Self Portrait with a Piano

The bench doesn’t know me anymore.

Not like it knows my sibling,

Or my mother,

Or my grandmother,

Or my grandfather.

Not like it used to know 

Me.

A poet sits down at a keyboard and tries to remember what it felt like when letters were in order 

from A to G.

Tries to remember a language of symbols she spent so long studying

And too long forgetting. 

Grandfather stares down at her and she wants to share anything with him other than a name. 

Music has been proven to help the forgetful remember

And she is forgetting how to look at something written

And make it her own instead of picking it apart. 

She is trying to forget how hard dedication was

So she can have just this one thing. 

She is trying to hold on to everything she ever was without fighting for it

And it is slipping away.

I sit down at the piano again and pretend I never left.

I will let it all return to me slowly.