The Sweetness of Things Forgotten

Video of performance
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Sometimes, I want people to miss me. That sucks. That’s like saying, “I want people to like me so much they will suffer in my absence.”

I can do better.
Let me be better than that.
Let me thrive in untamed wilderness.
Let me flourish far from charted waters, apart from eyes and ears and memories.

So what if no one remembers?
I don’t remember the warmth of my mother’s touch when I was in the cradle, but she was no less loving.
I don't remember all the jokes I’ve laughed at, the music I've listened to, the rainstorms I’ve cavorted in, the sunsets I’ve appreciated, yet they are no less part of me -- just as I am no less part of them.
Yes, I am the sum of countless precious things, precious because they are unremembered.

Why should we tremble when we find overgrown temples to long-dead gods?
I quake more at all the temples we will never find.

I’ve heard it said:
“Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is their answer.”
I will stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts why I should care about their opinion.
Their answer?
Is the same.

So --
So what if they forget?
I dance not to sycophantic drumbeats but to syncopated heartbeats.
I am not some ' stillborn witness to myself, so let them forget -- I will have still ‘ borne witness to myself, and I will prosecute and perpetrate.
I am a constellation peering through the telescope, the marble and the sculptor, carving out parts of me for my own sake, like -- this is not for you. Though I will give some to you now, I’m not asking you to treasure it.
Do with it as you will.

‘Cuz --
so what if I leave no legacy?
I still left tiny 8-year-old footprints in the snow as I rushed home to sip my mom’s hot chocolate, left breadcrumbs by the pond to feed the ducklings, left the ones I love to chase a future I only dreamt of, and if that is not enough for you --
That's fine.
I will not beg you to remember this.

Just -- breathe. <inhale, exhale>
And be here with me now, in this gift we call "the present".