(no subject)
Aug. 22nd, 2008 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
framlingem"Elegy"
I remember all our lost tomorrows,
all the hot chocolate and coffee evenings
sitting in the same room in the dark.
I remember all the mornings of terrible
breath and hair in all directions.
I remember the way your cheek would have felt
beneath my hand, and the angle of my neck,
bent back to kiss you on tiptoe.
I remember the way you would have said my name,
and the surprise in your eyes at
the way I would have looked at you.
I remember that my parents would have liked you -
my father would have shown you his garage,
and you would have pretended to be interested
for my sake. And I would have done the same in
your mother's garden.
I remember the house we'll never buy, and
the arguments over the paint colors,
and I remember that I would have washed
while you dried.
And then I remember that it won't be me.
I remember all our lost tomorrows.
I remember all our lost tomorrows,
all the hot chocolate and coffee evenings
sitting in the same room in the dark.
I remember all the mornings of terrible
breath and hair in all directions.
I remember the way your cheek would have felt
beneath my hand, and the angle of my neck,
bent back to kiss you on tiptoe.
I remember the way you would have said my name,
and the surprise in your eyes at
the way I would have looked at you.
I remember that my parents would have liked you -
my father would have shown you his garage,
and you would have pretended to be interested
for my sake. And I would have done the same in
your mother's garden.
I remember the house we'll never buy, and
the arguments over the paint colors,
and I remember that I would have washed
while you dried.
And then I remember that it won't be me.
I remember all our lost tomorrows.
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no subject
Yes, I have more than a few of those in my background. Lost loves, regrets, missed chances, relationships that could have been but never were, all of the above.
In the old Japanese cartoon 8th Man, the hero's secretary is in love with him, not knowing that his mind has been transferred into a disguised robot body and he can never love her back. When she discovers this, the concept is so painful to her that she has the scientist of the show (who created the robot body for her near-dead boss) erase her memory because she can't live with that knowledge. To me, watching at the age of ten, this was a jaw-dropping, mind-boggling concept. How could someone be that hurt? So hurt she literally couldn't live with the knowledge of what he had become?
I couldn't understand it. It was utterly foreign to me. She begged them to let her go back to unrequited love and completely false hope -- that hurt her less.
So the scientist erased her memory and she went back to Not Knowing.
I couldn't understand it.
Now, I'm different. I know a lot more about life. I still wouldn't willingly submit to deliberate erasure of my memory, but I understand now about memories one doesn't want to keep, and I can empathize with her pain in a way I couldn't 42 years ago. I can see why someone wouldn't want to remember something.
I'd prefer to fix the broken pieces of my life...but I can't, nor can I shake the memories.
I can understand her choice now.