I

When I scan the hallways of my remembrance,

I see the quiet existence of a shy five-year-old.

She is sitting under an old rusty swing in her school courtyard.

Her pockets filled with autumn leaves because she is sad over how no one ever picks them up... unless it is for crushing.

The last guy who sat on the swing split his head open.

Lesson on mortality
"I'll remember"

II

After feeding a stray cat for a whole month,
I stopped after someone said she loved me because of the food.

A testament to our unconditional love.

When she showed up the next day, she scratched my face and left.

"But I deserve love more than she deserves to eat" I thought.

Lesson on love.

"I'll never learn."

How many colors does it take to relive a memory?

I think of you in colors these days.

I loved you in light hues of golden and how they filtered through the blinds and turned pink against your body.

You looked at me in dark shades of brown,
right after you sang me your favorite song and right before you told me "I hate you".
All in same breath.

Nothing was ever black and white.

So somedays I miss you in greys..of the highways you drove your quiet resentment on.

The world around me is slowly turning into a daunting contrast.
Each tint turns a threat.

How many colors does it take to forget a memory?
Perhaps.. a monotone land.

It's late.

There's a makeshift foam staircase bolted along the side of my bed these days.

Two frail limbs make their way up.

I can hear the feeble thuds and the elaborate scuffle.

Something pierces through, pulls out the old familiar ache in my chest and wrings it repeatedly.

Shame. Guilt. Regret.
Shame. Guilt. Regret.
Shame. Guilt. Regret.

I lie there soaked in the broth of my rich denial.
Repulsed by the stench of my haste emotions.

I can hear them again,
They quietly snuggle themselves into the arch of my back and I fall back to sleep.

A plain featureless face lacking dimension.
Overwrought with a loud expression.

If I didn't have a mouth, people could still have whole conversations with me.

Clenched teeth turn into prison bars.
Incarcerated words mimic desperate inmates pleading guilty.

My tongue violently detaches itself and resorts to levitate.
Capable of only tasting a warm and overwhelming sense of irrelevance.

It curls itself up in corners It hadn't felt before until it dissolves in its own shame.