Remember that hot summer when we first met?
I was three, you were two. The sand of the playground was scorching hot and yet we would jump headfirst into it and find our palms turning pink, burning. You are the only memory I have of when I was three; I think memory then was only selective. You were the beautiful girl in the pink, floral print dress with straight hair falling down her small back. I was the comfortable girl with short, curled hair cropped at the ear, shirts and pants of all colours. We played on the rainbow, attached to the sands of our playground; I remember us standing over the narrow bars and screaming to the sun how we loved each other. It is an ideal childhood, isn’t it? A memory as fragile as a dream.
But I did let go of you. I let go of a thousand ‘you’s in my small, eighteen year old life.
The first stage would be the ache of better days. Your face visiting me in dreams where we’re seemingly happier, seemingly fine. I catch a smile in our palms that entwine with one another. We’re at the function, matching our eyes with the fires; we find ourselves dancing with words after. And I would wake up and watch your face from a distance and feel the dullest ache in my chest. Deep, I would my heart squeeze itself in a tiny space and struggle to breathe. It constricts with the mere sight of your face, it quivers softly and I feel it. I feel it.
The second stage is the anxiety that cripples my movement. The invisible hand covering my neck with its fingers, forcing my breathe into gasps. There are days where I look at you on a screen and immediately push my head under the cold, scalding waters of my bathroom. I want the water’s pressure exploding my ears like it would under the surface of the swimming pool. My ears would pop in the water, my thoughts running out of the ear like a soft sigh, an exhale of a bubble. My chest would constrict at the very mention of your name, your address. The way I would remember the guilt, the regret of letting you go out of my hands. The way I wouldn’t forget the way my body wanted you away but my heart wanted you close but now even that fragile organ is giving up. Giving you up.
The third stage is cutting you off. Taking a scissors and carving your body, your shape, your words out of the collage of my mind. Tearing the pages into bits and pieces until what is left is a shadow lurking in the darkness of my psyche; too weak to even move. Looking into your eyes and seeing a ghost in yours and the pupils forcing recognition out of them in mine. Brushing against your hand in accident and realizing there are no tingles of warmth, compassion, love. Nothing but the cold of strangers, watching with a polite gaze. Staring at a colour you like and seeing the heart reject it all over again, bile reacting with my pupils shifting away. It’s almost as if a universe where we, the two planets, never collided with one another. Where we are strangers, without a common, shared world.
But there’s grief in everything I remember. I feel like I get too attached to people; holding on to their shirts as they leave me and go. I’ve only witnessed loved ones leave me alone and bereft on the sailing ship; I’ve never been on the leaving end. It doesn’t devastate anyone, but it causes me to cry instead. Why am I so attached to humans, when we’re all transient? I always cry not because I forget, but because I remember. Because I remember a time where all of them were kinder, sweeter, a tad bit happier to see me in their lives. Because I remember there was a glow on their eyes when they saw me. I remember, and so I start crying over people.
It’s weakness, remembering; but there’s strength in them too. I haven’t realized it yet, perhaps.
Until next time, dear reader.
This reminds me of me.. Thank you so much