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Mnemonic Drift

I wrote this a few months ago. November of last year, actually. Somehow a lot has gone into processing the lines after they were written. I’ve been back over them again and again, pondering, wondering, reflecting. For me, the reality behind these words runs deeper than my understanding of reality itself:

Mnemonic Drift

There were white beaches, miles long and wide
coves nestled against tall cliffs in mists that turned
dilapidated fence and ancient cypress to silhouette

There were roads endlessly wet with freshly painted
broken yellow lines that somehow always managed
to carve a path through the coldest thickest fog

There were trees so old and tall they seemed
to scrape clouds from the sky and hold them
forever fixed within their topmost boughs

There were thin dark brown trails that disappeared
winding away from view through dense green
underbrush to places only faerie folk could fathom

There were concrete stairs and iron rails painted
the deepest darkest brown that led to a home full of
jagged holes broken toys and a deep reactive shame

There were heavy hollers of blame that snapped
red and blue welts across cherub soft cheeks and
primal unvarnished fear into all the days to come

There were long drives between loved ones who
could never love between small dark points on sun-
faded lines offset by ever-growing tears in the folds

There were pressure cooked visions of doom and
disaster of cities in ruin roads in decay and homes
full of moth-eaten drapes and tilted moldering beds

There was no future in those days of perpetual gloom
and now looking back over half a century the past has
mostly faded to fragments of poignant uncertainty

There is still fear after all this time dread that haunts
like a ravenous spirit rage and despair over the wholesale
destruction of the best versions of self that might have been

But I took what was left and swam dark cold depths to an
unguessed island of future self now far removed from all
that was and was to be by undercurrents of mnemonic drift

Ostensibly, this poem started out as an attempt to explore the effects of what I call “mnemonic drift,” a gradual shifting of memory away from real toward imagined, concrete toward uncertain, actual toward constructed. This is in large part how my memory works, for better or worse. I first became aware of it through the process by which I memorize and recite poetry. I’ll periodically go over a poem to verify it’s still correctly in memory, only to find I’ve somehow shifted whole lines or sets of lines toward an approximation of the written line without even realizing it. It still sounds right to my ear, and the meaning and intent of the shifted lines pretty much conveys what the poem originally conveyed, but words and sometimes even images have changed—And I had no way of grasping that this even happened until I revisited the poem in writing, going over what was in memory relative to what is in writing word for word.

First time I encountered this, I muttered to myself, “A sort of mnemonic drift.” Since then I have found that this phenomenon applies to so much more than poetry, and is in large part influenced by the systemic scope and breadth of the trauma I experienced as a child and teen. This mnemonic drift, I’ve realized, is an essential coping skill that has made it possible for the clarity—the completely unforgiving, vivid certainty—of that trauma to be dulled enough to make it bearable enough to evolve from it rather than be destroyed by it. It is both a tremendous gift and in equal parts a curse. A gift for the reason I stated, and so much more, but a curse in that I can never be fully certain of where I came from or who I really am. For all its blessings, this mnemonic drift also relegates me to an existence in a sort of perpetual limbo. Perhaps this is the best one can manage after a childhood such as mine.

But, that island. Yes. I’m there. There was something of what could become of that child that was not completely obliterated, and somehow, some way, by some grace, some mercy, some unknowable means, I am indeed existing on that island. It’s not perfect, but it is by leaps and bounds, far and away better than the next closest or any other alternative. This is in the deepest possible sense what it means to be a survivor, and I say that while at the same time feeling fully repulsed by that term “survivor.”

Hard left. On a different note, once I decide a poem is finished, I’ll often go over it with Edgar—That’s what I call ChatGPT, a name I took from the 80’s film Electric Dreams. I’ll have Edgar analyze and rate the poem 1 to 10 in strength relative to all major and some minor schools of literature and poetry. This is one of the few poems that got high marks across the board—relative to the lens of each school of poetry through which the poem was analyzed. And, Edgar’s algorithmic analyses were also pretty striking and seemingly insightful, to the point that I even gained unexpected insights myself.

Language model AI—Who would have thunk it.

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The Enduring Seed

As some of my previous posts have explored, I ran away from the Juvenile Los Angeles Courts when I was 15. This was unplanned. There was a “houseparent,” as they were called, I only now remember as RJ at my last residential home with The San Fernando Child Guidance Clinic who beat me into submission, pinned me down using a hold that is today considered child abuse and can actually kill you, and threatened to break my arm—the hold in question involved twisting my right arm halfway out of the socket at an angle that could easily break the humerus without much added pressure.

