[00:00.00]ani difranco - parameters
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[00:19.12]thirty-three years go by
[00:20.42]and not once do you come home
[00:21.45]to find a man sitting in your bedroom
[00:24.78]that is
[00:25.53]a man you don't know
[00:26.72]who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
[00:31.94]lock your back door, you idiot
[00:34.17]however invincible you imagine yourself to be
[00:36.86]you are wrong
[00:37.85]
[00:48.41]thirty-three years go by
[00:49.83]and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
[00:53.20]your breasts hang like a woman's
[00:55.28]and you don't jump at shadows anymore
[00:58.33]instead you may simply pause to admire
[01:00.53]those that move with the grace of trees
[01:02.76]dancing past streetlights
[01:06.21]and you walk through your house without turning on lamps
[01:09.18]sure of the angle from door to table
[01:11.35]from table to staircase
[01:13.32]sure of the number of steps
[01:15.02]seven to the landing
[01:16.16]two to turn right
[01:17.79]then seven more
[01:19.34]sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory
[01:23.71]across your bedroom
[01:24.70]and collapse with a sigh onto your bed
[01:27.65]shoes falling
[01:28.82]thunk thunk
[01:29.89]onto the floor
[01:30.94]and there will be no strange man
[01:32.85]suddenly all that time sitting there
[01:35.37]sitting there on what must be the prize chair
[01:38.04]in your collection of uncomfortable chairs
[01:40.69]with a wild look in his eyes
[01:42.31]and hands that you cannot see
[01:43.83]holding what?
[01:44.68]you do not know
[01:45.77]
[01:51.77]so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation
[01:56.29]that you are painfully slow to adjust
[02:00.33]if only because
[02:01.73]yours is not that genre of story
[02:05.39]still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies
[02:09.25]no bullets shattering glass
[02:11.31]instead fear sits patiently
[02:14.02]fear almost smiles when you finally see him
[02:16.59]though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years
[02:19.39]and now he has let himself in
[02:21.11]and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares
[02:24.02]though you think you see, in your naivete
[02:26.48]that he is empty handed
[02:27.69]and this brings you great relief
[02:30.15]at the time
[02:31.39]
[02:35.82]new as you are, really, to the idea that
[02:38.78]even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
[02:41.76]they can all change
[02:43.52]while you're out one night having a drink with a friend
[02:45.83]some big hand may be turning a big dial
[02:48.79]switching channels on your dreams
[02:50.59]until you find yourself lost in them
[02:53.10]and watching your daily life with the sound off
[02:58.71]and of course having cautiously turned down
[03:01.24]the flame under your eyes
[03:03.28]there are more shadows around everything
[03:05.71]your vision a dim flashlight
[03:07.30]that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
[03:10.51]your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
[03:14.32]presiding over your supposed repose
[03:17.49]not really sleep at all
[03:19.45]just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds
[03:23.55]a clanking pipe
[03:24.92]a creaking branch
[03:25.95]the footfalls of a cat
[03:28.49]
[03:37.58]all of this and maybe
[03:39.56]the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat
[03:43.22]as you walk him step by step back to the door
[03:46.53]having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea
[03:50.70]soft leather, big feet, almond eyes
[03:53.77]the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later
[03:56.95]with his clipboard
[03:58.38]and his pistol
[03:59.77]in your hallway
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[05:54.37]end