everything must exist on paper or i’ll lose the moment to sweeping waves of time
doubt takes hold of my memories like a layer of oil
then hardens into an outer shell
impossible to fracture
so i bury it away with the rest
a mass grave in my unconscious, contained, forgotten
if i could fit between the planks then i could drop beneath the floorboards
and fester where no one can find me
where my own poison can’t reach
The author of this piece (any pronouns) is a Boston student in the creative arts. Their understanding of their life since childhood has always been through the lens of a story, a certain metanarrative of their experiences, as if watching themself behave as a character on a television screen. This poetry is their interpretation of the past three years—and the love and loss within—as simultaneously the front seat driver and their own passive observer in the backseat.