Memories

An exploration of the past.

I went for a different style for this blog. It’s a bit untraditional but I think it’s beautiful in its own way.

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I haunted the pavement I used to know. Like a ghost, I wandered down the suburban street once lived on. Memories of my past walked beside me, holding my hand, and asking me who I am.

"I must know you. You're so familiar," they said.

I nodded solemnly. I couldn't tell them they were me, for we were so different. They were home to a messy house with a tree of perpetual autumn, its sunset leaves decorating the grass. The overgrown backyard spotted with clover and full of luck. They always always searched for meaning. Walking the neighborhood trying to find themselves.

Eventually, they would find me.

It didn't feel like home, and not because I don't live there anymore, but because it was never truly home. A place more like war, emotions stifled, fighting and tears abound. I had been trapped, and I hadn't even known it.

"I'm someone you will one day know," I told them.

They squeezed my hand and smiled. "I can't wait to meet you."

And that's how it had been. Always looking forward to the ghost of what would be, because the now had been so unpleasant. Unbearable, I meandered down streets looking into mcmansions and wondering when I would find a way out. I called out to the future me, asking "will it be okay? Will I find a way out?"

Yesterday I answered, "yes."

We were so happy to meet each other, me and my past, but at the same time, discordant music played. My home was not home, yet it was intrinsically tied to "home." Somehow that arduous place would forever claim the title "home" more than anywhere else. Because it's the first, because I formed there, like a nebula amidst vicious stars.

"I dreamed of you."

"I remember you."

Our ethereal hands entwined, we traveled the place that did not exist. Down streets of homes, always being built and rebuilt. Perfect manicured lawns, the same brick facades, the same chandelier displayed through a window. Same, same, same. They tear down the unique and make it all uniform. It's a snake eating its own tail. When will it end?

"Get me out," my past begged.

I squeezed their hand. "Just wait a little."

A tear streamed down their cheek. "How long?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't make their suffering unbearable.

I stepped through the threshold that was never meant to be tread. A place that no longer belonged to me, yet always lived in my heart. A place called home when home wasn't home. A place that I begged to leave, but when it disappeared, my heart shattered into pieces.

They tore it down. The garage my grandfather built, the patio my parents got married in, the home I escaped to as a child. They killed the baby tree in the front of the yard. They destroyed everything I loved and hated. All I could think was, "who gave you the right?"

I covered the eyes of my past. I couldn't bear to let them see this outcome. The destiny they ran towards. Instead, I wished to show them what came about after the house.

The home that is safe. With its hill and little forest, the Christmas Lights perpetually on, the silly Tetris layout. The trails five minutes away on foot.

I wanted to show them who they'd become.

But I could only leave a morsel behind. They turned to me as I let my fingers slip from their face.

"When will you come?" they said.

"When it is time."

It is the only thing I can do. I can only tell the truth. Leave a little bit of hope behind for the lost one. A hope that they would one day find a true home.

That they would find their destiny. Their love of their life.

I kissed them on the forehead and walked away. Away from the pain, the love, the past I used to know. The place that was home and yet never home.

A place not mine, yet forever yours.

-Aether

If you enjoyed this post maybe you would enjoy this prose poem I wrote: Dreamspace

If you’re in the mood for a short story you may enjoy my last post: Caressing the Divine