A Memory Long Forgotten

A poem reminiscing about old relationships and broken friendships

A pain
Hidden behind a locked door
One I’d long forgotten was there, in the corner

It drags itself from the crevices of my mind
Settling in my chest
I feel heavier

All this from seeing your face?
I never thought I’d feel this way

And yet seeing your smile makes me reminisce
You used to look at me like that,
Eyes scrunched up as you laugh aloud

And I’m in pain
I never thought I’d love to hear your laugh again

Is it romantic in nature?
No
But the nostalgia leads me to think of different times

Times when I felt your hand in mine
When you’d smile at me
And I thought we were friends

This pain settles in my heart and the pit of my stomach
And I almost wish we could go back
Back to the way it was in the old days

We’re different now
We’re not the same
You left me alone, and I know we’re not friends

“But we could’ve been”
That’s what it says, it whispers
That familiar pain, that longing in my chest

And I know it won’t change
And I’ll never see your face again
But that was the choice you made

You made this bed and now I lie in it
And pretend it’s not made of broken promises
And ignore the pain

Lock the door, one more time
Until I forget it’s there
And you’re nothing but a faded memory of someone who means nothing to me

Reviews

[JayG]

I have to ask, what's in it for the reader? In this, someone unknown, muses, in general terms, on events never explained, involving an unidentified "you."

Sure, for you, who has context, backstory, and more, plus intent, this works perfectly. But pity the poor reader. For them, someone they know nothing about is talking ab lut things for which they have no context. And unless we have context as-we-read, it's a meaningless word salad.
The problem with talking TO the reader is that we tend to leave out things that are obvious to us, as we write. Then, as we read, we "fill in the blanks," without knowing we're doing it.

One way to minimize that is to read our work as a reader must, with only the context we supply or evoke. Look at this as a reader must, as-they-read:

• A pain

Will a reader think in terms of physical or mental terms with only this? At least half will get it wrong.

• Hidden behind a locked door

You know that the locked door is in the mind. But does the reader? Can they?

• One I’d long forgotten was there, in the corner

So it now appears that you mean in the mind, but... Physical or mental? Pain of loss, pain of disappointment, pain born of frustration? You know, But the reader?

A thing to remember is that your reader doesn't care that you have pain unless you give them reason to care. So simply talking about it, especially when it's undefined, places you into the situation David Sedarus was talking about when he said“The returning student had recently come through a difficult divorce, and because her pain was significant, she wrongly insisted her writing was significant as well.”

In general, we don't tell the reader that we cried at a funeral, we strive make them weep. as E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Forgot the training on how to write that you got in school. Their goal was to provide skills useful to employers. In fact, that's the mission of public education. So we practice that via reports and essays. Did a single teacher spend one moment on prosody? They offer Creative Writing degrees that specialize in poetry. Surely at least some of what's taught to those hard working students is necessary? Right?

So a bit of digging into the tricks the pros take for granted can bring huge dividends by expanding your options and knowledge.

Take a look at the excerpt from Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled, on Amazon. He'll tell you things about the flow of language that you use all the time, without knowing why you do. his focus is on structured poetry, but still, what he has to say is useful to all writers.

So...I know this was far from what you hoped to hear, but it's not about talent of how well you write. And since we can't fix a problem we don't see as being one, I thought you'd want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/