Self-Erasure as Applied to My Memory.
24.
It was the season of ghosts locked in the windowpanes and the cellar lamp.
The grindstone abandoned amongst the coal,
generation after generation.
It was the year the abandoned house down the block burned to the ground
and another fell into itself.
And both sprouted into strange mansions with ghostless windows
and storyless attics.
My grandmother became the bed sheets, though thinner than the bed sheets,
until she vanished like the words "I love you,"
just hours after I last said them.
Sometimes I believe I had given her permission to go.
My ego tells me this.
It was the year the ego grew legs and made things tumble and burn.
It was the year I didn't sleep
but could not leave my bed.
It was the year of the vanishing which I had learned from the dead.
It was the year I became the pipe, then the couch,
then the air as it whistled through my bones like a bolt.
It was the year I did not eat unless it was the moonlight
or blue light from the television.
It was the year I did not dream and spoke only in curses.
It was the year magic fell dead in the street like a struck crow
and darkened beneath the cars as they left and kept leaving.
That year, my friend was murdered.
And though I can remember his laugh and his hair,
how it came to a widow's peak,
his Afro, a curled crown, I recall nothing else.
Not his eyes, or his body, and now, barely, his smile.
That year my grandfather also died.
I can remember him shaving, but I cannot recall his face
or the hair that must have been there.
That year, the crops which had not been grown on our land
for a hundred years, came up through the floorboards
and from the faucets,
and all of our mouths were full of grain and corn
and drought and shadows.
It was the year I lived on a train and passed the rusted shipyards
outside of New York, heading into Connecticut.
The train burned and burned like a whistle and drove straight into the sea.
That year, from the windows which I guarded like a ghost,
I watched someone else's grandfather, feeding his cat on the countryside.
The man gazed out onto the horizon
as though he noticed just then half his life was missing from his memory.
I am told that it too was the year I was dying.
I would sleep on the kitchen floor after each meal,
a plug of tobacco tucked gently into my lip,
as though it were a thing that could wake or wake something in me,
some dream seed rupturing in the mouth.
I don't remember this. It is a false memory.
It is the image of the Monalisa
as described to you by the janitor of the Louvre,
and though he or she knows the painting best,
the coy look of mischief,
the conquering nature of the eyes,
without seeing it, that image is not yours or even mine,
just as each story that has ever been told is hardly a replica of light.
It was the year I remembered and remembered and remembered
the act of remembering,
like sharpening a blade until the blade is gone.
Only a hilt now, only nothing.
It was the year when I was 24 or maybe 12, but probably 6.
It was the year in which all years became the same
and my whole life existed in a single dream fading away.
A block of salt worn by rain, drop by drop.
12. It was the season of ghosts in the wind.
An abandoned coal.
Generation after generation, the house burned to the ground
and fell into itself,
and sprouted strange ghostless windows,
a storyless attic.
My grandmother became thinner than the words I had given her.
My ego tells me it was the year the ego made things burn.
It was the year I didn't leave my bed.
It was the year of vanishing. The year I became the pipe.
The air, as it whistled through my bones like a bolt,
the air as it whistled through the year I did not eat.
It was the year I did not dream and spoke only in curses.
Magic fell dead in the street and darkened
and kept leaving.
That year, my friend was murdered.
His laugh, his hair,
I recall nothing else.
That year, my grandfather died shaving,
but I cannot recall his face that must have been there.
That year, a hundred years came from the faucets
and all of our mouths were full of drought and shadows.
It was the year I lived and burned like the sea.
Like a ghost, feeding the horizon his memory
as though it were a dream described by the janitor of love and mischief.
Each story that has ever been told is hardly light.
The act of remembering, sharpening until nothing.
It was the year when I was, or maybe, but probably.
It was the year in which all years became the same
and my whole life existed in a single dream, worn by rain.
6. It was the season of ghost, wind, and coal.
The house burned to the ground
sprouted storyless words.
I didn't vanish. I became the pipe,
then the air.
I did not eat the dream, only curses,
dead, dark, and leaving.
That year was murdered.
That year came from the faucets
and burned.
(applause and cheers)