do you remember when we sat at the tim horton’s 

across 21 from from the high school 

well the high school is now a middle school 

and canada’s java makes me shit my pants 

every time i come back i think about the time we had a lunch time beer at the brant hotel a few weeks after turning 18 

i was alarmed to find an old man rolling a joint in the bathroom 

now that kind of shit delights me and the only thing i drink at lunch time is soda water and cranberry juice 

they say it’s good for urinary tract infections 

anyways 

im coming back for a show at the shell 

the same stage i graduated on 

the only friend i see from back then is my twin sister 

she just had a baby and her whole world has changed 

the only thing i ever wanted then was to be able to write a song and sing it like my neighbour joe was doing 

i didn’t pursue anything else expect for words and melodies and how to play the guitar 

sometimes i wish i had spent the thousand dollar scholarship i received from the alberta midget hockey league on a fourth of a semester’s tuition but it was to be spent before the age of twenty five 

and i am twenty seven now 

win some lose some 

anyways 

i digress 

i will be at the shell theatre tomorrow night 

you can call it a homecoming 

but that won’t be quite accurate 

because somehow it feels like i’ve not left 

half my brain is in a song 

and the other half is in the bathroom of the brant hotel 

and it’s just as dirty as it was on that lunch time squalor 

maybe i’ll see you there