Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One November-December 2024
Tyranny of a Good Memory, poems by Julian Matthews.
Tyranny of a Good Memory
I turned the last page of Gaia’s biography and wept
Of course, I hadn’t even written it
I imagined it was there
And I wrote it
And you read it too
Because you were in it
And we hurt inside
And we hurt each other
And we hurt the world over
And we wept together from all this earthly hurt
Even our fondest memories are wrapped in this very hurt
And all we want to do is forget
To unwrap, discard, flush out this hurt
The hurt that haunts us still
Until we write it all down
Frame it in a way that lessens the hurt
Or wade through it like hot tar
Thick and sticky and bitter as war
Until it rips at our skin, our ribs, our hearts
Until we all feel this hurt
Again and again and again
The hurt we are all trying to forget
The hurt we will never forget
The hurt we can never forget
Unreliable Narrator
The truth is wobbly.
Like trifle, panna cotta or mousse.
You mean like the jelly grandma makes?
Yes, like the jelly grandma makes.
Are you saying grandma is a liar?
No grandma never lies.
In fact, that’s her most endearing trait.
That – and her ability to make the best trifle.
And chocolate cakes and pineapple tarts and curry puffs!
Yes, all those too.
So what do you mean when you say the truth is wobbly, grandpa?
Just like a dessert, truth at first can taste good
but later you find out it’s not so good.
Like when you have too much sweet stuff and wanna puke?
Sort of.
More like when you have a cake or cookie that you think should
be sweet but turns out it’s rather tasteless, even bitter.
Like sour candy or pop rocks?
Yes, the truth can be too much sometimes and explode in your mouth, I suppose.
So you hold back, bend it a little so as not to hurt others.
Like when grandma thought you were me once, and you just played along
because she had Alzee-mers.
Yes, sometimes, all people need is a little ear candy, not the bitterness of sour candy.
There’s candy for ears?
Yes, but not the edible kind.
I miss grandma.
I miss grandma, too.
All this talk of food is making me hungry, grandpa.
Can we go get ice-cream?
Yes. Let’s.
© Julian Matthews
Julian Matthews is a mixed-race poet from Malaysia. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Dream Catcher magazine/Stairwell Books, UK, in 2022. He is published in The American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Live Encounters and New Verse News, among other journals and anthologies. Connect via http://linktr.ee/julianmatthews