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Description
The concept of being reminded of things from the past.

the smell of the perfume I wore almost two years ago.

songs that I heard that night.

a distinct touch.

they all trigger something in my memory and take me back to that night.

in my head is this screen projector displaying one image after another. in my head, this memory is safe and beautiful. shamefully, I'm gluing tangible letters of the alphabet to that untouchable place called a memory.

I'll paint the night for you with the colours of a dream- mirage grey, cold-lip blue, sleep white- we met at the fair. we met in a blur of strangers during the day. seeing your face for the first time was the sound of a snapshot being taken, it was the sound of knowing i needed to and would remember that face for the rest of my life.

quickly, blend some dark colours into the afternoon. now everyone keeps passing by people they know. they're all talking and I'm standing there awkward and quiet, and you keep looking over at me. that look was almost unbearable because it felt like tears would fall out of my eyes any minute. it was like I had a repulsive bruise and every time you looked at me it was as if you were touching it, asking, 'does it hurt, does it hurt' only, there was this hospitable look in your eyes that would never be as touching on any other face. somehow, without having said a word in my life to you, we seemed to have this far away, intangible but real-like-souls sort of understanding.

there are hundreds of memory snapshots of that night scattered inside me. I want this to be short and sweet, but I also want to record as many details as possible. the reflection of my subconscious,

the shadow of my memory.

short, quick sentences, changing subjects and directions in an instant,

seizure-like

the way bumper cars jolt.

words, colours, constantly changing.

bumper cars- we waited in line, the concrete beneath my feet. time ran out before I could bash my car into yours.

my pathetic attempt at the concept of saying words out loud to probably the cutest boy on earth: "I almost got you."

your not-pathetic-at-all-smile.

it warmed me like there was a whole array of memories from a past I lived through but couldn't recall. or like I somehow vanished from everything possible and saw our future that lay ahead. so there you were, like a shadow on the wall, creating something magical for me to see but not being able to know exactly what it was.

that ride that we were waiting in line for, where the line got cut off at me- no one looked back at me or noticed. having to pass through everyone in the crowded lineup to get out was like waking up in a cold sweat with memories of a nightmare just too close. the lights from the ride made the lineup a crowd of white faces. rows and columns of laughing, faceless ghosts. there was laughter and lights the colours of every sickness flashing everywhere.

getting out of that like felt like a fever.

the pulse of a migraine under blinding lights.

pale asylum walls.

sour milk.

vomit in the veins.

cold knives in december.

or a thunderstorm. a tsunami--

so I stood beside the ride and waited, alone. then there it was, the sound of footsteps from a faint, far-off dream. there you were, walking up to me. you told me where everyone was. I can't remember if we walked beside each other or if you were ahead of me. I also can't tell you exactly how fast my heart was beating.

I was then with the group like I'd never left and I just wanted to go home. the thunderstorm, that tsunami of irregular, impossible heartbeats flooding my body. maybe that's my excuse for the rush of tears that seemed to follow next. it's strange how, now, I feel so detached from those memories. how I can no longer feel those hot tears on my cheeks when, at the time, my tears felt like the only real thing in existence. I guess it's because

every day, I evolve into a brand new person, and every past-version of me is a ghost. so, I think about how many ghosts I've been between then and now, and I try to slip through the thick mist of time that has passed just to feel those tears burn again and to see that look on your face when you saw me crying. but how can I dig into a memory, become the exact person I was at that moment, just so I can explain the details without all the additional memories I've gathered, without all the people I've become ever since. see, I can't put that night into words. now that I've kissed your lips, it's impossible to recall that desperate taste of fear of never seeing your face again.

writing about this night on paper almost feels like spilling ink on something perfect and beautiful, like words stain it and make it ugly, and it's just so perfect and beautiful that when I try to add words to it, I'm really just tearing it apart. and the longer I waited to write this down, the more I felt this magical connection to the night. how ghostly and far away it is from this present day. like a mirage in the desert. like foggy morning bus rides to school, and the way you still feel connected to the dreams you dreamt. before now, there was nowhere I could look to be reminded so intimately of it; I could only look into my memory and see the mental snapshots that I took. but the photographs are yellowing and although you can't see the night the way i do, words are all I have to let you touch the edges of these old photos, touch the skin that desperately tries to clutch each image.

