Skol

There's a you that emerges

when vodka loosens your edges

 

a you you say you don't always understand

but who speaks certain truths

that are yours

but

less gently

more directly

spoken.

 

When I ask

what you were thinking

you respond with feigned confusion

not knowing

the intention

that's clear to me.

 

You see

loose lips sink ships

and my ship is sunk

 

I'll take that blame on myself

because

I let you

and I became you

 

I ached for the lack of love

and the reminder

of how it used to be

(and

still is.)

 

I have chased after too much

pushing myself into a mould I thought would be liked.

I have begged to be loved

in words and actions

by those who can't

and won't

or do

but muted and dampened.

 

You see, I love you the way mountains push against the sky

slow

steady

immovable

and large

 

and you

love yourself

the same.

 

But there's a you that emerges

when vodka loosens your edges

and often

I'm the only one who remembers

the things that part of you said

because the damage taken,

and the ship sunk

is mine

and mine alone.

 

Elsewhere

I lay in the dark for an hour

thinking about going to see you

a bruise on my heart

from the things I think you are seeking

that lie

outside 

of what I am

half an hour past sunset

my choice still half unmade

I sat up,

turned on a light,

closed the blinds,

blocked out the night

and wrote you this note

I lay in the dark for an hour

thinking about going to see you.

Untold

I've forgotten how seasons work.

I lie in bed and count months on my fingers

AprilMayJuneJuly 

no that's too many 

there are four seasons

and three fours equal twelve so

three months a season, yes? 

"that math checks out"

I say to myself 

and so DecemberJanuaryFebruary must be Winter, right?

but there's overlap, 

and fire 

is a season now 

and three quarters of a month before a week 

is a new season

and the counting starts again

JanuaryFebruaryMarch no that's not right 

start again

start again

start again

what I think I know for certain 

is that I've forgotten how seasons work

when they change

which months they hold

because I'm tired

and all the things I used to know are gone

and I'm left with mountains of worry

about things that don't

yet

exist

and I lie in bed and count on my fingers

realizing I've forgotten how the seasons work

and one day's cold

the next is not

and I think we're still in Spring

you know?

"Our Home And Native Land (But Not Really)"

Red dresses

Orange shirts

Yellow bellied churches with press releases mumbling

"Mea culpa, mea culpa,

but don't look too closely, don't look behind the curtain sorrysorrysorry whoops!"

And still so many sneer "Injins" and bitch about "government handouts"

immune to the truth of babies taken

and their lives taken from them

immune to the reality of murdered and missing Indigenous women

overlooked and

ignored.

And here I stand

seeing some

(not all)

driving down highways of red dresses

wearing orange shirts for lost children

and wondering how why what of the past we will own

and how

we heal from

so much

too much

loss.

Peace

Today the sun stops at a balance point 

for a breath

a moment

a time

and we look to the coming season, be it heavy

be it light

and all the build up lead us here

the longing

the waiting

the time

and time turns 

as does the earth 

without cease

without fail

without us

But today

there is a balance

both short and long

both cold and hot

both light and dark

for solstice.

Blessed Be.

"Carefully Taught"

I am broken into pieces that I don't know how to pick up
I am broken by the all of this
 
the hate
the anger
the intolerance
the division
I am broken by the brokenness 
I am broken by it all
 
we are fighting each other to stay alive
we are fighting each other to stay alive
we are fighting each other to stay alive
it's broken
implicitly
 
too much
 
how do you keep breathing
when there's no way forward
how do you keep breathing
when it's us versus them versus them versus us
 
how do you keep breathing when there's a knee on your neck
held down
held down
held down
 
police
kill
black
humans
 
actively
systematically
repeatedly
 
we train whites to kill children in school with guns
and we train police
to kill people
that they don't like.

Two Hours Before The Hail

the wind brings me raindrops

from clouds not yet overhead

and I watch them hit the windowpane 

while the last of the plum blossoms

fly directionless and free-form to the ground.

