Let’s see how many pens and papers I can lose before I find my way onto a plane, more often to the west coast, or back home to northern Alberta, where I leave my childhood heart and find her every spring. I pack water and food like the mountains never wait for a better sunrise and they don’t, because they’ve never had our eyes, never had the voice the north wind does, and I swear it says
they could use a little hazel
could you come when they call
and stay until the snow melts
and I do
when I would have anyways
and I think I have somewhere better to be before I slow down enough to recognize that this is all it’s ever been and until I can’t, I have to breathe.

Or I’m finding concrete like a tar I rub from my shins when I’ve found the next place to sleep, they never tell you what it means to come to a full stop
but we hit walls like we hit walls and I am all for the new dream, so I will love you as a I run by, I will shine a new moon and I will find you in a month. And everything we’ve said and done still stands still, and you know we’re moving, I know you do, so forgive my human tragedy and build what breaks we need into the boardwalk because this is the hardline, the pill an ocean couldn’t swallow, and if I don’t let this breathe, I’ll be next in the quiet life when I’m still waking up with words to sing.