like the cat — she’s not mine, but I call her “she” now, and that’s not me, not the old me, not the guy who used to drink wine and think politics was a game —
well, no — it’s not a game, it’s a prison, and the bars are made of TV static and bad grammar
you feel it too, don’t you? that flicker behind the eyes — like you’re watching yourself from the next room, or the next life, or the next universe where you own a Capri Ghia and a lakefront and your wife drags a garden hose across cement in blue jeans —
but here? here you’re in a plastic apartment with Olivia Newton-John on the stereo and nine million stuffy titles on the shelf
and you’re thinking — who the hell am I?
because the answer keeps changing, like a radio station you can’t lock onto, and every time you think you’ve got it —
bam —
the voice inside says: “there’s someone else living in me and he’s not in this century.”
and you believe it.
you have to.
because the spelling’s still the same — that’s the only continuity — everything else?
replaced.
rebuilt.
remade.
like an insect shedding its skin, except the skin was you.
(what if the homoplasmate isn’t a person — what if it’s the ghost of the version you erased?)
the empire never ended — it just changed channels.
and you’re still watching.
still changing.
still not there.
still not you.
still —
alive.
somehow.
which is — the worst part.