8 year old poem dredged from the urn of a writers ashtray

The machine was mostly wires,
plugged into an empty socket
some people called a visage.
There was a routine we all took while using the machine.
The elders called it a ‘tool’ while the young
kids were wont to plug in and type in passwords.
‘Logging on’ they called it.
The mouth of the drive stuck it’s tongue out at us.
And sometimes,
early in the morning, at 2 or 3 am,
when we were all alone in the house
finishing up our assignments for school,
we could scarcely make out our own
scoffed and craggily visage, bent over,
brow furrow and dreams
fastening into car belt seats somewhere else.

At the time it was not all that uncommon for each of us
to inquire why we were here.

You made me a Ganesa mask out of feathers and acorns
you collected, the foliage from the once viable
pasted and stapled, scotched taped around the corners.

It was the Autumn we played
hide-and-go-seek on the machine.

You sent me postcards and told me you were in love.

Little me now, for never believing
yet wanting to so badly. I cut myself
on the inside because I knew not
better-wanting more, always wanting more.

When the light flashes on we are not
suppose to remove the square that is inside.

If we do, perhaps, we will loose everything that we have saved.


I left a screen savor with your name on it.

I left it on the machine where you
would find it and cry.
I left the machine on,
in the room with the goldfish.
I left before I came.

I guess I just wanted to leave.

That Thanksgiving, a year past now,
ever dwindling like dominos inside my memory,
that thanksgiving, I called you up to say hello.
The number at your parents house was still familiar to me.
We told each other goodbye.