I Saw You

I saw you in the sky tonight. 

splashing colours amongst the stars

familiar brushwork painting around me

Decorating the dark night 

I felt myself inhale your energy

I could feel you in those colours

Only the anger and tension was gone

Like a young child throwing his arms up as wild winds rip through the prairie grass

You illuminated the skies surrounding me

And for just a moment I felt at peace. 

The Darkness Shed Tears of Blood for You

If you had seen us tonight standing over you together as a family, you would have understood how much you were loved. I say ‘if’ but, I think you saw. I feel like you were a witness to our tears tonight, our words, and jokes…and maybe that will help you to rest more peacefully.

We didn’t want to leave you behind…each of us wanted to take you in…feel your skin…watch you with such ridiculous hopes of you opening your eyes just one more time. It felt good writing words to you…sending you off with our written confirmation of love, and sadness. Like we need to find ways to get you to fully listen…to encourage the words to really sink in so you get it.  

 I promised you tonight that I would continue to write to you…and I will. I want to somehow comfort you. I will keep trying to make you feel loved and cherished as you should have felt. I’m so sorry for the hole you wore in your heart. I’m so sorry that you felt less. You and I were created equals. You were always the ‘cooler’ one of the two of us…but maybe that’s cause you were trying to cover up something you didn’t want seen. So many things I play over in my head…and it’s so hard to acknowledge that the last couple of years I refused to let you in. I didn’t want to take your shit. I didn’t want to let it affect my children. I didn’t want you to poison the life I was creating…but now the loss of you is worse.

So we stepped out of the funeral home tonight after saying goodbye and sweet dreams to you…and watched the sky light up with flames. Like the darkness shed tears of blood for you…and it felt right. Like you walked out those doors with us…only it wasn’t a common walk to the car. It was important and had weight. The red carpet hung in the night sky for you. And we watched and took it in like we were taking your last breath into all of our lungs.

I stroked your hair and wanted so badly to crawl in next you….but I knew you weren’t within…but you were there. You saw. You witnessed. You were. And for us, you are. And I love you so terribly much.

All I want for you is peace…and for us all to remember you for you who really are….

It’s Been Five Days.

I’ve hit a wall and feel myself harden.

It’s been five days.

Five days since I saw him lying under that sheet.

And each day he gets further away.

Each day the exhaustion is less surprising

But the discoveries are more heartbreaking.

I saw him in a video today.

I heard him breathe

And then I wanted to hear it again.

And again, and again.

He was hard and difficult

His face contorted

With stress and discomfort.

He was clenched and resentful.

Or maybe that was my affect.

He felt….

Untouchable.

To me.

I can’t remember the last time I hugged him.

I can close my eyes and feel it.

I know it happened.

I remember him putting the effort in.

There’s a space in my mind in which it feels possible

To step back to those days.

Like focusing on those 3D images,

If I can just focus enough….

I wrote your obituary last night.

You have been released and exonerated from this struggle…you now know a secret none of us here understand…and while you exist within that ethereal presence I am left sifting through your shit and trying to make sense of texts and photos and voice messages that echo out into space…

I am fucking angry with you. I think you knew that…and that’s why it became easy to not talk to one another for so long.

But I never wanted to see you fail. I just hated your choices. I resented how you manipulated situations, and people…I resented how I had to follow all the rules while you didn’t and got away with it, I resented how you could take advantage of every crack you could wiggle yourself into.

We came from the same skin, you and I. What made you choose such extremely different paths than me? It was like you were always walking on glass…aware of the cracks you were creating but continued stomping along anyway. These last four years you’ve been slowly sliding further and further downhill. There were branches to grab onto on the way down…but you didn’t or tried but gave up, or didn’t really try but still reached out. You and I talked about your downward slide and you brushed it off like it was no big deal.

No big deal.

And now here I sit in this space of regret and sadness. I still want to scream at you with everything that I am. Hold your stupid face in my hands and force you to listen to what I have to say. Because it feels like I could’ve done more for you. It feels like you were loose in a world in which you just needed restraints to keep you in line.

 We are slowly working through what you’ve left behind, tying up the ends of my little brother’s life.

. My brother. Mikey. Mike the tike. Mikey dread.

Michael David Morrison.

Died shockingly and alone in his temporary home in Kitchener on May 3rd, 2024….

I Lost HIM.

It’s funny how you eventually just sink into your new reality.

At first nothing seems real. I found myself watching it all like it was a movie being projected across my space. A small part of me actually wanted to play it all out like I had been given the role of a life time.

I saw things I never imagined I would see.

I questioned whether or not I could be just witnessing one of those ridiculously over dramatized, cringeable B movies. But I knew that wasn’t it.  

It was my life.

This is my life. And that was his.

We have no choice but to accept what has happened…I’ve felt myself give into it knowing that there’s nothing I can do to change any of it. Nothing I say or do will change what has happened. I can’t tell you how severely it all breaks my heart. I play those moments over and over again in my head. I question everything.  What was he thinking? What if we had been in contact? What if he had moved sooner? What if he had felt even slightly seen? What if? What if? What if?

