The Amnesiac's Guide to Memory

If you hope to decode the intangible,
consider yourself a failure
before you begin. Here’s the map:
I patched it up myself
by burying something alive
at each of its destinations.
You don’t have to rack your brain
for bits of gossip. It’s all here,
like a searing epitaph
for the subconscious mind,
what makes you, you.
Let me be thorough – this word
I misspell when following through
is the only option. I have
the number of your
forgiveness on repeat in my head.
I’ll never dial it. Remember
when we skipped class
to get ice cream? How sweet
it was because, hello,
forbidden? I have no tools
to trace your aging smile,
misfiled inside my hippocampus,
that worn-out seahorse
frozen in mid-gallop.
What is the word that means
I fear what’s coming?
That reads my neocortex
like a gravestone? More often
now, I swim inside my mind
and find no shore.