In Remembrance

It was providence that Valentine's,
when I took the wrong route home
and ended up sandwiched in traffic,
my brown bagged Chinese food taunting my nose
as my hands gripped the wheel.

The extra time kept the radio on,
and the two women talking
acted like I had been there for the whole conversation;
it was all so tragically intimate.

The expert du jour was talking about memories
and the opinions of all the
notable neuro-biologists
(because I'm sure the dumb ones are quite forgettable).

She said that there are 100 billion neurons in the human brain
and that each memory we have is a chain of them.

Human memory is nothing like computer memory, she said.

You see, each time a computer file is called up, it is the same chain of 1's and 0's.

But, each time we recall a memory, triggering that
particular chemical reaction,
we are actually in fact
changing the memory itself.

Essentially, she went on to say
that the more we recall a memory,
the farther it will become from the original imprint,
from the real moment.

Suddenly, it never felt so dangerous to remember.

Images flashed in my head of the Sunday afternoons I had spent in bed with Jen,
eating our Chinese food
(like the Chicken fingers that still sat in the passenger seat, unmoved by the radio's revelation),
the first time I flew in an airplane,
fascinated by the nimbus landscape,
third grade art projects and the way the markers used to smell,
the grass stains from little league games,
every Christmas morning I had ever celebrated...

They all felt instantly at risk,
a gun I could only fire six times.

I struggled to not think of my happiest times,
longing only to remember them when I would truly need them,
my little forgotten lockbox of emergency ration happiness.


And then I thought of you,
and suddenly, I wanted to remember every moment,
remember them so many times,
that I would forget them all,
relive them over and over
until it never happened.
I wanted to take those months and
trace them blank,
I wanted to love you apathetic,
hurt myself to healed.

Now, I would say
"Think of me,"
but I'd rather you forgot me,
so that 50 years from now,
maybe you won't have forgotten love.