We are held together by memory,
each of us raveled tightly
round recollection
as if it were a certainty,
each telling our heart that
this past is the one.
We are great storytellers,
and rapt listeners.
But we are prisoners, too.
The histories we tell ourselves
about who we are
and why we are:
these are wax and twine.
We are stuck and bound.
Afraid.
Scared of the courage
it takes to set the past aside.
Fearful of a letting go
that might unwind us from ourselves.
But we are more than memory.
More than we recall.
Our long-told Then
is just an echo of the Now
and a shadow of the Soon,
It is neither who we are,
nor who we may be.
It is merely who we said we were.
And if we undo the twine
and melt the wax,
we will find ourselves anew,
clean-woven from fresh yesterdays.
Then we can bind up old wounds
with the cloth of new remembering,
and break bread with those selves
we could not recall before:
the dusty splinters of our soul
that were neglected
and long held apart by memory.
