Orpheus

Toothless, I am left alive and inarticulate, a smiling pit: Hello! Here I am. I would pay what it takes to forget if I knew what was required. Forgive me for memory’s triage, for the un-homemaking of myself. Experience forms a crust around reality. In the memory of that night I clap and wait for whatever lurks to clap back, like a movie where something’s always on the other end of silence. There was a moment I realized I was trapped. There was a moment where what happened didn’t hurt. Outside, the machinery of sunset ground up the day, leaving clouds tidy and contained. When I left myself behind, I did it with surgical precision. Experience enfolds tightly, like a fitted sheet. It does what it takes to keep you from looking back.