Across the array of untouched houses, along the withered street, I see a train,
in hope of finally being able to flee this run down town. I could only hope and wish I could be taken anywhere, anywhere but here.
I have lived here all my life, yet I had unknowingly repressed the memories. Good or bad, it didn't matter to my own mind, it just chose to forget and forget but I have longed to find understanding.
I tried all I could but every time I tried, my own mother would stop me. It's as if she wanted those memories to stop, yet I'm still sitting there clueless. Why were those memories taken away from me?
Intrusively, I walked. Passing my primary school, passing the crematorium where the vibrant roses would grow.
One step further. I would receive a call from her, begging me to come back home.
But mother, I want to explore, I want to find my own meaning. I want to have that old deja vu feeling again, of being isolated and walking through where no one could find me. I have forgotten that place but it came back to me in fragments from a dream.
In this small town, no one saw the hidden side that was surrounded by hours of field,
it's where no one would resort to, only lonely people would pass by, then they wouldn't return.
But what if I returned? I want that closure, no matter what it takes, I have questioned myself, am I desperate? Am I starved of memory? Despite my mothers pleas, I walked forward, ignoring the downsides of what was out there that I was not allowed to find.
No map, a turned off phone yet I could still walk in the same direction. Maybe it was muscle memory.
My legs numbly followed ahead with my intrusive mind, I let the strong winter air ring through my ears, as that was all I wanted to hear.
As I kept walking, figures that I could only see were running towards me, and everytime one passed by, a fragment of memory came back.
The seasons would change, suddenly a rainy winter with a low feeling mind got that boost of dopamine, and it just saw the sky brighten and though only my eyes for a second, It seemed vibrant, but that feeling was only temporary.
I finally reached the spaced field. It was lonely and the grass was overgrown, I could only imagine what it was like in previous lifetimes.
Suddenly, my frame rates dropped as if my vision turned to pictures, each and every one binded to my wires giving me that connection as it transmitted through my mind.
Each small image that I rescued, expressed a timeline, and as through one by one it gave me the realisation.
I had been there before, many times, at my highest and my lowest. I took people I trusted to come and see my space, people that are still with me and people that left me a deep scar.
I visited the place continuously, instead of running to someone I would go there, in order to feel that sense of escape, belonging.
But once the weather had affected my atmosphere, it would go out of its way to throw me off my own path.
I would go through mud, get drenched from rain and hail and walk through deep puddles just to reach it. I felt so naive back then, even mother nature had turned her back on a young child when she needed her the most, I wanted to confront her myself.
I reached the end of the field and opened the worn down gate, and as I took the upturned path I ended up on a platform opposite a vision.
I looked past the tired, drugged-like eyes, and the drained expression. It's as if she had done nothing but wrong.
She had rugged hair and torn clothes, yet the most familiar face, as if I saw it every time I looked at a reflection.
She looked confused as to why she was there too. But She had made a final decision. impulsively she thought she was left there to make, and blamed herself entirely with no second thought or a new expression,
and when she suddenly disappeared it all came back to me.
It was either me or her and she decided to die alongside all our experiences, only so I could live.
My mind woke up when I received another call,
I ran away from the place and swore to myself that I would never return.
I didn't want to rethink that experience, nor see myself from another view. But when I did, I just promised to myself that things would get better for her.
I regret going deep into the fields, as all i got from it was the sense of fear, of seeing how much she overcame.
So when people ask me, “Would you do it again?” I wish I accepted that the memory was repressed instead of remembered.
But maybe it's a sign that I needed to find that acceptance, even though reality was hiding it from me.
I needed to realise things before I ended up investigating for my own sake and sanity.
I should have asked questions instead of walking in further, I just wish I asked, “What even happened to me?”
So when I pass memory lane, I now don't think twice about my small town. One day I will take that train to a new place to create my own memories.