I’ve seen you almost crying, walking to the car.
I’ve watched you slowly dying while I played guitar.
You asked me if I’d play you that simple song,
but I don’t dare play it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

You told me that you loved me; I knew what you meant,
but I can’t help imagining what might have been,
if only I had told you I was on the edge.
But I don’t dare say it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

I’d take away your pain if you’d ease my regret,
with some whisky in a bottle and some cigarettes.
We could laugh about nothing. That’s as good as it gets.
But I don’t dare repeat it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

I know that this is crazy, but I’ll toe the line,
in order to feel something, and to pass the time.
Keep telling me “never”. I don’t mind.
I just can’t believe it. You’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

If we just sit here
and drink coffee together
it doesn’t matter
what they say.

Let’s spend time talking
about something or nothing.
It doesn’t matter
what we say.

All the sentences I use,
they’re perfect when you’re
smiling at me.

This is your first day.
This is your last day.
Hidden in tear gas,
buried in scattered glass.
Terror is pipe bombs,
nails in the brick wall.
People like strewn dice
over a concrete lawn.

Will you remember all of this,
apalling fall, the tender kiss
of flame and pain and bliss
of being spread over the wall?
The red wall, the red wall, the red wall.

Was it your first breath,
or was it your last breath?
In amneosis, screaming
to let them know
that you have arrive here.
Oh, why are you crying?
You’re supposed to be happy,
you’re supposed to be happy here.

Is this all you remember,
is this all you remember,
is this all you remember,
the red wall?

• Some things are just too long to fit on Twitter. Ironically, not this point, but still.
• I love how all the commercial radio stations have this dramatic music for snowfall coverage. We’re Canadians, ladies. We’ve seen hundreds of these “winter storms”.< We're not going to fall apart when the first snowflake hits us. By the way, this is how you know commercial news people aren't really in the business of news anymore: If they're seeking to dramatize snow, then they're in the business of entertainment. Or maybe the business of stupidity. This is why I listen to CBC Radio 1.
• Mark Trapgillistagenstein posted this article about fossils in some place in the US. Now, I understand there’s a legitimate debate going on in Christianity between the creationists, the don’t-know-ers, and the full-on evolutionists. But this doesn’t excuse the lack of basic scientific knowledge that seems so frighteningly rife in Christian circles. Look what one creationist says in the article: “Secular scientists stumble over the complexities of the natural world and continue to adjust the age of Earth to fit their theories.” My jaw is still on the floor from this ignorant, anti-science, anti-intellectual bit of absolute tripe. I’m hoping that the guy was trying to say something else and the whole thing just came out wrong. But still:
1. Scientists don’t adjust the age of the earth to fit their theories, exactly. Their theories are built on evidence of how old the earth actually is. To represent this as if every time some scientist takes a long hot shower and has a great idea he’ll malevolently adjust the age of the earth on a whim? That’s the height of disingenuity. Come on, even creationists have had to say that the earth looks really, really old (and come up with great reasons why God would make an old-looking earth to trick the heathen scientists into being a little more heathen).
2. It’s called the scientific method, stupid! That little process whereby we understand at least to some degree the basic structure of the universe? The process upon which all modern technology stands? Yeah, that one. Let’s not act like adjusting theories to fit evidence (and then adjusting the age of the earth to fit the theory based on the evidence) is some strange new innovation that no-one’s heard of yet.
3. You call trying to understand complexity “stumbling” over it? Okay! If we must play word games, then creationists stumble over the imperfections in design that a perfect Creator apparently caused. There are some stunningly stupid things about the human body that creationism just overlooks. Sure, there’s complexity that is easily solved by the addition of a Six-Day Creator into the mix, but there’s also a lot of bio-sloppiness going that makes that same Creator look just a bit daft. So which one is it? You can’t have both.
• So I need snow tires. The tires on my car aren’t bad, but they aren’t amazing either. They’re just… all-seasons. I don’t even know why they call them all-seasons. Marketing. They should call them death-in-winters.
• Since I bought Laura a huge-ass ring for Christmas (to celebrate 2.5ish years), I also got myself an iPod touch. Really, really cool device. I hope it paves the way for a plethora of similar mobile devices with even better features. For instance, better screens, better touch controls, better predictive typing, better multi-application switching support, etc.

There she is
in a water world
in the shallow
wavelength
of a womb.

There she goes,
a sudden rippling
unfolding of
wings.

She can’t stay
in the cradle
forever.

There are few unique features to
this mass-produced trinket.
It sits in the cup of my palm
like an opaque, common liquid.
Strange, the immense value
of the memory it holds.
There’s no market for that,
no dollar figure.

Amble on and we’ll pore sweat over maps,
plumb with a chalk snap and mark twain:
this is the tributary where I first paid
the belle’s toll, a river of silver and gold.

Toddle on and we’ll find our sea feet
to the rise and swell of brine and stomach:
this retreating continent where I first voided
her saltwater kisses into a shallow trough.

Saunter on and we’ll cross swords and whiskey
shots across the bow like ships in the night:
the stern warning blinking dashboard red,
the iceberg, and the imminent disaster.

Old, found in a notebook. Verbatim.

I was so small. An infinite circle, but so small.
A perfect circle, an artifice, an unnatural symmetry.

If I outgrew the circle or if it shrank within me,
I don’t know. It is a tiny, significant, imperfect memory.

I remember stars like eyes askance circling overhead
while I stalked my claim. How I struggled to bring it down!

I remember the jaws closing round my neck.
I remember the tubes and vessels full of vacuum.

I remember feeling so small while the vice tightened.
The circle right around my few remaining waking moments.

I remember being blind and deaf and sleepless for a while,
but also I remember the knives. I remembering being cured.

And I am so small, the happiest infinite smallness.
Joy at being found dead and wanting death.

I remember the first time I realised it,
and how I fell into it and disappeared.

I can’t remember why I dislike you.
It was something you did or didn’t do,

I’m sure. Petty theft, I have stolen
the day we met, added a semicolon

and squirreled it away. Another occasion,
another chance to complete the equation.

Meanwhile, I’ve examined the debt
and it’s interesting. Not due yet,

but soon. Perhaps. Diagrams and charts.
Games of chess, of pool, of darts.

Time turns many slights to wounds.
Bastard child, not due yet, but soon.

Mime the gap–
inconsiderate years have
stacked themselves
between us.

You’re an imaginary person
now a figment, a
small, dark fruit
of the past.

You’re the monument
reposed in restless
unexpected
erudition.

Mime the gap–
arms spread like
wings. This far–
no, further.