all memories are traces of tears

a poem, a letter

2046 (2004, wong kar-wai)

there lie some fake flowers a foreigner had gathered together 

after I told him 

that illusions are what we make in order to slip away. 

I used to like lying a lot. 

---

there are so many different versions of grief, but mine

always feels like a forgery. 

you’ve never really asked me how I’ve been, and 

we’ve never really talked about doors anyway. 

---

my last memory of you involved a knife. you were

shovelling the dirt 

that was once a river that was once a heart. 

there was a part where you stabbed me in the chest. 

---

there was a part where I handed back the knife to you 

and when I asked you

to bury it for me, I saw you the following day 

marking an obscure grave for another burial.

---

I saw you the following day, standing by the door, 

getting knifed by 

somebody else. this was where I began to forget. 

this was where I began thinking of doors not as an appendage.

---

there was a part where I touched your nape to make sure 

you were still here,

and I figured you were still here because you were also grieving. 

what is existence but the persistence of memory.

---

two nights ago, I walked for miles and miles,

farther and farther until 

my feet could not feel all the losses of this earth, 

my tarred-and-feathered body fatigued by gravity. 

---

the stars were gone because I could not see them. 

I could not see them 

because you made everything so blurry. 

I am rediscovering how to lie in order to live, you know. 

---

I say: here lie my memories unsharpening themselves because 

they don’t want to be

knives anymore. I say: here lie the remnants of an impassable door, 

some fake flowers I killed because I realised I also like mercy. 

---

the foreigner runs towards the dirt because I am trying to

stab him in the chest.

lately, I am learning not to look for you anywhere I am,

my love. if I leave quickly, I may not really come.

---

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