Sometimes

Sometimes I forget everything. I forget that I have a body and that that body is female and is encased in a skin on which rest layers of fabrics of different colors and textures from different stores around the world. Sometimes I forget that my eyes are brown, not blue, and are connected to my head and my head sits on my neck and connects to my shoulders, part of a body which I carry around a town of my choosing. Sometimes I forget language, which was my first, my second, my most comfortable, or the one I should be speaking now. I forget that I am a product of physical and chemical reactions, that I'm made up of atoms, elements that come from distant, dead stars. I forget my parents, all of them. I forget what I've been told to do, by all the people who think that they get a say in the turn out of my life. I forget where I'm going or where I've been. I forget the past and I forget about thoughts of the future and dreams that should be lived. I just forget it all, but only sometimes.

Oh, those sometimes are the best. Where nothing matters but what my senses take in as true impressions of the present. What colors do I see, what shapes do I recognize and turn into patterns, how warm does it feel, how often do I hear my breath, and what smell will draw me out of my stillness and back into that god-forsaken sea of memories and realizations. Short-lived forgetfulness is my peace, moments where my mind is still and I am refined to a spark of basic life. But how fast it catches flame, and the fire that follows burns my brain. The peace crumbles into dust and drifts around the room in rays of sunlight that I can't explain because— what is light? The light in the room is pleasant, but the light in my head blinks and blinds and hurts, unless the wattage is right and then it shines clearly, but only sometimes.