Burn the messages
The memories char and crinkle until they’re nothing more than what they should have been,
what you made them-
kindling for the fire burning in the living room of my new house.

So I don’t have parents, or aunts, or those two best friends.

What does it matter when every morning I’m burning, burning playing games,
marathoning movies, starting fires, doing chores, earning money,
learning what foods are for the first time in my life

What does it matter if they tried to murder me,
when I’m alive?

And what does it matter when I have so many distractions, that are volatile in their ability
to cut down the old masters
of my mind?

Surviving is not living in the same way
breathing fluorocarbon is not drowning – your lungs still have liquid in them.

I burn it out with laughter and anger
with love and sobbing

And so I could not live, could not enjoy the breathing I am able to do,
if I did not have the ability to unremember.

Because to unremember is to gain new memories, and to gain new memories and experiences when the Christmas lights illuminate his hair
and when the dogs’ barking is out of happiness to their newest friend,
it’s some moment that makes all the liquid breathing worth it.

So with this I tell my past selves to stay alive and to keep breathing,
because someday you’ll get oxygen
and it’s invigorating to burn.