Originally published: February 24, 2020
i want to know where my life went.
where did you put it?
please tell me.
you're the ones who stole it, after all.
and yet at the same time, you are the ones who gave it to me.
i only have blurred visions of the past, tiny little snippets of thought. anything else was lost to make room for the useless information i learn in school, the things i can't help memorizing.
they say that memories are added to the ones already there, but i find that for every fact i learn, one more moment dies.
and so i turned to your life's works.
and for a while i was content, until i wondered.
where did my life go?
what had i been doing all this time?
it seems like i haven't gotten so many things, so many things that the little voices in your heads got instead.
where are my picnics?
where are my camping trips and jars filled with fireflies?
where are my treehouses and secret clubs?
my ancient oak trees and fresh maple syrup?
where are my snowball fights and christmas parties?
my nights spent sipping hot cocoa by the fire?
the handmade ornaments and birthday cards?
where did all the secret codes that we made up go?
the sleepover parties and pillow fights?
what about my stuffed animal collection? or that one beautiful doll?
and what did happen to all my princess costumes and paper crowns?
plastic participation trophies, corny school certificates?
where did they go? where could they be?
what about my ice-skating fails and fishing trips?
what happened to all the boat trips in the lake?
the extravagant cruises, the city lights?
how come there's no hustle and bustle, no favorite ice-cream parlor that's right downstairs?
no sounds of cars and trucks and trains and buses and taxis whizzing by?
what happened to the girl downstairs that i used to talk to and eat mangoes with?
and my beach house? the summer vacations spent in that stilted structure, right up on the seashore?
the days spent in the water, days spent building grand sand castles and searching for sea shells?
huh?
the nights spent looking to the stars, that meteor shower?
what about the long spring walks in the forest, listening to the trees whisper?
where's the favorite clearing i used to go to, the one with the willow trees and the creek and the birds?
the one i'd sworn i'd never leave?
where are the old storybooks and fairy tales and records?
where's my life?
i'll tell you right now.
my life is shut between covers,
folded between pages,
inked carefully in words.
my life is up there,
collecting dust on a library shelf.
my life is in my mind,
a collection of spiraling, swirling colors
that i could never keep track of.
i lost all my memories.
so i made new ones.
they're up there, somewhere.
the laughs that never left,
the tears that were never cried,
the love that was never shared,
the joy that never got its time.
the conversations that were never had,
the secrets that were never confessed,
the friends that were never made,
the faces of people who never lived.
they live here, and someday they will be real.
if i ever get around to making them so.
YOU ARE READING
Letters From The Void
Randomdear reader, this book probably won't matter to you. these are letters from me, an anonymous human on the internet, to people I know in real life. maybe they'll read this, maybe they won't. i'm assuming that these secrets will stay in the deepest pa...
