When you consciously (or unconsciously) forget unwanted memories, it’s called motivated forgetting. Its a coping technique I am good at– even before I first step in school.
I remembered my first days in school.
I don’t go straight to the classroom but hangs around that big tree where the school’s humungous bell was hanging…
Alone, by myself.
Circling it, dancing around it as if playing with its soul.
Then I’d stop.
Runs back home.
Gets the ire of my mother who never failed to send me back to school accompanied by a neighbor who— would just drop me off by the school’s gate entrance.
And I’d be dancing with the tree again until it’s time to go home.
I don’t remember when I started to like school. But I am smart.
I am smart but I am and had always been my mother’s runaway bride.
It was my mother’s birthday yesterday.
I was aware of it, I’ve always looked forward to that date especially when I started earning my own money and able to spend gifts for my mother.
Unfortunately, I was stricken with the motivated forgetting plague.
I’ve done it again.
G.
Did you really leave me again?
After all the seasons I spent waiting,
watching out the window,
listening at the door,
waiting for the news of your return.
For the news that you realized
that someone important was waiting for you?
A whole lifetime I’ve been waiting.
I can’t believe you’re not coming back
I can’t believe I’m supposed to stop waiting
I can’t believe you left me again.
And so it goes... 