Dissolve Into Memory

Slightly blurry photo taken at night of bare trees, snow covering a lake, a dark and cloudy sky, and some buildings in the background with several lights on.

Memories flash before me. Memories flash within me. I am made of memory. Memories fading. Memories distorting. Memories interpreting. Interpreting memory. I am made of interpreted memories. There’s little truth to be found here. There’s little to go on. It’s disparate. It’s in pieces. Identity is memory. Identity is in pieces. Identity is meaningless. Memory is fiction. Memory is nothing. Memory is everything. While forming, memories are informed by perception. While held, memories fade, distort, and are informed by perception again. And again. And again. With each remembering, a memory changes. With each remembering, an identity changes. Memory is identity. Identity is memory. Memory is interpretation. Interpretation is identity. My and your memories define me, but neither define me thoroughly.

The courage to be interpreted. The courage to be misremembered. The courage to make your own memories. The courage to surrender your memories. The courage to relay myself through memory.

Maybe you’re not good and I’m not bad. Maybe you’re not bad and I’m not good. Maybe we’re misguided by our memories. Maybe we don’t remember our memories. Maybe there’s something to memory. Maybe there’s nothing to memory. Our subjectivity shapes everything and shapes us in return.

Return my memories. Leave them out in the light. Let them sit on the ground and gather dust. Let them grow stale. Let them grow cold. Let them out, let them out! Let them sit aside. Let them rise. Let them float away.

Memory, shaped by trauma. Memory, shaped by memory. Memory, shaped by perception. Memory, shaped by sharing. Memory, shaped within me. Memory, shaped without me. Memory, shaped by your mouth. Memory, shaped by my ear. Memory, shaping time. Memory, breaking from reality.

Memory, within me. Memory, without me. Memory, a part of me. Memory, not me. Separated from my memories. On a break from my memories. Remember me. Don’t remember me. Memory, sharp and faded. Memory, painful and pleasant. Memory, nourishing me. Memory, confusing me.

Memory, so needed. Memory, so distracting. Memory, so bewildering. Memory, extracting. Memory, extract from me. Extract from me what you need. Memory, what was it supposed to be? Memory, a word that loses meaning. A feature that fades. A pocket that gets tucked away. A file in a drawer. Labeled, not by time but by association. Memory forms, slips away, recedes, defines and doesn’t define.

Without memory, who would I be?

Babies are born without memory, aren’t they? Yet they have personalities. So, perhaps I would still be me without my memories. Unless babies are born with memory. We don’t know for certain that they aren’t. Memory can be stored within the body. Maybe memory can be transferred between bodies. In that case, perhaps who you are is shaped by memory.

I don’t have any memories from before the age of three. Three-year-old Sage could have been anybody. Maybe I was born with memories from a previous life and they faded away once I began to retain memories from this one. Baby Sage certainly had a personality. Baby Sage was certainly Sage. There is some kind of Sageness to Sage. Sage has always been Sage, just not always named Sage.

I don’t remember Baby Sage, yet I also do somehow. Some part of me remembers. Some part of me was shaped by Baby Sage and some part of Baby Sage was shaped by…

I don’t have the answer to that, but I know it must have been something. I don’t think I was created at birth. I don’t think that’s where I began. I think I have been shaped by this life, but I do not think my birth was the beginning and that my death will be the end.

This was one start and it will have one end. We’ll circle around. We’ll dissolve back into where we came from. We will dissolve into our memories. We will become one with our memories, we will diffuse, and we will return.

Wandering Man

Photo of a frozen lake. Bare trees, a boathouse, and a cloudy sky are in the upper quarter of the image. There are footprints crossing the snowy/icy lake horizontally in two paths, one in the foreground and one in the centre of the image.

There’s a wandering man. Where does he go? There’s a wandering man out in the snow. There’s a wandering man. He walks slow. There’s a wandering man. He breathes smoke. There’s a wandering man. He looks cold. There’s a wandering man. He turns a corner. There’s a wandering man. I can see him no longer. There’s a wandering man. Is that my father?

Everything Will Be All Right

Picture of a dirt road with tall coniferous trees on either side that rise up into a blue sky. There are snowbanks on either side of the road. A glimmer of sunlight is visible on the right.

I said goodbye to my home when I was fourteen. As I sat within its walls for the last time, I received a message. The magic of that place spoke up and told my scared and broken heart that everything would be all right. I left my home and have carried its message with me ever since. I’ve often wondered what it really means as things certainly don’t always feel all right. As I grow older, I seem to get closer to an answer. This poem is my attempt to unravel and examine this old message.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in your great-grandmother is watching.

