the ghost of other lives

as i remember,

My parents divorced, they told me - maybe they said "separation"
and I wept for an hour or two
and then was fine
a pink book on divorce "for kids" had terrible cartoons. Worse text. I took it for amusement, let it go.
I had a new place to walk - a mile or two north. new routines, imposed. as the old routines were imposed.
I lost no control. gained no control.
what love was there remained, or didn't fall.
fights, arguments, thrown furniture, drunk slobbering hollers continued.
escapes were the same. time was slow.  sleep came uneasy.
I remained myself.

as I remember

"no way in hell" her father said.
I'd never visit. and I wasn't strong enough (so I remember, so I told myself, so I remember telling, myself)
to dissent - which this time occurred to me.  (so here it's special. as I remember.  I'd imagined rebellion, as a life choice, not kicking, but living it)
nevermind though. thought of moving up. never asked if I'd be wanted. stayed at home. wept sometimes.
became more distant from myself, as I remember. here. I wanted to be someone. I lived outside that want.
We never spoke again, after we last spoke. she and I. or that old me.  as I tell it now.  from what I remember.
there was a day spent in her town, we met and saw swans, and I didn't understand, how what seemed like a lovely day was not a sign of permanence. smiles and ease.  I've never understood, as I remember.

Then the jobs came and passed.  before and after. always fired, or disappeared one day, embarrassed, too much lateness, or argument.  One place I'd cleaned and would later pass, walking, daily, glancing over, not approaching. exit myself.

at least one river, called me in, to stay, as I remember. didn't do it.  or I did, and doing so, split, the body that drowned, the body that stayed. ghosts split apart, as I tell it.

as I remember it, I was baptised there. Immersion, mikvah, ritual drowning, shamanic practices cut you up (as I read, as I remember reading, as the words became a way I had been, as I remembered while I read, for I can remember remembering.  So doing, writing new stories, climbing the ladder to

in that river, I drowned and was reborn, never having leapt.   so lived.  so died.  so each day, as I remember, passed.

There was a time, as I remember, wholeness was me.  I'd think and do. I was myself. These days I am not myself. I am not what I would do.  This is adulthood. As I remember learning.
Respect for the wish of others.  Or for plans.  As I remember being taught to understand. Being proud to learn.

Outside could be any weather.
I could be any name.

As I remember wishing, I sit.

Poor israel.  No return will make your eden green.