It’s not enough to be; exist, persist.
It’s not enough to simply reside,
to show the disparate parts and pieces of myself in unseemly display
or gather them close, hidden inside
Like the shameful secrets I’m told they
are not
were not
The past is a path we travel to the people we become.
Life must have meaning, cause, purpose.
A reason
Family. Friends. Husband, child, mother, son. Sister, daughter, spouse.
Community.
Invisibility.
Wallflowers fading from photographs, erased from history
Collective memory
I cannot erase my past
My past erases me
