carrying raze you've been dead almost as long as i've been alive. but i saw you once. i was taking a two-hour bath in that big old barn of a bathtub i loved so much. the one with stucco around the drain to keep the water high so i could dream myself into a dried plum in the house before this one. i looked up at the ceiling. where the paint had peeled, i saw a woman cradling a small child. the same way you held me before time was kind enough to let me burn you into my mind. i was awake. i know i was. when i was as clean as i would ever be, i stood at the bottom of a set of coiled stairs that spat me out in the living room and stared at myself in an antique oval mirror that sleeps in the basement now. wet hair touching my shoulders. a framed photograph of you beside my face. i couldn't tell where you ended and i began. you'd be old now. older than most. but i bet you'd still be here. illness and infirmity don't run in our family. the one thing we've got is time. we need to end ourselves or be snuffed out by the ones we trust to care for us. otherwise there's no telling how long we'll last. i wonder what you'd make of me if you could see me now. i wonder who i'd be if i could feel your arms around me. 221007 what's it to you? who go blather from