• i want to make a list
• of everything you say
• so here it is:
• you told me once that my hair looked like sunlight
• you told me that my eyes were like storm clouds
• you told me that if they made a crayon the colour of my eyes it would be storm cloud gray
• you told me that the gray of my eyes was one of your favourite colours
• drunk at a party one time, you texted me that not only do you love me, you really really like me
• you told me that you're so proud of your dad
• you held me in your arms and looked down at me with so much love in your eyes and told me how beautiful i am
• you told me that you're obsessed with me

• it's may today, that special warmth that is more brightness from the sun and less actual heat
• on this rainy monday morning, parents walk their kids to school in tiny yellow rain jackets
• the night before, i stayed over on the bottom bunk of my baby sister's bed beside an orange cat, fell asleep to the sound of her overhead, laughing quietly as she read calvin & hobbes to herself
• my dad says that by the time my baby sister was born, he was too old to get up in the middle of the night when she needed rocking to comfort her
• my dad changed diapers instead
• my dad says he doesn't think my baby sister needs to see my grandma like this. she's too young and my grandma is suffering too much and all we are is witnesses to her pain

• by the way, did you wake up super early to clean the bathrooms? you are so weird - j.l
• my mom said I could [eat cornflakes for dinner]
• my brain feels soupy - s.o
• there's no rules in salad - s.o
• i don't know these ones and i know a lot of serial killers - p.n.
• a man can fight many things but he can't fight the hiccups - c.m
• when i was little i used to practice being ambidextrous - s.m.c

• someday you will not be such a big sadness
• it is okay if all you did today was breathe
• you are not broken
• you are human
• it is okay to be lost. you are content to be lost
• you will become an adult one day
• you have your whole lifetime to figure everything out
• you are loved
• when you can't walk you crawl, and when you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you
• feed the good wolf
• create something new
• don't try so hard to sing to someone else's tune. you don't know it. make up your own
• life is about creative reproduction. cont...

Language poetry

• "Shadows add depth / by falling" - Armantrout, "Single Most"
• "Two people in a room, both of / them me" - Benson, "Blue Book 42"
• "At first we loved because / we startled one another" & "the bouquet you made of / doorknobs, long nails for / their stems sometimes / bring happiness" - Armantrout, "Tone"
• "Each sentence bent toward the sun." - Silliman, "Tjanting"
• "That is, in prose you start with the world / and find the words to match; in poetry you start / with the words and find the world in them." - "Dysraphism," from All the Whiskey in Heaven by Charles Bernstein
• if definite proof emerges that we're living in a simulation, the correct response to that news will be /So what/. A life li...

• "i should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom i knew so well."
• "we must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinte expectation of the dawn, which does not foresake us in our soundest sleep."
• "i have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself."
• "this whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. how far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? why should i feel lonely? is not our planet in the milky way?"
• "i left the woods for as good a reason as i went there. perhaps it seemed to me that i had several more lives to live, and ...

• to build a home (cinematic orchestra)
• the interstellar theme (hans zimmer)
• into the west from the lord of the rings soundtrack (annie lennox)
• time (hans zimmer)
• arrival of the birds (cinematic orchestra)
• higher love (james vincent mcmorrow)

misc.

• it's not a fact, it's a feeling
• im an adult
• for ambrose, still lost in the funhouse
• we are the birds who stay - emily dickinson
• nothing nature doesn't touch
• against the dying of the light

love

• you make me want to be human again -i.m
• it was always half invented, but the other half was good
• "everyone's in love and flowers pick themselves" - ee cummings
• ive been saving all my summers for you
• unbearable fondness

world

• there are stars and stars and stars - j.a.b.

• banff (a hike where i injured my hip and limped the whole time. the hot springs. horseback riding with my young cousin who wore his cowboy boots and hat the whole time)
• buffalo (a powwow, cheering my dad on in a race, the most beautifully beaded suncatcher)
• calgary (nose hill) (talking to my grandmother about her growing up)
• cape breton island (a moose with a patchy mustache)
• charlottetown (a family of fox cubs hiding from raindrops, a beach with red sand, lm montgomery's house)
• grandbend (watching laundry dry, an old-styled restaurant with malts and hotdogs, little play houses in the front)
• guelph (a lost football game)
• halifax (a big muddy hill, the ferry, prawns for dinner)

from "Aflame:" "All, all are coming true / because we opened the lead seals, / ignored the warning runes, / and let the stories out. / We had to know // We had to know / how such tales really end: / and why. // They end in flames / because that's what we want: / we want them to."

