we_lived_alone raze if there's such a thing as genius, you had it. you were it. and you swallowed all the sorrow it imposes upon its kind. everyone who ever knew you should be dead by now. somehow your mother is still alive. my father asks me if you lived alone. i tell him i think you did for a while when you first left home, but you spent most of your adult life with your brother and his wife and their son. i guess if i'm being honest the answer's yes. you were alone in all the ways that matter. no one really saw you. the internet gives me an aerial view of the street you lived on before you packed up your volkswagen beetle with everything you thought you needed and disappeared. it looks like an elegant city in ruins. every house a small stone. a sloppy circle to mark the spot where you once stood on the sidewalk. we bring your last surviving relative a christmas turkey. she can see what it is through the plastic shopping bag. her dog doesn't trust me. still, he won't leave my side. he seems to want to tell me something. if_only he could speak in a language i understand. i can almost hear you smiling on the outskirts of a song named for words that have lost their meaning. "oh, man," you sing. "the lonely road ahead looks good." and if that's the answer to the question of where you went, all i have to do to find you is open my eyes. 240501 what's it to you? who go blather from