These Memories
Wrote in 10 minutes. Just got the itch to. It was short and neat and I come in an elaborate needlessly.
You think when you talk of sleep to any other
That It’s not my skin you wish you covered with.
You think when you speak of the past that is dead
Non chalantly shrugging
That is was nothing
It is not wished in my hand its ending was written?
That the “to be continued” so desired written
Frightfully, hurriedly, messy yet sure.
Was in my own scratch
You think when you whisper in some hour alone.
That it’s not my name on your lips?
Do you think I am deaf to it?
And no it is not from any sureness of my self
It’s because the trade of thoughts and unheard knowledge pushed back and forth
Do you think when I hear trouble on the wires
A tightrope fallen from, Caught by a hand which sends it vibrating along the taught string.
That to me the loudest reverberation brings
Nervous energy and unsure touch on the shoulder of my soul
They could not know
Could they?
That I can feel it as if the string itself were the veins in my wrist?
That the very list
You have numbered against me
Upon me
Is for me
That the line between love and hate so often crossed and danced upon.
Who better than we two to play upon
Who ever can walk this.
Vague and certain.
Lunacy coupled with absolute seriousness
Stupidity and questionable actions and reactions
Reckless, careless pointless behavior
All out of what?
You lie to them more than me
Hoping I will not see what you place in my way.
The obstacles now become yours my love
Oh anyone still wishing anything upon someone not seen for so long
It’s love.
It’s hate
If you think I don’t realize it’s just desire on you
Well ask why I don’t and won’t ever say a word.
Far as I’m concerned there is nothing
And I write from memory
And wrote for exaggeration emotions
Now I write again in full emotion
I speak to no one but my inner self
Hate love desire repulsion
I hear it
And you’re just nostalgic
And what’s the difference
Do we even remember what it was all for?
Not really
But these memories become loud now
How convenient of them.
And it’s looking rather Grim
I’d rather not see this part
Because you have made it an art
To destroy a piece of yourself
When trying me
But no.
No I just step over it and am happily on my way.
Not a good samaritan at all in this case
To your train wreck and casualties I’ve placed
The tape to stay away
I step over without looking behind me.
Oh it is late the day.
It is a spring remembering?
Memories
But the wind is grey
Dried vines upon the door step.
The dried blossoms on your lips.
They smell like they did then.
But are so fragile they shatter.
Why could you have not just realized the depth
Of the height you kept
The hours you slept
In dreams of someone elses enemies
Don’t make them yours.
Should you know that?
Tit for tat
I suppose
Worth the laugh
If it didn’t scare me so
Fear For me?
No
But for you.
Yes you.
I really do.
Why did you just not listen closer
Watch my eyes watching you type the precursor
To everything that would fail
When you do things like this
A win is a loss
A loss is a loss.
Deaths in 3
And pain under the skin
Failures in fours
Games and wars
Whirl pools spin
Rivers and fjords
Flooding shaken ground
Cutting through earth where the water hasn’t been before
Do you just look back to make sure I’m there remembering?
Of course I am
But that means nothing to what you are wishing for
So I remember?
So do you.
I am alike to no trophy by any means
yes I heard it.
As if one is controlled by such?
Do we both hold the trophy that we neither need to even worry or care of in this situation
Ignoring it as if it does not exist works fine
Even though the ground was in schism
Parting the life we had known.
But fracturing the roads we’d take
Not really much care does the memories have of futures sake
Oh just everyone we have ever known at stake
Have you ever truly wondered what worth are we to the other?
Have you?
Or do you like me live and you live the same.
You are here in back rooms
Just whenever I am you are
Where and when and why.
Do you not realize it is you also looking back?
It seems neither can get too far away from the nail In the ground
That caused that crevice in the earth
A time unknown that would give birth
To more certainty and confusion
More hateful delusion
Or honest intrusions
Giving flight to demonic illusions
That heaven did scratch out.
Because when I think about
Or remember
that was the day we first spoke
It’s simple as can be.
We can walk in circles
Burn a sphere into the ground
It keeps us bound
We can run far but be jerked back
We can cross paths never relax
Only pinned for some reason to this one place in time
Wading through a swamp of signs
Ignored because that’s not on our way yet
You think the memories are all drowned?
These memories have lungs
They breath inside the deepest of water
So do they blacken like a screen long since shut off?
