​Forget-me-not when I wander past you on the canal side,
When dozens of you fairies guide me on my way.
Wave me through the wind in a massive blue tide,
As you evolve into a great ocean all at once.
Let my hands run through your rosette clusters,
Soft purity that cushions me like a cloud.
Your indigo paint drips onto my fingertips,
Washing my hands in your tender faith.

​Before I realized it, tears flowed out of my eyes like water pouring from an open faucet. The sound of the salty liquid hitting the wood played a more beautiful symphony than my frozen fingers could at that point. The notes that I had played over and over again for the past three months were suddenly not just lifeless black dots on lines. They made sense to me. They spoke to me. I dropped to my knees in agony and cried for all that I had been holding onto for the last three years. 

​Our first formal introduction was just a few months after I immigrated to Canada. Being in a foreign country surrounded by problems that I didn't understand and didn't know how to solve was trapping brightness and creativity inside of me. I held it up from the case and carefully examined its intricate wooden structure. With a pluck of my finger against its metal string, a note bounced out. It was not at all beautiful - perhaps it could even be considered a horrible sound - but it brought out something that I had longed for in the gloomy days that seemed to follow me around. Violin. That's what they told me it was. And it was one of the first English words I learned since coming to Canada. 

Rupi Kaur, a Punjabi-born Canadian poet, writer, illustrator and performer, has become the most ‘Instagrammable’ sensation; she is followed by Ariana Grande on instagram, has had Sam Smith tattoo some of her work onto his arm and has appeared on the front page of the Cosmopolitan. She has graced the covers of the Canadian press as she was seen to be endorsing Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh a candidate running for Prime Minister in Canada.

Although her work seems to be at all-time high, she alongside other people of ethnicity, has suffered her fair share of challenges, suffering backlash from the media for her work. In 2014 Kaur released her self-produced poetry book ‘Milk and Honey.' Although it had sold over 2.5 million copies in 25 languages and spent 77 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, she received lots of criticism for her work.

melt your dreams into hard liquor,
daughter. feel it burn your throat, dance
along to the rhythm. we don’t follow
rules. not here.

trace your hands over your body, feel
the curves and crevices, taste the air.
smooth and sensual. watch the stars in
the night sky implode, you might
not see them for a while.

I pick up the littered pages
of all the pains I’ve felt.
I try to insert them into a book of remembrance.
But God ordered the incinerator to stand by
with the hopes of a change of heart.
Sadly, my heart was given to the government.
In return, they gave me eight years of smokescreens.
Found the truth lying in the mouth of hell.
Speak when spoken to, or lose the ability to moan for salvation.
The stories they feed us taste of lies.
There’s no plague they’re fighting,
just the fear of losing a drop from the sea of wealth they’ve contained.
Now, they return amidst the plague,
hoping to conquer yet again. 

​Black locks of hair were knotted in a messy bun at the top of her head, and small, intricate earrings hung delicately from her earlobes. She bent over, collared shirt stretched across her back as she whispered to a child. She didn’t see the way their eyes shone with reverence, or how their hands had stopped fidgeting as though paralysed in awe. Her melodic voice was gentle and patient, and her cheeks glowed with pride when the child nodded slowly to show their understanding. She had soft milk chocolate skin, with deep black eyes that sparkled bright behind flamingo pink-rimmed glasses. Full lips smiled to reveal pearly teeth as she strode to me, and I could see her almost float away with happiness as she approached closer and closer, her small teachers badge softly glinting in the overhanging yellow light, painting her in a ethereal golden glow. Collapsing against me, she sighed, and I silently thanked the angels that they had sent one of their own for me.

The room is seasonal:
There is autumn. There is spring.
There is winter, and the cool summer.

The room is natural:
Every beauty, and the curiosities
Of God reside here
In front of my bare sight.
​
The room is spiritual:
There is faith. There is belief.
There is a claim of belief, and whiteness, and
Purity. There are genuflections,
Clappings, and the silence, sobbing
In the brightest corner of an atheistic mind.

​Open your eyes and open your heart,
Feel the sensitivity that flows through you.
Appreciate love because it’s such an art,
Don’t let your heart sink within such sorrow and blue.

Your eyes mesmerized my heart and soul,
Which appreciate the beauty within me.
At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough.
You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It’s enough.

Rich, dark purple chords vibrated from the piano and into the open air of my practice room. My arms trembled from the constant force being strained upon them, as they unforgivingly played on the innocent white and black keys to constitute an angry melody. Bursts of color sprang together to form sound waves, each overpowering the latter. A mournful black downed by a blood red sea that clashed against impulsive white streaks. Over and over. Louder and louder. Until the last measure climaxed in a climbing arpeggio of bright orange dots to confront an unfinished seventh chord. My fingers hesitated over the final note for a sliver of a second, then gently satisfied the end of its melody.

​‘Use three words to describe yourself’, they said.
‘Introduce yourself in thirty seconds’, they said.
‘Tell us something interesting about yourself’, they said.
‘Always be yourself’, they said.

‘Be who you want to be’, they said.
‘Be who you are’, they said.
‘Be happy being yourself’, they said.
‘Always be yourself’, they said.

the cars flitting through the street
the droplets of rain caressing the leaves

the waiting for the stoplight to change
the glass of water translucent

the hoping for the absence of jaywalkers
the fedora etched on the surface of the table
​
the knowing that a road without cars comes
faster than the stoplight turning green

Valeria Flores stared out the window. The streets had become so empty since Vancouver had been put on lockdown. She missed the laughter and music that would carry into her family’s flower shop. Now, the streets were empty and full of silence.

