#memoryloss
There's a fascinating sort of redaction,
Down this particular path,
Trodden over and over again to draw,
this crooked road in the dirt,
I remember it in Polaroid flashes;
This is an evanescent sort of fizzling,
All I know is that I was 6,
When I try to plop this new body back in that age,
I get nothing but TV static; a pitiful crack-snap-pop of a CRT,
As I tumble through my memories, blind as a mole-rat,
These desperate claws have torn the fixtures,
Grasping at any sign of a childhood,
Beyond old drawings and graded homework,
My existence is validated by the perception of others,
For I've gone ghostly pale to my historical self-perception--
Everything clangors in a discordant noise in an attempt to sound clear,
But all these recollections appear discombobulated,
I can't seem to piece the puzzle together without other's narration,
Affirming that I exist,
Confirming that I was real in 2012,
All I know is that I was...
Was I 12? 10? 8?
The numbers spin in my head,
Yet there's nothing left to spin.
A paradoxical past-present,
The mind forgot, yet the body recalls,
I'm gripping at straws to retrace my steps, but?
They've lost themselves to the sandstorm years ago.
6d ago
May 28, 2026 at 3:52 PM UTC
Your sight drifts away,
like a bird in distant sky—
I reach through the haze.
Once bright moments lose their shape,
names and faces blur in time.
Into quiet depths
my memories slowly fall.
Old friend, stay with me—
mend the mind that frays apart,
before all of you is gone.
Apr 7
Apr 7, 2026 at 6:45 AM UTC
I stood there.
Staring my mind couldn't wrap around it.
After 7 f--king years they where finally clean and back.
I couldn't find the words to say to them.
My mother laughed while smiling.
I tried to remember it after a few seconds, but I just didn't ever remember her laugh.
My father spoke up
"you've grown”
That was all he said.
My arms prickled.
Why did he sound like that?
Did he always sound like that?
So monotone.
So bland.
Maybe I wasn't thinking about the right thing, they were there!
I wanted to go hug them but…i just didn't move as i stared up at them they hadn't called in so long i just…didn't remember their faces.
But they had to be them.
This feeling of dread kept me back.
But I noticed something.
My mom loved her long hair.
Right in front of me like I saw was her.
But it wasn't.
Her hair was short and she kept smiling, learning.
The whole moment felt off.
They were in California, they were homeless.
How did they get up here?
And their addicts they wouldn't stop.
Why would they?
They never did it after I was born.
That was the whole reason I left with my grandmother.
But there they were, standing in front of my door smiling so deathly quiet.
Their eyes were all over me learning how I stood, how I acted, everything.
My mother noticed my left hand.
I had always had a birth defect there.
Symbrachydactyly that's what they called it.
Weird name isn't it?
She spoke her voice sounded like butter pouring on popcorn, greasy and never ending.
“Oh my dear what happened?”
I stood still.
She birthed me she would know about it.
I finally looked them exactly in the face.
It looked like masks.
Their faces so so very close but wrong.
And they knew it. The smell finally hit me.
The god awful smell of rotting flesh, it seemed to slip at that moment.
The Mannequin stared at me.
Its lifeless eyes stared back.
I wasn't able to close the door fast enough.
Mar 24
Mar 24, 2026 at 12:49 AM UTC
Blank page.
Heavy ink.
A sinking mind,
All hopes gone in a blink.
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM UTC
I love her, but her mind grows weak.
The doctors say she may have a month, maybe a week.
Together, we tell stories. Me, more than her.
The ones that we laugh at and half remember.
I don’t know what I’ll do the day that she dies.
“Together forever” really meant the rest of our lives.
I hope I’ll see her in the great everafter.
But until then, I sit with her and treasure her laughter.
Mar 7, 2025
Mar 7, 2025 at 8:30 PM UTC
Dear stranger,
I don’t remember who I am.
I’ve done the best I ever can,
But I have travelled more than two steps back
To reach my shadow Of whom I once was.
Stranger don’t you cry.
Don’t you shed a tear.
My feelings for you stranger are still the same .
I might not know you, But I love and adore you;
for I am now a stranger to you too
and you love me all the same.
You call me husband, then I’ll call you wife.
Don’t you dare make me remember your name.
I am lost, that I understand.
Kiss my cheek and hold my hand.
I promised to love you that’s all I know.
I’ll love you forever no matter the time.
The evidence on our rings show.
