More often than not your name hissed from my mouth as the worst of all epitaphs. Jason I hated you almost as much as I needed you.

A rival. I obsessed over it. You'd show up everywhere. At a lunch with Kathleen Sullivan. In my research fellows seminar. You were on a first name basis with my favorite professors.

In class, I had to know that my interpretations of the text could match yours. If you made a point, I had to find the counterpoint. In classes together, I agonized over papers, because yours couldn't be better. I tried harder, worked harder, studied harder because of you.

When I went into law, and you into poli-sci, I anticipated a future of reading and challenging your papers.


The worst part is that you never knew. How important you were to me.

I've lost.

Due Process
(For Sonya, and for Kim)

The days, and hours, each minute has its reckoning,
And what I did not know I did I feel acutely
Now. This knowing is the thing--unusual, and how
Cruel it is to see yourself so cruel. I did not mean
Yet neither was I innocent, but blind. And in this
Blindness truly viciousness was hid. But hid in
Me. And in me I must pay. For I no longer am
She who I was. Wronged:
(I was!)
I have.