Remember
 

I think I was there once,
though I can't remember how I got there -
to that place where it didn't matter,
and the tides rose, giant swell.
I didn't see to care, breathe to feel, seek to touch.
I think I was there, I think… I…
I don't remember anymore.
 
I think I was there once,
and all I remember is that sense of abandon,
those weightless seconds riding free,
as memory became foam on wet sand,
defenseless to the force of the waves.
I was there.  I was.  But looking now,
over these moments that hold nothing of that place,
where now all I can do is try to remember,
and the air is thick, the past is heavy, I wonder.
Was there really nothing?  Did I exist so free?

My hands are cold, so cold now.
Blue, blue veins under thin skin.
Tracing under, and I am dry, empty.
I hold this fragmented wisp of a thought,
that I was there once, long ago,
even if I can't really remember.

I want so badly to be free, to touch nothing.
I want those waves and wet sand.
When did the tides recede, the waters go rushing back,
the sand bake hard and barren beneath my feet?
I think - I think I was there once.

There are shells here, if you look very close, close enough.
Tracing edge of dirty sneaker into tough, cracked land,
it crumbles so slowly revealing edge of white.
Break away and peer with dusty eyes,
dust, and only that last bit remains.
There, under dirt where your toe pushes,
there is this little piece of an ocean abandoned.
You can hold it, touch it, trace jagged edge
with tips of parched fingers, but the waves are gone,
and looking across this dry land,
you can't imagine that they ever were.

I think I was there once, even if it never existed.
I think… I wish… I want to remember.



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