As soft as the fading light of the evening 

Plays chess Against my windowsill,

How the shadows cast the shape of you

Across my room like a hologram of my dreams;

Such a foul mimicry on a Monday morning,

I awake with a familiar tremor on my lips,

The parody of an earthquake;

As if I'd grown roots overnight, my bed a graveyard 

My body a corpse 

The memory of you as heavy as the tombstone that

Nestles in-between my hollowed crown;

A heartless projector it seems; playing on broken repeat

my leg swiftly leaning over my bedframe and being met

With solid ground instead of

A thick dense air,

The light, 

How I sadly marveled at the way it softly

Caressed your picture on my wall as if 

To cradle a baby,

How jealous I had been of it;

If only I hadn't been 

Haunting my own apartment

I would have had the strength

To cradle you, too

The transparent hands
Of time, swing me
Softly from side to side like a rocking ship

Caught against the current of my grief;
From past to future,
From here to there;

But never now,

I only move backwards

Through time;

Only relay the forgotten

Like the now;

Only live through the memories

Of the gone;

Only beat to the rhythm 

Of the dead,

A broken hourglass

Staining your palms

With sand;

The now and the would

Have been,

The should have been;

The never

Will be,

The never 

Will be,

 Drown out hunger with stale red wine on a Monday night;

Time has no meaning when all meaning was buried with her

On that day no one had the courage to talk about, but alas,

Here I am, singing and reciting her obituary like

My bones were modeled from such disaster;

Like the pain made a throne for hope to sit,

Like I did not search for her spark in every elderly persons eyes

I've ever came across;

Like looking for a needle amidst a hay stack,

Like searching for someone who had mirror eyes

To reflect back my own gaping hole of resistance;

A refusal so strong it broke my bones at every dusk

And rose to mend them at every dawn,

I sing for every inch of sorrow she felt

Moments before her head met stone 

In a silent agreement of the end

I look for her in every mother, in every sad story I've ever heard,

In every bottom of a bottle; In every faint smile from a strangers lips

I look for her in every sunrise, And every time the sun sets

Reminds me of another day recklessly spent

Searching for someone I will never

See again

 / It's okay that you don't answer your phone for days/ Your ringtone is his favorite song and your father sends angry texts and you wish he'd call instead so you could hear the song play until the very end/ It's okay to fall in love with men who have long hair/ their patience to grow out their locks means they have enough patience in their bones to deal with whatever storm you have brewing under your sickly sweet smile/ It's okay to leave the light in your room shut for days/ The sun always shone much brighter outside despite your mind being a lightbulb full of slideshows from that wretched day, long time ago/ How her purple curtains swayed gently in the breeze; a final breath of forgiveness you'd turn every stone to find, but yet a small part of your heart still calls out for a phantom of a mother that had to depart a moment too early/ It's okay to write too much about it, and drink too much about it, and cry too much about it at work while the boy across the street relays stories about your sunken eyes and how they remind him of two gaping holes where all the hurt comes to the surface to meet the light of day/ It's okay to only see the world through pain/ We seek the life we were brought up into/ It's okay to catch the plane you were so scared of and leave behind everything you've ever fought to keep/ Hide away into the snow and make the cold tremors your friend/ Discard close relatives like shirts and change your hair again/ Anyone who has ever stayed will understand, even with heavy hearts/ It's okay to scream into the night with a coarse voice, blame God for the unforgivable ache in your chest that sits like a rock amidst your vocal cords/ It's okay to spit gravel into the mouths you've ever kissed and call it love, anyone who stays surely has a death wish/ Anyone who stays surely will leave as hot coals burn under their feet; they will make you feel as if loving you was a sordid mistake, as if your heart burned with so much smoke and hurt; a church on fire, hands dripping with gasoline while you point fingers at others for the making of your own calamity/ It's okay to listen to the same songs on repeat; matching the sorrowful repetition of your heartbeat on days where the light stays shut and your mouth is sealed with all the promises you tried to keep but failed/ It's okay to be the first one to depart/ You've been training your whole life for this/ Shout withdrawal into the night and dissipate like the sweat off your back on that hot summers day you tried to warn him of your ghost like hands and how they melt into his palms like warm wax/ It's okay to stick like tar onto his skin; a constant black reminder on how you never let yourself fall in love with a fictitious tale/ It's okay to be a warning, a bitter lesson no one has the courage to live by/ It's okay to buy wine late at night with makeup running down your face/ Show them all what they are so afraid of feeling; life moves like a strong current against the mellow of your heart and sweeps everything in its path/ It's okay when you don't answer your phone for days/ It's okay if  you shower too often or not at all/ Some days you keep him on your skin and others you tare down the walls of hope apart and rebuild an empire out of every missed call he's ever had the courage to leave/ Ever had the courage to call/ It's okay to have his favorite song as your ringtone/ When your messages are dry, and his bed is stained with another girls love; at least 

You still have his favorite song

As your ringtone

At least he still lives on,

One way,

Or another

And what would

We even talk about?

