Memory Keeper

Uncut Poetry

The bane of my life has been my memory. I forget. I forget prodigiously. Names, faces, conversations. Don’t even get me to started on dates and numbers, groan. In office, at home, I struggle with narrating incidents, at remembering places, things we saw and ate at specific places. I had a girl who worked for me who, after a decade, still remembered the make of the shirt and the colour of socks I’d worn when I’d first interviewed her. I guess there are bigger tragedies in life (people are still dying hungry!), but more than a patchy whitewash of remembrance, this creates a strange spiritual hole in me, which I carry as regret inside me. But on the flip side, I have also forgotten grievances and regrets, I forget details of battles, I’ve forgotten details of when friends had tried to pull fast ones on me, the pain some had left, the times I’d weeped into the night because words had hurt. I’d forgotten the details, soon I’d forgotten who’d said or done what. Forgetfulness then is just another way for forgiveness. But there are deeper cuts. I’ve forgotten details of the afternoon when my son was born, I’ve forgotten the look on my dad’s face (ecstatic I’m told) when I’d passed my first professional exams. Or my mother’s hug (unending, I’m told) when she held the first copy of my first book. I’ve forgotten words spoken softly to me, poems written for me, silences I’ve shared, the memories of hands held in crowded rooms, playing the fool, the hi jinks. The entirety of what is gone is like a lost country of reminiscence. And that hurts. What then remains is an existential mystery, where I pathetically flounder inside the lost meadows of my own heart. My happiness itself seems ragged and pockmarked and I walk around within a permanent cave of dissatisfaction. I wish sometime I would have a memory keeper, like the old royalty had - someone doing a record-keeping celestially or by being beside me. This poem is then a seeking of a blessing, a gently yearning desire to remember, and if that’s not possible, have someone I love to remember for me. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the hauntings of memory:

• Letting Go (a childhood song)
• The Passing of Autumn
• When I Hear The Whistle of a Passing Train

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The following music was used for this media project:

Music: Relaxation [instrumental, sounds of birds] by Edvardas Sen
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/10002-relaxation-instrumental-sounds-of-birds
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license