This loop of what was five hours ago.

Of five days, five weeks, five years ago.

*

If and would belong to fiction.

Yet this essay considers them—

A burrowing need for self-redemption.

**

Selective amnesia.

Words written down lose their place in memory.

Moved forever

to scribbles of ink on sheets of paper.

What is left to remember?

***

Remember the future.

****

Five years, five weeks, five days

Five hours, five minutes, five seconds ago

Words failed to move

Thus, they were deemed necessary:

The if’s,

The would’s.

*****

This loop.

I have read your letter.

About twenty-two times.

At every comma I wonder

at every phrase, every line—

Varying voices,

Guessing pauses,

Thinking over every sentence…

Yes, I have read your letter.

But I haven’t read you, yet.

Black behind silver:

Let light reflect its wonder

Casting shadows on the wall.  

To the darkness I have come from

does my brilliance belong.

A lonely dog in the house
Non-stop clicking of the mouse.
Television on for hours
The sound of passing cars.

Tik-tak-a-tik
Type a few words then, delete
Blow some smoke on the screen
Try to say what you mean.

Scattered books on the sticky floor
The bang of closing doors
A neighbor sweeps. “Tsss, tsss.”
Make a list of things you miss.

Through the windows, sunlight creeps.
The cold in your feet goes up to your knees
And your fingers so you drink something hot.
Believe the cold will leave you (though it will not).

Up in an apartment
In a neighborhood so quiet,
Creaking doors become your friends
Ringing silence, your bed.

Lean back and rest your heavy shoulders
Flashback to a decade before
Before this silence, before the cold
Before you became twenty-two years old.