flawed memory

a poem: it's mortifying to be the one who remembers.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

“What one does not remember dictates who one loves or fails to love...What one does not remember is the serpent in the garden of one's dreams...What one does not remember contains the only hope, danger, trap, inexorability, of love—only love can help you recognize what you do not remember.”

—James Baldwin

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Remember the time we would sit together by the river? When the waves gushed down and softened the rocks into pebbles and thrust little fish up with the current?

Remember when you splashed water on me, and we giggled all that afternoon watching the farmer coming down with his dozens of cows and goats let them dip in for a drink, and how we would get our feet off the water quickly because of the animals...

Remember how we would greet the farmer, boast the pebbles we had gathered, and race back up the hill, happy as ever, but not forever? I do. I cherished those moments. But you don’t. You simply don’t. It’s mortifying. It’s mortifying to be the one who remembers.

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