Maybe it is time to get better at forgetting.

To relinquish the empire of well-kept memories and moments held

on backs. On crooked shoulders.

To let go of gloves and feel weights lifting.

 

To trade remembrance for an un-stealable attention to the present:

a present blurred as soon as my eyes have left it.

To walk backwards into the unknown, unseen futures, without looking at what is right ahead - it was just left.

To walk backwards into the unknown, unseen futures with closed eyes; with supple guiding feet.

 

Time to develop a 360-degree hearing sense

that nonetheless will miss all echoes;

to walk and keep on walking, knowing we’re moving, but forever stuck in place.

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Maybe it is time to get better at forgetting

and make sure that the one thing held is kept inside and forced to beat.

Never to time, but still to beat.

 

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The Aymara people believe that the past stands before us. It is what we can see and what we know. On the other hand, our future is behind us: in the unknown space of the unseen. 

 

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They looked into each other’s eyes, letting the distance establish itself between them. Time shifted as it always does, leaving no choice but to go on.

She turned and walked away, into the sunset. She did what she knew best: escape. Blinded by the sun.

He watched her leave. Her image blurred. 

Perhaps it was a good thing she hadn’t held him. She hadn’t held him with her way of holding that didn’t know how to let go. In the way she did to make up for being who she was - a roamer. Her constant need to leave meant she would always be alone. But those she’d held, she’d always hold. She would revisit them. Treading through walked-on paths where she would leave things for them. Hoping that they would find them. Hoping that they would find in them something useful for their lives that would compensate for her not staying. Mysterious gifts they could pick up, even if they never knew their source. These parts of herself she willingly gave away.

Her footsteps would not be retracing this path, inexorably leading to the sunset. Inexorably taking her away.

He would never know if he had missed out on something as he began walking. Placing one foot behind the other. Into the future. Backwards into the unknown. Letting the image of her imprint itself one last time in his eyes, in his mind, as he picked up sounds that would become fading echoes. He closed his eyes: the better to forget the past. He let her image go and he kept on going. The sunset that had blinded her cast a red light behind his lids. He would never know how much it took for her to keep her own heart beating. 

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