I read a book and then forgot
the shape of every word it taught.
The theorems stacked like kindling wood
burned bright, then ash, as theorems would.
I learned a language, verb by verb,
each conjugation, phrase, and word,
then watched it drain like bathwater—
a year of evenings down the drain.
The more I learn, the more I find
a sieve where I expected mind.
Each fact I gain displaces two;
the old makes way, the new does too.
Perhaps the point was never storage,
never the hoarding, never the knowledge—
just the brief electric humming
of a brain convinced it's becoming.