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Poem
Why do I write everything?
Always writing, always, always, incessantly,
Details about my small little life---
A life that is nearly always unexciting---
Filling pages, wasting paper and memory space.
Why do I write everything?
For a while, I thought that it was
So I could look back, and understand
Myself;
And this may be partly the reason.
But I don’t think it is the only one.
Why do I write everything?
I was thinking about it
The other day,
Sitting, staring off into space,
Wanting to write, and wanting to know
Why I wanted to,
And the answer
(Or what I think is the answer)
Came---
It is because I do not want to forget.

I have almost no memories of my childhood,
And I don’t know why.
There are a few vague impressions
Here and there, and a few---
Very, very few---
Actual, clear memories,
But most of it is gone;
I do not have many memories
Of later years, either:
Homeschooling, junior high,
The first years of high school---
There is not much remaining,
And what little there is
Is steadily eroding.
I read back old journals,
And remember things,
Things I hadn’t remembered I’d forgotten;
I see things in my own handwriting,
My own typed words,
That I couldn’t have remembered
Without help.

Why do I have no memories?
I have no idea.
Maybe some trauma
Early in childhood
(There is no way to know;
These things float to the surface
Of the lives of “perfectly normal” people,
Sometimes),
But that does not explain the loss
Of the years after that.
Maybe something wrong with my brain,
My memory center---there is no way to know.
But I think that deep down inside,
There is this instinct, spiritual self-preservation,
Which tells me to write, write everything,
Write it all down, and soon after it happens,
So that even if these years also disappear,
As it seems they are going to,
I will have the written words,
Memories held fast on paper,
So that I can look back on my past
By reading my forgotten writings
As others do
By simply looking back into their own minds.

Why do I write everything?
It is because I do not want to forget myself.
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