wandering-writer-poet

Latest Posts by wandering-writer-poet

There is beauty 

in the silence, in the stillness, in the gone-ness.

In the dripping water casting ripples in puddle—

who is left to see it?

In the soundless streets—

who is left to hear it?

-

There is beauty

in the empty, in the quiet, in the ghosts.

In the burning lights, haloes silver and rose—

who is left to see?

In the winding roads, snow pristine and clear—

who is left?

-

There is beauty 

in the dark, in the soft, in the peace. 

Silence is a commodity rarely found and never sought, 

An extinct creature killed by advancing times. 

There is beauty in its return; 

There is beauty in its resurrection.

-

(who is left to hear?)

-

—beauty in a time of mourning (y.c.)

Everything feels the same, now. 

That is to say, 

Everything feels like coming to life. 

That is to say, everything

Feels like dying anew. 

.

—resurrection (y.c.)

WHAT TO DO WHEN THE DARK STARTS CALLING

Don’t say you’re fine. Every lie amplifies its siren’s call. 

Play music. The soft sort. The sort that sounds like lullabies and freedom, maybe a pinch of adrenaline. 

Work. Anything is enough to plug your ears, dull the dark’s edge. 

Lie. It’ll amplify it, but we’re all masochists here, aren’t we?

Punch something. A wall, maybe. The blood looks like eyes. The pain feels like teeth. 

Don’t say you’re fine. Fine doesn’t mean a damn anymore, anyways. It’s a cop out, a run out, a blindfold.

Close your eyes. 

Close your ears. 

It can’t get you here.

Years ago, my friend had a ganglion cyst, right on her wrist. 

Fluid build-up. Best to let it rest. 

Don’t aggravate the joint. 

It’ll go away on its own. 

.

Some days, I think memory is a bit like that. 

A build-up in oft-agitated joints, 

The nerve bundle harmed by relentless back-and-forth that has become

       habit, 

Become routine. 

It goes away on its own, quiet as a last breath stealing out of a lung. 

Fades as time wears on.

.

Other times, it’s more like a broken bone, never healed right. 

You remember the crack, the pain, the wrong-ness

       of the displaced shards of calcium. 

You remember the painstaking, irritating, frustrating process

       of healing and relearning simple tasks. 

.

On rainy days, the bone twinges. 

On rainy days, you are right back to the break. 

.

—you can always wait for the sun (y.c.)

Sometimes forgiveness is swallowing a match, 

          swallowing ten. 

Your veins ignite like gasoline-soaked wood 

(are your doubts the gasoline or your convictions?)

(does it matter?)

.

Sometimes it’s a bit like suffocating,

Water rushing in through your nose and you’re

Drowning 

(are your memories the water or your dreams?)

(does it matter?)

.

—y.c.

I do not know how to go on 

With you, 

And I do not know how to go on 

Without you. 

This is our liminal space, our

Handcarved pocket of eternity. 

Always here and always leaving and maybe, 

in a hundred years or a few seconds, 

we will find our way out of this trap. 

.

—y.c.

I am rediscovering how to love

The way I used to when I was five. Before Love

Was swept under the rug and 

Freedom became the only prize. 

Fear runs rampant, dominates—Panic is seeds sown by a 

         careless farmer—

But here, in this moment, without distraction, 

        without fear, 

I am rediscovering what it means to love despite 

       the flaws we hold. 

Here in this moment, 

I am redefining who I choose to be.

If one thing must come from this living, 

barring death, 

let it be the choice to love again, 

despite Love’s faults in the past. 

.

—in the space between here and then (y.c.)

this has 100% been talked about before but younger members of the lgbt community (especially on tumblr) NEED to understand that “gay panic” doesn’t mean “oh no i’m a teen panicking because i might be gay” it means “literal legal defense used in cases where a person has murdered someone upon finding out they were gay”

Maybe I should’ve known romantic love was a lost cause

      for me when I fell 

More in love with the moon than any person; 

When my soul ached for one more minute under the stars, 

Rather than the company of someone else. 

.

Or maybe I should’ve known when the forest beckoned 

       me home—

Craggy trails and footstep-less dirt singing a siren’s song.