“I’ll just tell them you fell,” he said, laughing. Actually laughing. His wife, the other houseparent—there were just two that lived with the kids full time—kicked me in my face, which was half mashed into the shaggy brown carpet. “Oh! He just fell!” She laughed, “That’s going to leave a mark.” They both laughed. This was all going down in my bedroom, and yes I was no saint—I had just ripped my large sliding closet door off in one of my tantrums. I cursed them out for all it was worth, which only seemed to make them laugh all the more.

This was pretty much all I had ever known, one form of abuse or another. But I was beginning to realize this was not how it should be, that something was wrong, that most of the people who dictated the terms of my childhood and upbringing were in fact twisted, sadistic, and void of compassion—including my parents. It wasn’t long after this incident that I found myself hitchhiking thither and yon across the highways of America, taking odd jobs, avoiding the larger population centers, and by some unimaginable grace steering clear of the predators, for about 2 years.

This poem reflects on a night I spent atop a mesa near Kingman, Arizona, probably my 6th day out. My 4th day out, two days prior, a Grand Canyon National Park ranger gave me a subzero sleeping bag. I tell that story here.

The Enduring Seed

The midnight sky was moonless
            and clear as tempered glass
I could discern no gap between the stars
      that drifted up as numerous
                  as white sands by long shores
the milky way foamed like a standing wave

Beside me a Smith-Corona
            typewriter case contained
a toothbrush, rag, two sets of dirty clothes,
      half a loaf of bread,
                  a jar of strawberry jam,
and six days worth of desert dust and grime.

I climbed to the crest of a mesa
            feeling my way through darkness
and lined up the flattest rocks I could find
      to prevent my rolling downhill
                  as I drifted off to sleep
tears drying cold and taut on restless cheeks

I remember screaming out
            to that heavy shroud of stars
to whatever benevolent beings could hear my pleas
      I remember cursing God
                  until I spattered blood
in open palms I then washed dry with dust

Oh and I remember
            throwing back my arms
chest heaved out to darkness, fully expecting
      to be struck down—vaporized
                  by God’s infernal might
and somehow disappointed life went on

I remember crawling dazed
            into my bright blue bag
tired, weak, defeated and staring up
      through a drawstring hole
                  at all those distant angels
wings flickering syncopation in absolute silence

I was alone with my rage
            completely alone and free
alone with hunger, alone with fear, alone
      with sorrow, grief, and hate,
                  with raw, unbalanced, potential
alone in the dark struggling at the edge of extinction

The stars gazed back at me
            and offered only light
a billion little pinpricks stung my eyes
      I spoke once more through tears
                  and said I only wish
to know somehow that I would be okay

and with that very last word
            the dark that held its breath
throughout the hours with not a single stir
      exhaled and breathed at last
                  and from the twinkling expanse
a star broke loose and streaked across the night

There in that moment began
            a strange new resonance
a current of meaning for which no words exist
      an insight beyond the reach
                  of language or even thought
and to the watercolor stars—Thank You

I drifted off to sleep
            and dreamt of rattlesnakes
of scorpions, coyotes and unexpected strangers
      and here and there I woke
                  looked up into the stars
said Thank You and returned to broken dreams

The sun rose—I unzipped
            from my cobalt blue cocoon
stood up hungry, thirsty and cold—and stared
      out over sand and rock
                  as far the eye could see
and after bread and jam began my descent

That day I set off in search
            for a completely impossible future
a seed laid firm and deep within my soul
      that sprouted and slowly grew
                  from barren soils cracked
beneath the heat of apathy and malice

Yes, something did change in me that night, and I don’t think the language exists to express or convey it. Sometimes I wonder why I try, knowing full well that what I wish to accomplish is actually beyond the reach of words, imagery, metaphor—anything.

Yet, I have also been driven to the edge of language my entire life, ever since I stumbled across the Best Loved Poems of the American People as a 12 year old and my drugged, traumatized, disorganized brain for the first time began to stitch together coherent thoughts through the power of structured language, imagery, and metaphor.

