I was going through some of my stuff from when I was in college and came across my journal that I kept when I took a poetry writing class. It was my senior year of college and I needed one more English class to complete my English minor. I don't know what drew me to this class except that I had either taken or couldn't muster the interest in any of the other English courses that they were offering that semester.
I figured that it would be either a course where we were analyzing works written by famous poets but instead it was a course on writing poetry. At first I was a little nervous because it was always a section that I really didn't like when I was in high school probably because of the way it was taught.
I was blessed with an amazing Professor PJ Gibson who was not only a published poet, playwright as well as a gifted instructor. She encouraged every student to write about what inspired them and how to express themselves through their writing.
Selective Memory was written a year after I graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and about four years after my grandmother passed and seven months before my grandfather passed. It was a really hard time for me because I was not in the place that I thought I would be after graduating from college. I had moved back in with my family, working at a dead end job that I barely earned enough money to get by and dealing with feeling like a failure because of it. I wrote Selective Memory about memories I had of my grandmother before she got sick and how her getting sick and eventually passing away took a hefty toll on my grandfather. Like I said I found my notebook when I was doing some cleaning and felt I had to share my experience with dementia and depression.
How have you dealt with feelings of lose and not living up to everyones and maybe even your overly tough expectations?
I figured that it would be either a course where we were analyzing works written by famous poets but instead it was a course on writing poetry. At first I was a little nervous because it was always a section that I really didn't like when I was in high school probably because of the way it was taught.
I was blessed with an amazing Professor PJ Gibson who was not only a published poet, playwright as well as a gifted instructor. She encouraged every student to write about what inspired them and how to express themselves through their writing.
Selective Memory was written a year after I graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and about four years after my grandmother passed and seven months before my grandfather passed. It was a really hard time for me because I was not in the place that I thought I would be after graduating from college. I had moved back in with my family, working at a dead end job that I barely earned enough money to get by and dealing with feeling like a failure because of it. I wrote Selective Memory about memories I had of my grandmother before she got sick and how her getting sick and eventually passing away took a hefty toll on my grandfather. Like I said I found my notebook when I was doing some cleaning and felt I had to share my experience with dementia and depression.
How have you dealt with feelings of lose and not living up to everyones and maybe even your overly tough expectations?
Selective Memory
You are forever gone.
Your face fades from my
memory like footprints in
the sand at high tide.
My ears no longer hear
your loving voice calling me
for lunch. The sweet scent
of Shalimar no longer greets
me with the knowledge that you
are waiting for me
after school.
No one is to blame for your
demise.
Science could not heal
your body, faith could only
protect your soul.
In exchange for peace
from your deamons,
you left us an empty shell.
You were at peace,
but your love was not.
He blamed himself for not
being able to be your
knight in shinning armour.
He blamed himself for not
being able to slay the demons
that had besieged
his princess.
He is forever cursed to see your
face in the photo album in his mind.
His dreams are haunted by
your cries of ,
"Why did you fail me?"
The scent of Shalimar
always to follow him as
a reminder of his supposed failure.
Maybe, one day his pain
will be erased like a chalkboard
after school.
And maybe the tide will
recede once again,
and I'll be able to make out your
footprints in the sand.
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