It's really quite extraordinary.
Memories, I mean.
How they come to be so important,
So quickly.
How the happiness fades to bittersweet much sooner than you'd think.
And you wonder why it would.
Before, those moments didn't even exist-
Meant nothing to you-
But suddenly now every time you see or do something
A little flash comes.
I came to hate memories last year.
Barred my mind to them, because the best ones always came first,
Marched in and leveled me
By being over permanently.
And now I still have a wary relationship with my new ones.
I make a face and remind myself of someone
That
By all right
I shouldn't know well enough to miss at all.
I see something, hear something, think something
That reminds me
And there is that uncomfortable standoff
In my head
Between me and my memories.
Good memories, the kind you'd want to treasure
But we are unsure of each other, you see.
Taking opposite corners of my mind,
Squaring off as if to spar.
We can't be certain, neither of us,
That if we turn our back the other will not pull a knife.
And so that is why,
My dear,
My memories of you already hurt a bit.
Because to let them be, to leave them where they'd go were I not damaged
Would be to become vulnerable to them.
Better to hurt a bit
Ahead of time
Than to be so very surprised in the end.