As in you will have a roof over your head, even if that roof is always changing.

As in your support system will be small but strong.

As in the moon will provide for you.

As in the tarot will warn you.

As in the ground will lovingly hold you.

As in you always have your breath to come back to.

As in you will come further into the vastness of your queerness.

As in a stranger will find you crying alone in a laundry room.

As in you’ll be pushed far but somehow never past where your limits actually are.

As in there’s a mix of chaos and reason in everything.

As in you will always have your writing.

As in you will unfailingly hold the sacred right to question.

As in you will get yourself away from him.

As in you will do whatever you set your mind to.

As in you will build the life your young brain dreamed of.

As in horrible things will absolutely happen, and you will survive them.

As in you have been given this life for a reason.

As in you’ll live for as long as you’re meant to.

As in you’ll draw pentagrams on your body to protect you.

As in you’ll read books like your grandmother used to, like she wanted to.

As in you will certainly not get all that you want.

As in you will eventually have all that you need.

As in everything makes sense even if it’s not comprehensible.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in everything will be.

This House

This house is breathing its warm breath. That’s why we live here. It’s symbiotic. We entertain it, provide it with life, and it breathes its warm breath in the winter and shelters us from thunderstorms in the summer. We laugh with this house. We love this house. It loves us back, as it’s done for decades. We won’t be here forever, however, but it does not know this. Like a dog, this house does not know time. Everything is always. Everything is all at once. Nothing starts and nothing stops. That means it has no trouble moving on from one guest to the next. It transitions well. It will be okay, this house. It will keep breathing its spell.

I’m Tired of Dates

Photo of a tree trunk shot from below going up into a blue and cloudy sky. Branches are naked except for a few leaves. Branches from a coniferous tree are visible in the top left corner.

Content note: this piece contains several references to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On our pandemic date, we walk with masks around a snowy park. We run into an old teacher of yours and make polite conversation. Then we fall into the snow. It takes us on our separate paths. Our trains pull into different stations. We’re looking for something we won’t find here. Not at this time, not in this place, not with each other.

I try to find easier ways of doing things, but nothing gets any easier. I am exhausted. I haven’t stopped working. My wrists ache from typing. My days off aren’t that at all. Sometimes, I think about giving up this way of living and pursuing what I love. I think about it abstractly because abstract is better for fantasy. When I try to pin down the details, they flutter away. These butterflies are alive. They can still fly.

I still don’t know what kind of writer or what kind of person I am. I want to read a book called The Courage to Be Disliked. I want to be courageous. I want to publish my book, but I’m terrified of putting my story out there. It’s painfully vulnerable, and I don’t know if I could stand having it picked apart. I need to figure out how to separate myself from my story. Can that be done?

I watch another trans person come out and I almost cry several times. I think about voice training again. I think about binding. I think about growing my hair out. I think about cutting it off. It’s good I’m not trying to access healthcare right now. I can rarely get a hold of my doctor.

The routines I create save me and crush me simultaneously. The rules are necessary, and I hate them (but also not really).

My house has a big window, and the man who builds my shower tells me I need curtains to keep warm. Blankets, even, if I can find them. I buy shower curtains at the grocery store. Nothing else is open.

I say when the pandemic ends and my date says if. I should text them, tell them I’m not cut out for this. I’ve tried. Trust me, I’ve tried.

I find meaning in everything, and I am usually wrong about what things really mean.

Identity is troublesome and fleeting. Identity can be expansive or reductive. Identity can be as hard to pin down as a live butterfly and as painful. Why are you trying to pin this poor creature? Why am I?

I talk to the gods almost every morning. It’s helping.

I play music in the background to make my writing feel more profound. I have never done mushrooms alone. I want to. I am curious and afraid. They would give me a way to go somewhere without having to travel anywhere.

I’m tired of these kinds of dates: of glowing screens, video chats, and socially distant walks. Even without the restrictions, however, I think I’d still be tired of them. There’s something distinctly unromantic about dating.

Time is a precious resource and it bleeds out of everything. I’m trying to hold time in a cheesecloth. I bought margarine because butter is hard and because butter runs out. Margarine is, apparently, not good for you. Frankly, I don’t care.

I’m tired of dichotomies. I’m tired of routines. I’m tired of typing.

I begin in pieces, in parts. I begin where my date ends. I begin in motel rooms. Cheap, seedy motel rooms that are surprisingly clean. I begin to write, to really write, and I begin to feel better.