in February i met someone for the first time and we spent two hours

answering each other’s questions.

if i had to recap our conversation it’d sound like this:

are you comfortable being this tall, it feels as 

though the world doesn’t weigh you down? do 

your shoulders hurt?

four of your fingers are bandaged, you choose the strings over the 

keys. you don’t have to drown in the papier-mâché quicksand 

your heart is. do you not know love can be soft? 

do you not want  to not bleed every time you’re happy?

you always write about love in metaphors clothed 

in grief, and yet you joke about your parents, 

are your poems dishonest or is your humour 

the safety on your pistol?

i remember your pictures always have an insurmountable

chaos in your room. you keep asking me for words and hugs. 

the warmest poetry will not make this mess romantic, 

neither will it make survival easy. do you want to clean up

with me?

no one ever completely returns once they leave. 

he didn’t leave you, he never knew how to stay. 

don’t stay attached to the myth of a return. 

will you come with me, we will never be the same, 

we can leave everything but us behind?

you keep talking about conservation; i sleep with the 

lights on. will you save me or

energy?