broken fingers

Untitled (found on the back of my science notes)

Untitled

I saw a man die today.

That's it. The end. There's no fancy words or incomprehensible metaphors to follow. 

The only thing left to follow is a trail of glass and broken car parts.

Or maybe there's more. I didn't see a man die. But I saw a dead man. I didn't see the collision, or the crash or the fall. But I saw the battered form of a man curled into fetal position in the middle of the road. 

I think there's more because my mother didn't hesitate, and commented on how we were going to be late for my lessons. And I was staring at the too still form of a too small person in the middle of a too quiet intersection. 

I could still hear sirens as I walked up the steps into my sewing teachers home. The voice of the first responder still echoed inside my ears. 

"Are you okay?"

"What day is it?"

"Don't close your eyes."

Bus Stop Lover

I never believed in the saying love kills,

Until I saw you drowned a flower by giving it too much water. 

I wonder if you drown when around me,

Maybe that's why you left. 

You leave the second everything is stable,

And I'm behind in the storm with nothing to cling on to but flat ground. 

You're so much better than me,

Everybody wants to be your friend. 

But you only make friends with the strangers on the bus stop, 

Because that's the only love you've ever known, 

September

I wish we were still friends.

Ironic, I know, considering I was the one who ended the friendship in the first place. I considered you a sister, at one point, not now, never again.

You're poison, but I think I fucked up and got myself addicted.

You're in my social class, and every time I hear you laugh, a part of me goes back to seventh grade where everything was okay. Seventh grade was warm, seventh grade was us against the world but now we're in high school and I'm fighting an uphill battle against everybody.

I hate you. I swear to god I do. It was you who messed up, not me. I'm the one who suffered, I'm the one who cried, I'm the one who had to fix you.

But every time someone mentions your name, my breath stills and coils of buried emotions bubble up in my chest. I think back to that birthday only you remembered and that apartment we wanted to live in together once we grew up.

You hate me. I hate you. We're not enemies, but close enough that most people consider us as such. You were bad, you hurt me, you lied, and I'm glad I got rid of you.

But I still remember your birthday, your favourite chocolates, and the University you wanted to attend, and I can't even walk into a book store without everything reminding me of you.

Husk

I think I died yesterday.

I don’t think my body noticed, because it keeps on pushing forward despite both shattered knees. It’s dragging itself through the mud towards an imaginary finish line because it just can’t stop.  

I don’t think my friends noticed either. Maybe I’ve just always been a husk. One of them has music blasting in her ears that drown out where the wailing and thrashing inside of my skull is supposed to be. The other faces the big picture window, staring at nothing and everything at the exact same time. And I, it, my body, whatever controls my aching limbs, stands silently. Never speaking, never moving, just listening.

Colours are so much dimmer. I went to Disneyland and finally experienced the warmth of orange and yellow. The sunset was the colour of fancy drinks and laughter and chlorine and everything I left in the summer of when I was still alive. 

Last week I breathed. Deep enough that I could feel the air hit the dusty corners of my lungs. I breathed so hard my chest shook, and the thoughts in my head were finally quiet. 

Are you really a leader if your throne is made from those you pleaded to protect?

She sat there, like a Queen, on the bodies she trampled to get there. Hearts of innocents crushed within the iron grip of her hands. 

The crowd kneels before her, yet no prayers leave their lips. Only muffled sobs and silent tears that they could no longer contain.

Why are they crying? What has she done to this bright and lively crowd that they have been brought to their knees, and forced to hold back tears for their loved one?

The crowd is crying, the Gods look down in disappointment at the lives reaped for no cause other than pettiness. But what about the Queen? She has been called a killer by those too scared to speak. She has been cursed in tongues she does not understand.

The Queen feels nothing.

The crowd can’t decide if that is better or worse than her feeling something.

She does not weep at the thought that she has ended so many lives. She does not guiltily look away from the crying child with no mother to comfort them. She does not stare into the soulless eyes of her victims, and wish she had never done what she did. 

She does not laugh merrily at this feat. She does not ride around the town clad in the finest silk and boast about her achievements. 

Instead she sits, like a statue, on a throne of bodies she trampled to get there, feeling nothing.

Just her, the weeping crowd, and those she killed to get there.

and slowly blood starts to look like water

It is a nice day,

But I can not see through closed blinds and blasting music,

It is warm outside,

But I can not feel the sun's heat inside this room with a shut door, 

And slowly, sand through an hourglass, blood starts to look like water. 

I walk past a mirror,

And hold back a scream as a person,

I do not know, 

Stands in front of me,

And slowly, the chime of a clock, blood starts to look like water.

