The first memory I have of this town
Is of wanting to leave-
To stand in a place and know you do not belong;
Scratch that.
I remember rain like I remember birth.
I remember puddle jumping in pristine clothes and
Trying to remember things I have long forgotten.
I forgot the light, I forgot existence.
But this? This I remember.
I remember the streets I walked all the way back home, aching;
I remember the loss of that day;
I remember feeling unbridled joy
Of the very next at the glorious win.
I remember screaming songs LOUD
With my best friend on our way to school,
Our own voices echoing in our heads
Like we were masters of a world
That did not exist just yet.
I remember the sneaking out of practice
To meet someone I hadn't seen in months;
I remember not being able to
Lift myself up from the bed
With a body so intact you'd think
I hadn't ever lived through a day.
I remember running miles
On a broken foot,
I remember swimming through all of this dread on broken toes.
I remember punching holes in walls and staring back at hands that were still hands.
Not god, not the powdered dust of my bones yet;
I remember broken knuckles but an intact heart.
I remember thinking I will never be able to get out
And I remember not wanting to leave.
I remember the solace in coming back,
Coming back after days, weeks or months.
I remember coming back.
I remember grocery store chains
And drunken new years';
I remember being 16 and staying up all night
To watch the sun rise; it rained that day.
I remember walking out of the train station,
Rubbing the drowsiness out of my eyes at age 6
And seeing the most gorgeous sky
Like it was yesterday.
I still wake up in hopes of a morning the sky looked that gorgeous.
No. I think I forgot.
I see the city change herself and she has parts I do not recognise sometimes.
I remember coming back to her like I remember birth. Not so much as a definite event
But as something that happened.
She will be here,
Smiling.
A.G.
You held me close before you stabbed me.
I guess there are people close by
Who keep you at a sword's length
So they get to use it.
Your kisses tasted an awful lot like war
And I will not be your white flag anymore.
Our fights felt like the earth shaking,
Felt like war cry;
The silence felt like an interstice between two tragedies.
Our kisses grew shorter
And interruptions became devastating
Until you finally struck and won the battle,
Won the war.
There's blood between us now
And one tragedy in all of this silence//
It has been a year since we last talked.
Please don't let the government or anyone erase any more of history. It is on you. You have a responsibility.
EDUCATE YOURSELF.
Be neutral for long enough to realise that perhaps you are in the wrong.
Form educated opinions which are backed up by facts.
Try reliable sources and if reliable sources fail you, try to gain perspective from different ones.
If you don't know enough to have an opinion, SAY SO. Don't just sprout some bullshit to sound intelligent, you don't. You sound ignorant and hateful. When did it become wrong to just admit that you don't have enough information to form a well educated opinion?
When in doubt, always take the stance which doesn't undermine a person's life or belief or belittle them or discriminate against them.
They really be erasing parts of history which make them look bad huh?
Do you think that if you love a certain thing, it is supposed to be constant throughout and it loses its charm when it stops being exactly that?
I think that the idea of loving an entity as it changes and transforms is much more endearing than going "Oh. This doesn't resemble what I initially fell for."
I think that especially with people, you have to know that they're constantly moving and they are experiencing things, and they change. To hope that something stays exactly as it was when you fell in love with it doesn't sit right with me. Haven't you changed? Do we have the right to tell something to remain stagnant when we aren't?
I think I personally have a skittish attitude towards things that remain constant; on the other hand, change feels so natural. I think I see it in this light: to be with someone or something as it changes is to get to discover more things to love, new things to love about them. I also believe that there are certain things that always remain the same. Even when the person is entirely someone different, there is always a set of habits or a preference or something specific to just this one person, that still remains constant. I find myself fascinated by the fact that even after this landslide of a change, there are moments where you can see them be the person you first go to know or how even after such an elaborate transformation, there are things that still somehow remain the same.
I think there are tiny constants even in the grandest of transformations. I quite ardently believe that people are much more endearing when they embrace their changes rather than thinking that the people who loved them when they were someone else will stop doing so as they grow into another person. I think that if the people you know do not fit the life of who you want to be or who you have become, you should let them go. So no, I do not think that anything I love owes me the grave burden of being in a state of constant; in a state of stagnancy.
-Anika
Hi are you from india sorry if its weird asking out of nowhere
Nope it's completely fine! Yep I am from India. Brown and Proud haha :)