Written originally in 2019 for the film premiere of Niuboi’s Milk Bar, this poem has become a mainstay performance art piece, playing out the dramatics of a cliche break-up… but with a glass of milk. Another notable performance was at Azimuth Theatre’s Living Room Party at Expanse Festival 2024.

tall.
cool.
so fresh.
though you are known to turn bad from time to time.
I’ve missed you.
once upon a time, 
we spent every Saturday morning together with cereal and cartoons.
and then for a while in middle school,
we saw each other 3 times a week 
in the evening
after tae kwon do.
you had a way of making me feel strong.
speaking of strong,
your moustache game has always been on point.
rich and white,
you’re my whitest friend…
which is admittedly saying quite a bit.
and in the 2 percent,
you’re my richest friend by far.
beloved in Canada,
people are so proud of you and your industry
you have a place in so many hearts and homes.
I love you.
but when we’re together,
I feel so twisted up inside.
there’s an icky inflammation in my innards and intestines,
my guts gurgle
my belly blows out
my colon clenches 
there’s a storm in my stomach
a tempest in my tummy
poison in my paunch
mayhem in my midsection
and an apocalypse in my abdomen.
yes, that’s why we haven’t seen each other for so long.
I know you keep things chill and will always be waiting for me.
and you know I’ll always sneak in a visit every now and then
but as much as I can’t wash the taste of you out of my mouth,
I need to finally admit to myself…
I can’t tolerate you.
P.S. Sorry for doing this in such a public setting.
One last drink goodbye?

Written originally as part of Liminal, an ensemble aerial rope circus act by the Fragmented Journeys Collective first performed at the Alberta Circus Arts Festival 2024. This is just one excerpt from a wider text written partially in prose and partially in verse, narrated alongside the aerialists flying through the air. The larger piece explored what lies hidden in the liminal spaces between larger themes and concepts like ‘above and below,’ or ‘dreams and waking.’

Are you still there? 
There’s something between us. 
Gripping onto it means my hands are too busy to hold you. 
Yet I can’t let go because we’ll both fall if I do. 
But I feel your presence through it too. 
I feel your fingers wrapped around it. 
And your arm muscles tensed to retain that hold. 
And the blood carrying oxygen to those muscles. 
Then returning to your heart, another place where you hold me. 
Then to your lungs, pushing air past your lips to form the words you say to assure me you’re still there. 
And those words fall upon my ears.
And bounce around my brain. 
And signals are sent to my own fingers, to keep hanging on. 
Maybe falling further for you wouldn’t be so bad, but this tension is my tether to you. 
An ouroboros of our love. 
No beginning or end. 
No departures nor arrivals. 
A feedback loop outside of eternity, in which each echo only increases in intensity and depth of desire.

An ongoing writing project, Frag/ments was originally commissioned by Mile Zero Dance in 2017 as a series of small poetic pieces placed in old pill bottles and sold out of a vintage vending machine. Now it is simply a catalogue containing excerpts from larger finished works, half-followed-out shower thoughts, and bits and pieces that could eventually blossom into their own fully-fledged projects. While some pieces are taken from other writings of Creative Producer Philip Hackborn, more still find their way into new works- sometimes after sitting unused for several years. This is at the core of this company’s work; response, new iterations, recreations, and echoes. You’ll find here but a few of many, numbered for when they were inducted into the project, not when they were originally written.

Written in 2009, one of Philip Hackborn’s oldest pieces of writing that they still share publicly. Perhaps it is even the first poem that convinced them that their writing is something that could be shared, rather than a hobby to be hoarded away in secret.