XI. 
    
       7 months
       25 days
       23 hours
         a veritable time table of the absence
       of your companionship.
         as minimalist as it had been.
       as all you did
       was 
       sit
       on your shelf
           and wax poetic
                  flow rhetoric
       a direct brainlink
       of literary genius
       between me and 
                                    you
       You never accompanied me out on Saturday nights.
               to see just how pathetic the village has become.
       You never joined me to sit in darkened 
               movie theaters to laugh my way through 
               the most recent Hollywood Xplosion Xtravaganza
       You never wished to meet me at strange 
               and unique restaurants
       We never went to Prospect Park
       You never came to school
              and you ignored my Slam completely.
       How you could stay inside all that time,
               and then disappear
                       (presumably outside)
        is one of your better paradoxes
                       but you were always antisocial.