archives

to live is to remember.

Days of Being Wild [1990], Wong Kar-Wai

I was never good at history
Remembering dates and places
Was hardly a strength of mine
That is
Until
I met you

I remember
When we first met
And what I wore on our
First
Second
And third date

I remember
The night you invited me over
And you kissed me
And you said you liked me
And I slept in your bed
And I said you made me feel safe

I remember
When we made things official

I remember 
The first time you made me cry
And the last time, too

I remember
When I saw the look in your eyes change
And I convinced myself 
It was all in my head
Just like you taught me to do

With you
I became an archivist

A living database
Of every tear
Every argument
Every moment
Of self-doubt
Of asking
Am I being crazy?

Meticulously filing
Every interaction
Every touch
Ready to be recalled
At your inevitable request
When did I say that?

I have learned
To ground myself
In dates
Times
Places
To reassure myself that
All this is real

I have become
A historian
Of my own life

They say 
Those who cannot remember the past
Are condemned to repeat it

So I look for you
In every man I meet
So I know who to run from

I am no ghost
Nor god
But a high priestess
Linking past and present
As a form of divination

I no longer
Record time
For I have become
A ticking time bomb
Counting the seconds
To my next heartbreak

He says
Let’s take things slow
And I assign
The date
Time
And place
Of our undoing

He says
I love you
And I scratch
Tallies in the wall
Until he walks away

This sorrow
Is a self-fulfilling prophecy
And I am Jeremiah
The weeping prophet
Tasked with predicting
My own demise