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00:02
Self-Erasure as Applied to My Memory.
00:05
24.
00:07
It was the season of ghosts locked in the windowpanes and the cellar lamp.
00:11
The grindstone abandoned amongst the coal,
00:14
generation after generation.
00:17
It was the year the abandoned house down the block burned to the ground
00:21
and another fell into itself.
00:24
And both sprouted into strange mansions with ghostless windows
00:27
and storyless attics.
00:29
My grandmother became the bed sheets, though thinner than the bed sheets,
00:34
until she vanished like the words “I love you,”
00:37
just hours after I last said them.
00:40
Sometimes I believe I had given her permission to go.
00:44
My ego tells me this.
00:46
It was the year the ego grew legs and made things tumble and burn.
00:51
It was the year I didn’t sleep
00:53
but could not leave my bed.
00:55
It was the year of the vanishing which I had learned from the dead.
00:59
It was the year I became the pipe, then the couch,
01:02
then the air as it whistled through my bones like a bolt.
01:06
It was the year I did not eat unless it was the moonlight
01:09
or blue light from the television.
01:11
It was the year I did not dream and spoke only in curses.
01:15
It was the year magic fell dead in the street like a struck crow
01:19
and darkened beneath the cars as they left and kept leaving.
01:22
That year, my friend was murdered.
01:25
And though I can remember his laugh and his hair,
01:28
how it came to a widow’s peak,
01:30
his Afro, a curled crown, I recall nothing else.
01:34
Not his eyes, or his body, and now, barely, his smile.
01:39
That year my grandfather also died.
01:42
I can remember him shaving, but I cannot recall his face
01:46
or the hair that must have been there.
01:49
That year, the crops which had not been grown on our land
01:52
for a hundred years, came up through the floorboards
01:55
and from the faucets,
01:56
and all of our mouths were full of grain and corn
01:58
and drought and shadows.
02:00
It was the year I lived on a train and passed the rusted shipyards
02:03
outside of New York, heading into Connecticut.
02:06
The train burned and burned like a whistle and drove straight into the sea.
02:10
That year, from the windows which I guarded like a ghost,
02:15
I watched someone else’s grandfather, feeding his cat on the countryside.
02:20
The man gazed out onto the horizon
02:24
as though he noticed just then half his life was missing from his memory.
02:29
I am told that it too was the year I was dying.
02:32
I would sleep on the kitchen floor after each meal,
02:35
a plug of tobacco tucked gently into my lip,
02:38
as though it were a thing that could wake or wake something in me,
02:43
some dream seed rupturing in the mouth.
02:46
I don’t remember this. It is a false memory.
02:49
It is the image of the Monalisa
02:51
as described to you by the janitor of the Louvre,
02:54
and though he or she knows the painting best,
02:56
the coy look of mischief,
02:58
the conquering nature of the eyes,
03:00
without seeing it, that image is not yours or even mine,
03:04
just as each story that has ever been told is hardly a replica of light.
03:09
It was the year I remembered and remembered and remembered
03:12
the act of remembering,
03:13
like sharpening a blade until the blade is gone.
03:16
Only a hilt now, only nothing.
03:18
It was the year when I was 24 or maybe 12, but probably 6.
03:23
It was the year in which all years became the same
03:26
and my whole life existed in a single dream fading away.
03:30
A block of salt worn by rain, drop by drop.
03:35
12. It was the season of ghosts in the wind.
03:39
An abandoned coal.
03:41
Generation after generation, the house burned to the ground
03:45
and fell into itself,
03:46
and sprouted strange ghostless windows,
03:49
a storyless attic.
03:50
My grandmother became thinner than the words I had given her.
03:53
My ego tells me it was the year the ego made things burn.
03:57
It was the year I didn’t leave my bed.
03:59
It was the year of vanishing. The year I became the pipe.
04:03
The air, as it whistled through my bones like a bolt,
04:06
the air as it whistled through the year I did not eat.
04:09
It was the year I did not dream and spoke only in curses.
04:12
Magic fell dead in the street and darkened
04:15
and kept leaving.
04:16
That year, my friend was murdered.
04:18
His laugh, his hair,
04:21
I recall nothing else.
04:23
That year, my grandfather died shaving,
04:25
but I cannot recall his face that must have been there.
04:28
That year, a hundred years came from the faucets
04:31
and all of our mouths were full of drought and shadows.
04:34
It was the year I lived and burned like the sea.
04:37
Like a ghost, feeding the horizon his memory
04:39
as though it were a dream described by the janitor of love and mischief.
04:44
Each story that has ever been told is hardly light.
04:47
The act of remembering, sharpening until nothing.
04:51
It was the year when I was, or maybe, but probably.
04:57
It was the year in which all years became the same
05:00
and my whole life existed in a single dream, worn by rain.
05:04
6. It was the season of ghost, wind, and coal.
05:08
The house burned to the ground
05:11
sprouted storyless words.
05:13
I didn’t vanish. I became the pipe,
05:17
then the air.
05:18
I did not eat the dream, only curses,
05:21
dead, dark, and leaving.
05:23
That year was murdered.
05:25
That year came from the faucets
05:27
and burned.
05:29
(applause and cheers)
Talk to you soon.
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