the rear new mirror

Never and always.
Shared forgetting, infectious thoughts and planting doubts..." 

memory is a fragile friend. vivid and unforgiving at times, but also fleetingly fake. you remember what you'd like to not forget. some stories jump up at you, unassuming and seemingly simple, yet gut-wrenching and physically painful. a colour, a phrase, a song, an email, a question. the stories have leaked into your blood and have altered your very being. you are no longer the same person. and you struggle to understand yourself, and soon, you are someone else, reliving the old memories as an outsider. and while you were fighting the old demons, new ones made themselves at home. not all monsters, though. some very angelic beings, like comforting panda bears, making you smile in spite of yourself. you even begin to ask yourself if the happiness you now feel is the same that you remember. or is it the happiness that you try and forget?

when i think of you, i feel a soul-stirring, tingle-in-the-spine, confusing little spark of wonder. it's not a familiar feeling, in fact it's strange and mystical and unknown. like questions without answers, a night without morning, like thunder without rain, an illness without a cure, or a kiss that seems like the beginning and the end. when i think of you, i start thinking of all the stories that we've written together, in invisible ink. i tell myself that like memory, even the marks on my body fade away. and i stand in front of the mirror and search every inch of me, for you. i twist and turn and even turn the lights off, so i could maybe find you in the darkness. 

i've done everything to remember you. i've done more than everything to forget you. i have no memories of you. i have made you a part of my soul. i did not dream of you before. i will never sleep in peace again. i want nothing but you. and i will have everything, but you.