My old palace of memories

I visit my old palace of memories.

It feels haunted.

Even though I've made sure not to remember any of it,

I am cursed with the reminders of its existence every day.

I see the ghost of a little girl here.

She keeps turning corners that are always just a little bit out of my reach.

I try to get her to come to me.

Maybe she's too tired of hands grabbing her.

Maybe she, too, is haunted by the ghosts of the hands that touch, that grab and don't let go.

Maybe her skin broke open the day he touche.

d her and now she's vowed to bleed forever.

At least until forever comes close, and her scars heal.

Maybe one day will come, when she grows leaves and flowers from the wounds she's grown thorns from.

Until then everyone who comes her way will get pricked.

I see her daunting face.

Eyes black from cries that nobody ever heard,

Veins popping in her neck from the deep breaths she's had to take to keep everything at bay.

She looks at me sometimes.

I wonder what she thinks.

Is she as disappointed in me as I am?

When does one's heart break?

Is it when a loved one leaves you?

Or is it when they stay long enough to become the monster who haunts your dreams and taints all the memories you made.

Of playing outside, running around in the sun all afternoon.

Of basking in the setting sun as the evening comes to an end and then trying to find patterns in the stars at night.

Then you suddenly remember the hands that grabbed your waist just a little too tight while playing.

The hands that pulled you a little too close so that it blurred the lines of a familiar relationship.

The way they stayed always a little too close for comfort but maybe, maybe it was all in your head because nobody else ever saw it.

Nobody else ever noticed.

So now you're left haunting your memories trying to find your voice.

Haunting the palace you so carefully built of lies you never stopped telling yourself.

Maybe you've cracked in ways that cannot be repaired, maybe these cracks grow horns to repel those who still linger.

I am stuck haunting these ruins of a palace that once used to be bright.

I am stuck being just beyond reach of this new version of myself that

chooses to not remember.