Misremembered - Fred Thomas

There was something I was trying to say

But I kept losing my grip on the slippery meaning

The same way cold resentments can get swallowed

By the start of the spring when everything’s beginning

Dehydrated dreamers practice shitty tricks in the grass

Weak ollies and yin-yang ankle tats

These are 5K stragglers, dealership hagglers

The sad-faced bystanders on those gas station cameras

And there was something I was trying to say

But I was followed by a non-descript chemical smell

An amateur witch cast her fist binding spell

And the laughter of my neighbors in their trailers

Punctuated those awful tendrils

Awful edges as your hometown keeps extending its bleed

Every time that you leave

Misremembered

Awful passage of some book you didn’t actually read, yeah?

And we all navigate the having of bodies and histories

It’s a snuff film existence

Matthew writes poetry about coffee piss, loneliness

The only-ness of his childhood

And I do my best to stand in as some simulated sibling

A satellite rendition of an oddball older brother

A mythical creature who’s got his shit together

But it never

But it never

But it never

But it never works

There was something I was trying to say

But the paperwork at the plasma center ate up the first half of the day

The creeps in their cars, they just got in my way

I went looking for my friends

It was last call again

Oh, the embers

When the controlled burn that you call your twenties is finally extinguished

You know you’ll still need someplace to go

Misremembered

Every story, every word, every lyric, every mention

Everything that I said, everything that it meant

But it’s okay!

It’s okay

There was something I was trying to say

There was something I was trying to say

There was something I was trying to say

There was something I was trying to say

There was something I was trying, I was trying to say