 

"It's chilly for April" we say quietly

not wanting to incur the wrath of Summer's heat

quite yet

 

and that wind has bite - 

leaving cheeks rosy with colour

and hands pulled up into sleeves

or pushed down into pockets deep

 

the rain a momentary instance

 

still snow

still ice

still life

to come.

Let's Be Giants

Let's be giants

we'll take our giant hands

and build giant buildings next to skyscrapers made of wood

 

and we'll wonder why no one sees the toys left around like Lego bricks 

and guy wires made of candy floss

and we'll play giant games

 

our giant feet stomping through the city making valleys where we walk

 

Let's be giants

and build things

with our hands the size of cars

and our laughter loud like thunder

and our hearts beating thick and heavy

full of joy and pain and emotions made ever bigger by our size

 

Let's be giants

and curl up together

our backs against the hills

our faces to the ocean

knowing more adventures await us in the morning

as we leave behind the buildings we made

standing next to skyscrapers

made of wood.

A Place I've Yet To Be And Have Been Before

I smell your smoke

through air thick with ocean

and your wildness drifts in through the open window of my room.

I can't think, if I'm honest, 

of any times I've camped without a fire

but we're not near a campground here 

so I wonder why I smell your smoke,

where your fire is,

and if you're staying warm

on this damp Spring evening

with air so thick with ocean

it carries the scent of your smoke

and the image of your fire

straight through my open window.

Fifth of June

I don't know what to do

I feel helpless

I am so angry

I am so sad

and this isn't about me

I sit in my privilege and I pick at scars others would be glad to have

I am exhausted

exhausted by the anger 

(I don't do anger well)

I have made myself sick from it

(but never have I feared for my life at the hands of police)

I don't know how to help

I can't help

I try to help

I've been told I care too much

(I do.  It just is.)

I tell myself I don't care enough

(I do.)

I want to fix it.  to fix it all.

the inbred hate

the centuries of oppression

the system after system after system of racism meant to hold some up

and others down

I apologize

for my silence

for the sins of those who share my colour of skin

for the things I can not change and can not fix

and for the people who don't quite seem to get it

yet

I don't know what to do

it seems trite to find joy

it seems lame to search for peace

how can I

share beauty

love

art and peace

when my brothers and sisters are dying

killed

murdered

hurt

injured

held down, held back

thought less of

by some

anger on both sides

anger on all sides

and I don't know what to do

I don't know how to be

what to say

how to breathe

(and yet there is no knee on my neck, no gun taking away my life, my lungs have range of motion, my breaths come slow and easy. I can breathe.  I just don't know how anymore.)

Nature's Joy

they tell me it's plum

plum trees 

shooting puffs of pink into the new come Spring

plum trees blossoming early early and letting us see the hope of renewal

of life

of ongoing growth and change and seasons and cycles

they tell me it's plum

but we all say cherry

cherry blossoms - sakura

and they come too

and white apple blossoms on that one tree down the road

and then the snow of Spring - these delicate petals

these blossoms

spin as they are blown

(darling buds)

by winds still couched in Winter's breath

I walked today

past trees heavy with these blossoms 

I felt cool air touch my face,

watched birds fly overhead

nature doesn't know that we all are in pause

nature presses on

Spring blossoms fly through the air and pollen dusts my car

they tell me it's plum

not cherry

not at first

and I would curl up in the softness

pull a blanket made of their lightness up up up until it covered my chin

because

Winter passed

Spring is here

and life goes on

You've Given Me A Lot To Think About

“You’ve Given Me A Lot To Think About”

Sound echoes when the air's this heavy

and they call it "mist"

but I think it's the pain of all our losses

making its way back down to the ground.

Do you ever wonder

about the slow disintegration

the water's making 

one

small

droplet 

at a time?

Because people travel to the Grand Canyon

to marvel at its depth

but they don't sit and stare

at their own backyard

falling away

a nanometer a minute.

I am really tired 

of standing where I do

and being collateral damage

over

and

over

and over

“So MOVE!”

they shout

but I get grabbed

again and again

and eyes and lips

and words beg

beg beg me to stay.

(“Please?”)

I lessen the damage

when you roll a low, low number

and I take the hits

just like you asked

but also the ones 

you seem to ignore.

