Megan Mahoney
Aphantasia

You picture a purple elephant—
Trace it in ink
Submerge it in a basin filled with water
And watch the ink trail, bleed, and blur
Into something only a bit like
That purple elephant.
That is what I see.

You have half a dozen snapshots,
Polaroids of all your moments,
Piled high inside your head.
You want to see my memory?
Take your snapshots and
Shred them,
Lose important pieces,
Stick them in a jar and shake them,
Peer through the warped glass
At all the blurry bits.
That is what I see.

I am mind-blind,
Imagination-less—
Or so I’m told.
Yet the images I do not, cannot, see,
Are transmuted on the page through telepathy.