They Said I'd See

They said I’d see the big picture
         I’d see one day
                   once smiles were like fuck yous
                   children played in memories and
I don’t remember the last time I saw an arcade and
when I was younger no one could tell me about being old and now that I’m older no one can tell me about being young and now that I’m older I lose things and

most of my memories of youth were lost like my
         keys this morning and
         I was late for work again
                   ten minutes or ten years
Always late and
you should’ve seen the look on my boss’ face but
I didn’t care because no one knows me, my lateness, in one hundred years because          like my great-grandfather only exists in one black-and-white photograph
                   taken when he was eighteen and
all I know from the photo is he was Sioux and
it said James on the back and
the rest of him wiped out

         in the great landslide of any memory of his existence and

the memories I do have of my youth are nothing more than a snowy day in a park making funny faces, or one time I was on vacation in Colorado and
         we went to Ouray for sight-seeing then dinner and
                   the wait was long so I wandered into an antique shop and
                   I wanted a civil war bullet behind the glass case that was in a little plastic baggie and
                   in calligrapy on some fancy paper about the size of my pinkie it
                   said mini civil war bullet and
all I remember as I threw a tantrum because my mom wouldn’t buy it for me but
it was only three dollars was that the round pellet could’ve killed someone but
         it hadn’t because it was still perfectly round and
         the person it could’ve killed perhaps lived a little longer but
         never had a picture taken and
         doesn’t exist any more
                   anywhere
                             and all of him was wiped out

         in the great landslide of any memory of his existence and

they said I’d see but
         I only see what I want to see and
                   sometimes it’s not very healthy and
one day I will see, but I don’t think it will be until

         the great landslide of any memory of my existence