For the girl who archives her soul in silence

I do not collect memories.

I brand them

onto the soft flesh between breath and bone,

where they can ache without fading.

I do not live through time

I wrestle it, ask it to stay a moment longer,

beg it to undress slowly,

to let me memorize the sound of its footsteps

before it vanishes.

Some call it nostalgia.

But no

it is worship.

It is a sacred hunger

to keep what was beautiful alive,

even if it means letting it haunt me.

Because what if that garden in Mexico

was the closest thing to paradise I’ll ever know?

What if the way he brought a watermelon

was the holiest communion I’ll ever taste?

So I burn.

I burn every good thing into me

the shape of a cat sleeping,

the echo of laughter over tortillas,

the weightless drunk gaze at stars too eternal to name.

And when they ask me why I cry for things long gone,

I will tell them:

I do not cry because they’re gone.

I cry because they were mine.

And I was awake enough to know it.