The Art of Being Forgotten

Being forgotten is a skill
I was born with.

I.
From the time I was fourteen
I realized I have this power
to become invisible.
I just become silent and still
in a group of people,
and I disappear from their conscious,
like a pin dropping from
a cloud.

II.
It has been blatantly apparent
lately with the way lovers
can forget me—
I was in a relationship for nine
months, and to be honest,
I’m amazed the other
even knew my name.
In the off chance he did see me,
I fear that he could not hear me
as though I were in Pandora’s
vase.

III.
I can tally a list of people
who have forgotten me,
who will not remember me,
even if my name were repeated back,
and these tallies I keep on
my thigh—but I don’t
care all that much.
I guess I have forgotten them
as well, forgotten their scents
and their eye color and
the sound of their voice.
I have forgotten whether or not
they are worth it to take to bed.

IV.
Except for one,
but with time I will forget him, too.

V.
It’s easy to forget, I’ve found,
and sometimes I look at old characters
or poems or paintings,
and a nerve bundle
in the ashes of my skull
reignites for a phoenix to emerge
once more,
but disappear in a plume
of smoke.
I know some characters
strive from past memories,
but of whom I wrote these
I am not sure.

VI.
I wonder if ever someone
who has forgotten me
wrote a character on me.
I can’t recall if ever
I loved a writer.
Maybe there are no characters
that are me,
or maybe every character I read
is me.
I often think maybe
that I am those characters
in books that are estranged
and absent from the story,
the “Other,”
they’re called.
But I think those characters
everyone sees as a mirror.

VII.
I saw him—
the one I remember—
the other day.
He looked right through me.
Some day I will be able to
do the same,
and I will only
catch glimpses of him
in past writings
and paintings.

VIII.
Being the forgotten
is a skill I was born with,
and since then
I’ve turned it into an art.