diamonds from ash

i’ve not been feeling well of late and my memory problems have been weighing on me a little more than normal. but when you feel something, good or bad, it’s best to make art, if you can.

it’s been a while since i did any poetry. oh well. what happens, happens.

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the pieces that are missing from the whole
are barely noticeable – but they are.
the tiny gaps, the shadows cast, where thoughts
proceed and then break off. there is no ground;
the rails that this train had traveled on
are absent. it goes on some distance still,
the wheels spinning, catching only air;
and then each car disintegrates. the mind
cannot recall what words it meant to speak,
or those it issued forth but moments past.
as always, then, a brief initial fear;
soon turned to resignation, for this loss
has grown too common. it will pass, again.
like any other problem – it will pass.

and maybe she can hold one thought in mind,
and carry out some plan, with mild success;
but far more likely that it will dissolve
in one of these blank spots – the little cracks
that wrap her mind and heart, identical,
denying resolution of her thoughts
as well as her emotions. and these gaps
run all throughout her; there is no escape,
no hope of reassembling herself.

the desk, the wall, the file system too,
all overcome with notes. and half of them
are comprehensible; the other half
are some forgotten shorthand. it made sense
to her, before; perhaps it was last year –
when did she write this down, what did it mean –
it doesn’t matter now. delete it. wait!
just wait a little longer; maybe then
the meaning will return to her.

(it won’t.)

if every post she makes is memory,
some proof of what she’s done – what then to say
when she scrolls back herself and starts to wipe
the record? who would even know, but her?

how deep and wide those little cracks must be.

was there not still a line or two to read?
it must have been forgotten like the rest