• love never solves all your problems
• knowing someone else can help you know yourself
• you can love someone and they can still be bad for you
• you can hold someone every night your whole life and not know them
• comfort is independent of time
• there is no part of you that is unlovable
• doing this on your own will make you stronger
• you are so lucky to be so loved even when it hurts not to have the love from one person you're looking for

• you take up all the sparkle in the room
• sitting next to you is my favourite thing
• i love the sound of your voice
• you make me feel special
• loving you is easy
• I want to be there for you
• there is nothing you can say to make me stop loving you
• I love it when you tell me how you're feeling
• you make me feel safe
• I like sharing things with you. you make my load lighter

• what is my favourite song? (re: high school, ask martha, atl: girls a straight-up hustler)
• what is my favourite colour?
• what name do i use to refer to my youngest sister, always?
• what is my favourite animal?
• who is my favourite authors (you get points for any 1/3: Tamora Pierce, John Steinbeck, Michael Ondaatje)
• what is my favourite ttc subway station? (summerville/rosedale)
• what is my favourite movie? (a christmas story, or boyhood, or the avengers)
• what is my favourite tv show? (buffy the vampire slayer, or firefly)
• how many siblings do I have?
• what is my favourite vegetable? (Corn or brussel sprouts)
• what is my favourite movie scene ever? (the part of mamma mia where all the guys d...

• all creatures great and small

• baby beluga (raffi)
• of angels and angles (the decemberists)
• work song (hozier)
• the blackfly song (?)
• you ain't going nowhere (joan baez)
• byplane evermore (will millar)
• puff the magic dragon
• northwest passage (stan rogers)
• quelqu'un ma dit (carla bruni)

• from my older brother: never expect anything less from the universe than absolute love
• from my younger brother: being stubborn isn't about making other people like you, but about staying true to your own devices
• from my mother: if you hold all your sadness inside for long enough, you can keep anyone else from holding it too tightly
• from my father: if you are distant, be bold enough to love distantly. if you cannot tell someone you love them, make them know they are loved anyway.
• also from my father: if you play something with passion, you can pick it up a year later and love it just as much as if you had never played it before
• from my oldest stepsister: if you keep telling the universe who you are, eventually it will listen

• there are no mythological gods or goddesses who are going to show up and save you like there are in Midsummer Night's Dream or any of a dozen Shakespeare plays
• i'm actually just in a long distance relationship with the city of toronto and the summertime but it's okay because the sex isn't very good
• having a good night is worth being exhausted the next day, always
• being the hero of your own story doesnt mean you have to go it alone

• much ado about nothing
• lars and the real girl
• the secret life of walter mitty
• the sword in the stone (disney)
• eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
• ✔ song of the sea
• the mission impossibles
• trainwreck
• me before you
• le petit prince
• ✔ how to be single

+ shows:

• elementary
• agents of shield
• ✔ the mindy project
• ✔ gravity falls
• star vs the forces of evil
• cowboy beebop
• ✔ jane the virgin

• nora (a doll's house) - chooses to put self-worth in front of any societal judgments of her leave-taking
• ophelia (hamlet) - an example of the destruction societal limitations can bring to a character
• emilia (othello) - is she iago's tragic flaw?
• othello - is love othello's tragic flaw? (according to iago)
• elizabeth bishop: fictional vs autobiographical
• jiko, nao's grandmother and the art of finding purpose in simplicity. planting gardens and meditating, showing love and respect to all things (my grandmother is like this)
• for ambrose, who is probably still lost in the funhouse
• caitlin from david vann's aquarium who is so beautiful in her trust and her love, ...

• butter chicken (if this isn't on your list, you're missing out)
• samosas
• avocado/tomato/cheese sandwiches
• corn flakes
• pad thai (mom's, or from wok-in at princess & clergyish??)
• pho
• kimchi fries from banh mi boys
• mushrooms w/ cheese melted on top
• korean barbeque
• mexican-style cactus
• cupcakes from the limestone cupcake place on princess
• thai curry from silk at keele & dundas

• when i was eight, i lifted my little brother off the piano bench and it fell on my toe, which swelled up. eventually the toenail fell off.
• i skated into a chair and had to get four stitches in my chin.
• i fell on the ice and my mom skated over my fingers. they got swollen i guess but to be honest i don't remember much of it. eventually the fingernails fell off, but they're okay today. we didn't even go to the hospital that time.
• the first day i had handbrakes on my bike i went down the driveway and crashed into the neighbour's car at the bottom. my fingernail turned red and hurt. later, it fell off; same old, same old.
• while visiting my grandma in bc, a neighbour slammed the car door on my hand. the nail changed colour, and my aunt tried to reassure me by telling me it looked like...

• "still flying"
• "deepwooded heart"
• the roaring alongside he takes for granted / and that every so often the world is bound to shake -e.b.
• the world is a mist. and then the world is / minute and vast and clear -e.b.
• the millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray / mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst - e.b.
• we carry our families like anchors, rooting us in storms -a.h
• how good it was that people, like houses, had frames and that those frames could be so beautiful. - alice hoffman
• even our bones will fall - marilynne robinson
• interior love poem - m.o.
• sadness =/= sadness
• he wishes to be quoted as saying, at present, "Half is enough" - eb

tumblr user rippedfishnets was asked this question: "Why do you hate yourself?" and answered with, "Because I know myself best." I'm afraid of being as honest as she is.