Memory

I am often adrift on memories. Memories are odd things. There are some that cling to you so tightly they pop up often and intensely into your mind like they are coming up for air, to stay alive. There are some that rub softly in your thoughts, leaving the trace of a feeling that you can't quite place. They are strange things, these memories, but beautiful things. Some are haunting things. Some wash over you and and leave you toe to toe with your mistakes. Some embrace you in the soft light of morning, and cause you to keep your eyes shut for as long as you can, even though you are awake. They are elegant and harsh, like the glass appendages of  a long forgotten chandelier. I am thankful for them. I could not recall my grandparents without them, or I could not recall the time I walked the riverbank behind my childhood home in winter alone, when the muddy shore was crusted over with ice. I couldn't remember first crushes, then first loves, and then first heartbreaks. They are stubbornly tenacious things, these memories. I am glad of that.


here is the way

I remember you

I wait for a lonely sky

black with stars forming

constellations that are

as obvious as words

spoken out of turn

lovely words falling

with a hollow sound

into conversations

where lovely words

don't belong

here I remember

you in this twinge

of self consciousness

of trying to pick up

from the ground

the things I've said

and placing them

somewhere inside

the folds of night

they are after all

words not meant

to be forgotten but

just lost in a cascade

of seconds tumbling
one after the other a
ceaseless onslaught of
time lost I place these
traces of memory where
I hope without knowing
you will stumble over
them and be caught
in them and be compelled
to remember me