I've got the world's best kept secret
locked in 2 AM screenshots--
her late night musings over a crusty joint, a crushed pill,
or some ***** cigarettes.

She sends me her thoughts,
fears,
anxieties,
insecurities--

at her most vulnerable,
absolutely the most beautiful.

Her anguish stressed in the digital scroll
(though she doesn't like Kerouac, I let her borrow my copy),
her stained fingers mashing all their hurt and nicotine
into the keyboard--

and her pen aches and her paper stains
with the unrequited love she empathizes with
in the somber pop punk songs that explode from the stereo
she sings loudly on cold and lonely night drives
(I shiver in her passenger seat).

And she made for me the greatest of mixtapes,
her holy scrawl expounding upon a dull grey donut-shaped
slowly fading form of intimacy,
a blank CD--

"This mix is a good time"

and when I jammed it into my car stereo I was illuminated.

She is so cool, she is so punk,
and in her clandestine drugstore car charger thefts,
broken poems,
impalpable aesthetic,
impeccable music taste,
illuminated or even further obfuscated drug trips--

I have the world's best kept secret,
and more than anything, I wish to share it with you--

                                     so she can make someone another mixtape.

How constant you are,
From the surface of my skin,
To deep within,
Bothering me with your tiny stings,
It does not take long,
To feel and then heal
All in the same day,
Changing all the time
Like every single line,
New words in different orders,
Shifting emotional and physical boarders,
Popping through skin,
Killing my heart from within.

Dear Pain,
Please leave me alone. This was never fun in the first place.
Love,
Pretty Much Everyone

A  poet was given
a life sentence today.

He'll be going the way
of Bob Marley and Frank Zappa.

I saw him perform
over the last few decades.
Hip he was and always will be.

In the ranks of Canadian poets,
his peers being  Gordon Lightfoot,
Leonard Cohen and Mister Neil Young.

He wrote about the Canadian Prairies,
about New Orleans sinking and nautical disasters.
All with soul and intellect.

A friend said,
"You didn't have to
Know know know him
to love love love him".
And that's true.

With a heavy heart I ponder the noon news.
I recall the day I heard of John Lennon's ******.

The only time I ever cried
over the death of a celebrity.

Thoughts and prayers out to you Gordie,
and your family and friends.

Ironically tragic for one so Tragically Hip.

evening loneliness arrives at dawn
and knocks on the dusty windowpane

in the kitchen, i lie — with threadbare arms —
against the shabby wooden cupboard frame

this house is void of all electricity
except for the light bulbs, the fridge, the T.V.

and my steady-beating heart of rhythmic defeat
lying naked across the tear-stained sheets

if you come home and find that i am dead,
perhaps some ***** dishes fell on my head

but most likely, i'll be, in the living room gloom
with a half-drunk bottle of wine to consume

with emergency flares tied to both wrists,
i'll leave you a smile, a sigh, and a kiss