Memory

All my life people have commented on my memory.
In elementary school, I would astound my parents.
In my majority, friends sometimes warn,
Don’t tell Amy anything unless you want her to ask you
Follow up questions years later.

I don’t intend my memory to be a weapon.

We all wrote memories for our mother.
The other three wrote broad strokes, cheery, funny, sweet.
And mine, though people laughed, were perhaps not so nice.
I hadn’t realized it.

Later, we talked about money memories.
Once I was baby sitting and the children cut my
Toilet paper “cast” off my leg and accidentally cut my stockings.
I remember the horror of the waste in the moment,
Trying to keep the slits hidden from their mother.
And at home, my mother: “Whatever you earned this afternoon
Would hardly cover the price of the stockings.”
My fears were realized. In trying to keep the rowdy children
Occupied, I had failed. All those miserable hours, wasted.

My sister: do you have no nice memories?

The question ricochets in my head.

Are not the most vivid memories the bad ones, for us all?
I know my Dad read to us, and my parents sacrificially paid for school.
I know I had birthday parties and Christmas presents.

But my most vivid memories are the ways that I have failed.
I left my mittens on the city bus my junior year.
My glasses case fell out of my backpack on the plane four years later.
Even writing these failings makes my stomach hurt.

I don’t intend my memory to be a weapon.

But I suppose it is, sometimes turned on others,
And sometimes turned on me.