weight

I was fanning through my CD collection. We were packing up, moving cross the country. It was the fifth time we did this.

I’m saying we, but I just mean my pet and I. Sometimes other people are included, so it’s convenient to wrap it in a “we” since they all blend into the same person.

So I was fanning through my CD collection and remembered everything with each click into the next cartridge. You call it a cartridge, right? I don’t know anymore.

With each album art and I could retrace my hands popping open the case whatever golden hour buried in its crypt. Whether the 4pm sunshine traversed the white carpet and we decided to paint the walls. And I felt the driver wheel, I felt for a moment anything but where I’m at.

But now I don’t know where I went, or where I’m at. The only question I have is why didn’t I see the fall as the fly does? Whether in the ointment or zapped into the future — when I’m gone, I guess all the memories go too, huh? My great-great-grandfather nodding up in heaven, and I never seen his face nor his wall-sitting reflections.

But I was sitting there, thinking about how when all this goes to the landfill, well, that’s the end of it. But you know, the usual spiel is to suggest it’s supposed to be preserved. In an earlier move I would’ve agreed with you. But not this time.

This time I was angry, if anything. Reservedly angry, if it could be — a distaste really. I was angry at my younger self thinking it was valuable. However much I traced the veins in my jacket, however many bike rides at midnight to another tune — this propensity to escape.

Sitting against the wall and staring at the suspended ceiling fan so I realized that I don’t want to escape anymore. If interacting with another person or moving somewhere else means escaping again, I don’t want to do anymore Lord.

I am tired of running away and into other people, even though it all crumbles in my arms. I don’t even miss it. I never wanted it. I’m tired of it. Lugging along reminders that all the things I thought were a good use of time were nothing.

I don’t want this weight of memory.