with more meaning

there are moments I choose to weigh with more meaning than others. there are patterns and I draw lines between days that mean something as the tide washes over everything. memories emerge vaguer every time, the water smoothing every edge and texture. I forget so much of how I used to feel, and will continue to do so - though right now and forever, feeling feels like everything. tomorrow I will remember less of yesterday, and the next day even less, and on and on. the bank of empty memories fills with a whole lot of nothing.

but some days mean something. there are feelings I remember, but also numbers and patterns between the figures with which forces beyond my comprehension determined how we should order the time we’re forced to spend. the 21st day of September offers a claustrophobic host of meaning to me and people I have known and loved. there’s a friend I had in school and still think about most days. were she still alive, she would have celebrated 27 today. time is unforgiving and people pass in and out of our paths and I wonder if we’d still be friends in a world without the crash. would I have ever started folding cranes? could we recognise one another now? would she be happy? there is no way of knowing and though I have learnt to live without answers, I still carry questions I can’t ask in the yolk on my shoulder as I’m pushing my boulder.

my friend in the clouds shares a birthday with someone else. we met far from home in a world that no longer exists. when we shared the same roof we told each other everything. when we had to leave and return to languages and hemispheres that didn’t match, we held on for a while. calls and messages and then nothing. I still try to reach her, unwilling to let embarrassment keep me from reminding her that I’m still here with the same love I held for her since before we left. I wonder why she disappeared. on the bus a stranger compliments my style. her accent reminds me of the friend I wish I still knew as well as I worry about her. I hear from her on birthdays and I never know how to respond. I wish I could hug her today.

the day has been heavy, even without any reminders or space for thought or conscious reflection til now. I cancel some plans and push myself to those I think I can manage. I sleep through most of the afternoon. when I wake I am more tired than before and laugh at how the meaning I give with my heart seems to weigh back on my body. it has been half a decade since I moved into a crumbling shell of a hotel in a haunted village. I found a part of myself there in the family I made for the three months we shared in laughter and tears and cups of tea. one of us is a parent now. most of us don’t talk anymore. still now, I feel the absence of what was mine; the things I took for granted and the rest. we met around tables in a kitchen none of us loved but all of us needed. I close my eyes and see the faces of those I wish I still called home. if I try hard enough, I can still hear some of the voices. I hold on to what I can from photos and phrases I remember, choosing to cherish what would be easier to forget.

I think about these things most days. they linger safely in the web of currents cradled in my skull. my heart has learnt to hold them. my body has felt them today.