memory

how's your memory?

mine is very good. some people say freakishly so. but i do forget
things from time to time. some of it will come back to me every now
and then, but i wonder how much i've learned, how much i've done, that
i've buried deep down inside in my mind.

considering this, i started to wonder what would happen if all of my
memories, the ones i've repressed or suppressed or that have just been
hidden under layers of years, suddenly overcame me in a flood. what if
one day the dam burst and a torrent of images, emotions, and smells
carried me down a raging river? where do forgotten memories go? i
imagine them all tucked up and stored in corners, and that some day
what is in those corners will fill up the whole room. there's gotta be
a threshold, i think, the proverbial straw that will make my mind
buckle and yield, when one more thing i forget will make it all come
back to me. the doors of my perception will break open from the strain
of all that is in the room they conceal. all of it, all at once, will
show.

all in all, my past isn't something i'm too afraid to face. but, i've
been around, i've seen some stuff. i've done some things i'm not proud
of. i cringe when i think of the wake of destruction i'm sure i've
left behind me. i'm not alone in that. we've all got something we'd
rather not remember. we all run away from something don't we? everyone
hides from at least one experience of violent emotion and its throes,
or a cold and deliberate act of malice. i'm no better or worse than
anyone else. and maybe i'll even be forgiven in the end. but i don't
look forward to the day when all my ghosts appear before me and demand
reckoning. if you see someone on the street somewhere, face frozen
with shock, that would be me. be kind. tell me i'm still a human
being.

ghost