the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me...

Years have passes since we graced the playground as younger, firmer hearts.
Although our hearts were not carrying much else other than pocket money and playtime, we all had such promise. We all held such potential.
We were funny, daring comrades in a world surrounded by baking and giant trees that now seem so much smaller.
Gentle voices, napping in a curtained room, pretending we were animals of a different nature in cares made of tables and giant blankets.
We were told how we came to earth, a myth later demolished by the natural process of growing up. But it stays with us.

We all took up hobbies. Some of us were far more comfortable.
We'd try, and quit.
But we'd try harder, quit better.
Does it really seem so far away? I beg to differ.
It seems only yesterday we were children. We were naive and unstable.
But we all held to each other, to songs and rhymes and handshakes.
Even through the most difficult of times there was hope.
We are a proud, hilarious faction--some of the finest fighters this world will ever see.
We hold our heads up high and titter under hung heads of forged shame.
There was a fumbling of lips and fingers (there always are),
but we soon found our blood was better resembled in humble, deeper friendships.

And so we sail.

We have left the docks!
Our sails swell with future wind which is so strong.
We are afraid, and excited, and our bodies bubble with the unexpected.
Some of us find ourselves meeting.
Hello there, I did not expect to find you here.
A familiar face is enough. So we may continue with courage.
With a much harder faith we may continue to sail,
knowing our friends' ships are not far away.

-Steph Wardle
December '11

These days...

...I am all about losing,

left and whatdoesntquitefeel right.

wilder shores of love (a title in flux)

in bed with a backache,

competitively procrastinating.

man my back hurts,

man i don't want to work.

this poem

should've been called

what else is new.

(it was acuff-rose)

"What else? What else did you get up to?"
"Well this one time a chubby fourteen-year-old who walked by me tried to steal your face."
"What? You almost got shanked!?"
"I said 'your face'. He was trying to steal it."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it was the day before my birthday, I was on my way to the Post Office down Mile End Road to pick up what my parents had sent me and had just handed a paper in late, of course, and was thinking a million things about all the ways I need to get my shit together and suddenly the last minute of the good times are killing me hit me, you know, and all I could focus on was how perfect it sounded...until a fourteen-year-old who looks like a young, chubby you walks by me and I can't stop staring at him. He looked so much like you that the longer I looked at him the more upset I got that it wasn't really you. So I guess he wasn't trying to steal your face. He was stealing my moment with Modest Mouse and giving it to you."
Her eyes drop from meeting his gaze to their cold coffee mugs on the table and then dart upward--with two nods and her gaze now fixed on the waitress, his has shifted to the window while the waitress pours refills.
"Anyways Jeff Tweedy came on shuffle only a few minutes later and I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I had to come have this conversation with you."

canal quickie

swans land, invade
the smoke from this cigarette joins
cloud upon cloud jostling by
and soft piano chords remind me of you.
in this
mixed up
muggled up
messed up world
why don't you call me what we both know i am?

daddy's girl

I still remember
those creaky wooden floors--
uneven, unwashed, underneath me,
and how even they absorbed the smell of paint,
so I can remember
what it sounds and smells like
to be a tomboy in your classroom.
Some of the t-shirts you wore in old photos still
sitinyourcloset [who am i kidding] getwornontheweekends.
I think when I get home
I'm gonna steal one
and never leave home without it.

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, 

"Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us

To connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon

Language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

 Hear.

-Hafiz