In Remembrance

My mother remembers

a child who lied.

My sister remembers

one who cried.

An old friend remembers

someone who stayed

long after he should have left.

Someone remembers

the night I left.

Someone else,

on that same night,

swears I never did.

I have stopped correcting them.

There are photographs

I cannot remember taking,

a birthday I remember

ending in tears

though everyone remembers

the cake.

There is a house

I remember being afraid of

that everyone else remembers

as the happiest place

we ever lived.

There are conversations

I remember word for word

that nobody remembers having.

There are apologies

I am certain I received

from people who swear

they never said sorry.

For years,

I thought memory

was the one thing

no one could take from me.

I was wrong.

The older I get,

the more of my childhood

belongs to other people.

Their words

have entered my childhood.

Their anger

has edited my innocence.

Their forgiveness

has given me

things I may never

have earned.

Sometimes I remember

being happy

and cannot tell

if I was.

Sometimes I remember

being cruel

and cannot tell

if guilt is proof

or inheritance.

Even the person

I call myself

is beginning to sound

like someone

I was told I was.

Last December,

I found an old photograph

of myself at seven.

I knew the shirt.

I knew the room.

I knew the face.

I just couldn't remember

being the boy

inside it.

For a long time

I thought this meant

I had forgotten myself.

Now I think

I may have remembered

everyone else too well.

How many times

can a person be remembered

before the memory

becomes the person?