I think my skull would rattle if you shook it –
filled with an assortment of past things.
I’ll pluck and keep them as trinkets,
souvenirs, mementos of has been.
I fear losing thoughts, and days,
so I pocket reminders of each place I go
(in heart, in mind, in body, in soul).
I shed dead skin in a trail
of diary entires and old poems,
snaking through my life’s path –
the fossils of the human heart,
footprints, preserved in stone.
Look at us, small people, small hands,
With brains bigger than the sky.
I couldn’t count the stars that span
The air, let alone in my mind’s eye.
With brains bigger than the sky,
Oscillating colours – ever change in
The air, let alone in my mind’s eye.
Lilac, gold, peach, and the day begins.
There is a tree I used to climb
With sweeping walls of green,
Enclosing me in another world
That only I could see.
Nooks and crannies in the branches
Became shelves to hold my dreams.
Each bough, a room all of its own
In a home (as I had deemed).
I take two fingers and wander up your spine,
Over some hills and meander into your mind.
A hopscotch through thoughts you left me in a trail
To collect in a basket as I stroll through this fairytale –
This brain-Atlantis of clandestine clouded dreams,
a blush pink memory lane of the people you’ve been
I collect pieces of life as I journey through time –
Bookmarking days and moments as mine –
Ribbons separating pages saying: ‘come back to this!’
I awoke without thought,
Just blank in my head
And a dream still hauntingly
Hung by a thread,
Unravelling a deepening
Hole in my chest.
I have a strong desire to document my life. Not necessarily my everyday experiences and errands or even special events, but just things that I see. Some people document other people, some their travels and adventures, but I like to document simplicities and complexities in the natural world around me. Sometimes photos act as bookmarks…
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Maybe tomorrow I will slip back into an old skin
To be momentarily reacquainted with
A memory, for the fun of remembering.
I will cloak myself in a costume of my past self,
Playing dress up in a skin and a mind once mine,
And the wrong-er it feels makes my new self feel right-er.
I will close my eyes and ignore the ill-fitting
Tight squeeze, stretched straps, and snapped seams.
For in a dance of vivid recall I remember: this,
This is what it once felt like to be me.
I found you in a song the other day
And you’ve been stuck in my head ever since.
You hide in faceless laughs and sideways glances,
An illusion in the corner of my eye.
I think I see a flicker of familiar and then
You’re gone, lingering as a distant relic
Or existing in only two dimensions –
Frozen in photographs
Where I don’t quite look like me.
Lauren Kathleen 