#lessofyou

i will wake up and remember to forget

to think of you first thing in the morning

i will remember to forget remembering you first thing in the morning

and when the sun paints the sky into beautiful colours

i will remember wanting to show you

how the world writes poems with its own hands

only for me to have a reason to talk to you

so i can show you the skies i’m under

and tell you how i wish you were here

but i will remember to forget to do that

to forget the time you wake up at

and how you like your coffee and the name of your cats

and when i see a post that reminds me of you

i will save it for later

as if a later exists, where we are one again

i will linger by your door

but i will remember to not make a sound, let alone knock

i will shut it and i will remember to forget

the sound of your bell

and the face of the guard that sits under your building

i will remember to not make conversation

because he will ask me about you

but i have to remember to forget,

because there are no answers to these questions.

i will remember to forget

the things i have learnt about you

the things i remember and the things we regret

the things that were yours that have now become mine

part by part, i will remember to forget the traits i picked up,

the pieces i stole from you to piece myself together.

listen, now my routine has an empty slot because you were here,

because i was always busy loving you,

my head made sticky notes of all your small habits

and it’s getting tough to take them off

because i either tear them apart,

ori let them leave a mark on the walls,

and i was getting kind of used to fitting myself

in your small slots for me,

and my body was getting used to the cold of your room that i hated being in [but you liked it that way so i learnt to cover myself up],

and i was getting kind of used to my days being about you,

so now i’ve spent all my weeks feeling weak,

but loving a war takes strength and i did it all,

blurred boundaries and the no man’s land,

buried our love in the trenches

and i did it all, i threw away the hazards, i let down my guard

defenceless, i let you shoot me through my heart,

but i still let it bleed on some days to remind myself i lived through it all,

i still bleed trying to rip out the parts of you that live inside of me like organs.

but i must remember to forget

i must remember new things

about the world

i will remember to take care of myself

you know i never did with you

hoping you would do it for me

but you forgot to remember each time

so i will remember to forget

all the little things i promised not to

and i will not keep parts of you with me

because there is barely any space left for myself

and my shattering parts

you know it too,

you left for the same reasons

or maybe because

you were running out of space yourself

you were running out of memory

it must be hard to remember the gifts i’d like

and the ones she would

so i understand

that you chose to forget

but i hope you remember

i was never the kind to forget

you know i reminisce until it becomes the death of me

i let my memory consume me alive

i never run out of it, just out of people i keep in it

but this time, i will remember to forget

until i have forgotten how to remember

all the things you did to me, and the ones you didn’t

and one day

i will look at your face and not recognise it

there will be nothing stranger than our love

it will be another face in the crowd

and your name, i will confuse it with another’s

the way you confused your love for me with another’s,

i will remember to forget you

the way you forgot to remember me,

and i will slowly learn to become less of you, and more of me.

— @alishaalalwani & @yearnball (on ig)