i will never tell him

that when i remember him
i remember little.

the things i recall:
1.  the always tired look in  your eyes
2.  the way your cigarette rested hesitantly between your lips,
as if it knew that your breath was not it's home.
3.  how comfortable you look on that bar stool,
your fingers ice skating with the condensation on your glass.
how close you seemed to slipping.


4.  finding out about your young son.

this was the day i realized,
he will always know what a smokers cough is,
and he will always know the taste of beer.
he will always be kissed with the same lips that have taste nicotine and alcohol.
so i pray that you brush your teeth,
tired eyes.
and i think of your son.

untitled I

death has become a color

for us.  a line, resting

gravely beneath our lower

lashes;our eyes have

become cloudy.  this is not

a silver lining.

month of may.

You
came
in, like a lion.
with teeth of excitement and fur as gold as dreaming in the middle of church.
your paws
ran the road to rebellion like a speedway,
and ran right into me.

hovering, as nuetral as a bumble bee.
people like me
are soft to touch,
but i assure you, we can sting.

so you came.
much like a young lion.
who has just gained its molars.
extatic, over just about anything
whether you should've been or not.

and i
was monotone at best
when it came to our meeting.
it came much like spring in my city.
when it arrives, neighbourhood by unsuspecting neighbourhood,
you will know.
as if it has it's own parade
complete with mega phones.

everyone knew.
and it was as loud as a car crash.
crashed into each other as violently as a racer into a tree.
you were moving so fast,
and i was content in staying still
in myself.
and in my plans.

i had plans for staying secure
in my lonliness
and in my bitterness
of the last time i had been trampled on.
so i was willing to sting who ever i need
to keep my self
from getting attached.

lions
seem viscous.
but a cub
holds everything but what God wouldn't allow.
and my eyes
hold blindness to whats right infront of me
and i wear rose coloured glasses,
so i can only see
what concerns myself.
myself.

so it appears,
my stinger got stuck,
backwards.
it was like a thorn in your paw,
for a quick moment before your abrupt departure,
then it was me, sitting on my own sword,
that i had once blindly thought was a shield.

it is clear to me now
that you were out for more than play,
and less than murder.
you were hunger,
in a less dangerous way.
you were teeth of excitement and not torment.
you were vulnerable and now viscous
and now i deeply wish
that i didn't send you away, lion
as a lamb.

tide is low.

1.  As far as anyone was concerned, my mother was a mute from the day she could speak.  From the day I was born, I knew her as silence.  I would identify her by her breathing.  As a baby, pressed firmly against her chest at all times, I came to know her like no other had ever tried.  Her breaths were steady; deep and defined.
In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
I pictured her heartbeats like fishes, rattling the waves.

2.  My mother owned no books.  It has been debated whether or not she would be able to read them, with her inability to speak wearing her down like the absense of glasses to blind eyes.  But on our walls, where we placed no bookshelves, there were paintings.  To everyone just looking, they appear as vague as parking lots.  But I let my eyes swim in them.  Some as blue as blueprints, I see detail.
The only time my mother released me was to paint.  She watched me the whole time, and I, her.  Imagining each stroke was an idea she could never vocalize.

So people lie about her paintings, only because they don't know the truth.  These canvases re-enact our life.

3 a).  I come to the ocean daily.  It reminds me of her.

4.  The last day of my mothers life was alot like the first year of mine.
Lying in a bed of waves.
Head to her chest in listening.
In early rememberance.
In; Tide is high.
Out;  Tide is low.

5.  My mothers last look was one of safety.  Made me feel like every time I left the softness of her breast, I was leaving her to drown.
Almost as if foreshadowing, she held me in her gaze, treading in the color of my blue eyes,
And in one of her last tired breaths, she said

"Michael"

In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
Tide is low.
Tide is low.
Tide is low.

3 b).  I come to the ocean daily.  It reminds me of her.  I watch the tides, and thank science like a God, for never letting me remember her death.

graves.

i need for my hand to be held
the way it used to.
when i was young,
and my legs had barely 3 years to break in their bones,
so i was the princess of unstable.

the way it used to be held,
when the two of us would walk across the pavement connecting back roads,
when i would trip on the air beneath my toes,
when you would tighten your grip
and suspend me.
our fingers interlocked, like a chain,
and you would swing me.
and all my eyes could see was a sky as blue as my future baby's eyes.

so these days, i need you to hold my hand,
because since you've left me,
i've started falling out of nowhere,
and there's no one waiting at my fingers to catch me.
so my landings have been so hard.

need you to hold my hand
the way you used to.
wrap your arms around me
and distract me with the feeling of what home should be.
you were the only thing keeping my cold heart
from freezing every part of me.
even my peach fuzz stood on edge.
even my bones felt barren.
so i need you here,
to have and to hold,
even if it's only in my palms.
i just need a distraction these days.

because all that i can remember
is cradling your bones on that last saturday.
all that i can remember
is you calling me beautiful and asking me about that boy in my math class.
all i can remember,
is the warmth of your heart filling your eyes and every inch of your cold white room.
all that i can remember,
is our fingers puzzle pieced together like graves.

