June 25, 2026

i wish i could think of all the words i can’t think of right now

i wish i could recall all the vocabulary that’s in my head
but they’re stuck behind sticky mind-doors
where the mental wood has warped over the years of trauma
and protecting myself against trauma

the maze in my mind
simply to find
a fucking synonym
is atrocious

[i measure out how detrimental it is to the poem
if i should sit and think, and perhaps get lost in my own thoughts
or stop and look it up on the internet, and thereby lose the spell i cast
on my own poetry being sans-internet-influence,
or ask my kip
or set a reminder to go back and check
at a later time…

usually i set a reminder in the way of brackets around one word
and hope i can find the exact alternate
i thought i could think of
at the time of writing]

May 10, 2026

i don’t remember
a lot

my brain is a sieve where
each experience passes
lovingly
but without mercy

and sometimes big chunks do get stuck
and they are the memories i get stuck on
and replay over
and over
and over
without mercy
to my own psyche

but others show up when reminded
[thank goodness for that little brain trick]
by an object or a person
telling the same story from their perspective
and in those moments
it’s like a magic trick — the memory bursts forth
like a trick bouquet of flowers
from a magician’s shirtsleeves

and i am thrown backwards
winded from my own remembering
and hopeful this time
this time
[maybe]
that memory will be
saved
from the sieve