all we can to fill up our empty human shells.

184

take a picture,
throw it over a polaroid frame,
and stick it on walls all over the city.

from the moment i open my eyes, i see in cross processed photographs.

183

trees move toward water,
like my lips drift toward your skin when you are telling your stories.
oh, the words slip so smoothly. they smile upon me and wash over me early in the morning,
and i imagine i am on a bumpy road with my bike, avoiding thunder, destroying wind.
it's true i miss the jingle of your jeans, change in your pockets,
my hands in your pockets.
i will make you sing in your dreams,
my violin fingers spreading your mouth, pulling your teeth,
serenading our good, good life.

182

a hundred clinched fists to the sky, up north
under a starry roof, to a rocking guitar riff, a messy bass solo
and a drunken drummer banging away while his head hangs low.
of course, the police are waiting outside, ready to come in through the front door,
and of course we all know that door around the back.
and while we kick our feet and swing our fists until 2am, the world is beautiful and it belongs to us,
and we are chanting,
"we are so young and we have no dreams,
we are so young and we have no dreams."

181

sixteen degrees,
paul baribeau scratching his voice in my ears, walking up an unfamiliar part of bay street
by myself, hands shoved into these pockets.
today the air smelled different, and i pretended it was cold.

i was in another city for a little while.

and my hands, they got sweaty quickly from making choking fists, like preparing for a fight, just like in seattle.
curving my back, chin to the air, singing anthems, these buildings were too tall,
as if my glasses were off, they became calmly photographic, these buildings,
gently gently gently lowering themselves on top of me.
and then i became blue and purple and red with the sun and clouds.

the street was strange, filled with strangers,
and as i paused at a street light. a bird flew next to me, i brushed my hair from my eyes.
i realized that i have no family, and i have no future, and i have been alone for a long time.
and so i imagined i was on the edge of a cliff, sitting on a thin tree branch, looking over a black wild sea,
singing a soft song, muted by the waves.

180

i say, isn't it sad when people pass away?
why do you hide it, when you are not well,
why do you hide the feeling of life creeping away from you?
your young, swollen bodies, falling like autumn leaves. i don't want to see it.
and i don't want to see death pressing against your bodies like keys of a piano,
a, b, c, d, e, f, g and all those in between.

in the end, we all die of course, but the difference is i get to see those beautiful haunting lines form in the corners of my eyes, and on my forehead,
and i get to watch my hair turn silver, grey, white
and you were not well.

but i say you are alive, even in the faintest memories of us,
and you are alive when the snow melts into rain into my hair, in a midnight whisper from my lover,

when the fireworks go off this year, i'll be smiling for the both of you.

179: about a girl i would never get to know

she was sitting two feet away from me,
her bleached hair and beach eyes,
pouring glances on me like sand from a river bank.
i remember her now, and back then it was july, i think,
on a bumpy ride, beat up bus, on my way home in seattle, two 14 year olds making out in the corner of my eye.

and that day was very hot and i was in a bad mood,
i remember wanting to cry so so so desperately but not being able to,
choking down spit and a cold paper cup, half empty with coffee i waited too long to finish.
on my headphones i was listening to a song i knew all the words to,
i'd move my lips and nod my head and pretend i was in a movie,
and she probably knew too, the lyrics i mean, because the song was turned up too loud,
and i was stubborn and hated the noise of the evening,
and she kept glancing at me with those eyes, beach eyes,
lids i wanted to kiss.

and today i remembered her because i thought i saw her on the street.
i wonder what would have happened if i talked to her, took my headphones off, smiled crooked and afraid.
she probably didn't think she was pretty (and probably still doesn't)
but i did.

and what would have happened if i cried that day?
too hot, on the bus, air conditioner turned off but windows stayed closed.
i would have pretended to yawn, or rub my eyes,
smear watery tears on my legs like a prick pierced my palm, and hope she was not watching me.

178

i want every body in coffins,
i want a bomb to explode them, split them in half. i want a giant thorn to cut the world.
i want to feel your insides.

can't you see past my flesh and bones?
underneath there is so much free flowing blood and language,
language that flows up, against the streams.
well, maybe i am a maniac,
but at least i can stand tall as buildings,
and still feel like i belong,
i can look down on all your bodies in coffins,
and still sleep so soundly at night.

177

love sings like cocorosie songs that play on repeat on my computer,
when i'm sleeping, secretly slipping into my ears,
haunting voices make me see beauty, even when my brain is at rest.
yes, i'm sure this is what it sounds like, love,
because i feel the same way now, lying on my bed, suffocating myself under the blankets
than when i have my face buried into your limp sleeping body next to me.

