One to Forget, One to Remember

I don’t remember my dad being at work for half of my childhood.

But I’ll never forget nights yelling for the smell of his nightshirt until manhood crept up and swallowed a part of my innocence. Sometimes, when I amble down supermarket aisles or return home for Christmas, I’ll steal a whiff to remember when I didn’t know much. 

I don’t remember the first time I got drunk

But I’ll never forget laughing like an idiot at dumb jokes until my face literally turned blue. I woke up an hour later, for the first time, not really caring that people laughed at me rather than my jokes. Maybe we should drink more.

I don’t remember feeling weird asking my sister to sleep in her bed when I was young

But I’ll never forget how many bullies cowered in fear when my sister to “kick their asses” with the strange power of estrogen. Maybe I secretly hoped it worked on closet monsters and the fear of being the smallest in my family

I don’t remember the day we stopped friends

But I’ll never forget waiting by the phone all Saturday, ready to relive our old dreams of video game stardom, mountain biking to the next dimension, and wondering if women would ever get less strange.

            Some days, I am still waiting.

 I don’t remember praying the first day I dropped a full-blown shit in my pants as an adult

But I’ll never forget praising God days afterward for that travel doctor who made me purchase stomach meds. If I ever become Catholic, I will nominate her as the patron saint of missionaries.

I don’t remember the day we officially broke up

            But I’ll never forget hanging up the phone wondering who I had become the past

Four and a half years. Don’t get me wrong: We needed part. She found her path. I found mine. But really, it took four years to mourn and one more to move on before I realized she wasn’t calling back.

I don’t remember the first time You saw me grieve

            But whenever I worship, I can’t fully open my heart without bloodshot eyes.

There’s too much death

                                                too much death

too much death in this life to forget that before Lazarus

            You knew me, and I knew You

So public, and yet, so intimately.