i woke up crying.

I talked to Amanda about how we sometimes forget.
(We sat and I watched her eyes as we watched each other, breath knotting in our chests.
Breaths sputtering out from us).
She talked about the stretch and snap of time because sometimes things felt so close. So vivid and perfect. So immediate and devastating.
And yet somehow, so far.
Because sometimes we forget things and it's like reeling in a thread that you've let unravel over time...It has been so long.


I had a dream that I got to hold my cousin. I held onto her and she was so tangible.
But then she became this apparition in my periphery because I remembered that she was gone and it couldn't have been her. I started to cry.
This woman in my dream held a palm against my shoulder blade and asked me what was wrong and I told her, "She's here. She was right here." She looked at me softly, with her head bowed as if she already knew the answer, "Well what's wrong?"
I told her that I couldn't stop remembering. I kept remembering, again and again. Each time like the first time. She's gone.
She brought me up by the wrists and led me into the arms of my mom. my aunt. my cousin's siblings and their children. and they kept whispering to me, their words against my neck and along my face, into my ears, "It's ok now. You can let her go, we can let her go."


We talked about it and Amanda nodded with me.
(It occurs to me every once in a while that I am bound to her. A promise was made in that space, a year ago, when she let me sob with my knees buckled beneath me, as she cried into her palms with her back against the door).
She nodded and knew that sometimes we forget. Sometimes that hurts us more.