reminiscence

I read the book you used to gush about while we sat on my bed during the sleepovers we would never sleep at, I could hear your commentary through each word I read, like your voice was some subtle annotation that could only be heard. I thought the voice would thin out like white noise, but it only echoes now. It is absurd that I am disappointed when my phone bill arrives every month, I expect your voice to linger when I put my phone to my ear. But silence. The rust on my home phone is only growing more prominent and I wonder if it is because we do not keep it alive anymore, because our voices do not linger any longer. I do not internalise the mistakes we made, I think about the things that hurt me and then about the kindness that healed me; our friendship. The way you would not give up on me, the way we used to gossip with your mom like we were a family, the way you were the closest thing to family I had. I feared for so long that I would be forgotten by everyone, but if you can remember me, I will be with you always, it would not matter if I was not remembered by the rest. My memory is shrinking while I grow, like the windows of a train, the memories flashing by in a jolt. Do I stop at the station or do I keep moving forward? Will anything ever be as we were? Quite like the afterlife, I suppose, the love and secrets we shared wander through a space forbidden to us. I promise it will remain hidden, I will bury the stuff that haunts you within me, only hoping it would haunt me instead of you. The aching is worth the nostalgia, remembering you is worth the heartache. Do you remember the promises we made when we were 5, on the swings, about how we would walk through the uncertainties of life together? Do you still feel it? When you’re on the other side of the world and I'm just waking up from my eternal slumber, will you think of me like I think of you? In bittersweet afterthought.