Canada

Let’s just quit our lives.
I’ll send you
a slip of paper
with coordinates
by carrier pigeon,
meet me there
and we’ll make art
we’ll make love
and throw it across
a canvas
we’ll make types of
love
never seen
before
and people will
flock like pigeons
to see the loves we’ve made
and we’ll
live on the
beauty
of their
hearts opening.

Just don’t forget
to eat the paper.


[poet's note: this was recently published in the june issue of the chronogram!]

happy isn't any fun

larry has been 15 for one month
and he's looking down the barrel of a gun
he's got a crush on a peer
and now that peer says "run"
because it's deadly
to love differently

they say gay means happy
well then happy isn't any fun..

across the nation girls are kissing girls
and boys are kissing boys
and it's never that simple

and it is.

love is never that simple.

and it is.

love is like oxygen
breathe it in

they're denying us oxygen
they point their fingers
and they call our love
sin.

we're not fighting for our right to party
we're fighting for our right to marry
we're fighting to carry on traditions
like our forefathers
had before us

we're your doctors
and teachers
preachers
and lawyers
we're constructive members
of society
even though society continues
to shun us
and tell us that we're done
as they sign another bill
that denies us equal rights.

and still we
still we
and even still we
fight

we are not second-class citizens
we won't just go where you
can
fit
us
in
we demand equality
and we won't settle for anything less.

we're told they've done the best that they can
that their hands are tied
but it's all smoke and mirrors
and lies
because they don't want to try
for us.
but they expect us
to do what they want.

we're second class citizens
still you take our taxes
still you want us to vote
even still you want us
to abide by your laws.

so instead of face to face,
hand in hand,
we stand back to back..

it's a draw.

count to 10
and shoot on nine
it'll be just fine
you can rest your head again
they're just second class citizens

you teach your children hate
now look at what your lessons
can create.

why do lives exist
if you're just going to let them drown?
abide by our rules
and then
blow
blow
blow
the man down

larry has been 15 for one month
and he's staring down the barrel of a gun.

they say gay means happy
well then happy isn't any fun..

when will this be done?

how it falls..

it's bathtime
and my best friend and roomie's
little girl's
2 & 3 years old
are looking up from their spot in the tub
and the way the water rolls down
their face is beauty

the way their faces light up
when we run a cup
of soap under the faucet
and bubbles pour out
accompanied by pearls of laughter

the way the smallest
grabs my hand in the hall
and says something
about ribbons
and I later learn that she was validating
all that I am
'it's ok to love women'

acceptance from the mouths of babes

and the way these words just fit
in my mind

she said the beauty of the rain is how it falls
but instead our teenage girls are concerned with shopping malls
and how the words of their peers
determine their 'true' beauty
so they starve themselves
of culture
and ideas
identity
and cry because they're not a size zero

I'm not a size zero

but I am mind
and spirit
I am curves
that don't quit
I am breasts and hips
I refuse
to give
into their shit

I refuse to let anyone tell me
that every inch of me isn't beautiful.
that I'm not a goddess in mortal form
that somehow a model's 80lb form
makes her superior

I will not declare myself inferior
because I will love my body
shoulders to hands
head to toes
breasts and belly
and the beautiful
places that only
few others get to know

I've got continents of beauty
that reside inside
and outside
of the skeleton that is me
but you won't see that skeleton pushing
through my skin

becoming
living
dead

so I'm sending a message
to the ear of every girl
who is or isn't a size zero

aren't you wondering
who's your little girl's hero?
strung out former child stars?
displaying the symptoms of withdrawal
on reality tv
because they have nothing left to lose
like the best poet you've ever read
losing her muse.

who is igniting a fire in their hearts?
is there a part of them that just wants to say stop?
but they just smile and nod and hide the tears
drying on their cheeks
with layers of liquid coverup
and sticking their fingers down their throat
behind a napkin to be polite

some how it's ok
to throw up
and throw out
every nutritional source
of what you are

I want to show them the beauty of the clouds that make shapes that send
preschoolers into frenzies of wonder:
'that one looks like a truck!'
'that one looks like a flower!'

the beauty of a dozen ladybugs
crawling up the side of a building
every last one of them good luck
if they choose you to land on.

ladybugs don't care about
the size of your thighs

when did we stop worrying about spilled milk, broken crayons, and
snacktime?

when did she forget that you're only supposed to stop being best friends
until after naptime?

when did loving become a crime?

when did guns replace hugs in the schoolyard?

when did hate become okay and have you made a difference in a child's
life today?

we've got to get back to the beauty. holding up a mirror to the world's
beat up face and saying 'you are beautiful'.

no matter the size, colour, shape. no matter the accent, homeland, or
name.

a stranger told me yesterday
that I was beautiful
and instead of bowing my head
and getting down on my knees
and acting as if
it was the only compliment
I'd ever received,
I held my head high
looked the stranger straight in the eyes
and said 'I know
and thank you
and you are beautiful, too'

