G Spot
Lost in transition
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo
WE all forget over time. Some forget by sheer will, others by the passing of time. Uncannily, we also remember things we thought we have buried, encountering the same experience with either freshness or more pain, but not necessarily with the same intensity. In fact, there are times when you know you hated someone but totally forgot the reasons for the hatred, and still remember the hurt. Conversely, if you have not forgotten you are living with a partner, you tend to look at him and wonder at the hilarity of your choice, or worse, wonder who he is. As we transition from one stage to the next, we often forget more than we are able to remember.
So, where does our consciousness go when we forget? Does it merge with the superconscious and forget itself? Does it get lost? Where?
Imperfect tense
soon, the days will snatch away
bits and pieces of my memory
your name, for example,
was it Pedro?
or was it Perfecto?
I am not good at names, never was
but I remember the warmth
the tender hug on a cold night
on a hilly side of Baguio City
at a time when the air smelled of pine trees
overlooking Poro Point
you made me believe
those flickering lights were lives
that made it through the hardest day
and that the light burned unsteadily
with the impulse of the tidal waves
and the whim of the sea nymphs
it surprised me, the calmness
with which you hid a kind of sadness
like, perhaps, you knew someone there
who perished, in the flood that drowned
the village, survived only by the swaying tip
of the cross on top of a steeple
above a submerged chapel
why is this story so much like,
someone else’s, like an arrow pulled out
from the melancholic rib of Ben?
i used to remember these things,
perfectly
but now, I only remember the warmth
the tender hug on that cold night.
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