Friday, June 24, 2011

Nostos 2.0

I'm sitting on a bench in front of an unrecognizable building that housed my kindergarten.  I used my phone's GPS to guide me here.  Cause and effect: the Slurpee I had earlier burned like acid, because the Baskin-Robbins has closed.  Optical delusion: the roads are narrower.  I expect homeowners to de-restore their homes to honor my sorry past?  (Where's that house?)  I expect homeowners to let ruins surround them so that I can see homes as they weren't.  Please, decay.  I don't recognize a soul.  The woods are still there.  The half-assembled car still sits in that yard.  The old beer store remains; I see it from across the street as I stand in front of an uninhabited new storefront.  I'm sitting on a bench reading on my phone a Facebook group devoted to the fact that my hometown has dissapeared.  Hundreds of far-flung strangers opining on loss.  Everything's changed.  I go for walks after dinner, and nothing changes.  If only I could lift the transparencies laid on top.  As the poet said, I have wasted my life.

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