I am reading Rebecca for the first time after it being on my wishlist for … well, ages, & while I am loving it (& subsequently in that strange frisson between ‘why didn’t you do this years ago’ & ‘perhaps it’s exactly the right time to do it now’) I cannot help but think about the artificiality of autobiographical writing of any kind. Particularly after many years have passed. Hence:

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the past is its own perfume

i don’t believe memoirs ;
cannot trust that upright
uptight autobiographical
‘I’
lives as lies ;
lies as narrative ;
narrativlies ;

they’re all a fiction subset ;
diaries a sanctioned form
of lying ; journals a justifying
conversation with who
we want to believe we are

my scepticism stems
from my limited recall
where i no longer recognise
if some of the wonderful
seconds of my own innocuous
history happened as i believe ;
or whether years of retelling
has altered the original impulse
beyond recognition ;

i trust baser instincts ;
scent which can roar us
back to who we were
faster than einstein’s ride
but so rarely are key moments
accompanied by unique smells ;

even music, that effortless
time travel machine
risks carbuncles calcifying
accreting, cumulating
till the detritus of decades
is attached & the original
pulse ; long lost ; gone ;

memory ; is smoke

NB I’m not entirely sure it’s finished, or whether it’s missing something, or what … but running out of time & mental acuity. Thoughts & feedback particularly welcomed on this one. (BTW thanks Sarah for the editing advice – suggesting cutting 4 words – or more accurately one word, 4 times, either way, big improvement)

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