there are no drugs for this

My past is being rewritten for me it seems, and not in the typical 'fell back in time and made different decisions' sense... if that is typical. It is a very different kind of being rewritten. People I know keep remembering things differently. Not anyone I live with in Portland. And not any one particular person. But I have had about three weeks of  people who either do not remember at all or who have totally rewritten a past that I shared with them.

It is a very ambiguous sense of loss, a very certain alone-ness, and very likely steps toward losing my own grip on reality. My past and my reaction to it have made me who I am. Memories are important if fleeting. Count how many times God tells the Israelites to remember, to teach their children, to take care not to forget. I am not unaware of how much my whole life has been built on the breath of God willing me to make it long after I am tired and do not want to try anymore. I do not want to forget a thing, good or bad or even ugly.

However, I am afraid these past few weeks have made me question if I truly remember my own life. There are enough people telling me that what I know is wrong or worthless, I feel I have lost all my anchors in the past. It brings about great existential questions like, "If my remembered past is remembered wrong, am I still who I think I am?" and then "Should I be me or someone else?".

The answers may seem obvious to the reader. I however, have had a heck of a time trying to even match words to the feeling and now that I have perhaps, I hope, the answers will feel obvious and real. But the truth is, I still feel the weight of those questions and others wearing me down inside much more strongly than I feel their counterparts. This wont be forever, I hope; but if I am extra exhausted in these coming days, it is because I am trying so hard to remember history that no one else wants to and I do not always remember the value of.

I have tried to see 
the world through your eyes;
but they are closed.
There is nothing there.
If I could but see the pictures
painted on your sleeping eyelids,
maybe I could understand.


Tell me,
could you wake if you wanted to?
Your sleeper's life must be so beautiful
to have held you asleep for so long.
So much more beautiful 
than your memories of this waking life.


You told me once that you
no longer remembered
anything but your somnambulance 
and I wept.
I cried the tears you could not.
I cried until the clouds above 
were tired of my rain.


I wept because you will never know 
the color of my sky
and I do not quite remember 
the color of your eyes.
I imagine them to be the same though,
your eyes and my sky,
the one forgotten by the other
and yet the same stardust and storm.


I wish I could see the world
and your own sky 
through your eyes,
sleepy as they may be.
But there is one problem.
I am wide awake.