Memoryhouse

You spill over the pages, flood with words so full that you forget to breathe. They come rapidly -- a tidal wave in your lungs, capsizing, bitter with hatred and remnant with remorse. You forget how it feels; the way fingers curl against the sand, the way the wind kisses your rose cheeks in a spring afternoon. You know only the lines: criss-crossed until each tile begins to look like the next. You know the curve of your pillow, the dip where your temple touches fabric, envelops your skin with the tenderness you've bitterly sought.

You forget the way skin feels on skin.

Perhaps you've memorized the silence between your fingers: the space where his should be. You've forgotten the pulse of your heart as it throbs in your neck, and now each beat struggles against the frostbitten cavity of your chest. You no longer welcome the invitation of comfort -- no longer greet it with amiable, open arms: instead push it away with bruised fingers as you fight a battle you want to lose.

But mostly, you've forgotten the brilliance of warmth.

You've discarded the somber whisper of the ocean on a perilous night, retraced the lines of weary picture frames in the hopes to rewind. You know only the weight as it presses against your chest. You no longer remember the butterflies in your stomach, or the wandering of curious fingertips against the grooves of oak. You've forgotten him, mostly. The silhouette of his cheek against yours, or the curve of pink against ivory as secrets are traded -- words traced through dances of fingertips, of smiles whispered against the press of lips (because body language has arranged itself as the centerfold of your art).

And it's brilliant because you haven't forgotten anything.

You remember everything so vividly it's like a scarlet nightmare -- a ghoul that appears in the blind hours of the night, enveloped in the silence you've kindled so dearly. 

But you wish to forget. 

And you think, perhaps, if you wish hard enough, you might forget the silent heartache of a bitter girl traced by her own misery.