assembled out of pieces i'd already
written.	with the wrong name and the
wrong dates and little details of what is

fundamentally the same story.	it's always
	the same
this is a rain shadow:	story.
where the mountain blocks the
prevailing winds
and this is a small town where i once left
my cell phone
and
this
is another mountain where a lot of things
didn't happen.

		did you exist back then?
	can i make it so you did?
	write you into the false memories
	with all the other disasters i bear
	sole responsibility for		?
i keep	forgetting	you don't	wear
glasses	.	so what's going to be
	left of you	for me to keep	?

i woke up one morning and they were there

in my bedside table.  perfectly ordinary.

like neither of us ever left this room.

and the pictures on the wall were familiar

and the blankets were the color of old

newspaper		and on them was the
story	i'd already written,
	with the holes pre-punched
	in just the right places
to fit  you  in.
we turned around for my cell phone and it
was raining on the leeward side.
	nothing is ever for certain.
i woke up one morning and
	you weren't there.
you had never worn glasses
and i didn't have a bedside table
	it wasn't even the same house
this was during that couple months
when i was sleeping on the floor shirtless
every night with the window open so i
could smell the rain coming in.
(when i lived on the
windward side.)
you did wear glasses.
they disappeared when you died.
gone.	just like that.
	other people don't believe it
but it's not that strange to me.
things become unreal		,
something else takes their place.
that's why you've had a hundred different
faces and names and pairs of glasses
	for the cat to knock off the
	bedside table.
i can't stand sharing a bed & i can't stand
		sleeping alone
& that cat died before i was even born.
	and there will never be a rainy
	summer like that one again
because it was fake too.

(there are no fireflies on the west coast.)

but there's always the same story
and all the little pieces	no one else
	understands.
me and you.
me and you and the star in my brain that
sends thorns of light through my eyeballs
every morning.
me  and you  and the rain shadow.