Jan 21, 2024
Jan 21, 2024 at 3:49 AM UTC
We were drunk
He choked me
We couldn't remember
I stayed
I loved
He left
I remembered
I was silent
He would've died
From the guilt
I blocked him
He's my ex
I've forgiven
Not forgotten
I remember,
But I cry
no longer.
Jul 18, 2023
Jul 18, 2023 at 2:42 PM UTC
I am not a person like tomorrow.
A walking ghost,
I still live alongside blissful degeneracy.
They stole ten years from me,
Ten years of my ecstatic individualism.
A decade spent crying into the hard, wooden floor.
And the fog that clouds my peripheral vision,
Obstructs my future as well, clutching the flask.
But that’s alright.
I will not get my decade back,
Nor my stability, that never lingered,
But I will make a list.
What I missed while I was absent.
Most things start with a list.
Why can’t I?
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 1:44 PM UTC
What is it about you that I like so much?
Truthfully, I’ve forgotten.
Like why WW1 started in the first place
Or what the chemical symbol for iron is on the periodic table.
What does that say about our relationship?
The answer is beyond me.
But much like the chemical symbol for iron and the reasoning behind the first World World,
I can easily find the answer in my brain’s built-in memory box.
Thank you, hippocampus.
However,
One is only able to retrieve a memory or fact that has been taught or revealed to them in the past.
That being said,
If I truly don’t know why I fell for you
Maybe I never did in the first place.
Now that would make sense.
Aug 6, 2020
Aug 6, 2020 at 3:31 PM UTC
There are times when I can't remember
what I had for breakfast,
or what I said a minute ago,
or what day of the week it is.
But the one thing I can never forget
is the way I just SAT there
and did nothing.
I can never forget the starving look in his eyes,
or the repetitive thoughts of
this isn't right, I don't want this.
WHY DIDN'T I LEAVE?
"Why didn't you say no?"
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 8:26 PM UTC
My existence flickers,
but only in my own mind-
I seem to be forgetting reality,
and the memories I've captured
are finding ways to escape the jar.
I chase them through the dew-speckled fields,
but they deceive me every time.
And sometimes I stop,
and fling myself to the ground -
roll to face the stars,
and nearly drown in my own tears,
and ask
"Why?"
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 2:06 AM UTC
I worry about forgetting -
my memories aren’t sharp
like they should be,
everything is out of focus.
I can barely see what happened
one,
two,
three years ago-
My past doesn’t feel like mine.
I am losing my history.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 9:57 PM UTC
I can’t remember to forget you,
I can’t forget to remember you,
I can’t remember to forget,
I can’t forget to remember,
I can’t remember to,
I can’t forget to,
I can’t remember,
I can’t forget,
I can’t,
I can’t,
I,
I,
I remember,
once,
you told me to watch Memento,
that must of been over two decades ago,
it’s interesting how we remember little trivial things,
from years ago,
but somehow we sometimes forget important things,
that happen moments ago,
Selective memory is a thing,
and so is selective amnesia,
I suppose in some ways my memories of you,
are kept inside me as personal mementos,
I miss you,
I miss the life we never had together,
I miss you massive fridge,
I miss our days in Bali,
I miss making love,
with you like you were the only person in the world,
and I mean that honestly,
because in those moments you were the only person,
the only person,
that showed me hope,
the only person,
that showed me love,
when I met you I was a street kid,
I had no money and no class,
but you took me under your angel wings,
and I will always remember that,
I can’t remember to forget you,
I can’t forget to remember you,
I can’t remember to forget,
I can’t forget to remember,
I can’t remember to,
I can’t forget to,
I can’t remember,
I can’t forget,
I can’t,
I can’t,
I,
I,
I know,
that you’re married now,
happily in fact,
and I’m not trying to mess with that,
please don’t take these words,
as an invitation of any sorts,
I wish you all the best this world has to offer,
because honestly that’s what you deserve,
sure,
I love you,
I can not deny that in any way,
but that love,
is so far beyond this physical plane,
I know how dysfunctional I am,
and I’ve given up all hopes in making a family,
so when I see that you are married,
I truly pray to God that that marriage for ever after progresses happily,
and actually,
I only wrote this to tell you that I finally saw Memento,
and I don’t even if you remember telling me to watch it,
I guess that’s part of what Selective Memory Loss is,
or rather selective amnesia,
anyways whatever I’ll just get back to what I was doing,
so that you can get back to what you were doing,
which is continuing to live this life and create this memories,
or erase these memories either way I hope you get whatever you’re pursing,
I can’t remember to forget you,
I can’t forget to remember you,
I can’t remember to forget,
I can’t forget to remember,
I can’t remember to,
I can’t forget to,
I can’t remember,
I can’t forget…
∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
author of multiple best selling poetry books.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548700746
Aug 1, 2017
Aug 1, 2017 at 5:40 PM UTC
The wind used to howl,
but now it only cries.
