I know that in truth
I should treasure my youth
but I ain't counting "old" in my fears
boy I ache for the golden years

qualicum, bc

"i inhale the mountain air,
breathing out a salty sea.
i am moving in the pine.
i am fine while i am me.

can you feel it in the morning
when the fog brings in the day?
i will hold this in my heart,
i won't let this fade away.

i am standing by the shore,
running through a field of green.
i am welcome in the wash.
i'm in love with what i've seen.

can you feel it in the evening
when the stars come out to play?
i will hold this in my heart,
i won't let this fade away.

oh, oh, oh -
i am rooted where i grow.
i will ride the winds that blow,
i can feel the river flow.

oh, oh, oh -
i am all i need to know.
i will take this when i go.
i can feel my heart aglow."

frigid bitch

"that girl was born with a heart of ice,
her pulse a glacial pace.
brave if not brutal; cold, concise -
a frost upon her face.

oh, to know
her soul of fire,
her deeply hidden lit desire.

oh, to know
her grave concern -
to brush, but not to burn."

soup

it makes me really sad when people say that their goal in life is to go everywhere and see everything because it's impossible and what's the point in setting goals for yourself if there's no chance that you'll ever reach them?

this is why i have no life goals.

what even

how weird is it that i can write fuckin' anything here just on a whim, like nothing even important at all and it will just exist forever somewhere in the space-time continuum in the magical web plane. like i can actually just say nothing about anything at all and it will just float around on the internet forever and ever and even if nobody ever actually looks at it it will still exist and it will never go away.

orangeville

i grew up on 54 pheasant court.

the house was brand new when we moved there
(which i don't remember),

so when my dad moved to an older townhouse after the divorce,
i didn't understand why you had to put the protective stickies
down in the cabinets.

we had a beehive in the backyard
that my dad refused to deal with because it would have meant
tearing up a part of the deck he spent all summer building one year.
my brother got stung the spring before we left.

coyotes stole my neighbor's cat
and all the kids walked in circles one night
in the field beside her house
and we sang.

most nights,
i could hear the train pass by,
but i only ever saw the tracks.

seeing is believing,
but i don't believe a thing.

classics

i'm supposed to be writing a short essay on the ancient ruins of teotihuacan,
but mostly i just want to know where the dents in this table came from.

is that crayon?
is that. oh.

what.

i don't care about anything.

purple hair

real life is nothing like the movies in which being different is what gets you loved;
and it's not to say that real life is harsh or cruel, because really it's mostly just soft and quiet in the moments it reminds you you're alone.

i have an image in my head:
of a boy and a girl and a shoddy little apartment and a feeling that is suddenly, violently overwhelming - and it's not even the kind of abrupt fear that causes anger and screaming, just the kind that makes it so you can't see straight when you tell someone to leave,
the kind that makes it so you can't remember whose video games are whose when you're trying to toss their shit into a black plastic bag,
the kind that makes you think you can convince yourself you don't love them anymore
if you can only convince them first.

in my head,
the boy is kicking the girl out because he's afraid and the girl doesn't cry like they do in the movies,
she just nods slowly and doesn't bother to take the plastic bag when the boy thrusts it out at her.
the boy is breathing hard and the girl closes the door quietly behind her.

what if it only took five minutes before he realized he was wrong?
wouldn't that be nice?

and he scrambles for his keys and rushes out into the hall and then he's falling;
tripping over the limbs of the girl who is splayed out on the musty old carpet in the hallway like a star and laughing only a little bit when the boy's wide eyes fall to her in inquiry.

"you drove me here," she might say, and he'll nod and feel a little silly and then lean in and kiss her on the floor and there won't be a big redemption speech because real life is much simpler and more complicated than the movies and maybe actions speak louder than words but
mostly i think that in real life the quiet is just more effective.

later the boy will realize he scraped his knee when he fell and he'll shrug and dig for polysporin in the bathroom drawer while the girl leans on the doorjamb, says,

"sorry."

and he'll look up, stricken, and say,

"no."

i have an image in my head:
things i want but refuse to allow myself because i am so fucking painfully afraid.

but in real life maybe lying prostrate on the floor outside the apartment of someone who's trying to cut your out of their life is not a good way to go about being loved.

in the quiet moments,
you realize you're alone.

in my head,
that girl is never me.

rules of engagement

you can fuck me if that's what you want,
i really don't mind.
but a more apathetic bed partner
you're hard-pressed to find.

but before we begin,
my conditions are this:
you can use me and bruise me,
but keep every kiss

away from me -

you can fuck me if that's what you want,
i really don't care.
my body's the one part of me
that i know how to share.

just don't get attached
to the feeling, the motion,
i don't want your devotion,
please keep your emotion

away from me -

you can fuck me if that's what you want,
but we're not making love.

mark mccumber

"the great pride of me
is what you can see
on the outside

struggle and stress
and suffer for less
on the inside

obsession for naught
when really i ought
never to hide

imperfection pains
and vanity stains
modesty, tried."

aljhsfkjvsdb

"could i be less loveable?
what if i shaved my head?
eliminate the consolation
of bodies in my bed.

could i be less loveable?
what if i cut the skin?
leaking more crazy out,
letting less people in.

i'm happy to be here,
but sometimes i think
that i'm good where i'm at
but i'm hovering by the brink.

why am i alone?"

trigger warning

today feels like a danger day,

luckily the library smells like vanillin.

i am almost alone.

dog bite

last night i went to a show where
the music rattled my bones and made me cry before i could figure out why
and i couldn't not move and i walked away wanting to kiss
everybody.

to be fair,
the only person i kissed was the lead singer,
and we might not remember each other in a week or so but

i'll remember that i described to him my bedroom
(candles, canopy, mural, floral patterns and organized chaos)
as the closest thing to perfect i had yet to experience,
and he told me it sounded lovely and that he'd like to see it.

he asked me to kiss him
and i told him he had to kiss me first
and  it was cold out but i couldn't really feel it anymore
and he asked if he could see my bed.

i told him yes,
but he didn't have shoes on
and when he went inside to get them,

i fled.