I’m not one who feels comfortable being out of control. And all of this has made me feel that way…I can’t fight against it and so I give in. I sink in as deep as I can. I wear his ring, and smell his shirts; struggling to find a glimpse of control or stillness or peace….or him.

Him. I so desperately want to find HIM.  

I regret with everything I am, that I ever lost HIM.

I’m Sorry…

I read somewhere once that there are a hundred versions of each of us, depending on whose eyes we are seen through. These last couple of awful days I’ve tried so hard to see you through others eyes…

You were the best daddy in the whole world to your boys.

You were a great buddy to your childhood friends.

You were a helping hand sometimes to your mom and sometimes everything but.

You were the funny, but scary uncle to my kids.

You were a supporter and lover to your companions.

You were an extremely handsome man to women passing you on the streets.

You are a friendly, familiar face to almost everyone else.

You were a scrounger.

You were an artist

You were an addict.

You were short tempered and angry.

You were a burden.

You were lost.

I tried to find you today. I put the gloves on and got down on my knees to search for you in the grime that you called life…on the floor and anywhere else that could potentially hold a tiny glimpse of who you were to you…Because that’s what’s important isn’t it? What was the version of you that you saw? I wish I had known. I wish I could go back to us crammed in the backseat of the car, riding across the country, playing word games and writing silly songs together. I wish I could go back to looking forward to seeing you when you’d come home from Toronto or vice versa. I wish I could go back to that birthday party you came to where I drunkenly showed you off to everyone in attendance.

I know you tried. You were stronger than you thought. It was like spent your energy in the wrong directions…you over exerted yourself leaving nothing in reserve for the day to day struggle.

I’m sorry that I didn’t have the patience to see you the way you saw yourself…

FVCK YOU

Fuck you

I say as I look down at your bruised body.

Fuck you

For ruining my really good Friday

Fuck you

For abusing and demeaning our mom.

Fuck you

Believing you weren’t enough, and the mediocre version of yourself was

Fuck you

Making everyone else believe it was their fault.

Fuck you.  

For not choosing life.

Fuck you

For the family you left behind.

Fuck you

For making me an only child…

Fuck you.

As I look upon everything you’ve left behind

Fuck you. Fuck you.

I want to yell at you.

So fuck you!

I want to make you listen to me just once…

So fuck you!

I’m going to move your things out

Fuck you

And then decide where you lie…

FUCK YOU.

It’s All Fleeting…

I find myself happier than I have ever been.

(that’s something to take in, isn’t it?)

I see myself in the mirror and my face is different than I remember…she is pretty and (mostly) balanced. She is wiser than I remember…is that why her face has changed? Maybe it’s how she has learned to see herself through her (millions of) selfies. But personally, I think it’s more than that. I am grateful for how I feel right now. I try to remember to breathe it in and really take note each day. I am aware that it is fleeting…that age is only around the corner from taking hold of my skin, my joints, my looks.

I witness others around me lose control of who they are within their space. They lose their illusion of invincibility. I think I still feel that. Mostly. And I’m starting to learn when it’s time to rest or just entirely give in. For the moment. I’m also aware that I am not done. That I have so much more to do, be, see, learn…and I don’t want to waste even a minute of it. I don’t want to wait around. I don’t want to forget what’s important. I don’t want to waste opportunities or time that could have been spent really being…because I know that one day things may be too much. One day in my (hopefully not near) future the things I can easily do now…will hurt. They will hurt enough that I will choose to step back and not do them. So today is the time to do them. Do them ALL.

So once again; I will not go gentle into that good night…because one day I will have no choice. So until then I will fight that every single day…every hour of each of those days that I still have gumption and mobility and artistic integrity.

I won’t take it for granted.

(an unfiltered, makeup free selfie)

An Imposter

I woke this morning an imposter.

Everything felt unfamiliar and unsafe.

I felt out of place.  

I walked my morning routine not fully stepping in.

I wanted to hide,

To escape this gradual descent

I catch myself riding.

And then as the slumber finished dripping away

I found myself in the mirror.

Perhaps she’s not quite who I want her to be…

But she’s there.

And she will prevail.

I Believe…

I believe that when we truly know what we want with all that we are…things fall into place.

When I was younger I yearned to be an actor. I refused to even have a backup plan because there was no reason to. My life was dedicated to me performing. The thing is, I was young. I was more into working towards moving to NYC than working towards being an actor. I auditioned not very frequently…but I got my ass there as quickly as I could. That was what I wanted. So I quit acting a couple years later. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice for it. But things fell into place for me living in NYC.

I don’t think it’s always clear to us in the moment. Its possible that we think we are fighting for something when really…we are not. I suppose it takes time, and maturity to really understand it all. But when you are there; when you really know what you want, with all of your being…with everything that you are…there’s nothing else that can happen but for things to fall into place. Because when you know truly what you want you send that energy out into the world…and when you send anything truly out there…it comes back to you.

That’s what I believe.