The poignant sting of snow
used to ambush my eyes.
With Fall and Winter in a blur
all year is Summer and Spring.
I used to walk, walk with you
be pushed in a kiddie swing.
The geese were more afraid of me
than I was ever of them.
Oh, Memére,
how I miss the days together we would spend.
The sun still scorches,
but not as sweet,
as clouded with young eyes
You can’t compare a tropic spring
to dusted Autumn skies.
The pumpkins red,
lit up at night,
would glow upon your face.
In winter,
every snowflake seemed
to find its perfect place-
upon your window,
lit up with care,
those glowing,
plastic candles.
They’ve faded as the years have passed,
like sun-bleached, light-pink, sandles.
You’ve been lost,
like an age-pulled button.
Your stings have not held,
Your mind forgotten.
So I dig, I dig, through your sewing kit,
to stitch you back together.
At least for my own memory,
so I can remember forever.
Somehow I’m not as nimble,
somehow just not as quick.
I couldn’t find the seamstress in me
once you’d fallen sick.
I pump, I pump
the metal petal,
to piece you back together.
That button used so many times
in deadly, freezing, weather.
Somehow you slipped,
not just through my fingers,
but in a dreadful way, where the soul seldom lingers.
You just got worse
I cried to find
that stinking button
that was on my mind.
The final piece that would solve the puzzle
fix a confused mind,
your struggle.
Now I see,
now that you’re gone,
that I had had it all along.
The key, the clue, that wretched button.
And then it hit me,
all of a sudden.
Those trembling geese, the Autumn skies,
the snowflakes that had stung my eyes.
Those things are all I really need
to make sure your heart still beats.
Your eyes,
your chin,
your soft, thin hair,
all the answers
were always there.
Now whenever I miss you,
these gems of memories,
they pull me through.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
Dear eyes,
Stop bringing his visions,
For I'll lose my sight if you continue
Dear ears,
Stop litsening to echoes
For I'll forget to hear
Dear lips,
Stop muttering his name
For I'll run out of words
Dear hands,
Stop sketching his face
For I shall forget to write
Dear legs,
Stop walking towards him
For I shall lose my path
Dear heart,
Stop longing for him
For I'll forget others in life
Dear mind,
Stop thinking of him,
ForI shall never act..
And
Dear me,
Start moving on
For I have a life to live!!!!
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
Memories:
the back and forth trajectories
the internal out-of-sync in-sync directories
of treasured moments, of pleasantries
and the reviled relived accessories of treachery.
My memory is pitted with chasms like Swiss Cheese
the phantom dreams of being hit by a car in a winters bite
the realities of unconsciousness and brain spasms
the fathoms baffles in batches and waves of breaches
disfigured features like a frosted window caked in creatures
burrowed and riddled like a parasite in the spite of night.
By the time id got to hospital id forgotten my own name
fortunately I had a gas bill in my pocket which hadn't freed itself
while being violently hurled over the red car bonnet
and it became the one and only evidence that I even existed
even though the A & E nurse insisted and persisted on asking questions:
my address, date of birth, blood type, emergency contact -
like Id have it tattooed on my body like a scene from Memento
amid the voices in crescendo and brain-damage thumping techno.
That was a few years ago, or was it, I couldn't be sure now
but some days I forget what I did in the morning
so I just have to live for the moment somehow
the memories like Swiss Cheese constantly morphing
to the piped tune of the cerebral banshee
buzzing in my left ear like a perpetual honey bee
makes me wonder though;
I am lactose and diary free - the dominant dietary preponderant
some modernistic conglomerate causing ultimate lethargy.
Does this mean if recollections are like Swiss Cheese
I am intolerant to memories?
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 12:31 PM UTC
It could only be a liquor-soaked tongue
spitting lines of future love,
grinding my memory to the ground,
leaving me with no recollection of the sound.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 9:10 PM UTC
It’s been thirteen months and I’ve forgotten your scent. I don’t remember the way it feels for your fingertips to brush against my bare skin. I can’t recall the spark that would reignite every time our lips came in contact. I can’t remember the way your tongue would taste in the early hours of the day. I don’t even remember what your voice sounded like whispering through the phone at 5am. But it’s been thirteen months, and I won’t dare forget the way it felt to watch you walk out of my life just as quickly and unexpectedly as you walked into it.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC