Memories

I wish I could forget

The way you hold your head

In dappled sunlight,

Wide smile splitting the rays with beams,

It seems I am too much

or too little

or not enough

to fully find you

in a half-hearted, half-empty tragedy.

I wish I could forget the times

You sat down to find

        me crying, hiding tears in the folds of hands

and I wish I could forget

The warmth of your laugh

on Sunday afternoons, drowning out

the cicadas with its air of intensity.

You don't deserve it,

This time-honored, sepia-toned droning

in my head.

Instead, you deserve to be

set out to sea, free

Never to see me,

That fickle friend, never lover,

The dreamer yet always the diver,

The one who took the fall

and you didn't catch.

Instead, you deserve to be

forgotten.

I want you to remember me,

Immortalize every fallen tear,

The sear of my hand on your shoulder,

The way you should have thought, "I want to hold her."

and battled the fear 

of remembering when and where

and who and how

this started,

I want you to remember.

But it seems

You are the one forgetting,

My tired eyes and hopeful tries

To attest to and win,

more lose some than winsome,

that distant friend.

And I, I the one who remembers.