Memory let
your montage play
in the theater of my mind
to an audience of one.
Clips and pieces, images with sounds:
they scatter on the screen
as shape is taken and form is whole,
cohesive string of stories retold
by the one who was there and then.

You’re not merely a movie I replay
or a song that repeats and repeats
as I passively recline.
No, your descriptions are palpable
and your contrasts stark.
Distant and untouchable
is what I’ll never be
when your seeking hands
are gripping me.

Pictures,
encoded with enzymes and proteins
knitted into neurons.
The infinite chemicals dancing in my brain
and seeping through my senses.

Blanket of Memory,
wrap your arms around my body
and surround it with fur
that softly shields my skin
from the bitter wind.
Sink into your sedative
of comforting warmth,
enveloped in your escape
until I awake.

Found you in the fragrance
of vanilla coffee brewing.
Enter through my breath
and whisper secret moments,
laughing with delight.
Lingering sweetness, there you stay
as slowly I drift away
to the daydreams you display.

But Memory, your darker forms harass me
and arrive without a warning.
A lion who hunts its weakened prey
and waits with bated breath
for the signal to attack.
An ambush when I’m weaponless
from a beast that grants no mercy.

At times you are an electric shock:
the voltage quakes my frame,
squinting my eyes in pain
from the source that has a name.
Though I shake the thoughts away,
again, the switch is thrown
the rattling now repeats,
yet the sting grows dull with time.

Memory is an indecisive being.
A shape-shifting creature
with irregular features.
What form he’ll take I cannot know,
perhaps today I’m left alone
where peace can settle in.

So alone is where I sit and wait
in the train station of my mind.
Vast and underground,
the cars are swiftly passing by,
rumbling on their journeys.
They travel the tunnels of Memory,
and explore its bottomless caverns.
Trains that tour the roads of what’s past
Webs of tracks that intersect
with the paths of other souls.
My worlds contained within its core,
waiting to be found again.

With a solemn smile, I turn away
Perhaps I’ll venture there another day.
Revisit familiar places and bittersweet faces,
feeling the echoes and vibrations.
But for now I board the Future Train
And let them stay behind.