We archive every memory we can,
but the act of saving carries its own loss.
I forgot to keep the sound of my mum’s lullaby,
and how it danced between my bedroom walls—
a hum before a hush, and softness in syllables I never noticed.
I forgot to keep the way my dad held my hand
when I was four and scared of the dark—
the warmth and the gentle pull. I thought I’d never forget.
I forgot to keep my sister’s footsteps
drumming down the corridor, off-key with her song—
she’d later slip behind me, tugging my sleeve, too shy to speak.
Somewhere between thirteen
and a thousand usernames
the world got louder than my home, louder than my life
until what was kept got posted, what was felt got liked.
Scroll.
Scroll.
Scroll.
I thought I’d find meaning there,
that something would speak to my soul,
but it was always another haul, another face, another productivity vlog
telling me I should be more—
now there are memories in my camera roll that don’t belong to me anymore,
I archived parts of me, starred the others (yet somehow, I can’t find them)
and the algorithm remembers more than I do, its feed endless and demanding
choked with tags that never meant a thing and trends I chased but never caught,
moments I let slip away and mistakes I’d rather forget,
and goals that were never mine to begin with
and names I know of people I don’t
and all the noise throughout it all—
only a portion worth hearing,
only a fraction worth keeping.
The rest forgotten.
Amidst it all… I forgot to keep the girl I was
before I learnt which parts of her didn’t belong.
Somewhere along the way, I found my voice but lost her quiet.
She forgot to keep the joy of being unseen
when the world demanded her presence.
Stillness doesn’t survive the spotlight (the quiet never makes the archive).
She forgot to keep the passion that burned for itself
because the quiet life doesn’t welcome fire.
She traded restless dreams and reckless desires for doubt too vast to catalogue.
Funny how it all unravels, thread by thread, until there’s nothing left to hold
but the feeling; it fades like the memory of a dream you had
when you were too young to grasp its meaning;
though I thought it would stay, it is just an echo I can’t chase, can’t catch
and now, what do I hold? Empty spaces, gaps, fragments—
things I let fade without knowing I was losing them;
the world keeps what it chooses to remember
but what happens to the untold stories?
Do they disappear? Or do they simply hide
in old attics, in long-forgotten journals,
whispered through generations waiting for the light to shift
or the world to quiet enough
to hear them,
to feel them
again?
Maybe they’re not gone, but buried like something deep within a drawer,
out of sight but still there, and as much as I’ve tried to forget,
I feel them in the corners of my mind, waiting for the right call—
things I thought I lost,
things I thought I let go,
Perhaps I didn’t forget at all.
