The stories we tell!

 Sometimes I wonder,

how real are they, 

the stories we tell

about our past! 

Stories we tell to

people we know, 

hoping it'd modify

their opinion of us, 

stories we tell strangers, 

expecting to forge friendships

based on 

projections of us;

images of us we'd like others 

to behold and cherish, 

images to relate to and rely upon,

passionate untruths, 

driven by desire; 

but most so

the stories we tell ourselves, 

everytime we recall

that happy first date, 

or that horrible fight

the first time we realize 

we're being taken for granted, 

and why! 

that painful separation

when it felt like

everthing, 

yes everything, 

is coming to an end with this! 

The stories we tell ourselves,

when we recall joy and pain, 

pleasure and grief,

the characters we add 

and omit, 

the words we invent, 

the meanings we ascribe,

the intentions we assume, 

but more importantly, 

the words we forget, 

the meaning chose to ignore, 

the meaning we fail to comprehend,

the intentions we no longer recognize, the intentions we refuse to believe! 

the conclusions we draw!

the conclusions we believe need to be drawn! 

Like a stage play, 

performing in our heads,

the lines,

rehearsed and improvised,

hundreds and thousands of times, 

may be even a million, 

so often almost on the loop,

untill it is perfect! 

A perfect version,

a convenient narration, 

a subjective reality 

that lets us survive 

the pain and the ecstacy

of having lived and loved,

and move forward with it! 

move on from it sometimes, 

but mostly just move forward 

with it! 

And so as young men and women, 

while the struggles of others

may move us and shake us 

out of the convenient, 

it is only our own struggles, 

of means, 

of meaning,

and of matters of the heart, 

that make us who we are, 

and who we are in our own imagination,

of ourselves in our pasts! 

And thinking of it, 

I wonder 

how crucial forgetting is to being! 

Even more crucial than remembering,

and how often!