This is a poem based on Joe Brainard's compilation "I remember". We read an excerpt from it in a class of mine recently and I was inspired to try out the format.

I remember swiss army knives and the diagonal cuts I would get on my thumb because I would Touch the saw too much

I remember how the in-floor heating felt in January and how snow suits smell when they get

Wet

I remember jungle gyms and swinging limbs

On the monkey bars

I remember colored pencils

And perfect letters traced from stencils

I remember a black puppy

Who always wanted to be on the couch

And a rope swing in the backyard.

I remember how the door sounds when I slam it

And I remember being told not to eat the cherry pit

Or a tree might grow inside my stomach

I remember the smell of onions cooking

And how people used to be nicer

When they didn’t know who you really were

I remember how I was always sick on Halloween

And how nobody really ever tells you

That everything is going to be okay

Until it isn't

I remember Legos and a grey carpet

And I remember the afternoon when I wished

That I could melt into the walls and

I remember a few seconds after that

When I realized that I couldn't

I remember “the ground is lava” and

Swinging in sync with the person next to you

I remember thinking about five years from now

Five years ago

And how that seemed far away

And it still does.

I remember hair in tight braids down my back

And all the things that I could keep in the many pockets

Of my cargo pants.

I remember songs that I used to skip

I would play now

If they ever came on

I remember when I didn't know how the radio worked

And when words on a page just looked like letters

Some times there is no going back

Because the only thing that will revisit the past

Is your future

Never will I be 6 again

Only my daughter and son

Will fit in my favorite Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt

I remember how that sweatshirt fit

And what it felt like on my back when it would get too warm

When I would sit too close to the fire

I remember that people don’t think they are beautiful

Until someone else tells them that it’s so

I remember starry nights and walks in the forest with the dog

And learning how you can grow mushrooms at the bottom of the hill on a log

I remember Inaugurations and homemade pizza

And I remember tears about something that none of us

Ever want to be close enough to witness

I remember that change is hard

And the discomfort during states of transition is disregarded more than it should be

And that sometimes it’s not the world that’s changed

But me

But that’s

Even harder because

I don’t remember

Where I put my time turner

After I loaned it to Hermione that one time

A while ago.