Ordinary Days
Written 29.09.2026
i made love bigger that it needed to be
confused the edges of wanting
with the ego boost of needing to be wanted.
i made love into a caricature of past selves,
made him carry the burden of jailer and emancipator
when the ways we loved were simply
a season suspended in being painfully nineteen.
vancouver rain and lost polaroids,
beach-coloured days, mountain-breezed nights,
sun-bleached gold, autumnal orange,
winter white and cherry blossom pinks.
i made him bigger than he needed to be.
confused the ages of loving
with the ego bruise of wanting to be needed.
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for the longest time i held on
to the idea that the one with the prettier tragedy
must’ve been the better lover.
in the extraordinary prose i wrote and rewrote,
i lost the texture of a boy who was kind, and warm,
as if the ordinary ways we loved meant nothing
because i couldn’t get him to say the exact words
i wanted for my poem to be complete.
i needed him to linger longer than he could have
confused the pain of losing us
with the ego crush of not being loved enough
in the intervening years, my need
for shakespearean love made him the villain
because some vanities outlive desire.
but i once had Sweet Wonder.
he called me fireworks while tracing
Youth, Summer, Freedom and Love into my skin.
he danced with me at english bay.
and for a season, he made me feel joyously alive.
i made him bigger than he needed to be.
confused the retention of metaphors
with the ego salve of loving more.
i still carry his rocket in faded lines on my wrist.
his hello changed me, and his goodbye
still shapes
all the ordinary days that will come
after him.
in the extraordinary prose i lingered over,
i think i forgot that maybe
my goodbye might have hurt him too.
