1994 Idaho Library Doors

There are days
when light makes chaos
around rooms and buildings
and the sky, flickering
like christmas lights
outlining the incoming storm.

It was 1994.
What a brave year to have your
light burn out on us.
(I smashed my head on the
punk rock. I thought i wanted
to join team dresch. )

When the call came in and your
brother told me you were gone, i fell down.
See, I worked at the library.
Mostly I would hide in the
stacks rereading passages.


When one light burns out
the other ones get brighter.
Wind felt hard that day in October.
Shadows went the wrong way.
I wanted to call you and tell you exactly how
I missed you.

See, you were wrong! I do miss you!
OK, now come home. It's alright and we can
get this shit straight.

But you were gone
to a place with no
t-cell counts
or AZT or soma dreams
in an apartment with no windows cracked.

While i waited for my uncle to pick
me up from the university steps, i began
realizing that it wasn't your dark
hair disappearing around corners
darting behind cars
escaping the Indian summer
in to a dark lecture hall
in the plain liberal arts building.

i didn't dream of you that night
because i know you sat on my bed.
you were pretty and you loved me and you were elated with
the lack of pain.

i came to on the bathroom floor and
screamed your name at the towels.

Fourteen years later i wish i could
tell you to hold out your hands for my
friends mom. I want you to gather the
dead troops of my family to welcome
the new friend who turned out the lights
in their brave year of summer/winter
and Indian summers.