forgotten

I HAD FORGOTTEN THE SCENT OF LOVE and its bittersweet taste on my tongue; the fluttering wings in my gut and the calming warmth I used to feel from an embrace or a kiss. I had cast away the elusive emotion in the deepest trenches of thought, oblivious of remembrance. Nothing remained but the faint traces it had left on my memory; embedded, echoing like a lost whisper in the air I wanted to inhale and exhale at the same time.

Once upon a time, I was struggling to forget but my heart just won’t let me. There are some things that are best left forgotten but the heart remembers things that the mind easily fails to remember. It was impervious to my will of purging my consciousness off of the repugnant memories, but most of all, the beautiful ones; that were reeling in my head on an endless loop, blinding and causing me unyielding pain. Beautifully painful—it was irony in its cruelest form.

I couldn’t choose what my heart wanted to remember that is why I wanted to forget. Because whichever memory it had decided to keep in its beating chambers, the feeling had always been the same. Those fragments of fading thoughts became a part of my identity. I couldn’t deny nor lie about them. They constantly reminded me of what I had become and who I was. No wonder I wanted to lose myself. I was desperate to shake them away from me; those parts that were hurting so much. Before I knew it, the hurts had already transformed my face—severely scarred and wrinkled to the point that I couldn’t recognize myself anymore.

But time happened and I had succeeded. I had forgotten. Nothing was left except for the fading shadow of a love that used to light up my grey skies; forged by my imagination in an attempt to bring back the sensation to love and feel love. I guess I was just starting to learn that it’s better to hurt than not to feel at all. But now as I lay in silence, witnessing the creeping daylight wash over the absolute shade of the night, and with my hand upon my heart, I am once again reminded and I remembered. I braced myself but surprisingly enough, there is no pain. Wide eyed, I have come to learn—it doesn’t hurt anymore. It feels like letting go. But how I wish there’s a way to know for sure.