First Draft (5 Seconds)

Jul 03, 2008

I once heard that goldfish only retain memories for five seconds.

I once heard that goldfish only retain memories for five seconds.

That means each time your heart beats it ticks away
one more memory from some
fish
swimming in a tank.

I think sometimes that we feel the way goldfish remember.
 
I think that we let our emotions come and go,
quick like a memory that
we
will never have again.

Imagine, swirling around and around, seeing the same two other fish.

You'd never know which one you could trust, but,
they would never know when they could trust you.
A Scary thought,
and
yet

I watch these fish swim inside a restaurant
and wonder
if they live in constant fear,
fear that these things that tower over them will one day scoop them up.

But they say they're domesticated, and
I wonder how do you domesticate a fish
if it can't
remember
that it's domesticated.

Because if there is a way to remember in the middle of oblivion I want to learn the trick.
I want to see your face floating beside mine, a reminder that something lasts beyond the next fin splash.

I once heard that goldfish only retain memories for five seconds.

Five seconds, long enough for you to blink
your eyelashes and whisper my name.
Long enough for me to slip a finger between buttons and across your skin.

Five seconds, long enough for my breathing to change and the memory to come back from where it was hidden.

Five seconds, long enough for the memory to go back where it came from and us to make a new memory.

It's ticking, ticking faster every second,
I heard once that it's because we perceive time.
Time is a thought and
I
haven't been thinking about it.

Time is an angry lover and the more you ignore it, the angrier it is.

"But I didn't know, I didn't think," a thousand
and one blank excuses,
hollow dodges as you try to explain.

It doesn't matter because Time will grab at you
from someplace secret and Time will know the answer,
before you do.

Time will make it clear that no matter what it's there.

And I think about how five seconds is long enough
for me to recognize a stranger, from five years ago,
from another life, because surely all my cells have changed and disappeared.

I know it's two years too soon,
but I need to be someone different,
I need to be someone new for these people.

I need my cells to be entirely different,
a brand new me,
indistinguishable
from me.

1 second: She is promising the Future,
Time is,
she is promising another shot, another you
if you can just hold on and think about her always.

But I don't think I can hold her that close,
I think I'd rather have her be a surprise
visitor
and there, we've made eye contact
and Time is laughing in my ear.

"What're you?
A lawyer,
great,
me?
I work at Arby's"

And I feel Time burn me, I've not used her the way she wants.

2 seconds: Yes,
she is angry, but underneath I can't
help that she's afraid
'cause she knows that one day
she,
too will be gone.

She whispers low and hungry,
a permanent distraction,
"Use me, I'm here for you!"
And
I can't think,

but it's a curse, this word,
Use.
I can't use her.

3 seconds: There are weeks
and months and years between us
and I've let Time get under my skin.
But I try

to think of something
else, someone else
whose fingers are not
so rough.

4 seconds: They say
time is like a river,
and you can't
change the flow.

Watching a goldfish in
its tank makes me think:
it doesn't matter,

if you can't remember
which way you're going.
Does the fish ever think
about going back?

5 seconds: I have never seen
a goldfish go back
on itself, turning
to face the stream

pushing it further and further
away from home.
Five seconds is all it takes
for a goldfish to forget

home is still there,
but you can't ever go back.

Would it be so horrible
to swim forever forward,
never sure where
you're going,
never knowing from
where you came?



This is basically the final version the poem. I'm going to edit it, but I don't think I'm going to make any major thematic changes or anything like that.