Anterograde

Try Luvox. Try Buspar. Try Prozac, but that’s too obvious. Don’t try the benzos. Any of them. They’re what got you into this mess in the first place, you’re sure of it. So try CBT. Try EMDR. Try ECT and play therapy and art therapy and Rexulti and ecotherapy and journaling. Don’t try Fernet-Branca. Or Montpelier. Or PBR. Or the wine that comes in the little box at the convenience store. They’re what got you into this mess in the first place, you’re sure of it. You can try casual sex, although the science is lacking in re: to its effectiveness in treating what you’ve got. But it can’t hurt. Just be safe. Be smart. Try picturing your brain as an endless field of untouched snow, you standing at center, taking steps but not leaving any. Looking ahead and seeing chips of undisturbed light. Looking behind and seeing same. Knowing you got here somehow, but the details eluding you. Slipping from your grasp. A robber of sanity, these memories. Memories are what got you into this mess in the first place, you’re sure of it.

Try starting a fight in a Walmart. Take a big bouncy ball out of its ballcage and whip it at the first person you see. Spike a second ball just to see how far it’ll bounce back. Try to take out a ceiling tile with one if you can. But try not to get caught. If you do, tell them you don’t remember why you did it. You’ll be more right than you know. Try stealing the 92 bus when it inevitably stops at the Dunkin’ Donuts and the driver steps out for a medium coolatta. Maybe the adrenaline of the steal will help clear things up. At the very least, it should be interesting. Again, try not to get caught. Try hopping your neighbor’s fence; commandeer their swimming pool when they’re not home. Try putting seran wrap over the top, tight, with weights at all four corners to keep it in place. You may need a willing participant for this one. Try holding your breath for as long as you can. Try squeezing your face past the wrap, to breathe, without puncturing it. Try to feel alive. The next time you see an ambulance, try following it to the hospital. Try getting inside with the EMTs. Wear scrubs at all times just for this possibility. Try sneaking into the pharmacist’s. Try taking everything you see, especially the antipsychotics, the psychotropics, the antidepressants, but NOT the benzos. They’re what got you into this mess. Etc.

Try visiting your mother in the home. Not her home or your home, but the home. Even our pronouns get taken from us with age. Try holding a conversation with her. When she thinks you’re her father, try going along with it. Try letting her air all her grievances out. Try apologizing for all the things “you” did, taking the heat for decades worth of shit you weren’t even alive for. Try playacting her childhood, with pet rocks and hula-hoops and silly putty newspaper comics. Try telling her you miss her but catch it in your throat, like a popfly in centerfield in little league, sun in your eyes, squinting to see it but it’s no good, it’s already in your glove. Etc. Try not to notice when she shits herself. Try to seem casual when the CNA asks if you want to come back when they’re done with cleanup and you tell her no, you’ll stay here. Try to look out the window, where there’s a mama bird attempting a feeding. Attempting because her regurgitation falls past her baby’s mouth, splats half on the ground, half on an unfortunate passerby. Try to explain the situation to the CNA, but stop because she’s already got enough to deal with, thank you very much.

Try to make it easy when you say goodbye. Try to pull your fare out of your pocket and step on without looking back. Try to sit next to an expectant mother and stop yourself from picturing all the possibilities lying dormant inside of her: president or scientist or murderer or… Try to feel what it was like without the haze, the fog, lens out of focus, a human camera is what you are. Try to remember something. Try to remember something. Try to remember something.

You don’t have to try to forget.