How rosy your cheeks 

Have become without 

Me there?

How shallow my eyes

Have become without

You here?

I love wearing all my clothes on at once

Cut them all up in little squares

And sow each disheveled piece 

Into a garment of my grief;

So stained with my own sorrow,

They rip and dissolve under

My ruthless, burning heat;

Eat the sun with a soiled spoon;

I love the way you love, sincere

Without any apology for the time,

A casual fuck, a heartwarming cry 

Eyes bloodshot with a lust

Too heavy for you to carry

Through the night,

I love people who smile too much, 

And people who don't smile at all,

I want it all or nothing at all;

Dance with a stomach full of wine,

Limp with a sorrow full of hope;

A ghost hunting the walls of 

Your home;

I want to wither in front of everyone

I have ever loved

And call it living;

Never let my hair grow

Past my shoulders;

I want to drink stale wine 

On a Tuesday evening,

Together with the dying sun

Painted across his face

I want to see how the light hides

In between his worn out wrinkles;

A hide and seek of despair;

Painful reminder of how illegal 

Our love is supposed to be;

Instead of muffled moans escaping

His bedroom on a Sunday night;

A kind of fatherly love

With his fingers down my throat;

Swallowing every complain I ever had

About my fathers absence and how

His stale old breath bore reminders

Of every time I went to sleep 

Without a goodnight text

from the people I once shared

A bed with;

Said at my age, you burned with the strength 

Of a thousand black stallions;

Said you cursed God himself

And ate out of his fruitful bowl of blessings,

Reckless you were like a drunken

Teenager at his peak of endurance;

Said you rode into the night

Like you had no soul to spare,

No love left to soil,

Said when the party is over,

We all end up alone;

When the moneys been spent

And the whiskey's been downed;

You said we all wake up alone,

With a strange bruise on your neck,

And an ache in your chest;

An unforgiving pain where your heart

Should have laid,

We all wake up alone

and left to make our bed

To lay in

 I am the masked man, in the night

That you fear on the way home,

A drunken fool of the light that

Shines the dimmest on days

Where the world feels too heavy,

And your hands burn holes through 

My thighs;

Oh, lover of the night, lover of the light, 

Who taught you of such spells of courage;

You'd simmer under the heat of my heart

You'd crack and splinter under the weight

Of my tongue;

A fragmented image of the girl you used 

To call your own,

An empty shell you used to call your home;

I parade myself like I have a soul to show;

Like I have a wound to thaw,

Like I don't search the streetlights late at night

For some warmth to hold close;

An empty bed, A heavy head to rest

A taste of sorrow together with every breath;

A faint smile, A silent death

A masked man in the night

That you fear the best

1.  Ontario, confused by the constant

Storm above my head, 

should have known

It would be winter, the weather forecast

Told me so, 

Nights so cold

I don't know where to go

When all I've ever known was sadness

Under a tropical sun, 

Now I spend

My spare time searching for

A big dipper; 

Forgotten way back home

Spends more time with you, more than

I could ever know, 

2. And I sleep on train tracks now

The rumble on my back

Reminds me of back home,

Roads so thin, you feel the vibration
of my longing all the way back

From the North pole, 

Been searching to be whole 

When I've left pieces of me overseas

Where I learned all my A B C's,

And how to breathe with 

My mouth closed;

Should have known it would be cold, 

The weather forecast told me so

3. Oh sweet Ontario, you swallow people whole

But I've got pieces of me left back home,

I get lost when I walk and people 

Smile too much;

You'd like it here, the winter keeps you home

And the weed keeps you stoned,

The streets don't smell like grime

And I'm the only trash walking down the line

4. Who knew change meant disappearing 

Two blinks and I'll be gone;

In my sleep I dream of Islands

Swallowed by tsunamis

In my wake I dream of Oceans not 

Covered in frost;

