I FAIL AT FORGETTING
with a line from Samuel Adeyemi’s poem
Here comes another night;
One like the many that brings terror in shadows.
It has been 365 revolutions
Since my body learned collations
Or became a memoir of touches.
my teacher said, “water washes everything clean.”
I spend hours daily under the shower,
Yet, unable to wash certain prints off me.
As the snake sheds its skin
So my dermis longs for a peel.
Again, I have failed at forgetting—every umbra & penumbra drags me into an eclipse of remembering.
I see darkness as an Arrow Lunched & being a victim of its piercing, the nights molt into fears.
My heart throbs as the sun begins to recede. I light prayers on my lips like cigarette saying:
” ‘Elohim, teach me to forget’ —
the way the skin learns to forget brokeness by concealing the screams of red tissues.”
I hope God gathers the smoke from this burning lips into clouds of answers.