A Moment of Discovery

I carelessly glance

Through the grease fingered window

Framed by white-wash scratched walls

And indifferent patterned furniture

As I'm sitting in my cold bare feet

Itching at dry winter skin

I chew my neglected lip

I stop to notice the snow

1/24/08

*Published

The Seams

I've always wondered about my childhood

The weird things I did

Seemingly innocuous moments remembered

Whether other kids were as strange as I

What I've come to realize

Is that the flashes of my formative years

That play so vividly in my mind's eye

Are only half real

I know some of them exist

Memories that actually happened

But there is this vaseline lens outlook

I wonder if what my parents and friends have told me

About who I was

What I am

Become memories from my overactive imagination

Conjured for posterity's sake

There are other recollections

So strange and wild

That others question their likelihood

And a seed of doubt

Springs into the memory

It could have easily been a vivid dream

Reality and the imaginary

Are difficult to separate as a child

I can't help but wonder

Why I can't remember any of my childhood birthdays

But I can recall the exact details

Of a particular occasion

When my mother specifically asked

To remember to buy milk

And I remembered

Just as we passed the store

Or at a soccer field

As I tried to run to my mother

Eyes closed tight

And I accidentally hugged another woman

Such inane memories stick out in my mind

Perhaps strange abstract building blocks

Of who I am today

All of this brings into question...

20 years from now

Will all my distant memories

Of all my experiences

Be just strung together pieces

Of strange dreamlike images

Odd and mindless moments

And imagined impressions from others?

Even my memory is not my own

So it seems.

1/24/08