I walk up a flight of stairs,

Taking two at a time,

Without noticing,

The floor numbers never change,

And slowly, the loss of a love, blood starts to look like water.

I knock on the door, 

Of my mothers house,

And she tells me, 

“No solicitors,”

And slowly, a flower wilting, blood starts to look like water.

I wake up,

On my sixteenth birthday,

And I am surrounded by,

Strangers and an empty house,

Twin Sister (Not Finished)

I was born to a second place ribbon. All I had was a name. My face wasn’t even mine, because I shared it with my sister. 

My sister was born first, and she was born better. She could talk before I could crawl, and she could sing before I could run. By the time she was 8 she was a performer, a musician, she was something. I was 6 and I was nothing. She was so far ahead of me that each birthday of mine was just another stinging reminder that I could never catch up.

She taught herself how to play the piano. And I taught myself to not be disappointed when people didn’t know my birthday.  

Hate Has a Name

Our hate is never set in stone

It is dancing through ebony nights

Tripping on jutted roots

And ripping its dresses 

With crimson red spilling from its lips

There are tears in its eyes

And Longing thinks it's from happiness 

And Joy thinks love is supposed to hurt

Hate is a caged animal

And Love has never met anyone like her

Our hate isn't set in stone

But it's carved into my bones

And I carry it with me 

Everywhere I go

Joy is confused

And Hate is told she's always wrong

Longing burned to Hell

The Note I Wrote to My Father

In my childhood photos, there is a girl, a sister, a brother, and mother. If I squint, I can see the blurry silhouette of a father lurking in the crumpled corners. My tongue stutters when I tell people I’m a family of five. Like it doesn’t believe me either. I’ve grown so used to empty beds and missed phone calls that everything else feels foreign. My childhood was a plastic slide that was thrown away the second others deemed I grew out of it. 

My classmates tell me about how their fathers took them to a hockey game, and I tell them I never learned how to catch a ball. Others say that their fathers took them hunting, and sometimes I forget my fathers face. My brother stands in front of the mirror, with the fabric of a tie rubbing between his fingers and a youtube tutorial playing faintly in the background. And I fear that when I get married, he’ll be the one to walk me down the aisle. 

In Grade 3, I had a parent teacher interview. And while I was flipping through comics and glitter pens, my teacher was telling my mother she was surprised to find out that she wasn’t a widow. I can’t blame her, I don’t remember a single parent teacher interview he’s attended. 

There’s two cars in the driveway. One has 400,000 miles on it, and the other is an unwanted dog chained to a tree, waiting patiently for its owner to return.

Most people I meet assume I’m a child of a divorce. And sometimes I think nothing would change if I was. A four hour drive at the end of every three months to the house of a man I’ve only seen through facetimes. 

I wrote my father a suicide note and left it on his bed, where it wilted and it rotted for months. And when he opened it, one hand was on my shoulder, and the other was on a packed suitcase. 

He played drums for 6 years when he was younger, and I play them now. Some days I don’t know if I do it because I love it, or if it's the only thing that makes me feel like he loves me. 

He missed my drum recital, my mother didn’t. She sat in the front row, filmed me, and clapped when I was done. And I thought that if I played loud enough I could drown out the suffocating emptiness of the auditorium that my father was supposed to fill. 

To make up for it, I played him the song at home, and he spent the entire time worrying if he had packed enough clothes for his next out of province job. 

Eloquent

Pin pricks scaling up the side of blaze burned skin.

Flushed, heavy eyes.

Kiss the sun burns away with sharp, pointed tongues.

Red waterline.

Burning sensation.

Close them and weep.

Eyes darting in your peripherals.

Poisoned remarks thrown under baited breath.

Familiar voices unrecognised.

Bite back words at the tip of your tongue.

Hold it til you choke.

White knuckles.

Clenched jaw, lips bitten bruised.

Poker chips.

The odds stacked against you.

Take the jump.

Everyone at the bottom wants to see you fall.

Floating.

A river of your own making.

Steal the breath from your lungs.

Roll with crooked dice.

The crowd silently jeers for your death.

When they see you flat against the rocks.

They'll tell everyone it was a shame.

They couldn't stop it.

The Poet with Broken Fingers

I love poetry, but I could never write any. My words would pale in comparison to Poe's disregarded scraps. Why pick up the pen when someone more successful already has? Why write anything at all when everything I've wanted to say has been inked onto paper by somebody better.

Biggest Regret

I don't think I can ever die because in all honesty, I don't think I've ever lived.

My biggest regret was hating the girl in the mirror. I should have loved her, loved her before she shattered herself into pieces. She is gone now, glass shards take her place.

Untitled

I don't think of my younger self as myself.