They have no need for sight they feel around until they are seen
They scream if they must
But seen they will be.
They scratch back to the surface if one tries to forget them.
They are feisty these images.
They enjoy to run through crowds which under trench coats.
they wear nothing.
Until the right moment.
Yes that right moment and it scares everyone
Put the coat back on
I sigh to them when one crosses my mind like a metal ball
Darting around my mind like 1975
But did I feel alive?
Bumpers and springs
Flashing lights yes I still see it please
I know . I remember
Or was that even the same person?
Do you feel the same as then?
Under the skin?
Because I feel ages away.
And yet it’s yesterday
And once again they are remembered for another age.
Does one believe after such time has passed that the smallest tip toe cannot be heard as if in the gates of Tartarus?
I do not slow down for any
Nor wait for any train
Nor wait in the rain
Why wait to be drenched?
Yes I won’t be there anymore
And neither will you
But these images will.
You know it as well as I.
What can we do unless we graph it to the vine we know will lead and grow again back around one of our ankles one day.
You really think there is another?
Come now that’s about as believable as you loving who you showed interest this week.
This tether though it fights and claws and scratches
So Like the very souls that it imprisons with each end latches
You can hate and despise and wish to never see again
I can shrug and I can hide and pretend it never existed to understand
Lying to eachother and lying to ourselves
Holding our head foolishly and into our memories delve
Stupidly pretending like an old man in search of his last name
When it lay right in the doorstep
We can lie to all others who think we are against eachothers very existence
But the string, the tether knows better
We can seem like yesterday
And we can seem like a thousand years ago
I can be afraid to say hello
Until I see you and then we’d know
Just like we did then.
We are different
But We are the same
We haven’t even been apart.
Different pains and different hearts
Different minds and emotions
Different kingdoms and different oceans.
But the depth of us
The core. Inner caverns that we forget and remember well.
What makes us what we are and were and what we become
The soul I believe is what it’s called
But does it matter.
It’s the same
We both seem to know exactly
As we speak and know.
You can pretend you’re angry or that you even pine
I can pretend I was hurt or that I don’t mind.
But it’s not true is it.
Because we have been in the back room just looking at each other going
Can you believe this mess?
Yes? The chaos you caused?
Oh you caused?
And we have been this way since we parted.
But that’s where we will always stay.
It don’t matter if we speak face to face
Give eachother no grace
Never save face
Go at a different pace
Til death.
We were always right here.
And these memories like to show out.
Saying loudly we told you so.
It don’t mean I wait.
It’s not like that.
Not on the vibrating string that never stops but has grown quieter.
Yes
I feel a dead end
A black hole
Different
A song I’ve not yet heard
News that does not travel
Not to me
Headlines I wish not to see
I’ll pretend the weaker vibrations
Yes secret enemy
As secret as when a lover
That which you panicked and blamed on me. All so you could flee
You got caught
You had too
But the less I hear on the string
I just contently assume
You are simply walking further happily away from me
And I’ll be happy to bid thee a fond farewell
Do you think those like us are even capable of meeting in the middle.
I wish for alls sake I didn’t hear so much
The plans and the true feelings
I despise it and don’t wanna hear them.
They confuse me. Their source
Many times not you
I don’t wanna know
I’d rather just have what they want to happen just Happen.
It gets tiring
But I’ll always come out on top.
Because it’s my life we speak of
For I know all the wrong you do
Were such lies to befall me therefore destroy me?
They are like tiny whispers that tickle my ear.
From the mouth that also wishes me nothing but chaos
Also wish me beside them.
I sit in the quiet you do look at that same nightly orb. This I know
These memories like those petals dried in pages
I wish returned as they are the last of it kind from time
Thrown away likely
But so rare to me.
The only blossoms from the time before.
Dried forever
Pressed as memories aging and cracked
Only the memories never lose color
In fact they rest in peace in technicolor
Louder than my own sight
Those dried petals.
I cannot even remember the color that from them would be fading
What a different time.
No I shall not forget you
Although
I hear something in the void
I want to erase
So I ignore those voices of the past .
But they shriek until I look back.
And when I do they enjoy the fact they are seen once more
Even these memories are arrogant..
Even our history is full of pride.
They care not if my only question is what are we to do with them now?
As no one will act upon them.
So it seems
Is it wrong
Certainly
I think it is this love that needs an ego death.
C.R.Stanger
2025