I will not bow down
to societal norms
I will not cry
because I can't fit into the size
twos that you adorn
I will hold my head high
because it's the only way to be

and when you see me
you'll see
that beauty is me.

it's amazing the harm we can cause with our bodies
passing on these physical
mental
social diseases
and somehow these things don't stir up
a riot
in everyone..
just those who can't take it anymore
these bleeding hearts
who can't let those who've suffered
remain nameless
claimless
hidden behind a cloak of
look-over-there-don't-you-dare-look-over-HERE...

they claim
live free or die!
but what if you're free and dying inside?
but what if you're free falling
because no one cares and no one is calling
to see if you're even alive
every 'I hope you're well'
is curt and contrived
because all we have
are the patterns we've fallen into
all we have are the lives that we've led
and in the end
it's not enough to justify the means
it's not enough to justify the pain
in the end it's not enough to justify the fact
that one victim is still nameless on the tip of
the tongue of our fore fathers
while a thieving cowboy claims
that he did all he could
and the murderers he's hired
to smile and nod
all
smile
and nod
from the comfort of their luxury
chaise lounges
in their luxury houses
watching the view from their 27"
plasma screen television
complete with a pirated copy
of the revolution
because
the revolution
is not being televised

they hide behind religion
like they hide the existence
of separation of church
and state

they think america is the holy land
and that everyone comes here to pray
doesn't matter if you're black, handicapped
or gay
you too can be forgiven
if you just hide the life you're living
repent and pay tithe
while these nice fellas pull the wool over
your
their
our eyes

and when they say 'I hope you're doing well'
you know the truth
because when they forget your name
you realize
those victims are you.

not for you, for me this time..

i see you starting
into startling confusion
as you bring to the surface
the confusion of

body &
self


realizing that when they
made you and chose your body
off the shelf, somehow they
got body & soul mixed up...

that silent sleeping soul, creeping out
now, through dress, bound breasts,
& familiar foreign hormones coursing through your veins
knowing everyday you have to stab
yourself in the heart
you have to stab
who they thought you were in the back
as you stab another syringe into your
body
wondering how god or whomever is running
the gig upstairs
managed to fuck up
so badly.

couldn't he see when he made you
that a square peg doesn't fit into a round hole
no matter how you turn it?
no, instead, she brought you home and shaved
down the corners until the roundness of your
hips began to show & you slipped
awkwardly
satisfactorily
into the pre-cut hole.

he shaped you however she chose
stuck you in pink and pantyhose
& left you here to deal
with it
on your own.

Apres moi le deluge

can you find me?
i'm the last of what's left
of what you left me
when i turned away and left you
for good.

two years doesn't seem long at 3am

and in the end it doesn't matter if i get the dates right
it just matters if i write ambiguously enough
nonsensical enough

i'm weighed against things you never even knew about
so i grab her hand, hold it against my soul
and leap off the curb.

third place.

he told me how he kept that picture
with him everyday.
repeating himself til he's convinced us both.

every once in awhile
i get to see the daddy who was always mine..
it's as rare as the second coming of Christ
especially since he never came in the first place.
[and he doesn't even know what it's like to come in third place.]

out of anger//back to beautiful

i will not post out of anger. i will not open the floodgates and lash out. i will not tell you about how i don't want to sleep with her, but i want to just with the hope that you'd find out.

but these things are true:
you wouldn't care anyway. you said so.

it would just 'confirm' things in your skull where everything bunches up at once and pulses and gives new life to more crazy.


i would feel worse because i slept with a friend who i don't have those feelings for.. once upon a blue moon, when we were kids, yes.. but i didn't even know it then.

[and i know you'll say i'm still just a kid.]

----

i'm getting back to beautiful. and i don't care if you're here for the transformation.

because you wouldn't care anyway.

Writing the words

i'm gonna write the words you hold in your hands
with your head tipped back
off the bed
while women and men
roam your native lands

i'm gonna write the words waiting on your lips
swollen and red
while they hold your hips
stamping.
burning
engraving
'i was here'.

i'm gonna write the words that you
hold in secret places
where you go
when your private space
is entered
and you are left
violated and left dripping
with them.

i'm gonna write em on your chest backwards
so that every morning,
when you stand naked in front of a mirror
you'll be reminded.

i'm gonna write em between your legs
so they can see them too,
the ones who pay attention,
and they'll heed the warning
and learn you
and respect you
and know you
and never ruin you again

i'm gonna write em on the inside of your eyelids
in black permanent marker
so at the end
when the light finally shows for you,
before you let go,
you'll know it was all real.
you'll know it was all the truth.
and i was there always writing the words for you.

12:39am
august 3rd, 2007

lovers

i don't think we'd be friends if we hadn't been lovers.