When disappearing into the wild seemed more right

Than handing someone my heart; 

When emerald pines and russet ground seemed a more 

         welcome place

Than someone’s embrace. 

.

Or maybe there was no way to know. 

Maybe it always would’ve been this—

the moon and the stars and the trees and the earth—

the persistent sense of wrong—

the slow discovery, the quick recovery—

Maybe, in the end, it would always have been like this.

.

—Hindsight (y.c.)

(I will never forget this—)

.

They brought siege engines to your town, 

Armies to the valleys of your body and the plains of your skin. 

They brought mercenaries to carve the sword off your arm. 

The fires are lit; the people

.

are afright. They run akimbo, packing what little they have to hide in 

       the citadel, 

Protected by cranial bones and a mouth barred shut like a gate. 

We are hidden, but we are not. 

Your eyes are windows

.

To your castle—see the servants rushing to prepare, prepare

For siege, prepare

For battle, prepare

For death. 

We bear scars from the last skirmish, 

Blast marks from the last catapults to try and bring down these walls. 

.

Yes. That is where these bruises are from. That is where these fears 

           are from. 

.

They light their catapults. 

.

(—I will never forgive this)

.

—knight in broken armour (y.c.)

I think we’re all broken, 

you whisper to the dark shimmering water lapping against the hull. 

I can see our reflections—

You, halved in white and 

Me, fading to black like an old film reel. 

Broken how? 

I don’t really need you to answer, not really. We’re cursed,

I know and you know, too, so you just laugh. 

Even that sounds like shattering glass. 

What is it about stars and streetlights and silent European nights 

          that tear us open to the core?

Cursed, you whisper, 

And suddenly thousands of years worth of history and ghosts and 

          fiends are clamouring for release beneath 

The liquid obsidian rocking the boat. 

Cursed, I whisper, but remind me:

Aren’t curses simply blessings from below?

.

— Cruise on the Danube (y.c.)

I thawed, didn’t I?

Like winter ice in spring, 

Mountain run-off streaming into brooks and rivers. 

I felt the warmth of life—

Blossoms bloomed crimson violet vibrant blues. 

The sun was on my heart; I felt it melt, felt it give. 

Yet now, I stand staring into nothing searching for something; 

I stare at the placid blue surface around me, 

Not a ripple in sight.

This isn’t stoicism, 

This isn’t strength. 

This is calcifying into marble, is dying 

With your eyes wide open, 

Is stranding yourself on a lonesome little island and thinking it might

       not be so bad after all, disappearing.

I thawed, yes, but now 

I think all that was keeping me from sinking was the permafrost 

And now, that’s gone, too. 

(remind me: how did I ever mistake disappearing for flying?)  

-

—Spring Melt (y.c.)

I don’t love you anymore. 

-

I don’t love you anymore, 

But

-

There are days I wake up and I think I feel your arms around me 

And my lungs

Ache like I haven’t taken in enough air. 

-

There are days where I turn

with your name on my lips 

And there is nothing there, only empty air,

Dust motes and smoke. 

-

I don’t love you anymore, 

but

-

It’s been so long since I was alone, 

I’d forgotten the way loneliness tastes like regret 

when you’ve drunk enough of it. 

-

—y.c.

You wanted a love story and this

isn’t 

it. 

You say you’re going through trials by fire 

but these are not the flames 

that birth phoenix

these are the flames that destroy forests so

Put it out.

He she they aren’t worth the 

Destruction 

of your soul;

Darling, 

You wanted a love story and listen to me. 

This

isn’t 

it. 

.

—Why do we mistake destruction for creation? (y.c.)

A friend of mine wants flowers for her room, she says. 

She wants to make it beautiful and vibrant and fresh, but

Blossoms fade and petals mold, she says,

Clutching her falsified flowers, 

Petals carefully crafted—

A forgery,

hundreds of days in the making in factories where they make 

          hundreds of petals that never die.

Immortality is the prize, beauty a side effect, and yet

How many of us choose both as a goal?

-

—Immortality comes with plastic petals (y.c.)

There are endings, and there are endings. 

-

It was snowing, I think, that last day. Snowing the way it hadn’t yet, that year. 

The thing with snow:

It wipes away everything you’ve left behind, 

Buries it, 

like a pirate burying hoarded gold. 

