Today's navel-gazing missive about the meaning of life and the fallacy of the American Dream will be pre-empted for in-the-moment coverage of some late-breaking news: my main man Eric Guerrieri is leaving town.

:-(

He just called me a little while ago with the news that he's moving to Colorado...in two weeks! It's a great, if bittersweet, opportunity for him and I'm simultaneously happy for him and selfishly pissed.

If Bassey is my little sister from the poetry scene, Eric is my twin brother. From those first days when I wasn't sure where he was coming from to the present where he's one of a few I'd take a bullet for, we've been through a lot together, poetically and beyond. Fiercely independent, unafraid to offend, funny as hell and smarter than most, I sometimes think he's a parrallel universe version of the me that Salomé decided not to save from himself. A kindred spirit in a haunted house full of vampires.

Beyond the personal side of things where I'll miss him most, his leaving throws louder than words into question. When I first came up with the idea, I knew I wanted a co-host and I knew I wanted him to be that co-host. We think on the same wavelength and, even when we don't agree with each other we have the ability to get into heated debates without it ever getting personal. It was that very aspect of our friendship that birthed the concept of the show.

Frankly, I'm not sure I'd be interested in continuing it without him.

It's kind of weird being in the position of the friend left behind since I've always been the one on the move - whether physically or psychologically. I remember when we had officially decided to move to Virginia, when everyone else was questioning it and calling us crazy, Eric wrote a poem that he read at my farewell show that explained how he didn't fully understand our decision until he watched us sitting together one night, unself-consciously folded into each other, obviously in love. In the darkest hours of 2002, I watched the tape of that night and it was those words that kicked me in the head and set me back in the right direction.

There is something in Eric that reminds me of S.T. George, the main character in my favorite book ever, Fool on the Hill. It is the fact that both of them not only believe in magic...they're capable of making it.