Haunted by Memories I Cannot Own

By: Corrin Avchin

Every night after I see him, I can’t sleep.

I toss, I turn, I throw off the blankets, rip off my socks, all in the injustice for not remembering clearly.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to flood the memories of seeing every moment together.

But when I close my eyes, my memories do not come back in order or in a way I can thoroughly trust. Although the memories are less than hours old, I only can picture the barest glimpse.

My shoddy memory is fragmented like staring still into a pond that hasn’t been touched in quite some time — but once I look away from my reflection and then back, the pond is restless, moving in fast currents, making waves that I can hardly escape or bypass, ruining my memories.

Ruining who I’m trying to remember.

Ruining what was just there.

Thus, creating hesitant, distorted memories in place of events that actually occurred.

My synapses are not firing in a trustworthy way.

“The synapse is the point of communication between one neuron and a neighboring neuron, muscle cell or gland cell. It is the site where virtually all important brain activity emerges.”

Does my brain consider him not important? Is this my brain communicating to my cells, my neurons, my memories, my heart, and my eyes, that he is not worthy to be perfectly remembered for who he is?

Am I only to be left with how I’ve felt?

Or should I say, the feelings he leaves me with?

Am I giving him too much credit for how he makes me feel?

Which leads me to question what is most important. The memories I’d like to see when I close my eyes or the feeling I am left with?

Why am I not allowed to have both?

I do not trust myself.

I do not trust the broken film reel in my head.

If I close my eyes, I can almost see his orbs. The more I scrunch my face by furrowing my brow and squeezing my eyes so tightly that it’s genuinely painful, the more I can finally see his assiduous eyes.

His globes are full almond brown that become black with intensity as he leans in or looks too closely at me.

If I cannot rely on my memories, how am I supposed to rely on my feelings? Don’t I need both to create a fair assessment?

Of him?

Of myself?

How do I estimate my needs, wants, desires, and demands?

Do my memories affect my feelings or do my feelings affect my memories?

Is there a broken synapse between the two?

How can I heal the two, so they can connect once again?

I close my eyes once more, trying to will a peaceful pond but all I have left is rip currents.

Is he the rip current?

Am I?

Are we?

I am left uncertain and angered with myself for not giving him and especially myself a fair pattern of memories to rely on.

I’ll greedily accept the molecule memories of him if that’s all I’m allowed to own.

His memory haunts me because I am left with shadows of what has happened. And nothing more than that.

Maybe that’s why I want him.

Because I cannot even have his memory.