don't come back

That winter was dirty and really lasted
Did we eat our words
Did we wear Andy Warhol plastic coats
as we tore through our best and deadliest
The mirrored image smudgy street
Such a an unforgiving start
Of what had died right there
On the window sil
Like so many other things..

How many times I had called for mercy
Like it were a taxi.
I called for a word.
A primitive sound comming from me.

I said, take me out of this..

Asking the bitterness for the cheapest kind of mercy
Such a mistake.
Earth
She is unforgiving.
Nature
is cruel.
I asked naively, like it was at all availiable to me.
An icy patch, awaiting my stupidity.
l asked.
Prayers and bargains cast as runes.
In ruin. It was ruined already..

Dumbasses.
We were.
Cold, and huddled.
It was the most desperate and hungry of hours
A cheap compromise, lasting as a contract made in blood.
For me, loyal, white siphoned junk.
My heart shaped book.
All words. All five years. Just waiting. Me.
And you
you were really good a this.
For some reason, you really were.

And my call
Through the thick, unhearing,
Unresponsive, dead forest.
The chalk white of webs.
The blast of cold from vestibules.
The direness of buildings
Places where we had dwelled.
Those that we watched get torn down and swept away.
The debris dispersed to places undisclosed.

But I believe
We watched in relief.

Just as we ran through the six corners.
relieved.
Bats out of hell or just people?
The moment when I knew that this would be years.
That moment you took my hand.
All gargoyls and criminally insane in attenedance.
We never looked back.

Dumbasses.

And at the end of the day, I blame you.

My mascara as a weapon.

Wearing a secret cross beneath a secret blouse
beneath a secret coat.

My secrets. My ideas. Very near my secret heart. An oath as a torn hem. Beneath my skin. It was all beneath me, really, every single word. I kept it all filed away as evidence in a pocket in my my purse in my mind.

But, of course, you knew that, didn't you?

And
I told you
I told you
that this would never happen to me
silly, how you believed
that this would never happen to me
silly
silly

I only stopped talking, I only stopped thinking, I only stopped smoking, I stopped eating
to drink and and to sleep. I pushed it all deep into a drawer. And I left that house, I did.
Still, I looked back. I did.

Oh mistakes
I told you
I told you
that this would never happen to me
silly
silly
how you believed
so silly

And I described it to you

What would never happen to me.

In such great detail that you screamed for me to just shut up and I did. Finally, I did And at the end of the day
I pulled on my nylons and pulled on my brain and my hope. And at the end of the day, I blame you. I do.

maybe not

I have to wonder what I expected.

Google Earth, supposedly a great tool and touted to be loads of fun.

I downloaded the program.

I don't know what I was thinking when I did this. I just can't handle images of Earth as seen from space. I don't even like to look at the atlas. When I see the continents so big and realistic on a page I have to look away. Bas relief maps make me queasy. But then the installation of the program was complete. And there it was. Planet Earth. As seen from space.

I hate that.

It turns out that the start point for any search in Google Earth is way, way the hell out in outer space.

Still, I plugged in my own address, and suddenly (there is no warning, it just starts like all of this is perfectly natural) I was plunging towards Earth. Really fast. The landscape and every object on it becoming sharper as it became closer. As if you have been tossed out of an airplane. Not willingly, with any tutorial or a parachute (or having signed any waivers) but malevolently. With hatred. For the purpose of offing you.

This all happened in what I imagine was real time, that is, the real amount of time it would take a person to fall to the earth. From an airplane. Unwillingly. And land right on top of their building. Quite unnaturally.

And I did. I did land right on top of my building.

I admit, I had covered my eyes with the lattice of my fingers so that I saw only bits and pieces of the action.

And I decided that I didn't like this.

But, seeing as I was already there, I navigated through my neighborhood a little bit. I should mention that I felt very much like a spy as I was doing this. Which, for about a minute, was a good feeling. And not just any spy, but a Russian spy. Or a little bit like someone who works for the FBI. But this good feeling quickly became a creepy feeling.

And I noticed that the top of my building didn't look at all like what I had expected. But there were tell-tale signs that I was in the right place. And I pulled in close enough to see certain cars that I've seen around here. As well, the big mountain of dirt that has always been in the side yard. So, I followed the streets through my usual route to the el. And I stopped my cursor at the coffee place, which I do less and less in real life, and even stopping there with my cursor made me feel a little guilty (why exactly is my day better when I go get coffee?) Then I went to the lake shore, taking horendous short cuts never before taken in real life. I mean, I simply criss-crossed through town, jumping over the Kennedy, because I could. I visited the museum, and stopped for a moment at the building where I went to school. After which, I took mostly side streets. Finally, I followed the express way to my mom's house, which was nearly unidentifiable, as there are many trees where she lives.

And then I went back home. That's when I noticed that one of the buildings that recently went up on my block was not there.

That's when I concluded that these were old satalite images.

For some reason, I thought it was a live, streaming image. I was relieved that this was not the case. It seems more reasonable. Or less disturbing that it isn't a live image.

Yeah.

I'm afraid of this tool.

I think I'm going to get rid of Google Earth. Probably in the morning. Tuesday at the latest.