what_is_the_object raze that knows you best? in my case, i think it would have to be the glasses i'm wearing right_now. i haven't always had them. i didn't discover my myopia until i was almost out of high_school, and i was eighteen when i found these frames. but they've been with me on some of the best and darkest days of my life. they've been bent, stomped on, flung across the room, sent flying from my face by a cd case thrown with bad intentions, and dropped in the toilet. they've absorbed more of my secrets than most of the people who have passed through my life put together. with a little luck, they'll still be perched on the bridge of my nose when i'm on my way out. though who knows what kind of shape the lenses will be in by then. 260815 ... ovenbird What knows me better than this six inch screen that I love and hate? I wish it was something more glamorous. I want to say, “the ink filled barrel of my first fountain pen.” I want to say, “the threadbare remnants of a stuffed friend.” But the thing that knows me best is a palm sized mind made of metal and minerals stripped from the earth: copper and lithium, silica and bauxite. It is a portal. It opens its eyes onto everything I’ve ever been—all my words and poems and secrets. Every morning I whisper my dreams into its tiny ear and it dutifully transcribes them. It is a vessel for every fragmented idea that floats into my head on my daily walks. It is the high speed rail that carries the persistent ache of my love across provinces to the place I first called home. It is a beanstalk crowned by a cloud sparking with the lightning of every memory I’ve ever made. Every picture, every message, every carefully scanned artifact of four decades of living. It knows the shape of every day, my plans and my obligations. It knows what will stop me in my tracks so it feeds me a watercolour painting of a dying leaf, a video of two birds riding the bus, a link to a literary journal I’ve not yet heard of, a poem that I will later send to someone who will also appreciate the beating heart of its rhymes, a picture of Margaret Atwood wielding a crowbar. It has learned my insecurities and sends me ads for expensive serums I’ll never buy. It knows how fast my heart beats and on what nights I’ve struggled to sleep. It takes me in and brings me the world. It is a watcher, a predator, a listener, a deeply problematic sage. I’ve given it more than is wise. And what it gives back is not always benevolent. But I keep it close. In case I need to identify birdsong. In case I need to know the precise moment of high tide. In case I need prosthetic arms, long enough to reach you. 260816 what's it to you? who go blather from