Living in one place for
a long time tends to
complicate the memory.
Flashes and visions intervene
and overlap in the conscious.

There is the corner where
I first told you I loved you,
imitations of that anxiety flood
the nervous system and I am
that stumbling little boy again.
That time I left for the summer
and you cried, right there,
begging me to stay.
I look away now because I
remember how hard it was to leave.

Look back and there we are again,
a year later. You’re crying for
another reason.

And there you are,
yelling in that auditorium as
you hit me in the chest, tears streaming
down both of our cheeks.
I had class in that room all year,
replaying that hatred in your eyes,
over and over.

The bar we went on a date to.
I loved you there,
elegant in black, and I
hadn’t shaved and I knew
and you knew and everyone knew
I was the lucky one to
have been there at all.
Later, the same bar you threw
a drink in my face.

The same bar I watched
you with another man.

Memory is a curse when
stabilized by the tangibility
of location.
I am stuck in winding loops
of memories that will never
be made again.
Like walking the ruins
of a great civilization,
knowing something beautiful
and magnificent once took place
but now is nothing but
twisted remains and
dusted fragments of a life
that may have been
but no longer is
anymore.