Borrowed Memories

Memory 590. Memory 591. Memory 592.

I do not know where they went. Perhaps they were swallowed by the haze of illusions that were never mine to remember. So I borrowed memories from other people, and somewhere along the way, misplaced the few that had truly belonged to me.

The night passes with unsaid words, unshed tears, unheard echoes, and an unforgiven me.

Me? The one who forgot that borrowing is no sin - but failing to return what was borrowed is. I had only one hand with which to take. The other had been severed, and I cannot remember when.

Perhaps I had no name to answer to, no story worth telling, and nowhere left to go but the place where thorns grow, roses wither, and crows never spare a glance -

Home.

I walk as the thorns pierce my skin. I wince, yet the pain never reaches the room where my memories are kept, as though even suffering has been denied permission to exist. I smile at a crow. It answers with a glare sharp enough to wound. I hum a melody beneath my breath, but the House of memories refuses me once more.

I step into the living room. People decide to speak before they listen. Before I can even blink, their eyes wander over me - my weight beneath oversized spectacles, robes worn thin, hair more tangled than a bird's abandoned nest.

I suppose first impressions survive longer than first conversations.

The light refuses to awaken. Perhaps it, too, despises my touch. So I sit quietly in the corner, where dams crack, yet never enough to break. Perhaps the opinions of those who never cared were never meant to matter.

Or perhaps...

I have simply forgotten how to tell the difference between those who cared and those who merely watched.