Lovely Penguin

This one is more or less self-explanatory.  It deals with the issue of trauma and whether it’s better to remember or forget.

The magic eraser
By Marie Gordon

Hand me an eraser
A magic eraser
For the phrase
“What doesn’t kill you…”

I’ll smudge out the second line
Because what doesn’t kill you
Never leaves you
With sweet nostalgia

Hand me an eraser
A magic eraser
And I’ll tell you the story
As I smudge it out

Turn my memory
Into black rubber dust
That falls off the granite
And lodges in the grout

Hand me the eraser
The magic eraser
And don’t call me a victim
Or a survivor

Just hand it over
I’ll bow to my weakness
For a hard rubbing out
Of this tarry sludge in my mind

Oh sweet amnesia
You are kind
As humans never were
Not to cherish murdered hearts

Not to love the sweet terror
The beauty of remembrance
And the cold screaming sweat
Us men so idolize

Maybe it’s the estrogen
That makes me want to give up
All the prideful glory
Accompanying horror

For the magic eraser
That wipes out shaky hands
And darting eyes
And revives the tiny dreams
Of a bubbly optimist