THE HORIZON OF MEMORY
Consider the
on average
seventeen hundred friends you have made
twenty one hundred books you have read
fifty eight holidays you have taken
thousand times as many films you have watched
millions of recorded cells so crowd your brain
you learn to write
if only to keep track of these lists.
As children the
elusive sense of self is sucked
into every mirror, replaced
with fabricated memories
biographical accounts of someone else
wound with threads of
our own history
so of course we write things down
repeat them
to know where we are at in time
our place
silhouettes outlined against a stark
and bare wall
fading after the flash bulb's pop.
Whether through an imaginary history or
memories of the future our
minds travel, our bodies trapped
in the present but unable to lose
the past,
snip the cellular connection,
so when we remember
everything flows like floods
rapids rivers trickles,
brains shrink
memories fold
and our blood is fouled.
Forget the future, he mumbles
through stiff lips
standing still is a slow death
unable to make decisions
the outlook is bleak
released in a silent unseen collapse.