176

i want to take your clothes and hang them in my closet
and pretend that you live here
and imagine that you are simply in the shower, or in another room, working on an essay
or a brand new song.

i'll want to ask you what you are writing about,
if you are having an argument with yourself
or is it with someone else?

i'll want to ask you if it's a love song
or are you angry at something,
but i know not to disturb you, in the next room over,
building up the calluses on your gentle finger tips.

175

music is beautiful.
open your ears, you can hear it,
open your mouth and taste it,
close your eyes and dream it.

174

when it rains i think of you.
it's like architecture, wood on wood, connected by nails in a board
and the raindrops are the nails.
so hammer those gently into my flesh
through the tips of my toes, joints, bare feet on cold floor.
deep into my skull, engraving anthems,

tastes like your eyes.

i never want it to stop raining, you know,
but today is such a gorgeous sunny day.

173

old asian woman,
crossing the street unhurriedly at an intersection,
cars on both sides, like moses opening up the sea.
in her life, she's killed one thousand bugs in her palm
broken four hearts,
seen her own blood on three different continents.
she never thought she'd live past seventy,
and constantly anticipates her legs to give out underneath her feeble yet heavy bag of bones.
shaking, she crosses the street lazily at an intersection,
and with my body pressed against the window in my room, i watch her, knowing i'd never live past forty.

172

your arms cradle me at night time in the street
where headlights are reflected on the shiny ground
suddenly, i remember it was raining earlier,
then i forget again then suddenly remember.
when will you kiss me in this lovely weather?
when will you make me feel light as a feather?
your eyes smiling into tiny little lines in my palms,
chest breathing
when will it no longer be winter?

171

children jumping into puddles,
splashing water on me,
i don't care to get wet today through my toes.
stompstompstomping in tiny pink boots in the rain,
covering tiny little feet, the size of my ears.

today was a good day,
like three elephants, as big as a snow covered hill.

170

he put his gentle hands on my body
and touched where i had been burned
all those months ago, days piled like bricks,
building a house so fragile a yawn would collapse it.

and so i yawned every morning and yawned every night,
hoping these days would break on me.
and they did,
destroyed all the bones in my feet, until i couldn't stand
up straight
until i couldn't stand it.

i'll rebuild my house this time, on a hill next to the ocean
with a basement so wide and deep it'll reach around the earth
and back again.
then in the grey weather, in my beautiful house, he'll touch me again where i had been burned.
i won't flinch,
singing softly the words "my life is not a tragedy".

169

yes,
i am far away from home.

168

i bet if i asked you, you would remember it too
that time we rubbed our feet together in the cold,
under a white blanket, in a bed twice as big as us.
outside, the wind was howling,
but the snow was quiet
and so were we, kissing in whispers.
"do you love me?" and you'll nod and nod and blink and nod into the morning,
nod into the summer.

i held your hand secretly on the bus all the time.
you did too like you'd never let go,
but in your head you already wiped me out, uncarved my name from your memory,
and everyone saw our fingers locked anyway.

it doesn't matter now. i already let go too, a long time ago
i finally don't give a shit about you
not even a little bit.

167: when summer comes

when it's summer time, we are going to cut through hillsides,
cross miles of stony bridges, flip over rocks,
discover the hideouts of tiny insects and crabs,
until a polaroid sunset,
next to a tall cliff we never intended to climb back.

when it gets dark, i know i will get cold and scared,
because i'm mostly made of indecision and nervousness that collide with my pride.
but you probably would have had my hand in yours since the morning,
and then for an entire week without letting go.
so no, i won't be worried.

every afternoon, you're going to examine and ask me about my tiny fingers,
no longer wrapped in warm winter's mittens.
compare them to yours, and my god,
how can they write words that make your skin float like feathers?
just line up our finger prints.
my fears will melts like ice along with the concrete into the night sky.

and you'll ask me about my tiny teeth too, hidden behind stiff lips.
these belong to me, i'll never hesitate to press them against yours.
but you'll still ask me, how can i whisper words and breathe them through the cracks of my teeth?
how can i still sing every night, when each time i open my mouth, my throat rips,
my tongue bleeds,
my jaw dislocates?

my answer will always be "i don't mind" in a voice like a pebble,
because that's the truth and i'll repeat it forever
when i'm chasing you in the summer time.

166

when they touch me, they burn fevers in my body,
that create holes where you'll pour your eyes all over, to the bottom.

nothing can kill me,
not even your rotting spirit,
not a single word,
not a single mountain.

