Some memories I feel.
Their shadows crawl up like spiders
webbing their way across my skin
welling up in my stomach
sending swarms of butterflies
with wings so sharp they cut
making me bleed from the inside.
These memories
I want to forget.

I want to forget my childhood.
I want to forget moth balls in mirrored closets
bubbles and butterfly clips,
“I love yous” followed by endless lists of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’
I want to forget not wanting to eat
Not wanting to sing too loudly, or dance too wildly
or be too much.
I want to forget being forced into dresses and stockings
but being banned from nail polish and pearl earrings.
I want to forget
muted arguments and loud silences.
I want to forget stiff, stifling hugs.

I want to forget songs about socks
poems about chickens.
I want to strip myself of all the things I cannot forget
the unsaid words that fill my mouth like cotton.
the unreleased...

We said we’d hold each other.
You hold me,
I hold you.

Sometimes you held me so tight
You pinched me.
Your palm lines etched themselves into my skin.
Sometimes I didn’t hold you tight enough
you slipped through my fingers

But then you let go
So I held on for both of us
But truth is, my hands are only big enough for one of us
I let go.

The first time I got my heart broken,
I thought it would have never gotten worse.
Imagine the sound of a million bones breaking and being reset over and over again.
Imagine the echoes.
Imagine the muted moans of agony.
That’s what it felt like.
My heart fissured.

It was easily a 5 on the Richter scale.

The second time I had my heart broken was minimal.
It wasn’t even a break.
It was a little trembling of the earth.
It shook me up and knocked me for 6,
but I quickly recovered.
If you were to ask me about that instigator to this day, it would take me a while to register that our lives did indeed intersect.
I pass number two in the street and all I feel is the bittersweet surprise of a long buried memory resurfacing

The third time was the killer.
It wasn’t until my heart got broken for the third time that I realized number two was just scrape with no scarring and number one was...

(La Bretagne, France)

Some days I wake up to the sun rising inside of me
Some days I wake up to cumulus clouds
To birds chirping deep inside the recesses of my spirit
Some days all I see and feel and want is light
Some days I’m happy

Other days I wake up to cumulonimbus
To rocky sea and broken glass
and all the omens my grandmothers knelt and prayed to fight against
Some days I walk on eggshells around the insides of my mind
Some days my skin and my soul feel unfamiliar;
Tarnished
Like someone came in and disturbed the furniture of who I am,
borrowed my favourite sweater and put it back in the wrong place
These days I have to relearn myself

(for my daughter in her heartbroken moments)

Cry
Give yourself time to cry.
Allow yourself to be sad.
Parcel out all the hours and minutes
and days you think you need.

Let yourself be engulfed in the hurt
and disappointment
and anger.
Hurl.
Scream.
Curse.
Bawl.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling a little sorry for yourself
But feel these things
and then stop.

Give yourself time to wallow.
Build yourself a fortress in your pillow
and in the nook of your palms.
Make my shoulder your safe haven.

But don’t stay there sweetheart.
The woman you want to be doesn’t live there.

Heal.
Because nobody who hurts you is worth losing your smile for.
Nobody who made you cry until your lips quiver,
‘till the stars in your eyes make way for splotches of angry red,
'till your heart trembles and breaks
and splinters in your chest,
'till your emotions warp from happy
to hurt-to anger-to...

I envy my skin
I’m jealous of how quickly
and completely it heals

I’m jealous of how it repairs itself
from deep inside to the top of its silky surface

I envy how it fixes itself even
after the most toxic of things
pierce it
burn it
try to break it

How does it heal?
I want it to teach me

dissociate the memory of him from everything
wash his touch-
his kisses off every inch of your body
erase the memories he helped you make in your favourite places
revisit them
create new ones
better ones

cleanse your favourite songs of him
listen to them over and over again
listen to them until they make you numb
until they no longer remind you of him
until your once favourite lyrics sound like a prayer you’ve repeated so many times
the meaning has been lost

take back your life
take back your favourite bra
your favourite places
your favourite things
don’t let him ruin them like he ruined you

He’s a paper cup

You’re a waterfall, my love

Can he contain you?

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies
Butterflies in the pits of my stomach
Dancing and cartwheeling on the tips and middles of my feelings
Awakening other butterflies
The ones I thought were dead after the last time

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of feelings
Feelings from giddy to giddy to goofy.
Goofy to somber to sad then right back to happy
Happy you awaken my kaleidoscope of butterflies.

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies who know what to say
but say everything
Everything but what’s important

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of images.
Images of me happier than I’ve been in a long time
Images of sunshine and rainbows and spilled red wine
Images

Truth is
you gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies fluttering
But they fluttered because they were trapped
Kaleidoscopes of dead butterflies
Butterflies that clogged...