21 october 2008

What happens to our memories when we fail to recall them anymore? Where do they disappear to? what does it mean for the remember-er (the one doing the remembering) and the remember-ee?

i was talking about that time to see peter pan at trinity rep with patty and... and... who else was it that accompanied us?

i knew there was another. i could see the very order in which we sat. i may be making this part up, but in my memory (half memory, really) he wore an off-white, cream colored sweater and black school shoes.

i think i am letting R go. He left years ago. 1 january 2007. that was the last time he ever spoke to me, after breakfast and a car ride home from madeleine's.

i used to think about it everyday - what would i have said then knowing what i know now? would i have said anything? i probably would have just cried silently while watching out of the car window, all mascara streaks and raccoon eyes from the night before, snow crunching under his feet (brother's boots) and not even looking back once.

it happened on sunday. i said his name out loud and i swear to you i felt physical pain. i pretended nothing had happened, like when you trip on the bottom stair that you forget is there for recover nicely all in the same movement.

later i sat in the semi darkness of an unfamiliar place and willed myself to call to mind his face but it refused to reveal itself and i couldn't breathe. i lay down on the dark grain of the wooden bench and curled into the fetal position until hours later when someone woke me up and i realized they probably thought i was crazy.

i walk (present tense) around smiling at strangers but on the inside i feel dead.

my symbiotic couterpart has ripped himself me (zooxanthellae + jellyfish)

i wither, shrive, and die in the wake of his abandonment.

memories are leaving me too, now; i have nothing left.

the few remaining wisps of reality's shadow that he left me are going away now, too. and i blame me. do you hear me? i know this is my fault. i'd leave me too. i've tried.