WORK : On Becoming Forgotten
Remember remember remember
That the Universe forgets.
In less than 100 years time
No one will remember what you said
What you really looked like
What you actually did
And along with your clothes
Your haircuts
Your identities
Everything that you ever did
All the stupid stuff
All the arguments
Everything that was lame
And embarrassing
It all goes on the bonfire
Of cosmic amnesia
Thank fuck
So the only people who count
Are the ones you can actually reach now
And you better find them quick -
The ones who’ll forgive you -
While anyone still remembers a damn thing
~Pongo
Tallies torn from the Human Book of Time
There was another book
One that contained
A mark for every human alive
For every It, a mark,
Grouped together
In administrative units of
Five
Four marks standing up
And one line laid down flat
Four living souls
And one who had died
The tally of humankind
The book was a moment
Where each mark
Which represented a person
Was bound up together
In the pages of that moment
The pages in the back
Were made from virgin paper
The tally mark
For each new human
Was made with virgin ink
Daily, each new page
Or set of pages
Because there were always
Lots of new humans
Were sewn in
And in that way
The book would grow
But when there was no food
Or when a group of humans
Killed another group
Or when there was a volcanic eruption
Or when there was a plague
In this way
The book could shrink
But no one wants to
Talk about that
And the pages in the front
Brittle yellow with time
Were torn daily from the spine
At every passing It
And thrown on an endless fire
A mountain of Its
Cast as though by a hand into space
The pages flying up in the smoke
Lifted, blackening
With dancing red edges
So the book came to me
And by then it was
Wholly ignored
Frozen in a moment
Of all its moments
Replete with all its billions
Of nameless Its
A book of Between
Ever changing
A hundred, a thousand years old
A day in the life of the humans
To be replaced entirely
Every hundred years
On average
Now still
As a stone
And equally secretive
It did not explain that there were many
Who wished to fit in but couldn’t
And many others who did fit in
But didn’t want to, or care to
It did not explain that
There were many who fit in
Who did not like those who did not fit in
It did not explain that
There were many who did not fit in
Who did not like those who did fit in
It explained nothing about that
It explained nothing about
Those who were hungry
Most of the time
Or those who were
Never hungry
Or those who
Ate too much and
Made themselves sick
It told us nothing about anything
We do not know
What any of the tally marks
Thought about or
Dreamt about or
Wanted
All we know is that
Each uniform mark
Recorded the fact of
A human who was
Alive at the same time
As all the other marks
And
That at the time of marking
Was not yet dead.
~Ramidus
It’s work to do, to become a nobody.~Homin
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