torched bones/purged memories

a journal entry on memories and their importance.

my favorite memories are sewn with threads of pavement where my feet hit the ground as i walked place to place under street lights, shivering with a hand on my hip that didn’t belong to me. then in the morning, and afternoon, when i dripped candle wax sweat as i trampled asphalt with a boy with a bike who didn’t talk much, but talked easily and smiled easily in a way that didn’t betray his racing thoughts.

and that one time, when i woke up to the rain in a cold bed with a warm fiancee that pawed me awake at 7am, sharp, like every other time, insisting i play with him. the rain hit the window. the thunder was soft-spoken and unassuming and let us talk easily, and smile easily, and laugh easily while we cooked and touched constantly. the touch meant everything, because when i went home after days with him, days of taking care of his brother and doing chores and playing and making love, the spots where his hands were became conspicuous cold spots like in haunted houses. Ghosts of memories, a draft his warmth allowed in my skin when he opened the door, and somewhere along the line, he turns me into a haunted house, full of benevolent spirits and demons tearing apart walls. The ghosts sit heavy on my shoulder for a long time, but they get lighter and lighter with every step.

then my skin is always cold and i’m shaking uncontrollably all the time and withdrawing and sweating cold sweats because the draft is constant now, and that has made me sick. i have the number of a boy who is helping me kill myself in my phone. i am pushed along, slamming into memories i didn’t know would change my life, and all the while, i am looking down at my feet, one after the other, hitting the ground buried in black sneakers covered in sweat, blood, vomit. the streetlights are buried in the sky, i am buried in my thoughts, and you are buried beneath my ribs in an organ the size of my fist.