By Ameerah Rahman
I’ve stopped keeping safe the keepsakes that people give me.
Burnt the picture of a field a lost boy once gave me.
Gifted the “soulmate bracelet” my ex-best friend gave me.
You see, the thing about keepsakes is that, they’re meant to be kept safely; as tokens of remembrance of a certain fond memory, a certain fond someone;
But what do you do when the fondness of a fond memory, the affections of a certain someone begin to die within you?
After getting embittered by the slow, eventual unravelling of their true character?
How do you continue to remain happy around a certain someone and enshrine them in fond remembrance when their fondness remains no more? When their claws begin to show?
When their weapons dig deep into your soul and gnaw at the remnants of your spirit,
Like hungry cannibals feasting on your hollow carcass, emptying it out of all its preserved goodness.
They rip you off; they hollow you out;
Save not even for a keepsake. Save not even for a keepsake.
So I ask you then,
Aren’t keepsakes embittering reminders of a job terribly done wrong? You lost the person, but you sustained the keepsake?
But then, what are keepsakes, if not toxic reminders of a certain lost someone, who’s memory and rather existence is lost to you now…?
For you see, a picture lies, and a bracelet entraps.
And so I burnt the keepsakes. And all the lies burn away. And all pretensions are ceased.
Save not even for a keepsake.