An Afterthought

There's a reason that people reflect on high school and the ensuing years, because those turbulent days that blanketed us in hollow self-esteem now seem so far away, as if the memories we retain belong to another person. As though those memories are the fibers of a dream we once had or a movie we once watched.

Yet, in the distance that has been created between the past and the present, a familiarity of those days lingers, and coils up with the child inside of us. The sensation being one of comfort and awkwardness.

As this reverie takes hold, I begin choking on my adulthood as it collides with my childhood. I begin asking myself, "Who am I? How did I get here? And who would recognize me as I am now?" The following poem emerges:

Afterthought

You don’t remember me

because I’ve never stood

out in a crowd.

Before I began dying

my hair red,

I was a muted honeycomb

that slithered the halls of life,

pillaging insecurities

from the dungeons

of other people’s

warped minds. I wore

a smile that lurked

behind my eyes but

avoided the purse of my lips,

the crinkles of serendipity

hidden in the fringes

of my acquired flavor. Men

shook me, of the

coconut sweetness

that drew them in, like

a rabid mother in a torrential

rage with a fitful infant.

You don’t remember me

because my eyes

were green with disloyalty.

Once upon a time

I avoided contact

with your gaze, took

vodka shots with a head

hung low, foraged for

semblance, for acceptance

in my liquor reflection.

I harvested pollen from

other people’s

flowers, and left my petals

to wilt, back then.

I was a stray

who tasted sensuality

and bitter arguments

with a snake's tongue,

fasting and feasting,

a medicinal touch, a

warm lie.

You don’t remember me

because the spotlights

didn’t shine on my

cracked delusions.

Yesteryear offered me

a cup of coffee, but I declined;

preferring frothy

highs caught by

circumstance, absorbing

the jitters from passersby.

Now,

I comb the world

with curious eyes,

friendly lips,

and a siren’s intent;

harboring no shame for

my arsenal of lessons,

no apologies

for my love, no barriers

for my permissions.

By the time you remember me

I confess,

a storm will wash me

from this flashback,

because

I’m spindrift in time,

a white flame,

a prayer left to wither

into wishes.

I know no other way,

than to change

with the seasons, without

reasons, while

committing treasons

of the written kind.

So, no,

you don’t remember me.

I was born

an afterthought.