Exhausting A Memory: A Poem


WORDS BY PAYTON HOGAN.

My pages used to be an untouched ivory

The brush of fingers would elicit a crisp sound

Like that which would tempt an arsonist

The scratch and hum sound of a lighter would’ve completed me 

But no longer

I crumple like tissue under the desperate thumbs of the writer

The abuse wrought by ink and tears

Has left me not quite a book, not quite a pillow

I provide neither knowledge nor comfort

But that doesn’t stop them

They read the entries of their past selves

Scratch back and forth in permanent pen

Until particles of my body flake away

They rewrite over the top, never satisfied

The truth they seek can never be found

They’re yet to see that it is all truth —

It is more than their human brain can understand

The brain that has been trained to believe in the objective

My insides are full of episodes translated into many languages

No memory is clear, no memory is as exact as the events themselves

But these are occurrences from years ago

If I were to speak to the writer, I could let them know

Each different perspective is a truth revisited

A new frame of reference with which to yield new insights

Who’s to say what is true? Who’s to say what is a lie?

The writer would see me full of nothing but lies

When in fact the truth of the matter no longer exists

They will find no enlightenment in their never-ending retrospect

I’ve been recycled a million times over and I see it again and again

Put to me to rest, and set me aflame

Let me finally be the air

EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2020.

Previous
Previous

Conversations From Before: A Poem

Next
Next

Untitled: Photography