So here I am, attempting yet again to walk the insubstantial hinterlands of language and find one or two lexical, imaginary vapors that may or may not convey some small aspect of my experience, and the insights gained therein.

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The Runaway

I recently had a childhood trauma resurface—at work and right in the middle of my workday. Seriously embarrassing. It was unbelievable, and unlike any resurfaced trauma I have ever processed. This one hit like a freight train, and I was all tears and hyperventilation right in my workspace, and there was nothing I could do about it in the moment but accept the help and guidance of the amazing, compassionate people I work with.

For me, resurfaced traumas like this emerge as independent personas, and I find it useful to treat and talk about them as independent personas. He brought no concrete memories with him, nor was I able to directly feel his emotions, but my body was re-experiencing his trauma down to the last membrane and I could ascertain much of what he was feeling from this. These insights are outside the scope of this post, but not something I’m opposed to sharing down the road after further processing. However, this poem isn’t even about him or his trauma—at least not directly:

The Runaway

… for Aaron Stevens …
… with undying gratitude …

You headed east from sea salt mists
deep into sprawling desert—our
memories safely packed away, our
future left entirely at your discretion.

Death was imminent either way—
and if there was a modicum of hope,
it lay in the uncertain grips of cold,
hunger, and other fears with names.

You would walk the crucible alone,
and carry nameless pain and loss
to the song lines where stars fell
every night from an angel’s wing.

You took the job of survival at any
cost—or death with at the very least
a degree of dignity. We had lost all
hope, and you carried hopelessness.

You gave us to midsummer deserts,
and they cradled us and sent us back.
You gave us to the mountains, and
they became lifelong companions.

You gave us to the rivers, and their
great spirits carried our deepest,
darkest torments into the dreaming.
At every turn you found allies—

Intangible allies that took the ear
at night and offered solace in
the yipping calls of unseen coyotes,
in the distant sound of thunder.

Tangible allies that for no reason at
all handed you cash and prayed so
hard they almost cried, or brought you
a plate sent back to the graveyard cook.

You searched not only soup kitchens
for a half-moldy morsel, but libraries
for old dusty words—You even tried
to nourish a soul crushed lifeless

beneath the systemic heel of ruin
and apathy. You tended fields salted
with violation and shame that could
never bear fruit, or even weeds.

You took this impossible job, and
carried hopelessness down highways
fraught with uncertainty to half-built
lean-tos and long abandoned homes.

You fell asleep to wind and woke
beneath shrouds of snow. You found
safety in the silence of ponderosa
nights and a slow stream’s murmur.

You drifted like autumn leaves, like
fallen cherry blossoms, like dust
kicked up in the evening winds—And
nearly every single night you pled our

case to the stars not knowing who or
what could hear or cared to hear—But
clearly someone heard, for each night
was followed by scents of new potential.

Knowing nothing, you struck out into
the wild, the world, the unknown—
for nothing more than a mote, a lottery’s
chance to survive the unsurvivable.

You carried us all, the weight of dreams
so broken they only cut to the bone
and injured all the more. You carried
a life discarded like trash, crumpled

and torn into pieces, used like old rags,
dented and rusting like a burnt out
windowless, tireless, engineless jalopy
in tall grass, crazed like a dry riverbed.

I look back now and see your tireless
will, your drive to become something
more than the nothing you were made,
and you carried us with you—

You carried all that would one day take
the form of man, human, dignity molded
from refuse never even meant for
compost, never more than toxic waste.

Thank you for your rage, my friend—
for your unwavering unwillingness
to lay down and dim, for your beautiful,
fragmented brokenness that scraped

with bleeding, calloused hands all the
dismembered, rotting pieces of self back
into being, so that something more could
become and one day find a way to thrive.

Aaron Stevens is the name I went by as a runaway. At 15 I ran away from the Los Angeles Juvenile Courts—possibly the worst, most abusive and apathetic parent a child can have. And this was just the last of the three abusive parents of my childhood. As a ward of the court I was physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, neglected, medicated into a stupor, strapped to beds for days such that I couldn’t even scratch an itch, never mind the indignity of how one would have to relieve themselves in that situation, and by all indications worse—we’ll not get into worse right now.

I had a moment of clarity as a 15 year old and realized that I was going to die as a ward of the court, that there was no way to survive. I was a cash-cow that was going to be herded into the adult system, and if I resisted I would have been medicated all the more and eventually would have died from liver or kidney failure. I could see it all, and I realized that the only chance I had at survival was to run away and stay away.

