she's expecting the death of me & she says she'll write me a eulogy in her notebook. "I don't want to live forever if the only thing that will be left to show is my life." "you scare me to death." "tell me something worth saving & then I'll take back my first suicide threat. there's nothing here but filthy drugs & people who drink today because they woke up." "I'm still scared to death." "I'll marry you while I'm young, right before I turn nineteen, while I'm still capable of love. we'll get hitched & fake our deaths, then move out to the country without any of life's debts." "we'll get new identities that will work out for a decade then we will move out to the sea." "then we'll have a son that's not mine. you'll tell me that you hate me & I destroyed both of our lives." I remember when you saw my grandparents & wondered to me if the both of them were still happy together.

I dream every billboard lines the street with photos of newly wed couples & the recently deceased. & newsprint is given out for free, for everyone agrees that these days in time matter. I'm skipping to flip the 33's & compare rarities, enjoying each other for lifetimes. but face it, we'll be put on a shelf for modest romantics & hopefuls who can't help but dream. I'd give you years off my life along with many others just to save the rest of yours. & if we have nothing to regret, we just didn't live enough. you'd wish we had done much more. when every day is an exception who do we have to blame for not living all that we can? if they had more reasons than I, why wasn't I taken first? without these scars I'd forget how much you are to me. I will ruin your life. I will break your heart. I will spit on your dreams. I will kill everyone you love. when your nose starts to bleed I'll start to cry because we're dying inside.

pull down the bamboo shades. block out the sunlight. climb up in the top bunk. spill the filtered drink. will these eccentricities leave us washed up, musing in an unbearable sweat but healthy & content? while green apple cores soften up & dry out. cynical fronts put up become flooded after days away, watching the way we breathe just the same. I'm embarrassed that I can't even shut my eyes. skin is peeling. eyes drip flushed white. favourite novels at toes. shifted weight on top. two paint stained fingers held up to fake sky, not tracing constellations but eastern coastlines across the sticker star ceiling & eventually down to the waist. bodies lay together in an ocean of sweat, rising up past sea level & over the nose. stay asleep beside me & let what we have take us away. this is everything.

we're taking leaves off the tops of trees & carving our initials into our legs. garbage nights could become date nights where we can survive on curbside living room sets & pretend to own the entire world for as long as we can comfortably live. I want to say years, but I don't understand time & I haven't had that long. light pollution spoils the night sky, while putting a glow back into your eyes. there has to be something here that we can build into a drawn out hopeless mess. absorb every short expiring second before they're put out by the rain. there are useless dreams that continue to die each night & we're stuck at the start of one. we are better than they think, so don't cry, fucking hold my hand. despite that there is a deep anger in our hearts, we are in love/alive.

in the taxi ride back into our home country, I felt there was a monster taunting me from the bridge's other side. & if I had screamed in it's southern direction, it's deep voice would be echoed back to me saying, "come get me you filth!" maybe it's all simpler than I think. maybe being the cute, harmless drunk just suits me so much more. "if I could I'd build a space ship with your & my name on it." you're all ghosts & dead but thriving. she asks, "did you come back all this way only to be distant?" you've all drowned but you're surviving. I buried all my best friends hoping something might feel different.

I hate the feeling I get when the streetlights come on. & the unnatural sky over me looks like an all knowing present ghost. & the moon is trying so desperately to remind me of someone that I care about. I'm sick of being romantic when actually the heart doesn't feel a thing. I know there's a coast waiting for me that will hear all my sweetness & whisperings. I want a friend without a day left in their future & who doesn't have a place in mind to end up. someone who is simply unhealthy. though it's sometimes hard to see the beauty in life without your partner standing at your side. being in love can make your life worth living. if I can't survive here then I just won't anywhere. even the radicals are just trying to fit in. take an axe to your bedroom walls. separate their life from yours.

