in the end i may not acknowledge my trauma

1.

recently
i was choking on pain
that i lived through
the year before last

i remembered
what just yesterday i didn't recall

the incredible awaits me in reverse

2.

and yet future and past
exist simultaneously

grow out of each other
like conjoined twins

they share — my — body

3.

i think of alexander nevsky
created by eisenstein

history textbooks are written atop new culture

not archaeological layers but
bronchial offshoots filling

history with the spirit of the age

4.

i don't like it
when past
pain becomes present

it feels unnatural
smells of therapeutic language

the scent of ressentiment