Cosmic Collisions

When The World Was New

There once was a time, when my hands could fit the world inside of them. I could recall the feeling of dirt at the bottom of my feet, without having to think too hard. I could smell the freshness of the Earth in my hair. Now, there is only my hands: small and clumsy. My feet have formed calluses from the shoes I wear everyday. My hair smells like bottled up adventures, purchased on a shelf. 

I am not living my life. 

Hello, and welcome to my story. I'm sorry you're here. 

I am not tall, and I am not short. 

I have long, dark brown hair and green eyes. 

I am silent and loud all at the same time.

When I was twelve, my mother died. To be honest, I don't remember much about her. I can vaguely remember how frustrated she would be with me. How her favorite color was black, and how she would spend so much of her time fixing her hair and makeup. 

I do not remember her laugh, or her smell. I can't recall on her voice, or any of the things that make a person who they are.

I am void in some aspects. 

The odd thing is, I can remember the time before her end. I can remember the houses I grew up in, and how many rooms they each held. I can remember the roads we would turn down, making our way to school or work. I can remember the surroundings, just never the intimate details. 

I wonder, does a young trauma truly damage a brain? Is it usual and customary for a memory to become blocked and forgotten?

I say trauma here, not as a dramatized fiction, but as the truest form of loss that I have witnessed. My mother, was young and ill prepared for raising a child. My father, let's just say - he was so misplaced that he eventually was no longer pictured. She was on her own, and even as a child the impression of her loneliness was pressed into me. The nights she would cry to sleep, fight with a possible lover, lose herself in anger; she was devastatingly alone. With just me. A child that cannot comprehend the stresses of life. A simple mind, not grasping her efforts or her worries. I knew nothing, and paraded through that life as if I held all knowledge. She had dreams, of what I don't know. She would have had goals, and aspirations. She may even have had success, but how can I say? 

And so I am stuck, knowing that this being - my being - ended the 'would have been' life of another being. My mother was reformed into this young woman that had to decide who she was going to be, and quickly. Were it not for my coming into existence, another life would have developed. An unknown life - one of perhaps more joy. Or, more sorrow. It's the unknowing that catches my breath. 

I am guilty of existing, when my mother does not. I am guilty of not remembering, and living on.

My name is Priya, and I am so sorry.