so grandma,
i need you here.
to remind me to breathe, because sometimes i forget.
and hold my hand through all the hard parts, because sometimes i get scared.
to bring back memories that aren't of you on your death bed.
the only dreams i have of you, lately, are nightmares.
lately, my life has been a nightmare.
lately my hands have been cold.

and i need you,
because i don't want to do this alone.
i need you,
because i can't do this alone.

benign

(before you read this, i'm just going to ramble.  my school is really involved in the cops for cancer campaign, and we went from raisin 16, 000 our first year, to 52, 000 last year, and 84, 000 this year, and still counting.  this was the first year i attended the headshave, and it was an incredibly emotional experience for me.  multiple people in my life have been lost to/affected by the demon that is cancer.  these were generally just my thoughts during the hour i spent in the gym, watching many students, including a large amount of beautiful, beautiful young women shedding their hair in memory of the ones they'd lost, the battles they'd fought, and the connections they'd had.  i'll be shaving my head next year, and while i'm extremely nervous, i know it's the right thing to do.  when the time comes around, let me know if you'd like to pledge me.)
(side note- this is still really first draft and rambly.  editing it, so there will be newer, more structured copies, eventually.)



today, i remember my grandmother.
her death was 13 hours before my premature birth,
and i believe that the fingers that once graced my mothers stomach daily
left a residue of their bodys pain.
believe the shock was enough to throw her into labor,
enough to throw me into a newly empty world.

so i remember always looking at my current grandparents,
in waiting
in wishing she could forever hold the title of "in-law"
and never grandmother.  never relative.
every time my grandfather remarries, he passes on her hurting like a re-gifted ring.
and i've come to discover that you're the type of demon
that tends to stick to certain family's.

remember how science class tells me that rapidly splitting cells is not contagious,
but lately, i think my late relatives and yourself would beg to differ.
you see, the only thing that has never differed in my family
is disease.

today i remember the last call i ever got from my mother.
i took this news with ease and a dose of surprise,
realize that your annual visit to our tribe was well overdue.
remember saying 'goodbye', and expecting it to be the last.
everything you did to us in the past was only practice for our future presents.

today, is a day of realizations.
a day of regret, remorse, remembrance and change.

i feel the tears on their eyes and decide
that instead of wearing fear like a shield,
i will never skip a doctor's appointment.

feel the hair beneath my toes and decide
that expectancy will, today, turn into me being ready.

embrace every skull i see
with the understanding

that someday, you are coming to get me.
but i will not let you take me by surprise.
scraping the pain from my mothers stomach,
and grandma's ring,
and every memory of loved ones i have,
and paint it onto my flesh.
in preperation.

i will clear the hair from my neck,
and welcome you to take a bite.
my skin so full poison and my blood so full of lethal spite.
come and get me.
i am ready
with war paint of your own medicine,
come and get your taste.

i will not drop my guns,
i will not drop my defences.
i will not drop the pictures of my lost ones,
or forget the sound of my grandmothers singing.
the sound of the silence ringing.

together, as a hurting nation,
we will join hands,
we will join skulls,
we will join together in our hurt, join together in our loss, join together in our anger and make it clear,
as truthful as a gymnasium of bald skulls,

you will not beat us, cancer.
we will not let you beat us, cancer.
you cannot beat us.

identity.

a hole beneath my ribs.,
nestled, comfortably, against my spine,
eating at the back fo my eyes,
making home in my throat.

so all i ever feel is empty.
all you'll ever see will be empty.
all i'll ever say will be empty.

you were my identity. 
i found the meaning of cozy in us.
you, the meaning of secure
in my arms
and in my trust.

i found my rescue badge in your eyes,
found my pass port in your wallet,
found my identity in the plane seat next to you on the day of your leaving.
left my weeping.
left my sacrifice.
left your owed goodbye to me
somewhere on the side of the highway.

left me to months of praying & begging.
the only lullaby  i knowi s my own saltwater,
over used, and evaporated
all of me, has evaporated.

left me to a hole,
left me to a cave.
left me to be the ash of what once was.

it seems,
by the light of your cigarette,
your lungs weren't the only things you were poisoning.

for lana.

i met you,
at your grave.

hands caged in foreign fingers
and adventure.
feet in cemetery.

the soles of their shoes
were digging into grass.
their toes
wanted to find you
that bad.

we are searching,
their toes are close to digging,
for your name,
carved into stone,
as if your death is the only thing that is.
lana, you are gone.

please stop pulling on these souls
their shoes should be running away,
and not towards.
but still, i tell them to watch their step,
don't step on the grave stones.

brooklyn straightens up flowers,
and ethan leads the way
with determination
not commonly found in a seven year old.

they tell me stories of you they shouldn't.
lana,
i'm sorry that the only knowledge i have of you
is an impression a 7 year old
should not have the burden of holding.
so you must understand
that my respect for you is not the highest,
after seeing how bruised you made his shoulders
from the weight.

ethan
is not a basket for the memories of your sins.
and brooklyn, is not a pathway to redemption.
i know sometimes you'd see angel in her eyes,
but lana,
a  5 year old is not dependable.

let them grow.
go back home.
stay in your grave,
and let go of their feet.
get out of their dreams.
before they realize who you really were.