There’s this place I know.
It was designed with one particular ruler in mind.
Made for her and her for it,
She was to be the decider of its destiny.
She was to paint each piece of it with her own hand.
She was to be the common thread.
The bonding element amongst all who dwell there.
In this place and this place only, she has a special power.
It’s one she can’t always control…
You see, things can be as they are naturally,
Or she can write them how wants them to be.
Now, would you believe me if I said that ‘she’ is me?
That’s right, me!
I am the ruler of a place where
Time is irrelevant.
Moments are nonlinear,
Reality is not real at all, but really just my perception.
In this place
I am always a victim and always to blame.
“Never mind! With time I’ve come to find that in all that’s happened, we each have our faults”
But it’s too late. I say it to the backs of people who are too far away to hear me.
In this place
I can shade each moment whatever color I like.
Black on the bad days and gold on the good.
He will always be in crimson. You in black and white. Irene in lavender. Sean in emerald.
My mother and father glow with a soft, warm halo.
And me, I am sparkling, sparkling, sparkling.
Until suddenly, I am a shadow. A nothing.
Lost even to myself.
Everyone is beautiful there.
Rosy cheeked.
Or at least those I wish to see beauty in.
Especially the broken.
Especially the dead.
And I can be both beauty and beast all at once.
It smells of unpicked strawberries.
Of tobacco and spilled red wine.
Of the spearmint gum you always snapped against your tongue.
It’s glimpses of leafy green trees in a small town.
Of mountains rushing past an airplane window.
Of the dull pink cushions on your basement couch.
The walls there shake with laughter.
With the screaming they didn’t know I could hear from my perch on the stairs.
With the friendly chatter of pubs I should have left sooner than I did.
In this place
Everything is soft like the fur of my old gray cat.
Soft like the cotton of my dad’s shirt.
Soft like the thick, curly hair of a handsome boy.
Or it’s cold like the snow walls of the igloo we built in the front yard.
Hard like the pavement I smashed my small body into.
Sharp like the needle that sewed me back together.
And all of it is touched with a beautiful, ever-present, dull ache.
Of nostalgia. Of depression. Of loss. Of growth.
Some days it’s all I can do not to live in this place, for parts of it are too lovely to be true.
And other days I run from it, fast and far, for parts of it have broken my heart.
I think perhaps it’s best just to visit.
To acknowledge that I wouldn’t be me without this place.
Just like I wouldn’t be me without the people who made me.
Just like the man who made me wouldn’t be him without you.
And so you’ll live here forever, as part of me.
As a resident of this place;
My Memory.