“Valeria, tengo trabajo para ti.” Valeria, I have work for you, her Mamà called from the back of the shop.

“Coming!”

Valeria smiled at her younger cousins, as she walked to the back of the shop. They were young and didn’t fully understand why fewer customers frequented the shop nowadays. Lucky.

I’m breathing and they’re watching,
Sneering while I breathe
They mock me with their eyes, the way my
Chest moves while I breathe
I feel their eyes piercing my skin
Like a balloon I am deflated,
But then I breathe in again and I’m back to normal size
But they are still watching me and sneering
So I shrink down in my seat and become tiny

​​did you
teach me something?

seeing the windows clean
as polished rust
I cannot deny

my pursuit to
somewhere you long

beauty is pain
so don't you dare say
you are not a number to be shrunk
let it sink into your bones like religion
so when you stand trial before the mirror
your stomach is devoid of sin to spill.
know that regardless of what you eat
it's never too soon to say that's enough.
listen, rid your chest of this crushing weight--
you'll feel lighter by hollowing yourself out.
darling, only liars will claim that
this is not what it means to be beautiful.

(now read it backwards.)

​Moonbeams illuminate the cedar wood floors of the tiny antique shop,
The only source of light in the darkest hour of the night,
When dreamers dream, with only the bitter cold seeping into fatigued bones….
Until the horizon turns orange and gold, and the moon hides its face yet again.
A small girl with red cheeks and raven black hair opens the door,
Holding the weathered hand of father, their breaths forming fog in the wintry air,
For in the depths of the tiny shop lay a lone black violin case,
Out of place like a brick among colorful feathers in stark contrast.

I wish I could take it all back
Get rid of all the joy I felt
All the happy memories
I wish I could forget your smile
And how happy it made me

​Because as I roam the dusty halls of my mind
All of those memories that felt so good to make
Are now tainted
And ugly
And looking at them makes me cry

**Content Warning: Gun Violence

​He stole the lives that were not his
He kept them there to hold
A searing scowl and greedy eyes
They sought a grief, uncontrolled

​It was never shown on the news
But I see it in my mind
The evil soul of a murderer
In hell it is confined

​On the coast of Ireland, there were five kids all in high school, all friends, and all wanted to find something new in their lives. It was the middle of May in the year of 2056. One of the five friends was named Isabella, she was the bravest of them all and was smart and creative. There was also Lea, Simon, Max, and Dylan. Lea was adventurous and the kindest out of their group. Simon, he was nerdy and clumsy. Then there was Max who was slightly like Simon but Max was weird, not nerdy and he was also very fast. So with all five of them being friends since preschool, they were all really close. 

tears flowing down my cheeks,
back to the wall, nowhere to go.
memories that surge and hurt,
memories that were buried.
tears flowing down my cheeks,
as I sit, alone, no one to turn to.
​
tears flowing down my cheeks,
as I sit up, hiding my pain.
putting on a mask, a fake smile,
and walking back out, acting
as if nothing was wrong.
as if every living moment I
didn’t want to cry out for help.

The ballerina pirouettes, yearning for a curtsy.
 
An oboe croons the opening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The ballerina’s lips arch in a painted smile as she completes her turn in the spotlight of a full moon. Her lithe body is almost airborne, but hours of practice keep her loyal to gravity. Still, the stage barely feels the kiss of her pointe slipper.

​As soon as the oboe’s phrase resolves, it repeats itself. The tarlatan tutu whirls like a punctured parachute around her waist. Again, the oboe’s solo ends, but now it insists on another encore. The ballerina exists to entertain, so entertain she must, though her head spins at the mercy of a migraine.

​A. Apples- There’s a fresh bag of apples in the fridge. She only grabs one to enjoy the sour and tarty flavor of the green fruit. When she finishes one, the overwhelming feeling of needing more consumes her as she goes back for another. One apple after another; she can’t help herself. Soon she goes back only to stick her hand in an empty bag. Now she is left feeling sick to her stomach and everyone mad at her for eating all the apples. 
​
B. Bottomless Pit- They call her stomach a bottomless pit from her nonstop eating and never getting full. It’s as if her stomach holds no food as she chows down, not even stopping to breathe. When everyone is out for the count and can eat no more, she still lingers around for something else. Her stomach is a bottomless pit; she needs more. 

Some days, I like to lose myself.
Drift between the corners of others’ minds. Hoping to get a slow artificial faint to act as a getaway from the aching of my own mind.
I watched a girl sitting alone on the bus, happiness obvious on her face while she held her phone; a boy searching for his love in a city, but not doing what he wanted; there was family spending time together, but with each member thinking of his own personal life. 
We are all so close that we can feel our breaths crossing, colliding in the air.
Have we ever noticed how unaware we are? Have we ever seen the ghosts behind people's eyes? 
We're moving between the people in the crowd, touching but not connecting. 
We don’t realize that we're all just background noise to each other's lives. 

People always tell me I should love myself
Only I don’t know how
Nobody ever taught me
But when others are happy I’m happy
And when they’re sad I’m sad too
But I never stop to ask myself
“How do I feel?”