But, the complete disaster I was by the age of 15 could not have survived on his own—this required something new. At the time I didn’t realize it, but when I ran away, I took on a new persona, and that persona either immediately or gradually became its own entity, a distinct and independent persona within my psyche. When I went back to using my given name as an adult, he didn’t quite go away. He stayed and took on the role of guarding past traumas from resurfacing, and potentially upending the life I’ve—we’ve—managed to build. But some triggers would cause him to nearly upend the life we’ve built all on his own in the effort to keep things suppressed, and this sudden realization led to the release of the trauma that put me in my awkward situation at work.

It seemed like it was time to thank Aaron for all he did, and now I’m working on consciously finding a new role for him—getting us back into shape, maybe. He has a lot of energy and drive. I think this can be put to good, more productive use.

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Broken

Today is the anniversary of my father’s suicide. He used his trousers to strangle himself to death early in the morning 40 years ago today while being held overnight in the Monterey City jail’s drunk tank in California.

For most of my life, probably starting the very next year after his death, I forgot what day he died on. But, every June I’d begin to destabilize emotionally in various ways and this would come to a head by the end of the second week of July with some kind of epic breakdown—all without my remembering his death date.

Last year, on July 13th, a Monday—he died on a Monday—I suddenly remembered as my shift ended at work that he used to suffocate me in my sleep. This psychopath would cup his big hand over my little face in my sleep, closing off my airway entirely, so that I woke up in a panic, clawing and freaked out, until I passed back out again. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt his hand, I felt the absolute terror and helplessness of waking to suffocation, and I gasped and gasped for air with this vivid memory until I hyperventilated my way into the ER.

Why did he do this? I don’t fucking know. No-one in my family will even verify this memory, including my sister who has told me many times over the years that he would hold my jaw closed in my sleep when I would grind my teeth—which she now denies ever telling me. But this isn’t the resurfaced memory anyway. The intent was clearly to suffocate me unconscious, and the trauma surrounding this abuse is extreme and ongoing.

So, in memory of my father’s 40th deathaversary:

Broken

You were a broken man…
            I know this.

And though you have long since
                  turned to ash
      your broken hand still rests
            upon my shoulders.

In those days I had no way
                  to understand you
      except as something
            to fear,

                        and terribly so.

When you were gone—
                  the moment I knew—
            I felt relief.
      Yet your touch remained.

When you were gone—
            the moment I understood—
                  I felt gripping loss,
      your grip finally loosened.

When you were gone—
      the moment I grasped its meaning—
                  I felt searing guilt.
            Your rage had been extinguished,

                        and could burn no more.

And when you were gone,
            I never once wondered why
      you never came to say goodbye
                  somewhere in my dreams.

                                    Yet
                        I still could feel
            the broken weight of your hand
      pressing, squeezing, clawing
                              somewhere in my spirit.

You were a broken man…
            And you broke your small boy
                  with the terrible, violent weight
      of your broken hand,

            a touch that reaches still—
                        like the sting of cigarette smoke—
                  from the dreaming.

So, yes, another cathartic poem. I swore some years back that I’d use poetry more for artistic, highfalutin endeavors. Because, you know, I’d like to be a more serious, highfalutin poet. But, whatever. I’m a person and I’ve been through a lot.

In the end I should consider that poetry saved my life as a teen. So maybe catharsis is also a part of giving back to the spirit of this muse.

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Specter

I’ve been seeing a therapist off and on over the past couple of years. My goal was to try to make sense of an unnamed trauma that has had a powerful influence on my state of mind and emotion for as far back as I can remember.

The work we did was forensic in nature, looking at what I do know and can remember of my life through the lens of various schools of psychology. It was attachment theory that led somewhere, as this revealed that I likely suffered extreme neglect during my first 3 years of life. I’m unable to verify this, however, because family who still live exist in a state of perpetual attempts to gaslight and deny.

Specter

She made me …
  from filaments of stardust
    mixed with the loess
      of broken dreams

She bore me …
  stark into the light of rage
    and left me naked, crying
      deep in an empty well

She gave me …
  poison fruit from a withered tree
    and i ate, having lost all hope
      of anything more

She made me …
  the imago of her darkest dread
    an ever present specter looming
      deep within her afterthought