He takes measured steps
within the boxed spaces
he has allowed himself
to live. These people, scattered
like furniture about the room,
know him differently than
the person he set out to be.
He must remind himself
to forget, to remember
memory’s a tattered cloak
to be rewoven into stranger
patterns, where all possible
hopes tangle into disarray
beneath his worrisome tread.
(December 26, 2016)
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