I used to remember in images,
Movies, flipbooks, flying across my eyes,
But then I saw haze,
And the foggy screens became thicker,
So the grime and dust became darkness,
And through the darkness became words,
Disconnected, discolored, disjointed
Streams of words,
And so all my memories lost
Vision, became nothing but recalled statements,
So I could tell you yes it happened,
But how or why or what was sifted through a blender,
Chunked into a garbage disposal, and lost somewhere,
yes, the memory exists as a statement,
A declaration it occurred but oh so loosely,
You can’t be sure of it.

It usually takes about 5 minutes for me to blackout
while sitting on the black leather on the black tar
going 60 fully there but not quite fully aware.
This is my third autopilot and so far
I like her the most because she has the biggest eyes
though she sometimes glitches and needs to be reminded
that even at a beety red light there’s no need to
jot down an idea for a poem, or even world peace
(The two are not the same.)

So while the road lines melt into a
side swept long exposure dizzy photograph, but
like the ones that move in the Harry Potter movies
and I assume the books too, the books I would
definitely like but probably will never actually read,
the photographs like living live photos seemingly
sweet memories coming to life but in reality
a horrifying knock off of the fly on the wall
except this fly could be your late grandma
in portrait mode or an angsty teen musician
stuck in a teeny-bopper magazine poster, and
as I am seeing all of these animated flipbooks
I realize, just maybe, in another life I was
definitely a Cher imposter but with a
better impression than she herself.

Then a singing sea nymph and even those cursed by her,
one of Cleopatra’s snakes, stuck in a life
without limbs, let alone thumbs
but a mouth to devour and ultimately,
importantly, perfect teeth.
I am not fit to be a pet still though, to be forced to
always listen and never speak never fully
understood, except, not being a pet
doesn’t even mean I have done or
not done those things I am just always
done and not done, undone and now done
with this drive and unsure of
just quite how I made it here, I believe, alive.