One Doesn’t Choose One’s Memories By Ace Boggess
One Doesn’t Choose One’s Memories
I spent as much time in college as I later did in prison,
but sometimes go days without thinking about
the monotonous philosophy prof who piled stones on my eyelids
or the girl who bashed me with a pool cue
while I played a song in the dormitory lounge.
I forget for long stretches how I retched out my dorm-
room window after the first shot of whiskey & warm Pepsi,
or animal sounds of my roommate fucking strangers
on the upper bunk while I lay in shadow trying to sleep.
I’ve lost memories of most classes, faces of instructors,
names of many students I thought of as friends.
Yet prison comes back daily like an eagle in liver-lust
with me here chained to the past. Yesterday,
I watched a YouTube video by a guy driving through Welch,
West Virginia, documenting its history & decline.
He noted all the crumbling landmarks,
didn’t mention the correctional center
where I did my time, a last thriving industry in town.
He never rolled past its red-brick façade I rarely saw.
That angered me, & I said aloud, How can you not
find that important? What I meant was,
Why won’t you show me footage from my life?
About the Author
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include poetry collections, My Pandemic / Gratitude List from Mōtus Audāx Press and Tell Us How to Live from Fernwood Press, and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press.