I Remember
(after Joe Brainard)
I remember learning to drive a manual transmission and loving the control.
I remember when my brother told me he was gay and I had to stop being homophobic.
I remember the toy my father crushed one night with a cowboy boot as he returned home drunk.
I remember being jealous of my friend who lost his virginity in a storm drain.
I remember the call to prayer and thinking that the only thing I’d pray for right now would be for the muezzin to shut the fuck up.
I remember trying to hide the day my mother died. I learned Death finds you even if you hide.
I remember saying horrible things to beautiful people and only regretting some of it.
I remember playing war and thinking it was fun until I got to play it for real.
I remember how easy it was to care and then not.
I remember the mornings in Monterey and wanting to be a sea lion instead of a soldier.
I remember when 40 seemed old.
I remember being afraid at the first rocket, annoyed at the hundredth, and wanting at the thousandth.
I won’t remember you.
I remember her taste and missing it.
I remember trying to be an alcoholic just so we would share something other than a name.
I remember your birthday and the day you left me.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 2, 2017.