165

don't tell me any of your secrets,
because i already know when you sleep walk and sleep talk around my house.
on silent nights, when even ghosts are whispering,
i'll listen for your quiet murmurs,
telling lonely tales of cruelty and hunger,
telling me how you are weighing you down.

164

what is that smell?
i know there is a man outside the door and he is crying,
hands buried into his face, knees in his stomach, choking on fresh puke,
blood pumping through inadequate veins.
i can hear him and taste his sad behind these walls and cabinets.

nothing blends and nothing mixes.

"did she smoke her dry tobacco cigarettes after you fucked her?"
yesyesyes, and i want to ask, "where are your children? where is your wedding ring?"

my boss wants to raise her fees,
because nothing blends and nothing mixes here.

163

sleep opens my body like heaven from the earth,
i spill out all memories and my shaking voice.
and is this the damned place i've lived since birth?
is this all my soul is worth?

i was born deaf and dumb by choice
but come lie next to me anyway, whisper me some noise.

162

i am summer in july, i am in love.
everything else might as well be dead,
like conductors carried out to sea, a billion passengers on their backs.
if you listen well, sugar, pry open these cracks,
tonight is my wedding, and i'm marrying a dove.

161

one two three and one to three,
trip over me and make me choke,
like our bodies will be, between my sheets,
arms twisting a hundred and eighty degrees.

160

i want to keep your pretty eyes in my pocket
on the inside of my jacket, close to my chest.
at night, i'll put them on the pillow next to me
so you can watch me twist and turn,
watch me grab at seams and scratch at bones.

and i'm sure these dreams will be mine:
swimming in the deep blue of your eyes,
feeling this ocean run between my fingers,
feet fumbling to feel some solid ground,
because water makes me weightless and you lift me with your words.

we all struggle sometimes, but i know we won't give up.

159

i dream of girls with beautiful skin that caresses you in your deepest sleep on sunday morning when the sun is still down beneath the maple tree,
straight to the ground,
so let them wait.

i say these dreams are far from real and real is what we feel when these suspicious sleepwalking girls fumble into the night, vanishing through the sky.
i say, i say, i say,
let them wait.

158

don't light my fire, be my fire.

157: spring is coming

oh lover, can we explore forever?
must we plant our feet into the ground of our boring cities?
i want to touch the tip of every child's nose,
i want to watch every gull break its wings in the sudden rush of southern waves.
i don't need this education, i learned all i need to know,
from writing, making art and making love and kissing you.

so come, come, can we ditch this place?
i just want to live, i just want to grow.

156

i say i'm lucky to be alive,
so i can watch people eating fruit
and feel your hand in mine!
i want to ring wedding bells,
and watch teenagers give each other bite marks on forearms.
i'll lead, and you can follow,
until the vibrations from these kids' cellphones become a song,
as heart breaking as the one i sang in tenth grade,
pulling my lips apart,
teeth apart,
do-re-mi into the night sky.

155

if i could, did you know i'd follow you anywhere?
a million miles into the bottom of the sea,
i'd touch all the fish with trembling fingers,
these tiny vibrations from bone through skin, hidden by the water current that pushes us back home right where we belong.

154

you thought you fell on him
but he was not there to catch you,
i know he won't be there next time,
so stopstopstop and get some rest.

153: happy

whoever zeroes in on this perfect melody
will know that the song wrote itself,
quickly and quietly in my head,
on the way home, laughing, my throat ripping and swallowing blood.

yeah, it was a good time, it's always a good time.
i know this, because this perfect song wrote itself,
just like buildings and grass know to grow upwards towards the sun,
these notes flew into my head,
through my ears, then out between my teeth.
it's so pretty and i promise you i will keep on singing it.

152

tread in my shoes, you.
i am the ghost writer,
i am the car driver,
i can't take you home but i'll take you next door.

151

life is a tiny gift.
because soon, i'll be tasting your breath in a sun-filled bedroom,
my eyes wide open, peeking at your skin,
brushing on our awkward arms.

this is what i want, and this is what i'll have,
but if i ripped open the sky for a thousand years, it would still not be enough.

did you know, dear friend?
in this life,
i am most likely to commit the most evil greed,
and him the most evil envy,
because he knows each time i wrote and each time i write from that moment on, he is no longer you,
and you are no longer him.

