Home
Memory
Copyright © 2005-2007 by Aster Rose - All rights reserved		 

Memory
by Aster Rose
I wish I could forget it all. I wish every time something happened it would be swallowed up in the void of my short term memory. I wish I couldn’t think. I wish I didn’t know what I was doing. I wish for an excuse. I wish I was a mindless killer. I would still be killing, but at least I wouldn’t know it. I want to shed everything I have ever known, and come out a new person. Scrubbing away all my pain, all my life away. Could I be happy then? I want no past, and no future.

My mind's abyss is filled with memories, memories I don’t want. They hurt too much. Sometimes I think I see the back of a loved ones’ head, but the face is unfamiliar, and they brush past like I am nothing. I am nothing. In my old life, I knew I thought I wasn’t innocent. I was the bad girl, the rebel. But I was so naïve. I puffed on my cigarette, clunking about in my scuffed black boots with a haughty swagger, trying to assume a distant, badder-than-thou, aura. I wish things could have stayed that way. I want blissful ignorance again. Clinging to it like a kid’s blankie, safe and secure, horrors of the world censored from the TV. Smiling faces coddling me, knowing only happiness. Instead, I was slammed into reality, a babe, and darkness kissed my innocence away.

Lost, like a misled child, my heart still breaks at every homeless person I see, and I don’t know where I’m going. Blind, I shuffle about gloomy streets, trying to avoid my pain, but end up hugging it as I feed my urges. I still want the security of an adult, even though I am one. I want those first nights, while my tutor, my mentor of the streets, Peter, was still willing to let me clutch at his hand as I witnessed untold horrors, no fifteen-year-old should ever see. Now he is just another like me, scorning my worries and emotions.
“You are immortal, childling. Just let go. They are only humans,” he chides me when I come to him with a shattered heart, and he mends it with tender kisses and soft words. Only humans. I live by those two words, but they bite like a thin razor blade, digging into my soul and making me squirm. I want to live again.

My innocence lies mewling like abandoned kittens in dark alleys, beside half-naked men and dead bodies. Sometimes I find scraps of it lying by the road, and I inhale the perfumed aroma of chocolate chip cookies, sunflowers, and lacy church dresses, sickeningly pastel. I remember giggling helplessly over nothing, and wearing mother’s high heels too big for my feet, tripping continuously, but always getting back up to try again. Lacy pink heart Valentines, and rainbows drawn in marker, goodnight kisses, sleepovers, and anorexic Barbie dolls who never were without a date, or the perfect outfit. Or the darker days. Dangling anarchy symbol earrings, like a news-flash, and so many rings and studs that I should have jingled. Long, black leather coats, cigarettes smoked in bathrooms, laughing as we tried to get high off the heady scent of strawberry chapstick. Embracing stereotypes, putting everyone in a category, everyone in a clique, as I tried to fit the exact proportions of the one I belonged too, like a prom dress. Unattainable fantasies of making out with random rock stars and Johnny Depp. Tim Burton DVDs scattered about my room, bookshelves filled with Anne Rice, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Holly Black. Seances, graveyards, rebellion. Peeking into tattoo parlors and planning the thousands of ink drawings that will cover our bodies, as soon as we’re old enough. Trying to sneak into R rated movies, and being caught. Desperately wishing we were groupies, and dancing in the rain, just for the hell of it. Happiness. But I always let my innocence drift away, hoping it will find a better place and immerse myself in the musky scent of blood and unwashed people.

I have had men hand me their hearts on a string, literally, before falling back into my chest, stumbling, and in begging whispers ask for immortality. I stare at the still bleeding cuts, where broken ribs jut out at grotesque angles, like a Picasso painting, or an Edgar Allen Poe poem. In a pump of adrenaline I drop their begging bodies, leaving them sobbing for help, as I sprint away and huddle in lonely corners. My mind, though eaten by darkness, is still disturbed. I want to cry again. To drown my melancholy in tears, salty to the tongue. Goodbye, I would whisper to my sorrows, and they would float away on the wind, black butterflies, their wings glinting like Venetian glass in the twilight. I want to be Vincent van Gogh, and cut out my soul, hand it to a passing stranger, and tell them to sell it on eBay.

It is surprising how many of my naïve wishes of my youthful humanity have come true. I have danced in a graveyard, successfully sneaked into an R rated film. I could be a groupie if I wanted, I’ve lost my virginity. I even have a tattoo. A sad eye, crying a crimson tear rests on the nape of my neck. Its tear is my tear, making up for all the ones I can never have.

On a whim I tell Peter I’m going to commit suicide. Chuckling, he reminds me that I can’t die, and frustrated I tell him that I know that. But I might as well try. I stab myself in the heart, the blade glinting at me, winking, as it passes through my body, and blood fills my mouth, the sharp tang of new pennies. I live, as I knew I would, but I am still disappointed. I hurl my fists onto the concrete, wanting to be two so it would be okay to throw a tantrum. Falling, to the ground miserable, I skin my bare knees, and I remember roller skating for the first time. Neon purple, the skates were insanely gaudy, and I swerved down sidewalks like a drunk driver, losing my equilibrium (whatever that meant), and crashing onto cement in a fit of giggles. I erase at all my unwanted memories, but they are trick birthday candles, persistently flickering back on. The knife still juts out of my chest, an unfulfilled promise. I leave it there. I walk the streets with the blade still staining my breast, but no one notices, and I am still alone.

End of Story - Pick another one

But before you continue ... any comments, corrections, etc. for this story will be greatly appreciated by the author. Other than a name we can associate with this and future comments, all requested information is optional and simply helps us understand our readership demographics.
Your comments are kept private and will not appear on this or any other web site. Although we value your input, neither the author nor weirdwritings.com is obligated to respond to them in any way. If this feature gets abused, it will either be removed or user registration will be required in order to make comments. Thank you for your cooperation.

Your name (alias is OK): 
The following information is optional. If you have previously made comments using the above name you may skip this part.
Your age: 
Your gender:
Your location: 

Your comments: