Just A Memory

Another night of bombs
In my bed I shudder
The sifting of ceiling plaster
Like a veil over this reality

The shelter down the street
May as well be in another world
These bandages wouldn’t hold
For the painful journey

So here I wait
In the spaces between explosions

Only my twelfth year alive
But I tell myself
You survived and grew old
Ensconced in the silence
Of a peaceful country

There I wear shoes worn smooth
From silent, unhurried walks.
A favourite sweater probably–
One without any plaster dust
Released when I drop it
Upon an unbroken chair

I’m not really here
I tell myself
It’s just a remembrance
In the telling to a youngster
No older than my age here and now
Through the telling
I am brought here
from that distant time

I know I survive, I tell myself
I know I do
To tell the tale
That brings me terribly back

Yes, just a vivid retelling
I will be back in a comfortable home
in the future
in a few seconds

This memory — so tactile and loud
I wish that young person understood
Or cared at all, so I could stop
So I could return

Instead I’m stuck back here
Wishing it would all stop

But it’s just a memory
That’s all it is, surely