disconnecting raze it almost unmoors me to see your name on my caller_id. we haven't talked for the better part of twenty years. my father picks up the phone and keeps you occupied long enough to let me get settled upstairs. i press plastic packed with metal and magnet to my ear and say, "well, this is a surprise." the line goes dead before you can say a thing. ─────────────────── i hit redial and get a string of symbols and numbers that lead nowhere. a light blinks red to tell me you've left a message. you must have called back. i must have missed you. i haven't washed my face all day. there are hours of oil and unease etched into me. my eyelids lashed with lemongrass. my hair heavy as an unheard prayer. ─────────────────── we're leaning on a landline. i shouldn't be able to see you. but i can. you haven't aged. it's your voice that's changed. it's deeper than i remember. something catches in your throat. you don't tell me anything that matters. you complain about how hot it's been. it's like you're talking to a table or the tree the table was before it lost its head. this tree talks back. "what do your people do?" you ask me. "pretty much the same things as your people," i say. "we're just a few hours ahead." our nights are two hands holding onto nothing. they never touch. ─────────────────── i want to ask a question i know you don't have a good answer for. i'll ask the wall. you're already gone. 260623 what's it to you? who go blather from