With a concept from kiki_poetry, I am using a line of poetry from an Asian-American or Pacific Islander poet in honor of AAPI Heritage Month.
Today’s line comes from a poem by Don Mee Choi, “Wings of Return”. As per kiki_poetry’s instructions, I will italicize the line from “Wings of Return”.
If I forget your name, please forgive me, I’m not myself today. My memories have memories all their own. Sometimes, the memories come. Sometimes, they go.
They have a word for this, you know. What’s the word? My memory isn’t what it used to be.
You wouldn’t understand. You’re just so young. Too young. When I was your age. When I was young.
My memories have memories all their own. Memory’s memory. Memory’s child. My memory lives inside a dust-filled armoire, inside a hope chest, inside a rarely looked at steamer trunk.
My memories are the children of ancestors whose names we’ve forgotten. We’ve forgotten so much.
If I forget your name, please forgive me, I’m not myself today. Sometimes, the memories come. Sometimes, they go. You wouldn’t understand.
You’re just so young. Too young. When I was your age. When I was young. When I was young. When I was young…
When I was young, I didn’t forget so much.
Isabelle Palerma 
“My memory lives inside a dust-filled armoire, inside a hope chest, inside a rarely looked at steamer trunk.”
Te in aeternum exspecto.
I know of a soul that resides in me. Like an aura I cannot see. Yet, I don’t doubt she’s always there. I know of a soul I can feel, but not see. She is the version of me I never could see. This soul I hold in the sun and in dreams. I would run towards even with no memories. Not held in the mind in my DNA. To be held for eternity and a day.
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This is its own poem. You should write a book of poems yourself..you contain volumes within your chest, within your thorax, between your rib bones. You are a poem. This soul of yours is a poem.
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Neruda said it best, “so I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my windows ache.” Whatever I needed to possess to be silent for days and days I am incapable of possessing. To miss another soul you have never met is an odd torture. I am not inspired I am merely surviving on the taste and feel of words like gulps of air as my soul balances above water.
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