We are memory keepers

and its easier to keep these

memories because of technology

and so they sit, taking up data or space in

the cloud, waiting for their turn to be remembered.

But I’m tired of the memories I keep.

I cant seem to get ahold of reality, as it slips and slides around my plate and I watch from the skies like I’m a translucent orb floating in lavender haze.

A,

I don’t ever think I will send this, so I’m putting it out in the universe.
I do believe we are broken for good. I don’t believe there’s ever a chance to fully trust our friendship again.

I’m quite unclear why things ended in the way they did (again) and maybe we’ll never know those answers because we’ve had such a difficult time understanding each other.

I will always blame the fact that my life chapter never matched up to yours. I will blame the distance. I will blame the growth.

I’ve been learning a lot about apologizing and I know that I did not apologize correctly to you, however, I also know that I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for because I couldn’t see the situation from where you were standing.

I have this huge chunk of my life missing. All of my flowers and memories in that chunk have died and only weeds grow there now. It’s so hard to think about any memory that involves you because there’s this immense sadness I’ll never be able to fully process.

I’m almost positive we will never speak to each other in this lifetime and it’s something I’ll always feel immense hurt.

However, I’m done holding onto it like it’s a life raft because I’m so tired from drowning.

Have you ever read something from your past one word at a time, like one word one line at a time. Slowly, inching down the page because the chain of emails have reduced that first email to
one
word
at
a
time
and you notice that between every line are dozens of memories that are running over your chest like a freight train.

God it all hurts. To remember. To remember that we once were close enough to share everything and then our friendship shattered into thousands of piece when it went flying out the window when you became upset with me.

And then we worked together to amend it using duck tape and super glue and it held. For a little while. But once something like that is broken, it’s broken forever.

My hallways are cluttered with words and thoughts, begging to be put somewhere else and I cannot manage to organize them at all.

We do, we take life for granted minute by minute,
when our alarm goes off in the morning and we
just want to sleep longer, and when we’re driving
to work as the sun rises, and during the most mundane
tasks like paying our bills and doing the dishes and
putting laundry away. But then life stops you in your tracks
when your cousin dies at 36 years old and your brother
calls to tell you he had to put his beloved young dog down
because his body was riddled with cancer and you can hear
the tears caught in his throat and your uncle tells you and says
his wife, who has been in liver failure and on the way to the Mayo
clinic to start the process of getting a liver transfer is diagnosed with
breast cancer. While we take life for granted every hour we live our normal lives… someone is fighting for theirs and it reminds us to
stop for a minute and remember how precious and beautiful our
existence is on this earth.

I am forgotten by the moon, out of sight and out of mind,
because I normally am not someone they need to worry
about. She does fine alone and on her own. But left alone
to my own devices, inside my own head, my voice echoes
against the boxes packed in my own mind of memories of
friendships once had. I am holding a box of matches in my
left hand and my right grasps the railing of the upstairs balcony
overlooking how many boxes I’ve had to put away. I’ve lived
here alone for far too long. The gas can sitting next to my right
foot. One quick kick and a strike would set this whole place
in flames, showing how swift everything could burn. No one
would even begin to notice.

It happens when I’m driving or right before I fall asleep or in the most quiet of moments when my guard is let down; I allow myself to wander into the parallel universe where I exist as myself but living a completely different life.

In this life he is there.
You see, we fell in love through poetry
and I escaped my life to join his
and we are living in a quiet apartment
with our dog and books.
I work at a bookstore and I write
and he works on a boat and he writes
and we dog ear the novel we read together
and each have a pile of books on our nightstands and
lined up along the hallway to our bedroom
and we spend quiet week nights
loving each other and writing and reading
and weekends are spent in adventures
and together we live the most beautiful life.
I can close my eyes and feel the peace that our
life brings me, the scent of our home we built
and the sounds our life bounces off our walls.

That’s where I live when I dream of him. I don’t like to think about the universe I live in, in my empty bed and his wife in his.

remember when we were all here,
all home, tucked safe between the blue and white
bedsheets, the window open with the most beautiful
breeze but that’s not here anymore, the window is
bordered up and cobwebs cover the walls
and everyone is dead.

midnight smells like burnt toast
while the tears dry against my cheeks
and I remember the thousands of dreams
that died on your lips

morning comes before sunrise while the
dogs nudge me awake, hungry for breakfast
and I pull myself out of the warmth of my bed

afternoon allows for a breath,
only for a fleeting moment tho

evening shudders underneath
the expectations of those dead
dreams I only longer visit, only to crawl
back into bed with them hidden beneath
the mattress

every day I am haunted by ghosts
who torment me awake and in my sleep
of these I cannot change and cannot let go

summer, fall, winter, and spring - this cycle
is playing on a loop, my own personal groundhogs
day - sad and alone and unchanging

There’s a lot that adulthood continues to teach me, lessons I never dreamed I would need to learn. I think most of my generation saw just how fragile our home was on 9/11 and then realized how toxic it was during the pandemic. There was a monumental shift in who I am as a person after that. I was deprived of human, physical interaction for a year and finally when we tried to piece our society back together, we were missing huge chunks of it. We’re at home watching how poisonous our government is and wondering how the hell we got here. I’m not the same person I was before and I’ll never be the person I thought I would have become. I have lost interest in living a personal life but instead I have found my fulfillment in my career, which is something I thought I’d never say. I’ve watched people walk out of my life and never look back and their ghosts of haunted me. I don’t know where to go from here.

I can see my past when I turn my head to look behind me and watch as old me acts out scenes stuck to my memory like wet paper mache and mostly when I’m walking down this road, I’m looking down at my feet to make sure I don’t trip but occasionally, I’ll glance up hoping to see a new view, a glimpse into my future, a shot of color and iridescent and warm light… but all I can see is the damp, dark, blurred void.

I could stop existing, vanish like vapor, be swept away like the wind and there would be a hole in the universe for a minute while my family went through my things and donated the materialistic items I’ve collected and they would cry and miss me and people who knew me would remember me fondly or regret the last thing they said to me but grief slowly becomes interwoven into who you are and at some point they have to go back to work and paying bills and keeping up with other people in their lives and I’m not saying I’m going to do something so I no longer exist, but fuck, I do wish I didn’t exist.

I’ve been spending my days on the verge of tears, unnameable emotions bubbling up from somewhere deep and dark. The second hand on the clock ticks by and I watch my world whirl past me. Nothing feels tangible, nothing feels like I can hold onto it before the spinning makes me throw up.