Do you remember waking up?
(I wasn't there. Sorry.
But you told me about it.)
You said they played pretend
like you woke up back then
but they lacked the conviction
to really sell you on it.
Waking up to a Brooklyn
you'd mistake for Manhattan,
but not the one you knew;
you missed the Summer of Love
and the twenty summers before it.
You woke up and wireless
didn't mean radio, it meant
computers (things that were
the size of rooms; also
after you, of course)
in everyone's pockets.
Came back to consciousness
and you were alone, all alone,
your friends dead or frozen
or forgetful, in her case.
You told me you made do,
building a new life in the
shadow of the scaffolding
of the silhouette of your legacy.
Within the month, you'd gone
and saved the world again.
Except it didn't mean much
to you, because it wasn't
your world anymore.
You said that you wondered
what you were doing on that
high-tech monstrosity (just
like the one I almost
killed you on; funny how
things work out sometimes;
poetic, almost, how we both
realized we were out of our
depths on the same class of
modern warship) among the
glittering stars of screens
you'd never see in my
favorite comics. (You said
you were excited to show
me everything, and I, ever
charmed and bemused by your
enthusiasm, said nothing
about how I had used, or
been forced to use, those
selfsame technologies,
intimate with them like
my knives under my hands,
just another tool for
killing for my puppeteers.)
You recounted how you saw
you and me in the museum
(in the same place I learned
who I was, who I still am).
We were twin relics, both
buried in ice, static and
comatose, missing and
presumed dead for decades.
And now what are you?
What of the version of you
in the frozen depths?
What of me, my fucking body
turned into an empty
marionette in a twisted
Vaudeville act? Did you
spare him a thought
when you went for what
you wanted in a world that
was yours? Did you spare
me a thought when you
broke every promise you'd
ever made me, every promise
I'd ever made you, every
silent vow and secret oath
we never said but in the
language of fingers laced
together when the sun couldn't
see us? Death hasn't done us
part yet, you scrawny
motherfucker, I hope they
wake me up early to
kill you at their convenience.
I hope he doesn't ever
remember your face, like
I can't forget it; I
would hope he haunts your
worst nightmares, except
I want him to go through
with the only mission I
couldn't complete. I want
him to come at you, unawares,
just close enough to see
the horrible emptiness in
his eyes when he kills you.
I hope your last thoughts
are of me: the me in him,
the me you left behind here.
My last thoughts during
that neverending freefall
were of you and your eyes
and the way your feather-
fine hair turned to spun
gold in the sunlight. My
last thoughts were of the
fear I'd disappointed you,
left you vulnerable without
me. I hope your last
thoughts are the realization
that you devastated me,
when you left me behind in
the future to pursue a
past that was never yours.