I didn't go home. something pulling me from the inside like a phobia told me to stay. although it was the fair, my memory is only letting me remember the night in shades of quiet.

muted.

a silent film.

I've forgotten the creak of the rollercoaster and the sound of your friends' laughs.

the more I have to think about how to word this, the less it sounds like how the thoughts in my head played that night. those brain songs from older versions of me. songs that have always moved in me and have always kept up with whoever I became. from the day I was born to right now (and forever to come), I've been writing a melody with my thoughts and simultaneously, it plays back in my mind. with everything that happens every single day, it's very difficult to remember how your brain used to function in the past. even just a day ago sometimes.

and how does one explain the detail of a hand accidentally touching another hand? I could say sleep fills our bodies like water- it slips into our pores and stays there until we awaken- because that's what it felt like: a strange paralysis filling me the way sleep fills the body. or the way red splashes over our faces when we blush. it was a wave washing over me and falling back again. a winter shiver in the bones. during that moment, the noise around us continued, but together we moved into our own kind of silence. we faded to grey, we moved our hands through thick waves of cold quiet. and the pulling away from another hand- that feels like grains of sand slipping between fingers- waking up and remembering just scraps of the best dream you've ever had. and then what was there between us was a weak signal, like static between the dreams you dream and mine, a distant feeling like music from the moon. between you and i, that's how the whole night was. the touch of a hand, the sound of sirens underwater. the fingertips of a dream on my skin.

there is something wonderfully intimate about writing a poem for one single set of eyes only, and that's that it's so much similar to a hug. yes, during this hug there are different thoughts going through two minds, but that's how it is with the poem as well. you see, it's that one hug, that one poem, that's connecting them, that is being shared between two different people who have been through very different things. but then there is this thing that brings them together and despite anything and everything, they are connected.

I guess the version of me two years ago may not have thought exactly like this, but that night I remember having to say goodbye to you and wanting so unbelievably badly to hug you and have it look casual to everyone around us but for it to be invisibly, silently perfect between us. and I guess by that I mean nothing. I wanted nothing between us. no space, no words, but to have absolutely every feeling and thought passing through us and none of them being possible in the slightest to put into words.

Description
The concept of being reminded of things from the past.

the smell of the perfume I wore almost two years ago.

songs that I heard that night.

a distinct touch.

they all trigger something in my memory and take me back to that night.

in my head is this screen projector displaying one image after another. in my head, this memory is safe and beautiful. shamefully, I'm gluing tangible letters of the alphabet to that untouchable place called a memory.

I'll paint the night for you with the colours of a dream- mirage grey, cold-lip blue, sleep white- we met at the fair. we met in a blur of strangers during the day. seeing your face for the first time was the sound of a snapshot being taken, it was the sound of knowing i needed to and would remember that face for the rest of my life.

quickly, blend some dark colours into the afternoon. now everyone keeps passing by people they know. they're all talking and I'm standing there awkward and quiet, and you keep looking over at me. that look was almost unbearable because it felt like tears would fall out of my eyes any minute. it was like I had a repulsive bruise and every time you looked at me it was as if you were touching it, asking, 'does it hurt, does it hurt' only, there was this hospitable look in your eyes that would never be as touching on any other face. somehow, without having said a word in my life to you, we seemed to have this far away, intangible but real-like-souls sort of understanding.

there are hundreds of memory snapshots of that night scattered inside me. I want this to be short and sweet, but I also want to record as many details as possible. the reflection of my subconscious,

the shadow of my memory.

short, quick sentences, changing subjects and directions in an instant,

seizure-like

the way bumper cars jolt.

words, colours, constantly changing.

bumper cars- we waited in line, the concrete beneath my feet. time ran out before I could bash my car into yours.

my pathetic attempt at the concept of saying words out loud to probably the cutest boy on earth: "I almost got you."

your not-pathetic-at-all-smile.

it warmed me like there was a whole array of memories from a past I lived through but couldn't recall. or like I somehow vanished from everything possible and saw our future that lay ahead. so there you were, like a shadow on the wall, creating something magical for me to see but not being able to know exactly what it was.

that ride that we were waiting in line for, where the line got cut off at me- no one looked back at me or noticed. having to pass through everyone in the crowded lineup to get out was like waking up in a cold sweat with memories of a nightmare just too close. the lights from the ride made the lineup a crowd of white faces. rows and columns of laughing, faceless ghosts. there was laughter and lights the colours of every sickness flashing everywhere.

getting out of that like felt like a fever.

the pulse of a migraine under blinding lights.

pale asylum walls.

sour milk.

vomit in the veins.

cold knives in december.

or a thunderstorm. a tsunami--

so I stood beside the ride and waited, alone. then there it was, the sound of footsteps from a faint, far-off dream. there you were, walking up to me. you told me where everyone was. I can't remember if we walked beside each other or if you were ahead of me. I also can't tell you exactly how fast my heart was beating.