We lay down our half-finished hopes, the midnight musings we’d  incanted into streetlight-lit hollowness. 

Hello! we cried. We are here. We are

Here, 

Like footprints in the mud and the branches of a fallen tree jutting up from the ground, we are

Here. 

There was moonlight, stealing away our

whispers 

like the wind borrows secrets, 

like a faerie steals a child. 

-

Count down from five, love. 

The snow is falling, and the stars are bright, and

the moon is listening. 

Count down from five—

promise me you’ll remember this is not the

ending it seems to be. 

-

—this is what it means to begin (y.c.)

We make gods out of sinners and altars

Out of gutters. We bow, 

Heads down in silent reverence,

To fools who beat back the nonbelievers with

violent and wrath and the pious

Call it righteous.

The gutters birth no good saviours; these

streets 

Vanquish purity the way Heracles vanquished

the lion and Perseus vanquished the

serpent but they had gods on their side 

And we have only demons.

—modern sins equate salvation (y.c.)

Hey y’all!

I’m absolutely terrible at posting things regularly, so a massive thank you to everyone who’s following me and bearing with my non-existent planning skills. I’ll try to post one a month at least from now on, but no promises cuz uni is crazy like that.

I’ve gotten published in a few places since I last posted, and I’ll link them below! It’s super exciting, and I hope you enjoy the poems.

amaranthine

Indigo

the ghosts in my home still haunt me

(there are also poems in InkMovement’s Edmonton Youth Anthology, Vol I, but they only print in paper so I can’t put the link here)

You fall asleep to the sound of your heart

Trying to break free from your chest

And wake to your thoughts trying desperately

To escape your brain.

What does it say about you when your own

organs

Want to escape your body?

— y.c.

Love and despair are drawn from the same well.

I cannot always tell which is the poison,

And which is the cure.

— y.c.

Chivalry isn’t just dead.

We beat it out of us with a stick

(society)

and carved it from our souls with a scalpel

(normalization)

and now

We don’t know any different.

— y.c.

These days, beauty is packaged and sold.

That box there is this weirdly specific hair

colour whose name

sounds like a desperate student’s last ditch

efforts to meet the word count

That shampoo is a scent that sounds like an

overenthusiastic writer’s sensory description

That t-shirt is designed to make you look slim

Mirrors are our enemies

Make-up our allies

and we gobble it up,

Burying our identities in

Consumer debt and social expectations.

— y.c.

Dreamers with empty hearts and frozen hands,

you come running

crying “love”

when it’s

Convenient

when you’re tired of carrying the weight of the

world (responsibility)

and I let you in

the foolish, gullible villager falling

Always

for your tricks

but one day,

Your cries will no longer sound genuine and

that,

my love,

is the day you’ll perish

— a warning (y.c.)

Everyone loves a good tragedy.

The broken pieces scattered in an abyss

The quiet pleading in the rain

The silent aftermath when all is

said

gone

dead.

Everyone loves a good tragedy,

but I suppose the tragedy is us, isn’t it?

Too young to give up

Too old to make up dreams

that fly us from reality on golden wings

— until the tragedy is them (y.c.)

Mother, I think I’m cursed

This air is turning to poison

This heart is falling apart

Mother, I think I’m blind

The path is dark and winding

No light shines on these parts

Mother, I think I’m dying

There’s nothing but numbness here

and a voice whispering, “We’re all mad here”

Mother, I don’t want you to save me

This darkness has begun to feel like home

and it truly has been so long since

I felt at home

— y.c.

We are home.

No, we are not all in the same house

the same city

No, we don’t all go home to peace

but we are home.

Words cannot abandon us

Hope cannot fade so long as we keep

Holding

On

so

Hold

On

Home isn’t always where the heart is

Sometimes

All it is

is a pen

paper

poems

But it doesn’t matter

Home is what you make it even when you’re not

making it so

take a deep breath

Look around you.

No matter where you are now

One day, I promise you:

We will be home.

— y.c.

“We keep wasting away, whiling away our days, chasing what? Fame? Fortune? Those might not last, darling. Love might. Hope might. Joy might. Chase those. They’ll keep you warm when cold fate abandons you in a trench on the side of a road.”

— what are we chasing? (y.c.)