"A 'sociopathic perpetrator'..
we will ghost him  forever"

But what is this  thing
  she feels..

Why is the picture  painted
so very  different
   from  the  one
   she now  remembers?

"We will help her to forget."
            .      .      .


The saving of one's soul
from that which would steal
is not done  in violence
   (Though it still   feels
   that it should be)

It is done in patience,
and in reminding one
of who it is they truly are.

     Tell me,  world
     of who you think
     a father  should be

And watch  me laugh
my mother-*******  *** off.
Tell me all about it,  world.


  And I will show you all
      what truly saves.

I am the wind
the rain which pelts and blows full in the face of adversity
and the silent sound of a million damp and aching feet
I am friendships that will never come again
and the voice of doomed youth
I am memories in old age
the scarlet smell of crushed poppies
and the iron tang of spilled blood  and rusty wire
I am hope and loss
dignity in duty
and outright defiance in the face of defeat
I am all these things
I am remembrance

Just five inches of

barbed wire from the war, that small -- 


can remembrance be.

Ripples through time
Perturbations
                           in the world around you
Originating
                      In word
                      In deed

Circles ever widening
Of influence
And impact

Even when we are gone
From the room
Or from the world
                                  In body
                                  In spirit

Our ripples spread

Merge with others
Shape them
As they go on
To shape others

Even when we are gone
Even when we are forgotten

Remember

Your ripples move on
Merge
Intersect
Transform

But always spreading
Through time

I can't help but wonder what you will remember of me.
That's every man's fate, isn't it?
To become a scrap of detail that snags or escapes a stranger's memory,
Stuck in a grate in the floor where it fluttered, discarded,
Or lodged in a permanent frame, dusted off every so often
to be a reference point
or to be a defining moment.
It isn't up to us how we are remembered -
- what is a rainbow to the blind but a refreshing mist on the skin?
And that's why we obsess: we have no control,
hard as we try, contour, conceal, and coordinate.
And that never stops us from trying.
But for a moment, consider this superpower that others will never have:
You can remember them.
You can't escape yourself, but you can remember them.
Will you remember them kindly? Will distaste be tattooed in your mind?
The things that are going to happen will happen.
And we can act according to how we want to be remembered.
But we cannot change it.
But our remembrance cannot be changed either.
It's a little spiteful optimism, isn't it?

Do you remember when tunneling ravines would flow through our stomachs before we spoke out into the open?
And how vigorously tapping our feet felt like the only way to shake the mountains, daring to bury us alive...
or how when cold shoulders felt like judgment harmonized
and yet the dissonance euphonized in our ears as we swept our heads back into the open arms of the universe,
engulfed by inescapable laughter  

Now things are different; you wear your heart on your sleeve, washing the shores of people and things that scare you with your perpetual confidence,

and I proudly observe in wonder and admiration...

Distantly tapping my feet, fighting ravines, and laughing alone.

Please give my corpse back

to my friends, with my fingers --


for them to divide.