Monday, November 21, 2011

the hardest part of being me...

my memory.

it's a blessing and a curse

i remember everything in precise detail

smells, colour, sounds

a chord of music will transplant me

a word transpose me

a moment will render completely coloured deja vu

it makes me a perfect patient as i step the slow steps to my doctor's office and slink into his chair

it makes me a perfect patient as he slowly pulls every last inkling of imaginative, kaleidoscope thought from the recesses of my vortex-mind

he excavates and, like an archaeologist, knows just where to scrape the scantily wisped dirt to find the golden treasure beneath

i wish i could turn my brain off without medicinal help


i wish that the memories wouldn't flood altogether in a jumble of colour, scent and smell and sound

i wish that an opening chord wouldn't haunt up a pile of unwanted fragments

that my eyes would keep from watering

that my darkly lit apartment, with its sole-burning candle flame wouldn't strip back to a decade ago


i wish that i could put it all on hold with some slightest trick of mind ---instead of medicinal numbness

instead, thoughts crowd and flash and bend and round and erect themselves until my hand shakes and my cheeks burn....

all at once they scrape across my mind's eye and feel like the streetlamp does when its shadow first mellowly hits the slackened,  spanse of rain-soaked pavement

i don't want illumination

i want to turn it off

instead, in repeat-mode, it finds its way....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Sending you a hug, my friend! Eloquently, beautifully, heart-rendingly said. Thank you for sharing. In my own life I can so relate to the desire to TURN MY FRIGGIN' BRAIN OFF. It is getting easier but the flare-ups (for lack of a better term) can still be so hard to deal with, when they come.