A Swirl of Subjective Licks

Memories: My Poetry & His Photograph

They say you only remember a third of what happened.

That doesn’t make any memory untrue; really, it makes them all true.

Reality is subjective in that way; the moment a happening transpires, it weaves itself into variable patterns of the here and now and then from different vantage points, all the same in their validity.

Whether or not it really comes down to a third, I think it is unquestionable that we don’t remember everything as it happened, even while it’s happening. Our experiences all differ, even when we’re in the same room. As an experience plumes up into existence, like smoke, it is taken into the lungs of different machines, weaving through systems, incongruent, coming out in poofs of exhales from different places at different speeds in varying colors.

Yet another reason choosing to make art is so important.

There’s a difference between a photograph and a picture. One has a point of view. One is an exhale of an experience, whereas the other is but a mere copycat effort of an intangible thing.

I’ve been digging around old journals lately and am reminded of moments I am so grateful I chose to reflect on near their birthing. Lest those little breaths get lost in the sea of leaves upon wind that is my recollection.

Alan and I celebrated our 5th-anniversary last weekend. In our sentimental swooning, he asked if I remembered Vegas. It was one of our first handful of dates, really. This weekend away. And I knew somewhere on a hard drive I had a poem about it. And I knew somewhere he had a photo or two. How fun it is that they are of the actual same moment in that weekend of burgeoning love. I remember everything being so bright in the light of our love and lust that even the city colors had flavor.

How sweet it is to taste my lover’s memory through a photograph of a time we shared. One that I wrote a poem about myself! Imagine, as you read this poem and look upon these photos, the different exhales he and I are breathing. How they swirl together to make their own display of a happening.

Things exist, they existed, and as we share our take on their existence they exist a new existence! In new shapes; new and lovely shapes, indeed.

*breathes out*

View from the Cosmopolitan

The Vegas skyline crawled
                        with glitter and gold
I was bursting with possibilities
                        of life, love, stories yet to unfold

My pores dripped joy
                       My panties were wet
My eyes set on you—
                       it’s a memory I won’t soon forget

Spring 2018