tied raze i remember her face but not her name. she called herself sarah when she was on the phone. that was a lie to save the person on the other end of the line the trouble of trying to speak the truth. she was from bulgaria. on a list of bulgarian feminine given names, i see antoniya, kalina, desislava, nadezhda, snezana, and three or four dozen more. all of them end with the first letter i learned to write as a child. none of them are her. we used to get ten-dollar vouchers for a local cineplex when we left our quota in the dust. i must have been saddled with six of the things when i was on a hot streak. i still have some. the ones that are gone i gave to her. any ponytail i tried to tie was always spilling out of whatever scrunchy or elastic i wrapped around my fingers. she taught me to snake my hair through the spiral and double it over. to fix it in place. such a small, simple thing. but love has been built on less. 241004 what's it to you? who go blather from