I have faith,
no more
in memories,
neither mine
nor those of others.
The brain clutches moments
in its angry or joyous hands
and with muscles
like a potter at the wheel
reshapes whatever happened,
that last second
or decades past,
over and over again,
as mind changes its mind.

So effective is that
gentle tweak
or raging contortion
that fealty to some real thing
desolves to hazy mist,
recalled as a layered mache’
rather than an accurate telling
of a twist in the gut.
Reality evaporates,
a morning fog dispelled
on a warming pond.

I do not trust that
excruciating or fond
remembered moment
when X did Y to me,
or, even less,
trust what I think
is the WHY of Y,
the motive behind,
now extinguished,
an ash flake.

All I have now,
truly,
is the fleeting hope I hold,
slippery,
like an eel in my hand,
that, maybe,
one brief spark
of one solitary synapse
among the billions in my brain,
is, somehow,
an answer to the ever asked question,
“What in hell really happened to me
that I am who I am?”

But I refuse to acquess
to a second guess.
Life is not what happens to us,
rather
what we chose to do
about what we
think
happened to us.

So as long as I can,
still,
I can use my power to chose.

And so I will.