don't be kidded by the pronouns: memories and their lack

I remember unplugging the phones and locking the doors. I don’t remember when exactly I fell in love with her. I remember my father’s voice, smelling like earth-salt through the phone, “Of course you will loose her.” I don’t remember breathing. I remember her face settling into a smile; the way hair falls always to one side. I don’t remember how I managed to talk to her, heaving with sadness, wrapping my father’s words around my fingers, around my teeth one by one. Everything I said to her was twisted. I don’t remember when she stopped being a child to me. I remember kissing her goodbye like I had known her all my life, no: like I would surely know her the rest of my life.

I remember the way she hung love before me like a limp dick, threatening to come off in my hand and leave me with no body. I don’t remember her. She is nobody, nobody, I am the body she stole. I don’t remember what I had to prove by winning. I remember the consummation of our fighting, like fire, like fear in my belly: all my love for her, all that I hated in her, embodied. I don’t remember if it was to her size or to my weakness that I lost. I remember feeling safe for a few days, having forfeited my will to hers. I remember staying months in my room because of my face. I don’t remember what I looked like then. I remember praying God would take up my cause with furious wrath. I don’t remember when God stopped smiting the wicked and burning the proud.

I remember lighting candles at the church, buying prayers with the money she paid me. I don’t remember praying for myself. I remember notes sprinkled like rose petals in my office, my name in her hand. I don’t remember why she wore a Shiva and not a Brahma or a Krishna. It was Ramana’s white loincloth and sun-brown cheeks that stirred in me an affection for Jesus, sailing on Lake Tiberias, the wind scratching at his beard. I don’t remember when I stopped telling the truth. I remember why. I don’t remember learning to count. I remember my eyes spilling liquid secrets, my veins opening in time, to my surprise. I don’t remember when I realized I was dying. I remember hanging all my weight in her arms. I don’t remember if I ever saw her again. I remember changing my mind about who I am. I don’t remember wanting to live, really. I remember choosing not to die.