it’s funny how memory works
like watercolor on paper,
colors bleeding together.
Red and blue make purple,
right?

how do you explain
that you don’t remember your father’s face?
Thank god for photographs,
for a love I can pass off as my own

I’ve spent my whole life clinging
to Sunday afternoons
to bookstores and grassy parks
to climbing trees while you stand underneath
to Tigger, the 30-pound cat
(but really, can a cat even be that fat?)

was any of it real?
Maybe in my mind
Maybe only in my mind

tiki dancing, a glint of gold in your eyes
flames so bright they light the world on fire
It’s dark as night
but I can barely see the stars

some days I wake up
convinced that none of it was real
but maybe that’s a childhood
writing stories in blood

daydreaming
of the days I felt
loved

Published in Edition 3 of The Dilettante.