Memory as Drug

a ghazal about how memory can haunt us

I cannot remember the last time I did something for the first time.

Monotony, I became accustomed to the rehearsed time.

I forgot the thrill of his skin sweating on my own,

the high of another human’s touch that seemed to traverse time.

Mostly I missed the silence, the escape from the noisy world.

As he caressed me, I knew every other experience would be a worse time.

Time travel can never be a reality.

I’d abuse it until I was known on the streets as Nurse Time.

How can I plan a future when my life already happened?

I would only visit him and I during a less adverse time.

I am far too selfish to be a scientist.

This is why we have artists: to confuse the universe and curse time.

I keep visiting the people we were in December.

I have to memorize the curve of his spine, make sure I get it right this time.

Feeling every curl in his kinked hair, every fidget of his sleeping body.

We were beautiful; I was convinced we could burst time.

I will never recover from meeting that version of myself, the Alexa who knew love.

We will never return to who we were then, no matter how I try to coerce time.