The Shape of Forgetting

The memory arrives unbidden— not the event itself, but its echo, rewritten by a thousand retellings, softened like a stone in a river.

You think you remember clearly, but the image slips sideways, colors bleeding into colors, edges dissolving into fog.

What persists is not the moment but the feeling of the moment, the ghost-shape of joy or sorrow haunting the space where it was.

We are all archaeologists digging through the dust of ourselves, finding less each time— or perhaps finding only what we need.