I was then with the group like I'd never left and I just wanted to go home. the thunderstorm, that tsunami of irregular, impossible heartbeats flooding my body. maybe that's my excuse for the rush of tears that seemed to follow next. it's strange how, now, I feel so detached from those memories. how I can no longer feel those hot tears on my cheeks when, at the time, my tears felt like the only real thing in existence. I guess it's because

every day, I evolve into a brand new person, and every past-version of me is a ghost. so, I think about how many ghosts I've been between then and now, and I try to slip through the thick mist of time that has passed just to feel those tears burn again and to see that look on your face when you saw me crying. but how can I dig into a memory, become the exact person I was at that moment, just so I can explain the details without all the additional memories I've gathered, without all the people I've become ever since. see, I can't put that night into words. now that I've kissed your lips, it's impossible to recall that desperate taste of fear of never seeing your face again.

writing about this night on paper almost feels like spilling ink on something perfect and beautiful, like words stain it and make it ugly, and it's just so perfect and beautiful that when I try to add words to it, I'm really just tearing it apart. and the longer I waited to write this down, the more I felt this magical connection to the night. how ghostly and far away it is from this present day. like a mirage in the desert. like foggy morning bus rides to school, and the way you still feel connected to the dreams you dreamt. before now, there was nowhere I could look to be reminded so intimately of it; I could only look into my memory and see the mental snapshots that I took. but the photographs are yellowing and although you can't see the night the way i do, words are all I have to let you touch the edges of these old photos, touch the skin that desperately tries to clutch each image.

I didn't go home. something pulling me from the inside like a phobia told me to stay. although it was the fair, my memory is only letting me remember the night in shades of quiet.

muted.

a silent film.

I've forgotten the creak of the rollercoaster and the sound of your friends' laughs.

the more I have to think about how to word this, the less it sounds like how the thoughts in my head played that night. those brain songs from older versions of me. songs that have always moved in me and have always kept up with whoever I became. from the day I was born to right now (and forever to come), I've been writing a melody with my thoughts and simultaneously, it plays back in my mind. with everything that happens every single day, it's very difficult to remember how your brain used to function in the past. even just a day ago sometimes.

and how does one explain the detail of a hand accidentally touching another hand? I could say sleep fills our bodies like water- it slips into our pores and stays there until we awaken- because that's what it felt like: a strange paralysis filling me the way sleep fills the body. or the way red splashes over our faces when we blush. it was a wave washing over me and falling back again. a winter shiver in the bones. during that moment, the noise around us continued, but together we moved into our own kind of silence. we faded to grey, we moved our hands through thick waves of cold quiet. and the pulling away from another hand- that feels like grains of sand slipping between fingers- waking up and remembering just scraps of the best dream you've ever had. and then what was there between us was a weak signal, like static between the dreams you dream and mine, a distant feeling like music from the moon. between you and i, that's how the whole night was. the touch of a hand, the sound of sirens underwater. the fingertips of a dream on my skin.

there is something wonderfully intimate about writing a poem for one single set of eyes only, and that's that it's so much similar to a hug. yes, during this hug there are different thoughts going through two minds, but that's how it is with the poem as well. you see, it's that one hug, that one poem, that's connecting them, that is being shared between two different people who have been through very different things. but then there is this thing that brings them together and despite anything and everything, they are connected.

I guess the version of me two years ago may not have thought exactly like this, but that night I remember having to say goodbye to you and wanting so unbelievably badly to hug you and have it look casual to everyone around us but for it to be invisibly, silently perfect between us. and I guess by that I mean nothing. I wanted nothing between us. no space, no words, but to have absolutely every feeling and thought passing through us and none of them being possible in the slightest to put into words.