I am bowled over by the wake

and stuck deep under the wash

and you stand on my back

to get to the air.

Is it a mark of your ignorance

or the bliss you find therein

that you look at me with confusion

as I tell you I trust you not at all

while I carefully tend

to the wound you gave me

which sits next to another

and another

and another

and more?

I am tired of being the ladder you climb

to your own salvation

while saying words

you think

mean more than your actions.

Sound echoes when the air’s this heavy

and the pain of my losses

drips slowly slowly slow

as I make my way

back down to the ground.

I am my own Grand Landscape

carved away 

forever changed

one droplet at a time.

Fragments

My heart has been broken

in so many pieces

so many times

I'm sometimes surprised

there's anything left

but I piece it back together

again and again

with emotional duct tape

and I soldier on

ever onwards

seeking something I'm not sure

even exists

this phantom heart

made

they say

to buoy mine

may turn out to be

the ultimate illusion

the Loch Ness Big Foot Dragon-asaur of my existence 

and I'm starting to wonder

if every time

my heart shatters

I lose

one

more

necessary 

piece

of a soon to be lost entirely

whole

fragments of me

left all over

ground into the finest of dusts

coating everything.

Laisser

pieces of you everywhere

waking me from calm

moments of your presence

filling silences I'd like left empty

a hundred hundreds we share and know

and yours are mine and mine aren't new to you

but how much longer

will this haunting continue

where you and

your memory - 

a word

place

time

photo

whispers in my ear-

catch me blissful

and unaware

reminding me of the pain

the hurt

the missing

that I've tried oh so hard

to put away

people change in increments

when you're watching them day by day

but the leaps and bounds of unknown personalities

will throw you off every time

when you're away

living a life built to bring you back together

stepping over and around

the pieces of you

scattered everywhere

forcing me

to watch my step

lest my cadence be thrown off

yet again

by your ghost

This Is My Winter Song To You

They're brining the streets;

the thin lines 

striping my way home,

leading me towards 

rest

and my heart.

You feel it differently than I do,

the cold,

It bites at you directly

while it just tickles my cheeks

and fingers.

Your layers get cut through

while mine buffer, protect, encase.

It's cold in here without you though

and we're better off end to end,

not stealing breaths,

not heavily trapped.

It was months ago now

that the wind made the streets confetti lined

and soon

the buds

and their unfurling 

will bring us spring

and the cold

will retreat,

hang silently in the air, with patience and tiny reachings

and the streets 

won't be brined

to stripe my way home towards rest

and my heart.

Fair Shot

you came in wounded

dripping blood all over my heart

and started out with driving home the point of 

no

not ever

don't even breathe those words, that thought.

But you said sweet things

and I believed you

and you took on roles

and I believed you

and you held me close

and I believed you

and I

I lifted you up

and held you close

and I

believed in you

whole heartedly.

But we never had a chance.

We never had a shot at what's now been thrown away

and I put that on them

and you

and the lies you forgot to clarify

and you insult me regularly - daily

with your insistence on how everyone but me

is what I know I am

and what you shouldn't be stupid enough to miss

we were broken from the start

and now and again

we refresh

renew

a slate not cleaned perhaps

but flipped 

and ready to be written on

anew

Getting Warm

I can't think of anything you could say

that would make me start to trust you again

I really can't

So while the hens sit and chitter to each other

cluck cluck clucking away about the grand meaning of it all

I sit here yelling at you in my head

too polite

too realistic

to yell at you anywhere else.

It was time you said you needed

so time you've had

a lifetime's worth

yet again

and meanwhile 

lives moved on

lives moved on

lives moved on and over and through and both nothing and everything has changed

really

both nothing and everything has changed

Audacity

a word he keeps using 

and now I may have to turn towards you

if you have the audacity to want to be a friend now

Now?  After all the things said and not said

done and undone

after the way you spoke

and treated

and asked for things beyond what's fair

or kind

or nice at all

You were the one who told me you were grown up

and could play with the other side of the room

You were the one who told me

that this time, THIS time you meant it

for real

and I would be the one

you knew I was

for you

grown up

and

truthful