Memory is an action.
When I remember you,
I am
laughing.
I don't
remember the laughter that you
instilled within me.
It embodies me
and swallows me whole.
I don't remember
breathing.
I am
breathing,
feeling the life enter and exit
my trachea
(and my lungs)
Every bit as tangible as
the trachea
(and the lungs)
that it touches.
Remembering is not a verb.
Remembering is a palpable thing.
Remembering you is the hand I need
to pick me up off of the ground
when the reality of the
lack of you
weighs too much for
me to stand on my own.
Remembering you is my favorite quilt
after being caught in a blizzard
without the proper shoes
that my father always lectured me for not wearing.
The duality of
physical and
emotional
comfort warms my bones (and my soul)
almost as much as your embrace used to do.
Every day when I wake
(before remembering that you're gone)
I feel the briefest flash of happiness before I feel the
empty
side of the bed
and remember that you're gone.
It hits me like a freight train,
the memory... the motion of it.
Remembering is not a verb.
I don't remember
loving you -
I never stopped.