Think of me, won’t you, when my time is done?

When I , with my scores of problems, am packed away to memory,

when you reign safe and sane and tall,

remember then my voice: these stammered words

trembling with tears,

poured into a lonely room’s flat pillows.

Remember me, on all your very best days:

when your eyes are wet with laughter,

when your lips tingle from hours of kissing,

when there’s a welcome hand resting on your hip, and a river you love pulling at your ankles, and your soul is dancing down the winds of caverns.

Remember me, not as you wished I was, but as I am honestly: miserable

here in this prison of a room,

with the walls of mediocrity falling in on me,

unable to sleep when and where I should,

unable to love, unable to leave, unable to breathe.

I am not seeking to haunt you, but to help–

to help both of us.

Remember how I lived silenced, trapped by fear of inconvenient truths

unwilling to own the splintering of my fairytale,

and most hopelessly confused about things which will seem obvious to you,

like whether I should forgive an abuser

or try to save a love that hurts me.

Remember, and learn.

My shining friend, pick me up in your thoughts

every night when moonlight licks your liberated skin,

every morning when you watch the sun pull the misty blanket off the mountain,

every time nature fills your heart up with joy (as I know it will)

there, in the bliss of your healing soul,

remember me.

Let me dazzle your reality with the magic of knowing where you came from.

Don’t abandon me in the veiled secrecy of the past,

hungering for life, for breath, for freedom,

my truth buried alive in shame,

to be only a thing which you loathe.

Take me out with you: remember me.

Let me heal, too.

Let us lift this curse together.

I dream of walking with you in the sunshine of a clear day.

I imagine how you will smile, and why.

I yearn to know the music of your laughter.

I want to see you happy on your own, and happy in love you choose.

Sometimes, I think I catch glimpses of you, standing proud and healthy on our mountain,

your eyes full of sky,

your mouth dropping softly with amazement

at joys beyond my knowing.

How does it happen, I wonder?

How do you get there?

I know not, but in the dismal confines of my prison, I have made a faith of you:

the thought of meeting you pulls me forward through the muck each day,

squinting through these fearsome shadows to find some trace of the brightness which defines you.

I am sure there must be some point where your confidence and my misery touch,

where our paths entwine,

where I end and you begin.

Each day I must be getting closer.

But sometimes there is so much pain, I think you must be an illusion:

life is heavy and it hurts,

the walls seem seem so impossibly high,

and I wonder if I should give up on you.

But then there come days when the light falls just so, and my heart flutters suddenly like it works

all for the sake of a river rock or a butterfly

or maybe a thunderstorm

or a conversation with someone who has something interesting to say.

I look down after a hard walk, and discover new curves of something almost like muscle,

things that were not there yesterday,

pieces of me that have changed.

And then I know you exist, and that you must be near.

I wonder: is this how it happens?

Is it coming soon?

One day when I am gone and you are well, remember me.

Right there, in the midst of your happiest moments,

look back to me here, to what you once were:

pathetic, small and sad.

Own that I am as real as you are,

and believe in me, as I have believed in you.

Whisper, kindly, that it’s going to be ok.

Tell me the story of how I get out of this.

Author: Katie-Anne Laulumets

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: LennieZ via Wikimedia Commons