mistranslations

remembering: mosquito nets & hot chocolate
forgetting: i don't remember.

i am a trapeze artist: i don't like the trappings of words, either. nevertheless, i am incapable of capturing the latent look of a person who drops something, lets the mug fall from their hands & waits, watching absently, as though the consequential shattering is not of their own effecting; inconsequential. or, the way that people lose things as though they meant to. there is no other reason for forgetting.

(committed to memory: common phrase. trans. trapped, murdered, unchangeable illusions.)

men with frowns & black hats ask us to line up in front of the iron railing underneath pont alexandre. one look & we are dismissed in a - i cannot remember the word - extermination? - i forgot about the tequila in my purse. sometimes i like to be touched carelessly, like a lucky penny in your pocket that you are forgetting about even as your fingers flicker with it. your actions mean nothing, my actions mean nothing. my consequential absence is not of your effecting; it is inconsequential.

wires cross, fuses blow: blow is an overexaggeration of a word; nothing happens. there is a sense of absence, electrical storms, expectations fortunately let down. new friends, four girls to a bed, empty empty wallets, & american pancakes for breakfast - silently. you know from feeling my stomach, you know from the way that my body responds to your touch, your fingertips reading my spine like braille: "depression?" you ask. i don't know the word for "leukemia" in french.