I look back.

I do not see the past,

        only my memory of it.

And my memories,

        like charms on a bracelet,

        are a talisman

                to protect my identity.

Yet, also, are they an anchor

        which assures my mortality.

Memories like flies

        come to haunt my picnic,

                like a drug

        my warm friends, and bitter enemies,

                you are all that will not desert me

Yet you are neither past, present, or future

        in reality.

How tenuous, those things which really matter.