Forget It

Donna Freeman

November 2, 2022

I say cacophony,

Yet character is what I mean.

The letters don’t matter in my head

tumbling out with extra or error

or even instead.

You say, “Forget about it.”

What do you know?

I, Pandora’s box, filled with pictures,

faded pastels of a vivid past,

a locked clock without a key

will never last past today,

will never be a memory.

Still, I travel down the drain.

Was that what I called my brain?

No, no aspirin, no Aricept can fix it.

No pill will take it away.

“I understand,” you say.

But who are you anyway?

Did I meet you before?

Was it at the doctor’s office

or at that big department store?

Tell me, whoever you are,

will you speak for me

when the tongue lies still,

the voice long gone,

and words just seem like empty sound.

Nothing more.

Donna Freeman started writing poetry at age twelve. Her poetry appears in Wilderness House Literary Review, Blue Lake Review, and Ocean State Poets Anthology: Giving Voice. Donna's poems were selected for RI Public's Radio "Virtual Gallery" as well as ekphrastic shows at Imago and Wickford Art Galleries.