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.