Poor Memory

I have always wanted a bouquet of friends.

Colorful, vivid with the scent of life.

One of each of my favorite flowers

Plucked from a year, a generation, a time.

But I have a very large, very empty vase.

.

And that's all right because if I had friends

I would forget their birthdays.

Their anniversaries would slip by like a fog,

Here in a way the disturbs me and then gone

Because I couldn't remember it to begin with.

.

I would forget their faces next, or maybe I...

Just would have never remembered at the start.

Maybe I wouldn't properly learn their surnames

Or I'd stumble over the seven thousandth time

I've pronounced their name wrong.

.

It would devolve, wouldn't it, into nicknames

And desperate attempts to prove that I can love,

That I can comfort, that I can support.

But I would still forget the reason behind those

Pretty little scars dancing on their lips.

.

I would forget why their hands trembled

Or whether or not they enjoyed a good thunderstorm.

I would lose track completely of the good,

The bad, the ugly, the everything because there is

Nothing more important to my mind than the pattern.

.

The pattern of them.

The print of their soul.

The rhythm of breath.

No, that's not something

I could ever forget.