Memories linger. They haunt me, and I have grown comforted by their company. More so than the company of those whom the memories encapsulate. I am so often overwhelmed by them; sometimes the smallest elements of very tangible reality tick off a box in a long shopping list of memories, nudging my mind off-track and suddenly tipping me over into a huge, gaping, vast abyss.
A sudden lull in the surrounding noise, momentarily hushing to a certain frequency that complete retrogrades time to another moment where I remember a certain person talking to me; their words full of mirth or solicitude, and while their words are coming out into the air, the intertwining moments seem to slow down, slower, slower, as I am no longer in that memory but watching it, watching them, watching their words, floating, the feeling of togetherness, a moment that is now an infinite ways altered by the knowledge of it becoming only that: a memory.
A sudden whiff of an odour as I am walking through a corridor, and my whole being stops, unable to move, and yet I am inhaling deeply, lost to time again, as I spiral through a warp hole taking me to another memory filled with warmth; tantalizing aromas or sensual colognes, around me or under pillows, memory trailing itself seductively, insistently, deep, and deeper inside me, as it goes down my nasal passage, deep into my lungs, and back out again, but different.
And again, a thrilling sense of forbidden, as I find myself tasting something sweet—catapulting me into a bittersweet memory of finding sugar on my lips with the tip of my tongue; the memory of a voice again telling me, persuading me, to try sugar on toast: illicit moments in the dark light of twilight as on a whim remembering that voice I reach for the sugar canister and sprinkle a dose on the still warm surface, the slow sinking sensation of teeth, crispy and yet soft, and that aftermath, licking that sugary stickiness off my lips.
Memories cannot leave me alone, and yet in a strange way, maybe I am leaving them behind, as I find myself grasping more and more for a certain word, a certain warmth, a certain colour, a certain shade of green, a certain way that my name was spoken by a certain person, a certain time, a certain person I myself used to be, all lost in an uncertain quagmire of memories.
