There’s something about late September
that makes me want to text people
I only miss when I’m too tired to lie.

There’s a moth in my mouth again.
I try to sing and it *****.

Some nights I rehearse conversations
with people I haven’t forgiven.
Some of them are alive.
Some of them are me.

I keep a list of people
I swore I’d stop dreaming about.
I keep dreaming anyway.

I talk to no one
like they’ll answer differently this time.
I wake up with a wingbeat
pressed into the backs of my teeth.

I think I’m leaking
something no one taught me how to name.
It leaves stains on my straws
It fogs the mirror before I do.
It answers to my voice
but only when I’m not using it.

There’s something about late September
that makes everything feel returned,
but not forgiven.
I don’t text them.
I let the silence say maybe I meant to.

I told the doctor
my heart felt like a flip phone
set to vibrate
in the back pocket of my jeans—
buzzing between spine
and tenth-grade desk,
shaking my bones
like a train no one saw coming—
except me.

I could feel my pulse
gathering its coat, like it had somewhere to be.
He said I was within diagnostic range.
He said I was presenting as stable.

I said I felt like a girl
screaming
inside a library.

They said:
What a beautiful metaphor.
I said:
It’s not a metaphor.
It’s a girl.
She’s in there.
She’s still screaming.

And they nodded,
said I seemed self-aware—
like that settles that.

They wrote “no cause for concern”
in my file.
The room was quiet.
The library was loud.

My heart is still vibrating.
I feel it—
right there, between spine and desk.

No one picks up.

We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.

We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.

You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.

You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.

I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.

You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.

I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.

I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.

As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.

I forgot to remember,
I remembered to have forgot.

You know the crazy thing about clocks?
Well, eventually,
They all stop ticking.
Like a sun dial,
The gnomon stops
Without light to make shadows.
But the funny thing is,
Time goes on.
Time is a constant.

I remember to forget,
I forget in remembrance.

Is Time despondent?
Is Time ebullient?

Memory. What's it mean to me?
Thoughts. What's it mean to be?

Is Time periodic?
Is Time cyclical?

What I remember
Is all; that I haven't forgetten.

If Time had a name,
They were called Kronos.
If Time has a title,
It is the Ouroboros.

What I forget
Is nothing; that I haven't remembered.

I remember in forgettance.
I forget to have forgot.

Before the crows sit
on the scarecrow,
I'll have you in remembrance
the path we used to walk.
I feel as if you are in my
aunt's house, being a symbol
illuminating the house.
When I sit alone, the absence
speaks you are alive, but I
had seen the grave.
I cry my heart out on
the bed, will you ever come back?
If your spirit dwells in our genes,
can you still embrace me in your arms?
Oh, my maternal grandma, I miss
your presence, like the old days,
even if I feel you are here.

My third home is so unmoved.  
It stays as recalled
smelling of the comfort of the first and last
as if to harbour memories regardless
of age, refusing to release its hold,
it stands so full of heart,
with echoes of dinner

with steam lifting from hefts
of potatoes and withered veg,
an adamant replay of checkered tablecloths
and brown orange tableware,
long cracked and stacked. You see how it was.
Close your eyes and hear the scrapes
of plates, the kettle.  
And that veined mug.

Memory garbage dump
Holding everything old
Aged releasing all

I've realized my brain
Swollen from decades of thought
Now, only wants now

Goodbye to the past
Earth quakes releasing the crust
Cliffs of synapse fall

If yesterday had come for you,
               I’d mourn forever.

If today is that day you leave me,
          still I’ll never forget you.

If tomorrow already erased you,
     then maybe I should retrace it.