I awake
             eyelids fluttering,
the Stick-It notes adhesed to my lashes
are the closest thing
to
skin-carved reminders
of the day ahead...

Each fingertip, I find
a little string is tied
in a perfect bow..
reminiscent of curling locks
and caring hands combing
through knotty primary schoolgirl hair

time weaves itself
like twine in many colours
-to use a cliche-  I am tapestry

scanning
list upon list
that i have made
over time...
plotting and planning...
a life ahead...

scribbled handwriting
fills cluttered pages of torn-out notebooks
I realise how alike I am to a sponge of constant absorption

in the complicated and absent-minded drawings...
I find myself awake in my sub-conscience
               and am free to wander
through the darkened crevices of my ten year old mind
or the shimmering forest where my inner children live...
                                                          or are they the same place?
                                                  am i of the same mind?
                                           have i matured, as apparently
                                  we all do with age...

I peel the Stick-Its off my toenails and arrange them in my hair-
                                                                                            for vanity reasons...
and observe a mirror...
calculating a fine-tuned appearance...

fine-tuned not by me, but by nameless creators of floating nature...
who ride on purple haze or smiling pegasus...

then...
            while searching
            blank files of mind’s library.
I hit the light switch
and remember:

what i’m supposed to be remembering
about why i’m remembering
and counting and listing
to remember...

shit-
its gone

I blankly search again,
                              suffocating in layers of frustration,
                          head pounding and drumming...
                    groping in thick darkness...
something tugs at me... a memory... a shadow...
but i’ll never know...
                              -i’m willing to accept that...

skinny-dipping in june...
icy water swells around me and
the waves crash heavily on chest... thumping heartbeat is the only sound...
i realise how alike i am to a sponge of constant absorption
even in this confined metaphor...

the mild obsessions i clutter my mind with end in a spiralling fashion...
like a gay tea party gone all wrong
cracked crockery... chipped mugs... stained table cloths....
                                      ....and guests dancing on the table...

spinning spinning spinning
five, six, seven in a row...
i used to do nine...

funny how exhausted you become from hurtling your own body weight around itself...

I poke my tongue out and rip off another Stick-It...
         they are all the same
              all imprinted with a
                  hurried scrawl of-

REMEMBER

i wonder why it is
i write no other purpose-
what to remember?


then-
          groping in the dark
          of the dusty library,
I flick the light switch
and
remember...
....

so the cycle goes...
even with
all the precautions i barricade myself with...
i can never escape
curiosity