Orange Shirt Day (poem)

The last residential school closed in 1994,

the year I was born, twenty three years ago.

Children taken from home and family,

thrown into a place meant to break them,

lone wolves dropped in the Sahara desert.

Once there, they're skinned alive,

stripped of mother tongue, mother's touch,

and forced into a pale shell of conformity.

Native children, still just children,

treated like criminals of identity,

born outside of “Canadian” culture,

one built on extermination and oppression,

the victims treated as wrongdoers for existing,

animals to be broken and tamed.

There is no true reconciliation,

only political apologies and promises,

while indigenous women go missing

and the rights of indigenous people go ignored.

The residential schools may be closed,

but the wounds are far from healing.

-Zero

Death of a Romantic (poem)

I feel so insignificant,

a writer trapped in thoughts of love

while hurricanes destroy homes,

and nuclear tensions escalate.

Love is an easy topic,

but the romantic in me is dying

so may it rest in peace

as the flames of war consume me.

I have known love's madness

too many times already -

I'm tired of repeating the same story,

meet, love, heartbreak, repeat.

Let romance be burned from my mind

so my words can venture forth

into worlds unknown,

into a conflict worth fighting.

-Zero

A Porcelain Monster (poem)

For so long I felt like a porcelain monster,

an unchangeable bringer of pain,

on my shoulders an ever-growing world of guilt,

a weight that threatened to shatter me.

But just as I seemed to fall to pieces,

you told me it's alright if I don't know what I need,

that it's alright if I still feel,

that it is what it is.

It was as if the porcelain fell off,

only to reveal me underneath the facade,

and the world of guilt breaking apart,

leaving me free and light once more.

For so long I felt like a porcelain monster,

a fragile but dangerous terror,

but I'm just a man,

a man who feels and makes mistakes.

-Zero

Ever After (poem)

Our little infinity

finally found its end.

And so it goes,

forever is put to rest.

“Once upon a time”

is no longer now.

“Now” is lying awake,

yet another dream lost.

And the bed is haunted

by your cold silhouette -

made up of our words,

our promises, our plans.

We had ever after,

our story a fantasy,

the one we were writing

with no end in sight.

But all stories must end -

I should know that by now -

so we acted out the final scene,

our ever after came to an end.

I will hold our story close

as a reminder of love and hope.

The end of our era has come,

so it's time we say goodbye.

-Zero