THERE IS A MAN WHO DRAWS WITH BLACK INK. IT IS VERY THICK YET STILL FLOWS QUICKLY. HE DRAWS IN A BASEMENT ON WALLS MADE OF CINDER BLOCK. THEY ARE PAINTED WHITE BUT SEEM DARK. I CAN ONLY SEE THE ARM BUT BELIEVE IT IS A MAN, AND HE IS NAKED. MOVING ALONG THE WALL DRAWING LINES. AN OUTLINE. I SHAKE WHILE I WRITE THIS. HE IS STEADY. THE LINES MEAN NOTHING UNTIL I FOLLOW, AND I MUST FOLLOW. I TELL MYSELF THAT STEPS I TAKE ARE MINE BUT EVERY TIME I LOOK AT THE WALL, MY SHADOW IS FALLING PERFECTLY INTO THE OUTLINE HE MADE DAYS AGO ... FALLING PERFECTLY.

like no one else ever has or could
i love you i know
you try to find someone else that
does that and stays. i stay. i'm here
for you all for you
are mine and i will not let you go
and i will not let you though you are free
to say enough

enough

it will never be enough for me and i'll take
and i'll take care of you and i'll give
these things to you but
don't. no talking if it's
going to be about that. i know what you'll
say and you're wrong. what's wrong is
the difference between men and women and you won't
be a woman be a woman be
a silent woman and answer me
and why don't you? answer me.

it's not that easy
it's not that and
it hurts and
it still hurts and it
doesn't have to be this way
does it
hurts
have to be like this?

this is the way it is.

i can't.

you are.


and sometimes he still gets up right when i am talking to him. he looks at the time. he leaves the room and doesn't hear my eyes. he doesn't see; i do. i drop down on my knees inside - stay please - but this, to the sound of the displaced air re-settling in the space he left behind. if he knows me, he knows the parts of me that were invented by and for him. they take up a great deal of room. i am crowded and empty with all that i never was before but somehow in his presence i morph, and obligingly become. i dream about him. a lot. and when i see him, my eyes burn and i try to tell him with my face what total stranger's can read but he ... doesn't.

AND WHEREVER THIS BASEMENT IS, I AM. MY SHADOW THERE, ROLLING ACROSS THE WALL. IT HAS LIGHTS HUNG FROM THE CEILING. BARE BULBS THAT TURN ON WITH CHAINS. AND SOMETIMES I WILL THINK MY SHADOW HAS MOVED FREE FROM HIS OUTLINES BUT THEN THIS MAN WILL PULL ONE OF THE CHAINS AND THE LIGHTING CHANGES. THE SHADOWS SHIFT, SO AGAIN MY SHADOW FALLS AND FITS
PERFECTLY.