The Answering Machine


Hello.  It's me again.
I know I keep calling you and you...
You don't want to listen.
I know.  But I've been sitting here,
Just sitting, wondering.  

I was trying to figure it out,
What exactly happened.
Trying to understand it.
It seems like there should have been a moment,
A fragment of memory, a single cell
	in our organism,
Some brief flash of light caught in the mirror,
That would have showed me.
That I could trace back and point to and say

   Here.  Here is where it began to fall apart.
   This was the pain and this was the forgetfulness.
   And here was where the callouses formed,
   And here, the barbs.  

Or did the tears come first?
It doesn't really matter I suppose.
I know... I know you don't want to hear it.
For you, it's a book.  Read to the end and closed.
You've dissected the characters, shredded the plot,
Memorized the elements of good, elements of evil, 
And now you're done.  
You'll never have any desire to read it again.

I knew that about you, about you and books.
That you never read them over.
I should have known, back then.  
I should have noticed it, considered the possibilities, 
Understood and realized.
Instead I'm sitting here... talking to your machine.
That's enough for today, I think. 
Goodbye.

			- Kelly J. Cooper
			  Copyright 1994, all rights reserved.