medicine_cabinet raze sometimes i think about the last time i saw you alive. what lingers is the way you looked at me when i was walking away. you fashioned your face into a fist that bruised my heart before i knew you were saying goodbye. i'd give anything to have that day back again. to have just one more minute with you. i think you'd like the friends i've made in my own back yard. the ones who soar and sway above the place your bones are sleeping. the cardinal couple. their love alive in every move they make. the doves that coo and stand watch from a thick cable that stretches as far as my eyes can see. the ants that carry food ten times their size. i've seen so many things move through the sky and the green stream beneath it. bumblebees and wild rabbits. possums and gulls. asteroids and airplanes. after i lost you, i wrote your name on a medicine cabinet mirror. my father drew a picture in the bottom left corner: you with an acorn at your feet. more than seven months later, the image refuses to fade. each time i try and fail to drown myself with water and soap, you're still right there. the other night i caught an ashen form moving through the mountain of concrete and brick some of the small souls i care for ascend to be fed. i thought it was the mouse i've seen sniffing around a time or two. i turned a light on and saw a face emerge from a space almost too small to hold it. not rattus or muridae, but a squirrel where no squirrel has ever been. i swear it was you. i watched you watching me for a moment or two. then you slipped back into the nexus of your living tomb, and the darkness took all but the memory of you with it. 230607 what's it to you? who go blather from