The Problem with Memorials

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Photo admission: It was me. I did it! But seriously, the picture above is a prerequisite for the poem that follows. Study it carefully. The picture, I mean.

“You are not your mistakes.”
You are not your good fortune either.

“You are gone but not forgotten.”
Are these people dead?

“Your energy live[sic] on.”
Sure sounds like it;

Kensington Market is missing them.

Signed, “Renaissance 2022.”
One person is anyway.

The problem with memorials

Look closer.
Don’t walk right past. 
Turn around

I did

I read the rest and understood it less

I read it again and anyway
 
“You are not your mistakes?”
You don’t say

Well, ok then.
But just for argument sakes
What fucking mistakes?

What kind of mistakes kill a person?
What are their options? 
Let’s see…

There’s suicide, life style, peer pressure, state pressure, 
Diet, poor hygiene, poor judgment, poor timing,
Ignorance, carelessness, weakness, and war,
Vulnerability, complacence, compliance, and more.

Some are self-inflicted,
Less political.

Others, foisted upon us,
Less emotional.

The rest, a blurry bunch in between 

The problem with memorials

Too ambiguous

=L=