The Sound Of Forgetting

A poem about me....

I am more than my thoughts that pop like bubble wrap,

Chewing gum,

and jaws, coerced to align with beauty,

Fifth grade science project I never did

and sunday school lessons,

Mentos and diet Coke in the church parking lot

Is an example of god's love,

How it bleeds into the cracks of hot concrete

Down our legs at the dinner table

“This is why we don’t drink soda”

because it rots your teeth,

Like the pictures mounted on dentists walls

That would haunt my brother and I’s dreams

It molds your mind like the television

In the hospital corners

And late night projections that danced across my attending face

My decaying brain is patched by ducktape discussions.

Decaying brain, bandaged in tape measures

and weighed by screens.

“My destiny is my destruction

my god is my stomach”

Habits and thoughts assure a preacher's tongue.

“Broken, that’s how the light gets in.” says the one my father wishes he was.

There are so many I wish to be.

So many souls to reflect,

I’m a one-way mirror with a self on each side.

I am the way the world moves

The French lyrics I do not understand

Growing shadows

And chipped driveways

The hard wheels of skateboards

And the cotton Sunrise.

I am the end of summer that freezes at night

The sound of forgetting

flowers in the windowsill

Bending with the weight of sunlight

I am crying poets

And sinking paint

I am the eruption of vinegar volcanoes

And the blood of fizzing Coke,

Filling these chasms of asphalt

empty and broke