Before

Before before I wanted 
to remember every nook
and cranny of my 
then life I kept 
memorizing memories like a
teenage girl remembering love 
notes thinking that maybe 
if I keep them 
and recall them and 
sigh about them then 
maybe they will stay
but now with this 
before this before after 
the first before and 
before this new now
came a firestorm which 
scorched everything and those 
precious fantasies of before 
before turned into the 
wasteland of now before 
and now this new 
now from the ashes 
of everything gone before 
and before before’s comes 
hope and experience and 
no longer expectation for 
expectation burned before beforehand