But I Probably Won't Really

How does one write about being forgotten?

Does it begin with a song

or poetry

or a letter addressed to the things that I've forgotten?

Do I apologize for the absence of nostalgia

and do I show empathy

or is that condescending?

Dear All of My Memories Before I was Six,

I've missed you and I hope you're doing well.

Please return soon.

Love,

Me

P.S.

Write back to me.

What I Might Have Said

Fate isn't something others can decide.  Sympathy won't be given three times.  They think they have me pinned.

I would never believe them anyway. You haven't got the slightest clue. I'm slipping through the back door.

You'll need more than the sun.  I'm getting sick of the moon.  You had never saw it coming.

A Longing for Memory's Past

I want to remember this.

This sidewalk that has approximately one hundred cracks and one hundred chances to break your mother's back.

This scent that smells like home, like mom, like dad, like me.  I want to remember this.

I want to remember The Tree that's hidden to the world and sometimes from me.  I wan't to remember the shapes and dried spit and other gross things about it.

I'll remember Kholer's and definitely not Ridley's.

I'll remember the two lane street and definitely not five.

I'll remember 4800 West and definitely not Lone Peak Parkway or No. County Boulevard.

I want to remember this the way it was.

The way the ice cream truck used to come every week.

The way we'd travel in packs to The Gully.

The way the day smelled differently from the night.

I want to remember the Big Dipper and pretending to see the Little Dipper.

I want to remember trailer roofs and truth or dare and fleeting friends.

I want to remember this.

I'm going to remember the rusting swing-set when it wasn't rusty.

I'm going to remember carving hearts and initials and secret codes into trees.

I'm going to remember T and C and the way we laughed and fought and lived and be reminded that we don't do that anymore.

I'm going to remember my childhood for what it was and not what it isn't or is now.

I'm going to remember this.

And when I'm away and feeling grown up, I'll remember my brothers belittling me because they've always made me feel like a child.

But I'll also remember magic and karate and dragons in the basement.

I'll remember haunted houses and wigs and old ladies.

I'll remember the things I was never a part of because I was the nosy little sister who didn't belong.

But I'll remember that they still loved me anyway.

The Things I Will Not Give to Fate

I've never experienced a tragedy with the clammy hands of Death.

Which leads me to think:  It's only a matter of time.

The time it takes to get from here to there.  The time it takes to fill your lungs.  The time it takes to give it back.  The time it takes to lose your hair.

And all I ask in return, when you meet Death palm-to-palm, is that you will wait until I'm gone.

Let me meet death first.  Let me take Him by the hand.  Let me tell Him when you've had enough.

And when your time is up, when the last grain has fallen,

Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.*

Do not leave me behind, but rather greet me at the close of night.

Do not go before I'm gone.

*Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas

Other Things

I think my shadow mocks me when I'm not looking.

I think my reflection hums when I'm not listening.

I think,

I forgave you today.

I don't think I understand, but I think parts of me do.

Thomas

The boy is alone, sitting, waiting for them.  He counts the stars because there's nothing else to do.  He wonders what they'll be like--of course, he already knows.  Except, they don't know him and they haven't met him, not really.  They've only seen it briefly:  the blue and pink and strangled screaming.  A graphic image, he knows.

He wonders if they ever think about him, but of course they do.  All the time.  He was--is--the center of their  minds and hearts and cries.  They hurt because of him.  He caused so much pain, pain.  But they say it was a learning experience.

So the boy will be waiting--has been waiting--for a while.  Because they aren't done here, even though he's already been called home.  He is waiting.  He is waiting.

But when one counts the stars, how long can the wait be, really?  It must take a long time to find the numbers that come after a googolplex.  Because how can you count more than the universe?

Maybe the boy will never count that high.

Maybe he'll meet them sooner.

Perhaps Nevermore

I like to look at the moon.  I like the way it tastes.

I don't know, but I'm so captivated by light streaming through the windows in a dark, musty room.  And not in some sinister perspective.  It's whimsical and forgiving to me.

I used to position myself to see it come in with the blinds.  That was when I lived up there, though.  Now I live down and it takes a lot more than the moon to have light seep in here.

Something About a Space

This is a space that I can't fill.

This is a space that follows you and floats from me and there's exactly nothing in between.

This is a space that is only to be made nonexistent by you.

You say things, but not to me or at me and I have to listen to my bones and the voices around me to understand;

I stand Here as you stand There and tell colorful stories of the things you've done and you tell her and her and him, but not me.  So I'll stay Here and wait for your call.  I'll wait for your breaking that won't come because we don't work that way.

 (I'll wait for us to work that way.)

And now I've shown you somewhere new in which I don't belong.  I've shown you excitement and reality and experience through someone else's eyes.  I've shown you a way out.  And wouldn't you think she's a better crony than me?

This is a space that I can't fill.

Semblance

I think it's a trick of the light

that helps me see

through;

this is not a tragedy

or a heartbreak

at all.

This is not a story

to be told or

revered.

I think it is that flicker

of reality that

I see

which is making it simply

a happening of

you.