you want me to forget

Where flowers and fruits flourish,

I didn't take anything with me except memories.

You say,

Feud, old enemy, forget it all,

Whose garden trees do not turn yellow in autumn;

You say,

Good intentions, favors, remember them all,

Who will not have gray temples in the mirror.

But if I forget the whip on my back,

The foot trod upon the drowned head;

Forget poetry smothered in the depths of wrinkles,

A secret chain around the neck;

Forget the young hands holding words tightly,

Wrung alive in the golden sun,

Forget the woman abandoned by the world,

The last words that cut off both feet and came out with blood.

If these can be on a sorrel morning in late autumn,

Forget in the name of abundance and events,

Reconnect with the world with the handshake of forgiveness,

Then I hijacked fraternity and opened the gates of hell,

Cheering and embracing with the ghosts and speaking of brotherhood.

You want me to forget, because I forgot where I came from,

Will praise your rotten pens in flattery,

Dancing around the will-o'-the-wisp before sinking to death;

You want me to forget, because I who have forgotten my way home,

There will also be a demented smile on the face

Hands with flowers in homage to the false savior of the unproductive land

I am not grateful,

none;

I do not forgive,

Not one.

When one hand holds the other,

Unfold your warped picture of reality;

When one word awakens another,

With the whispers of thousands,

Rename the passing water and quicksand,

Relabeled the Sword of the Carved Boat that sank into the River of Oblivion

I can't forget this moment.

I see rivers of words gushing out of countless bodies,

To the silent dry well,

dry stream,

Weary birds dreaming of the sky,

Fishes in the maze yearn for the ocean,

To wound the abused fields,

Lips that were bloodless to the earth.

But in the day of the harvest in the garden of God,

Not a single punctuation mark will be given to you.

First draft September 25, 2022

Final draft November 27, 2022

"Don't Say, Don't Forget"