150: for the night

and then night came!
how i love the night...
clouds block the dark sky that never reveals its stars.
but look, i can see city windows turning into them,
brightening up my secretly bitter world.
and when i take my glasses off, my vision blurs
and blurs
and b l u r s into a beauty i can't explain to anyone else.

these moving orbs of light on the roads are mine,
the teethless people walking past me,
and the fuzzy smoke in my face from a companion's cigarette.
all of this is beautiful and mine.

yes yes yes, this is the night!
this is the same night those years slip away from the breath of old, shrinking women in their gentle sleep,
the same night and same sleep of birds, of critters, of ships,
and this is when i am dreaming
it is also when i am most alive.

149

suddenly, my mouth is on fire.
with this fire, i'll light stars and moons,
so that the whole universe will glow and guide you home,
safely from my room.

148

tell me, tell me, how do you bleed?
can you hear me?
this is all i need.

147

aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

146: nice dream last night

in my dream, i stood by your side
on a grassy hill, watching the sun rise.
april wind blew through the tall grass,
and i was wearing a cardigan and a favourite dress,
and you wore a smile and sleepy eyes.
my skin was splashed golden like buildings back home,
and your eyes were the color of ancient streams,
where we wrote words in the sand like poetry,
with quick and slow strokes too, saying good morning again to consciousness.

145

my city not only stretches,
it grows upwards like a flower towards the sun,
and it digs into the ground like an anchor in the dirty sea.

i wonder when and i wonder where
will my body become the city?
my eyes are ponds,
my fingers are the street lamps, tips lit at 3am.

i could say more, but i won't.
i just want my smile to be the sun that keeps this place alive.

144

i no longer want to breathe this filthy air.

143: forgive but not forget

feed me heaven,
feed me hell
give me bruises
that we know will swell.

this way i'll remember for sure
the harsh years sleeping in my body,
injuries that are wrapped and cloaked by slim strips of skin
'round and around,
twisting like this crane i still watch
like sorry and sickly people i can't dodge.

my life is this life and this is life.
i'll spend days and nights alone
if it means no one will ever drag me down.

142

back two lives ago, i was a fish,
fat and healthy, i swam miles and miles,
from a pond down a river,
through a lake to the sea.

for how many years, did i live without seeing the ground?
i knew i lived centuries,
i grew legs and crawled on the bottom of the ocean floor.
how many years, did i live without seeing the ground?
ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years,
so why is it that when i feel light on my feet now,
when i'm an exhale away from flying,
i get scared, and drag myself back down to the flat of the earth?

141

you are made of water, you know,
and you swim between my sorrowful groans,
like a ghost, inside this house of flesh and muscles.

every night, until 5am, you will flow and you will glow,
because that's how long it takes to fix my broken bones.

140

you are one of the sweetest dreams of the century.

139

if i were a map, i'd erase myself
and draw you closer to me.
i'd paint the mountains all the same,
but move our houses close to the sea.

yours can be next to the giant palm tree,
and mine will be further down the road,
and every morning we can smell the sea
where we'll swim and swim as if we are free.

138

how many times must i sink
before my stomach pulls in,
flip me inside out,
pull me back on my feet?

i'm so sick of this winter air.

137

nights, crawled and infested with ghosts.
like a whisper, they enter one ear and out of the other,
so when i sit alone with the lights off, i can hear them breathe my name,
and choke me like they killed summer.

136

life is amazing. i can't wait to be born again.

145

stay with me.

144

today i dreamt about candlelit dinners,
tiny fires that brighten up your neighbours' backyards,
opening them up so we can explore to the edge of the light.

in this day dream, we are sitting in a boat with wooden paddles,
and my arms feel so incredibly sore,
and of course, this is somehow still your backyard.

then the moon hides away in deep, black clouds,
above the grass, littered with fireflies.
then you remember the mug i made,
the one that holds lemonade
once fresh, seconds and minutes and hours ago.

the mug i made,
painted for you, gold like the sun,
watches us as you unwind my bones,
unwrap my skin,
cut me so deep i'll forget how to make a sound.

133

i want to run laps around the city,
with my crippled legs and crippled feet.
i'll find the most perfect place to plant a kiss in your hands,
and leave you there until dusk then dawn,
for three days and three nights with no food, but water,
and by the time i return maybe you'll be all good and all grown
and all mine.

132: love again

i'm going to remember love again,
just like i want to have dreams again,
where i dance in the mountains,
just like i did and just like i do.

i want to hold my breath and slip under the cold sea,
and tangle my hair with grass,
scrape my feet on rocks,
burn myself in those black volcanoes.

and maybe there, our bodies will touch
because you are the password to me,
and i am the password to you,
and these roads that used to be forks now intertwine,
coming together as one,
carrying us home
slowly, slowly, softly,
smoothly,

deeply

in

our

sleep.

