Once upon a time

I forgot all the words

I forgot how to spell

I forgot my own name

I sat down in the kitchen and cried

and forgot why it mattered that I couldn’t remember

all the lessons I’d surely learned  somewhere

so I slept for a while then reinvented myself

with a nice backstory

All the scars I bear

were given simple reasons for being

every day fun reasons

like an ice skating fail

a cooking burn

wrecked my bike sailing down the trail with the wind in my hair

and I dance around the fuzzy memory of fear

The past has teeth

or so I’ve heard

but the teeth of the past

are just for show

to terrify

but that’s the only sharpness they own

Still I hide

Being foolish and being forgetful

they are not the same thing

but the path with that lovely tree

the one with the smooth bark  and silver leaves

I’ve been down this path before

riding fast with the wind in my hair

The sharp teeth tell me so

I pick up one of the silver leaves carpeting the ground

It’s green

The silver I saw in the distance, just a hint

Maybe a promise

The wind blows the leaves into a line

that disappears into the deep dark

and I know

answers are hidden

further along  the trail

Follow the trail to find my name

but this time, I’ll take a weapon

                                                        by Christina Lynn Lambert

In the spirit of National Poetry Month, I checked out a couple books from the library including, I Shall Not Be Moved by Maya Angelou and Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. In addition to the more famous authors, I want to find poems and short stories to read written by currently unknown writers and by people who don’t even consider themselves writers or poets but just felt they had something to say, a message, or an experience they needed to put down on paper because they couldn’t keep the words inside any longer. Really, everybody has a story, but sometimes they’ve forgotten their story is worth telling.