Bits and pieces

and memory fading

like broken sentences

consigned to silence

Bits and pieces

and broken places

A face, a name

lost to time, forever gone

If only one person remembers

what happened or went before

Did it ever happen

at all?

What happens when the other

is dead and gone?

When the memories

are no longer shared,

no longer alive

No one can tell me

how I lived or died

or whether I existed

at all

No childhood

Only bits and pieces

and broken rhymes

lost to the silence

of time

If memories, bits and pieces, and secrets are gone

What was all the pain and punishment about?

If no one remembers or knows at all

Why do I still feel shame and guilt

for nothing I did wrong

or can’t recall?

A schoolgirl crush, the first kiss

Your first love, innocence lost,

One great love, your broken

heart

Bits of memory, pieces of time