Please…

If you love them, tell you love them. If you treasure them, tell them you treasure them. If there’s a conversation you want to have, a dinner you want to share, a moment you want to capture…do it. Do it now. Make haste.

Because life is so short, and so cruel, and we are so fragile.

You need to give all the hugs and all the kisses and all the compliments and all the tributes and all the gifts you’ve been saving up, as soon as you can. Because even that might not be soon enough.

You need to…

1. Brigitta. There should not be any dispute over this. Brigitta introduces herself with wit and confidence, complimenting Fraulein Maria on her intelligence and insulting her dress sense, proving that she is a girl willing to give credit where it’s due but not one to stay quiet when she sees wrong being done, in this case in the form of Maria’s hideous dress. Brigitta is feistier and more outspoken than her younger sisters, while also being much more convincing as a real human being than most of her older siblings. She’s also clearly the star performer of the puppet show. …

I wish I could grieve the way they do in romantic comedies. Curl up at home and cry loud and hilariously. Sit in my underwear and stare at the TV with hollow eyes, a comical cliche.

I wish I could grieve in romcom style because romcom heroes only think they’ve lost everything. They’re funny because we know they haven’t. They don’t make romantic comedies about people who really have lost everything. Romcom heroes lose their jobs and have a better one two hours later. …

I could be Don Camillo

With arms of steel

And a heart of gold

And a temper like boiling oil cascading from the battlements of my righteousness burning so hot that the Lord Himself shakes His head and laments my tempestuous moods

What a wonderful thing to be

What a shame I just have to be me

I could be Duffy Moon

With spirit indefatigable

And eyes of grey wisdom

And a mind that travels far away to lands that others can never know where fear is just a rumour and hope is a force of nature driving the good…

This piece was originally published May 10, 2011

And I used to be strong
And I used to be a man
But now I fold at your feet
Like a burning letter

I’m sitting in my car, late at night, watching the blood well from the lines I’ve just sliced into my arm, and I’m wondering just why I did it. In hindsight I’ll manufacture some kind of explanation, but in the moment all I can think of is, I’ve got to find a reason for someone to care.

And in the moment, I am out of my mind.

Shaking…

The sun’s coming up now over the ranges

I’m driving east and contemplating changes

Looking for a shady spot to sleep under some trees

And by the time I get…

I must admit I was surprised when you stepped into the ring

In all this time I never guessed that fisticuffs would’ve been your thing

But your first knocked all the wind out of me

And your second laid me flat

And from the canvas all I could manage to wheeze was

Who taught you to punch like that?

I’d sparred with you a little before, I thought I knew your moves

I thought that you and I agreed on what a punch is and what it proves

But when you rearranged my face

And put me on the mat

…

It’s been so long since darkness

Meant anything except a way to hide your tears

It takes a while to remember how

To feel something you haven’t felt in years

And if I could I’d forget almost everything I ever knew

But even in a earthquake there are some things still worth holding onto

Like popcorn lips and greatest hits

And driving home alone

Like sunshine eyes and honeyed lies

And pleasure I don’t have the guts to own

It won’t matter years from now which way I jump or how the balance tips

But I will die still holding…