FRAGME-NTED

 

HANNAH CARLSON


the dog days unfold slowly now:
lost keys become a lost train of
thoughts abandoned
like former lovers,
forgotten conversation
as simple as how are you
becomes a silent chaos
because I don’t know who
I am.

               I tell you stories
               of autumn rain against my windowpane,
               echoes of an organ in dusty
               sanctuaries,
               vanilla in the air,
               this forgotten promise
               around my finger—
               this was all once mine.

my mind is a foreign landscape
looping in true circles of motion,
going nowhere, everywhere, lost,
always returning to the dawn.
you sit beside me
and listen.

tell me what went wrong.

a thousand years have bowed
to us, and now
it is my turn to disappear.
I am dwindling, I cling to you.

               I have lost so much and I am
               tired fading fine.
               I’ve fought my way back to you,
               but we’re still memories apart.

I once wrote haikus,
every detail for you, dear.
(it’s all gone now)

               the swelling darkness
               of memory suffocates.
               your hand in mine, I see you
               I hold you, tell me—

Remember.

               we were born from the dust.
               in a breath of air
               we all cried,
               close as language can come,
               now that I have lost my words.

faces have lost their meaning,
even my own.
but yours— my tired body knows
every ache of life that brought
you to me.
sore joints trace your smile.
tell me my own stories.

               you are my star map tonight,
               as the stained-glass sky unfurls.
               tracing my bones like constellations
               you whisper in my ear.

repeat my stories.
I remember you.
this world allows endings,
and we begged for time.

               if I had
               not forgotten myself

we’d never have to say goodbye.