take_me_home raze we both lost the pieces of our heritage we gave to each other so they wouldn't be forgotten. what i didn't bank on was time being cruel enough to erase me from the map of her mind. i found her fifteen years after the fact. i don't remember how. it took her another_year to respond to the email i sent. and she only did that because i came up one night when she was hanging out with a few friends. she told them about this random asshole who claimed to know her from grade school. when she mentioned my name, they said they knew me. they said i wasn't an asshole. i was someone worth talking to. so we sent a few messages back and forth. and i got to see her again. we ate pad thai at basil court. the waitress kept refilling my glass of water every five minutes. i don't think i've ever had to piss so much in my life, except maybe for the time when i was nine or ten and my mother and stepfather wouldn't stop the car so i could go. "i have an erection!" i shouted. they laughed. i laughed too. i guess it was funny in a messed up way. even if i was just trying to get them to believe me so my kidneys wouldn't explode. we talked for two hours. she told me she met the man who would become her husband right after i sent her the email she ignored. she remembered making fun of crystal for having paper-thin sheets of plastic hanging from her house where the windows should have been. she remembered making her cry. she remembered my best friend. but she didn't remember me. i remembered everything. staring down matt brown when he made fun of her for having barbie dolls. the way her hair feathered her face. the song she played at the talent show in grade three. the bond we built just by being who we were. the card i gave her with a bear on the front when i found out she was moving to a city i couldn't visit and didn't know well enough to name. when there was nothing more to say, i walked her to where she wanted to catch a cab. we said goodbye. she seemed sad about something she didn't want to dignify with words. i kept walking until i got to my favourite cafe. a woman stopped me on the sidewalk. she was so drunk she almost couldn't speak. she said she wanted to check out a show at the bar across_the_street. she needed two bucks to get in the door. i fished some change out of my pocket and gave it to her. she asked me what my name was. i told her. she thanked me. "a good man's hard to find," she slurred. she was twice my age. for a minute i thought maybe she was my grade nine french teacher. the one i used to talk to after class until she said, "we can't do this anymore. people will get the wrong idea." there was nothing between us but kindness and curiosity. but i knew she was right. jon bragged about giving her a nervous breakdown. he said he needled her until she lost her mind in the middle of class. until she lost her job. he ripped her life apart a second time when he ran into her at a restaurant years after graduating. he thought it was funny. i can erase things too. my brain has buried the details of what he did to her somewhere i'll never find them. the drunk woman wasn't her. it was just someone who looked like a bombed-out version of who she used to be. i watched her stagger and weave away from me and called my dad so he'd know to come pick me up. "how'd it go?" he asked. "take me home," i said. "just take me home." 250414 what's it to you? who go blather from