Only in Memory

jose diaz

Coming here is always such a struggle. 

My memory serves as a crumpled map

guiding me in an archive of old comforts

that always manages to force me back. 

This beaten down old house was once so new, 

But everything appeared so to me back then. 

I don’t know which version of it was real,

I don’t know what his place should represent. 

At first glance I’d like to say nothing’s changed,

everything’s more or less in the same place.

But time’s left subtle stains, tainted everything, 

made it impossible for me to truly retrace. 

From the street it’s the lamppost in the front yard, 

I remember its pristine paint reflecting white. 

But time and neglect have left such a cruel mark, 

the glass long broken, the sidewalk dark at night. 

The covered porch out front now beckons me. 

The padded swing where Grandpa relaxed,

disheveled, frame rusted, pillow spilling fuzz,

porch faded under it, the railing barely attached. 

As I move towards the house it all starts coming back, 

the dusty windows shifting to their bright former selves.

Former life jumps from the now lifeless husk

of the home I now keep inside myself. 

Through the front window I now see the kitchen

but it’s not met the same worn fate as the facade. 

I see the old, round kitchen table as it used to be,

and I can barely fight the memories that flood. 

Behind it I see the living room, where we all sat, 

the woods look new, the shaggy carpet clean.

And I hear the laughter, crying, all mixed together;

there we celebrated, mourned, and had our routines.

I blink, but only for a second, trying to take it all in,

only for it all to be gone when I look inside again.

I’m left looking at that lifeless empty old husk,

memory no longer projecting over time’s neglect. 

I move to enter the yard, hoping for something 

that’ll bring it back to the way I remember. 

And there I see it, the only thing left 

that time had not yet gotten to dismember. 

It’s the swing out back that grandpa built,

an old cast iron pan strung up on chains.

It looks just the same as it did back then, 

it’s a pristine relic, but I’ve certainly changed. 

Standing in the yard next to the swing, I see it truly, 

this house, only a shell of what it used to be. 

Knowing now that it’ll never be what it once was,

that I’ll have to move on, give up that dream. 

But I wonder,  can this place continue to live in me

in the way I’ve always tried to remember it?

Can that light I saw coming from inside before

overcome the building that’s become so decrepit?

Or will it degrade in my memory,

be replaced by this terrible image

and slowly fade away, eventually 

be one of oh so many things to slip?