"there are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living."
- jim thompson -
— × —
my memory of you is sickeningly vivid. i can't decide why it is. my first assumption would be the fact that i knew you basically all my life.
i hate that i don't know what to do with the things i remember. they might be significant or little. it doesn't matter their importance. i just want the memory gone.
like when i check the calendar and see that your birthday's coming up in a couple of days.
or making coffee in the morning and i remember how you used to dump too many cubes of sugar in yours with me reminding you that diabetes exists.
or remembering your funny fear of people's feet touching you whenever i get a pedicure. i used to be the one exception. the only person whose feet you could apparently stand.
whenever random thoughts of you pop into my mind i remember this one strange painting i saw on the internet once.
for some reason, it stuck in my mind. like you. like a wad of chewed up gum at the bottom of a high school chair.
it was a painting of watches. melting pocket watches. i remember thinking how weird a painting it was.
and i couldn't forget it. ironically, the painting was titled the persistence of memory.
my memories of you have persisted and i don't have a single clue of how to rid myself of them.
☀☀☀
hmm, this is written without stating any names. so the whole point is for it to be as gender neutral as possible. you can picture whoever you want as 'i' and as 'you'.