I wonder what you're doing back home,

5. The only difference is that I'm sad alone now, 

And not sad with you

And I don't know what's sadder, 

But it keeps

Me up awake 

At night,

It follows me like a curse everywhere I go,

From my front door to the porch

My therapist gave me pills for this

She told me to take 6 , I told her

Life is funny that way,

6. No one hears you when you scream back here

The snow swallows your voice much like

That night in the backseat of your car,

Your seat belt being a permanent imprint on my back,

And you, an imprint on my heart

I warned you it was wrong timing, but make it twice,

I break hearts for breakfast but at least I still loved you

With all my clothes on

7.  I still love you,

It's just that sometimes it's too much

I want to claw my skin off every time that I wake up

The skies are softer down north but much heavier

On my heart, 

Every time I see the day end 

I think of how much time we spent apart

Spaces feel smaller and the world seems a little more dark

Maybe Under a different sun, we would have never 
Lost our spark 

8. And if you knew back then, what you know now

You wouldn't sleep so much, we'd be making out

With bloodshot eyes at 2 am,  but someone told me that

Life is funny that way, and I never much believed it 

Until right now 

But it hurts us less this way, 

Is what I tell myself every week

9. The tv never stops playing in my house when I'm asleep,

The sound comforts me while I weep but I have work at 6 am,

And my therapist told me its healthy when I have a plan but

I haven't had my shit together in years, and I know you'd laugh at that

At least I still resemble the person you once knew, faults and all

But I guess that's a part of life, no one stays in the same place

They were born, but I still wake up every morning

With an ache in my gut, and a slant to my walk 

Due to all this hurt in my heart, and I often wonder why

I could never heal the past but maybe it's the only thing keeping you alive 

Inside my head, in the here, and not there

A ghost girl in a new hometown

Is a movie I've been watching on repeat 

You said I should check out ''4:44 the last day on earth'' but you had no idea

What that would mean, 6 months down the line when I would leave,

10. 6 months down the line when I would sink

Into the ground like the small seed that I am,

Grew so strong with so much force

Downwards into the mud in all the wrong directions

Wrong being away from you, but I haven't been watering

Myself for weeks now, hoping I could shrivel back into my roots

and dig myself through the mud right through to you

11. Oh sweet Ontario, you swallow people whole 

you make my knees grow cold, I hold the phone

A little too close, 

Everything reminds me of you here

Everything reminds me of you here

12. Constant reminder on my skin

Swallow tropical ink;

I may never be back

Home, my dear

I got it tatted on my chin

13. Oh sweet Ontario, you swallow people whole

But I've got pieces left back home, I smoke alone

I scream at every dawn, 

14. Oh sweet Ontario,

You swallow all of me whole

But I've got people waiting for me

Back home, 

You said my body 

Was a sin too much

To handle, I said

I was made from 

Adams ribs;

Standing tall and proud like a dismantled cork screw;

Night creeps ever so quietly to undo 

My already brittle attempts

Of a throne stitched out of 

Empty wine bottles;

How I carry my intoxicated body 

Through another meaningful day

Fabricated by my own lust of a purpose 

I dance in circles around my own dreadful ambition

Spent endless night falls talking to your very disappearing apparition,

Woven flower crowns around my head 

Incase you need any more proof

Of my unconditional, but yet buried, adolescent heart

Permanently stained lips like dark Merlot; my breath reeks of all the desolate

Reasons of my own pitiful calamity, the sun forgives my weary weakness but yet

The moon rises every single night to remind me of

My own red pigmented destruction 

Lest I ever forget about my ruinous origins; a duplicate of a fate

That was set out before my birth was ever a landmark

To begin with, 

I fall asleep to the song of

Of my own agonizing cricket

Of a heart;

never restful,

Only a repetition 

Of my past

 As hard as I try 

And oh boy, do I try

To give birth to a life

That is not tarnished by

Loss

But there is a dove

That beats its shattered wings

Against my ribcage

To the sound of my 

Own bitter drought 

Treacherous the morning light

Burns against my skin; awaken from my

Painful slumber 

Like a thief in the night,

I tiptoe meekly around the crevices

Of your heart; sizing up the gaping holes

In which to lay my palms to rest

I don't want your love

I just want to sleep,

I'm your funny mistake

You're stuck in my teeth,

Words made of glass

Mouth full of cuts,

The past sells too cheap,

Me in rubbish heaps,

Sorry on your lips

Kiss me till I weep,

Vision gets too blurry

When i think of it 

Too deep

She makes you cum

But I make you forget

I love too fast

You fuck too slow

Remnants of your cologne

On the back of my throat,

I gag on the taste

I try not to choke 

Fireworks remind me

Of gunshots and now

I can't sleep

Dancing with my grief

Until you remember me

Born without a shell,

Never held too much,
I'd break too fast 

Chains tied to my feet 

Or else i'd float away

Shoot me twice in the head,

Need the lead to 

keep me down to earth

Lungs made out of cotton;

Choke every time you breathe

There is a place

I can take you there

If you just follow me

No real sense of self

Dissociate in the mirror

Put your hand through it

Hug the walls

To stay solid

Hug you

To remember

What it's like

To just

be

I spit, and you swallow,

What is left of me