AS ELUSIVE AS MY MEMORY By: Afolabi Aderonke

It is as elusive as it sounds,my memory

Like a nonexistent entity that seems so surreal

Almost like a dream that evades me.

The more I try to reach for it,

The more it seems to stray

Further afar from me

Almost like it doesn't exist...

So frustrating it is,

Each time I think, I am close to reaching 

Close enough to clutch it;

It disperses and then disappears

Like it doesn't exist, yet it exists

As if palpable, I claw in my mind's eye, an imaginary hand around it

BUT only to find empty, my palms.

My features distorts, compelled by flimsy feelings, paranoia ergo persistent nag

Scrambling, scratching for what I seem to have lost but still have

Seeking,searching with my mind's eye

Consciously unaware, anxious to reach

Feeling it,feeling lost

All at one same time.

Each try inures to failure

An overwhelming acute sense of loss

Fills me to the brim of my entirely

My heart's content abounds in apprehension

Anxious excitement comes unbounded

Contending to grasp; Yet disappointment serves disdain on a cold platter.

My memory so elusive, it seizes to exist

The more I try to reach for it,

The more it disperses and disappears.

Each time I reach for that bit,

Every time, in disarray, it leaves me

Trying to find it but alas gone, yet not

Instead only leaves merry imprints of tortuous teasing in its wake.

A sinking mirage! A skeptical sham! A daunting prospect!

Is all that describes my memory

Or what's left of it

For it seems flummoxed, perplexed as it is

To what it is supposed to be

And what it is supposed to be, I know not.

Truly indeed, it is naught but an illusion?

Pessimism rears it ugly self

Arms akimbo that perhaps I may never actualize

My heart denies such flummery

Perhaps I might again, finally grasp

Ahold my dear elusive mirage

Which seems to have no qualms 

Teasing me painfully so.

Perhaps, as I least expect, in some unseen future

Would seem preposterous

To think my elusive mirage unobscured

And my mind aligned with translucent clarity

Seeming as though it was always there

BUT, until then my alien torment unending...

©Afolabi Aderonke

Artwork by; Cindee  Klement