You hear them, don’t you?
The memories that travel in the sluggishness of night.
Like flashes of delirium you think of those who passed
On from your life.
You feel them, don’t you?
Like phantom limbs that you were born with,
Reaching back and straining forward to reunite
The is with the was, the maybe with the never.
You see them, don’t you?
The happy moments framed in laughter and fear.
The sad and angry moments fuzzy and necessary
But the details so impossibly minute.
To remember is the hunt between the spirit and the will,
To recall is a curse, a test of self-love or self-hate,
A test of triumph over our past selves,
To revel in being here without being pulled into the thens
The silence craves to be filled
And it sticks and calls like magnets
To the things we leave behind.
Melisa Im
Illustrated by Meli 