my parents always told me i was a forgetful child,
who's little
pattering feet would go quickly running
back upstairs to double check,
even triple check the things i would need
or forget to carry with me,
as if i was a marionette puppet pulled by the knots on my fingers.

but it seemed as though no matter how many bows i could tie on my fingers and how many post-it notes were stapled around the house, my mind was a clutter of litter--
filled with little odds and ends
and useless junk to day to day living.
if my brain was a room it would resemble a crowded attic, full with the pieces of myself that i longed to get rid of but refused to, whether out of sheer stubbornness or fear, i still don't know.

it all changed when you came along. i was inspired to a point of frenzy. I was uncluttered, with the exception of my thoughts, because they were full of you. if my brain was a room, it would be a museum of glittering proportions, a massive archive of our affections.. this is art, a romanticized portrait of our time together. you had tattooed love etched on your skin, from all the things you grew passionate about and i swear i looked at my own skin and saw your ink seeping in between the cracks of my ribcage-- i used all of it to write out devotion. you were my favorite collection of destructive metaphors i sunk into.

but it's funny because you outgrew our memories. i am a worn museum, a discarded trunk show, filled with artifacts of past lives we have lived and the empty promises we made. no one wants to visit a dusty museum when there's a new shopping center in town. so i pull my venetian blinds down and make my way downstairs without double checking.

how is it forgetting seemed so easy in my youth? because no matter how many knots i untie from my fingers, no matter how many bows i pull loose from my ragged hands, no matter how many "forget me not's" i have ripped from our dead garden, i have yet to forget a single day with you.