How to Forget


Ever since water taught us to float like drowned girls,
I’ve tried sleeping you off with steady breaths,
expunging you from my consciousness,
I’ve blown your thoughts out the door
with the butt of a cigarette.
But erasing you is not uncomplicated,
nor as effortless like the fall of a tree.

History is a horrid reminder of things you’d soon forget.
How do you fail to remember
what your mind insists on recalling?
If only a drink could conceal all inklings of you.
If only time was not a man bent on retribution,
I would have lost you in the fog of memory.

I’ve gotten little use from pious pills
existing purely to ensure your lasting impressions.
I’ve resorted to showers; so far, they haven’t worked.
They merely serve to give pause to a life I once lived with you.
Even bouts of anorexia cannot rid you from being.
As these days, letting go are words I cannot yet fulfill.
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