"things that no one remembers" by Malachy Moran

I am tired of burning down

we are a library of ignited people,

look how all of our pages

curl from the heat, smoldering

embers of suspicion shot across

bus-stop-cum-battlefield

everything is up in flames, 

look how the tips of conversations

blaze and dance, casting shadows

on the walls behind us, words

like molotov cocktails

thrown in among the shelves

look how we all turn to cinders,

alexandrian destruction of ourselves,

ages of community gone up in so much 

smoke, pick through the rubble looking 

for the spines of half-burned connections

everyone's committing arson

but I am tired of burning down

important

and in a hundred thousand homes

in a hundred thousand beds

we were rotting, flesh dripping from

our bones reflected in a hundred

thousand tiny screens, eyes pouring

from our heads like warm jelly, 

sprouting stalks of mighty 

fungus from our ears, air yellow

with the mass of our spores

[did you see…

I have to show you…

listen to this…]

and we all had our subscriptions

to Decomposing Weekly, and we kept

pace with all the latest updates on

which color of decay was IN this season

[I wouldn't be caught dead

in that shade of

putrescence in 2025]

and we all gossiped about whose 

carcass looked the best at the latest

big Hollywood soiree 

[did you hear that her

nose fell off on the red

carpet? what a scandal]

and we all wagged our rancid

jawbones and felt very much

like we were doing something

IMPORTANT

MISSING

yesterday we went 

round the neighborhood

and posted 

advertisements reading

[MISSING: 

LOST HOURS 

LOOKS LIKE 

AN UNFINISHED 

ART PROJECT

REWARD $100]

on the bus stops and

the lampposts,

absolutely everywhere

that we could 

find the space

then we waited,

obediently

by the telephone

for someone to call

but nobody rang

and when we went

to check and see

what happened,

we discovered

they were covered up

with others

saying things like

[HELP! LOST CHILDHOOD…

HAVE YOU SEEN MY YESTERDAY?...

WANTED: ALL OF THE 90's]

all with rewards and 

contact numbers

seems somebody

could probably

make a decent living

finding all those

missing hours

Malachy Moran is an American expat currently residing in Norway. A PTSD survivor and recovering drug addict, Malachy has lived too many lives already to believe in reincarnation. Hopefully this is it. His work is available in Rattle: Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic and many others. Follow his journey on Bluesky @malformed-poetry