131

lately, i haven't been able to write too easily.
i don't know why.
i've become blank like paper.

i can't feel anything except hot in my cheeks
and cold in my feet.
my face is numb,
sorry that i can't smile sincerely.

looks like the winter has caught me again!
the winter has caught everyone,
freezing our heads and our faces and feet.
i'll sit at home all day and comfort everyone else.

it makes me feel better about my own short life.

but here, life throws me another blue eyed boy.
but look, it's winter and i'm stuck in a tree,
maybe he can help me down and melt me into perfect precious puddles
like i used to be.

130

my life is surreal.


it'll take me a while to remember how to feel
again.

129: dreaming of moving

the birds turn around and their bodies are like trees
roots into earth like their claws into me
high or low, they can't fly now because it's winter.
they must sleep, and dig deep their roots
into earth like claws into me.

only when i'm asleep,
do these birds and the trees
haunt me and ask me the severest of questions.

i can never answer but this much i know:
not only must i leave, i must also never go back.

128

yeah, you're rising,
mountainous islands,
waiting for conquerors to overthrow you
waiting for farmers to abuse you,
plant these seeds into your flesh,
grow grains, hemp, plants with no berries.

rising mountains, rising islands,
are you just like me?
would you sit for an eternity
waiting for the right bees
to pollinate your flowers on your sacred, lovely trees?

127

god bless your sweet, sweet smile,
i hope it never goes away.
even in this freezing weather,
i'll pray that it stays.

126: my happy life

i forgot about my crane, but it didn't forget me.
i've been too preoccupied, but now i'm free.
i'm so sorry for everything; i'm so thankful for everything.
now, i no longer look at this dear friend outside my window with dull, sad eyes.
i know that life goes on and on. rivers into seas, through mountain tops,
and on those exact cold peaks i will scream about my happy life.

surely, you must have loved me a lot.

i promise this to myself:
i promise i will live until my life runs out, and be re-born again and again.
time ticks, time flies, but time never runs out,
and i look forward to meeting you over and over again.

i know i will remember you,
and just like time, the taste of your skin will never fade.

125

life, you are pretty ok after all.

124: sad but i'm happy

this morning, the footprints i left in the snow last night were still there,
completely untouched.
it was almost unbearable, but i went out of my way to retrace my footprints,
now facing the other way.

this morning, the world was so far away.
a distance i cannot measure with the length of my arms.
but not the clouds: they stretched as far as foreign seas; smothering my sky.

where does the world end and where did we start?
and when did your eyes start matching my mood?
i don't know, but after my terrible sleep i think i understand.

i understand this like the clouds and the snow,
and we can meet there, where the wind blows.
yeah, remember our clouds and our snow
and our cold faces from days ago.
i love you and you probably love me too.
it was really fun, and something i will be missing for a very long time.

123

if we freeze, what can we do?
if we run, who's gonna catch up with us?
swimming the seas,
choking the air,
we're just like fish in the ocean.
"if we freeze, i want to freeze next to you."

122

i can't do this anymore.
i'm sorry.

my life is not a game.

121: it's all i can do, i guess

tell me where you keep your knife
is it in your drawer or in mine?
i need it because these days you're sad,
i'll cut my flesh and patch you back
to when you were smiling like you belonged to the sun
i'll cut my legs off and you can use them to run.

120

me and you and you and me?

119: sad today

i never thought i'd feel this way again.
but today i have twisted and turned my muscles
until my brain melted into sand,
and smile into running, remote rivers.

i know that when it snows tonight i will settle and watch,
wait until it strips me of everything.
and just like seattle and its pretty rain,
toronto will look after me with its cold burden.

118

in my dreams, trees crawl over my body.
vines wrapping around my bones,
leaves engulfing me, eating my hair and finger nails.

there are a million holes in me.



plants move towards water,
so it was no surprise that these (and a forest more),
after my stomach has been cut open,
have chosen me as their source of food.

they know that the lake is near,
but they can also smell the ocean in my lungs.

117

welcome home, ghosts.

116

are you mad at me?
did i do something wrong?
i feel a bit strange; maybe you don't agree.
i'm just trying to sing you a song.

115

your heart leaks warmth onto my frozen feet.

114

all this food and all this water.
it's more than enough to feed me for another year.
i bathe in sugar and scrub with salt,
sail over the high seas,
and the lows,
to catch that flu and final spice
that pierces me through my tongue,
so deep that i can feel it at the ends of my hair.

i breathe winter and i breathe fall,
and when that's gone, i'll press you up against my wall,
your fingers will bleed, but my body will numb,
but i'll still feel your weight over me.