this morning I saw a firetruck & I heard the sirens as they overpowered the day. & I thought they should be even louder. somewhere somebody's life was changing forever & the moment that I took my time was more urgent than I could understand. & I found a million dollar bill in a parking lot floating like garbage bags & it looked so awfully lonely. the alarm sounds faded slow & I understand it was my ear just playing tricks, but it sounded like someone screaming "no". & while you're learning about yourself, I'll be burning on this old shelf of bleached garbage reefs & flaming congestion. I had a strange talk with a man whose diesel tank I was filling up. he told me that he could see the end as I leaned on his truck, just by looking at the way all the people had turned into customers & enemies for me to fight with, not help. "shouldn't you be doing each other a favour & a service. you get your pay & they get their product. instead you defend something not in your interest. this gas station uniform & the right to compete with a price." & then he apologized on our parents behalf for leaving us with planet earth. when I realized what the date actually was I found myself aged eighteen years feeling nostalgic for a happiness that I had never really felt. like sitting in a room full of strangers & being content. until I decide to start living you can keep my bones. I have a really good feeling you're the only one knows how to love someone. & I know how to burn a bridge. but I'd rather be swimming in an ocean off the coast of the florida keys. & have you ever thought of the future? I have & it is so scary. this might be the last time I'm taken seriously, because a few of us here are lying & what if I'm one of them? I'd rather be holding hands with someone that cares for me & I'd rather be making friends than faking it for a trend. & I'd rather be moving away from kitchener & guelph than continue living as a ghost, brooding as I am.

sleeping on a street in between several feet of lanes that keep with systems & a couple of dead bodies. each bit of gravel & skin. water filled recycling bins. all more important than the shadows fighting traffic. one car every hour. at three A.M. there is no power. the smoke filled rooms I frequent don't help a violent cough. it's worse with them but safe & calm behind couches. create a bomb. take it from a backpack because I honestly do feel this. I can't see. just tell me why I can't feel much of anything. these people that surround me show no caring. just give me until the end of this street to breathe. just wait for the betrayal to be the need. are we always all alone? was my voice ever enough?

two months of this year have ended & I remember when the year 2000 sounded strange. the concrete here doesn't feel any different & our feet are all beaten from walking thirty blocks. we stole an orange from someone's front lawn & ran up through fairfax & the mexican homes to the overwhelming tar pits where skeletons were found & disassembling lovers always threaten to jump in. we swam in our skin in the cold pacific & our white blood filled bodies looked like costumes. the south central blocks cave in like a ghost town & we have to question why we ever wanted to be there. everything is lonely & confrontational. I want to become invisible & scare you to hell & show up on every block in haight-ashbury & play my harmonica. & pick up our mail at a literary landmark where our aspirations get a little too nervous to talk. stand on columbus & recite you poems that I've been writing in my head since the day we left home. keep drawing palm trees & fantasize about the pacific but start moving on because now we can live it. get me the hell out of L.A. & back to the east bay. if the ocean knew that I was taking it's picture would it create a high tide & drown out my insides? I could swim for my whole life & never reach the bay on the other side of the world, or turn into a wave. I hope there's sand in my ears for the next three years. if you can accept that I'll never love you as much as I would have then, then I can accept that this is where we are & where we should stay if we had the guts. I hate to say it but I am fucked for life. so here it is, my reservation for the cemetery at the bottom of the ocean.

nothing will go on the same ever again. we can't afford you this year. here's all the money I have left. here's everything. please leave right now this whole family is ruined & we're just growing apart more every year. maybe I should have let you know this in june. "we don't love you anymore son." "we don't love you anymore daughter." I don't love you anymore more mom. I never loved you father. someday in the future at least three or four people will tell me, "you never looked me in the eye." & then we'll get drunk on new years eve before the countdown & wake up in the morning exactly the same. don't feel so guilty because everyone is dying. love is everywhere but here.

I didn't wake up beside a girl, I woke up to a train at my feet. enclosed by branches was my old friend shaking in his sleep. I thought about northern ontario & how much colder it would get. I don't think I'll ever feel as scared as I did in that very second. I thought about a night last august. stumbling out of a backyard with christian. he told me about a girl he thought he might be in love with. I thought "this is all so simple" after that late night conversation. until I fell on glass & cut open my hand & wiped my blood on the door of a car. I thought about sam gaudet & the afternoon she met me with a limp. we jumped fences together & ran around like we were kids. we ran out the back of an abandoned building when we saw the cops searching for us. I'll never forget hiding behind the sky jack until it was safe to run. I thought about lorissa & how we would drive around very late at night for hours on end. exploring the airport because she adored the lights. she showed me the spots where she grew up in cambridge & sang on her front porch with her dad & learned new songs. I hope she's safe in her resort. I thought about madison & how I felt like we hadn't talked in years. I missed him completely & wondered how did we both disappear. I always miss my real friends when I'm away from home because it's not the same. I wondered if six years ago we would embrace what we later became? I rolled over & closed both my eyes, & adjusted the cardboard beneath my back. the train that woke me had gone far away down the tracks. I thought about familiar faces & though they might not be "till the end", I don't think I'll ever feel as safe as I did in those few seconds.