Memories

It's the memories that kill us,
They're in an old box, stuffed under the bed, covered in a layer of dust.
They're in notebooks and carefully penned words.
They're lurking around the hallway corner in the picture you forgot to take down.

And these memories,
They make you cry.
They make you laugh.
They fill you with bittersweet longing.









Whew. I don't write poetry. Now I remember why.
Memories are something that have been on my mind, or haunting me, so to say. Sometimes I think "I need to forget and let go" but then I remember how much I've learned and say "not yet." But it's the holding on to these memories that hurt me deeper. The remembrance of an embrace, a look, a word; it shakes my nerve ends till a slight electric current runs around and around my heart, stomach, throat, head. Why do we as humans subject ourselves to these emotions that memories bring? Why do we hold on to things of the past?

Because we don't want to grow up.
Because we don't want to grow away, away from the things we have once felt and been fond of.

And because of a lot of other things. But those things are revealed to each individual gradually, over time.

--P.A.