fourteen raze hair down. shields up. no coffee in my coffee cup. playing spider solitaire. i almost never win. writing short fiction on her desktop computer, always with some cruel twist at the end. her dog crying to the sound of the dial tone amplified by the answering_machine, and me singing a melody under that steady pulse, making my voice a low string instrument, a cello or a contrabass. walking from school with "solsbury hill" in my headphones, letting the world become the backdrop for a song that creates a world of its own, that doesn't need another world to live in. her bedroom. her sliding door. her white futon. the smell of cigarettes in everything, everywhere but on her. the black eye she says she gave herself when she was reaching for a glass in the kitchen cupboard. i don't believe her. i think he hit her. i don't know what to do about it. precambrian instrument of rage transmuted into absolute stillness. nothing is happening. everything is about to happen. wet hair holds what hands won't touch. i want to be where you are, but i don't know who you are anymore. 210731 what's it to you? who go blather from