Writing to forget

Don't we write to forget? We enter the numbers of our contacts into our memory cards so that we don't have to remember any of them – sometimes even our lover's. Historians record the witnesses of history so that later generations would have the knowledge that the precious lessons will always sit securely on the shelves of the library archive untouched – like boulder shrines buried in a tall jungle.

Just a year ago I had a heart-wrenching experience that almost destroyed my trademarked hope of life and a year later it all seemed a bit worthless for all the troubles it has caused. And for better or worse, on days when I wasn't licking my wounds, I almost totally forgot when and how it happened. I penned it down somewhere and time managed to tuck it away in a cool, dry place of memory where we seldom visit.

It's a human ritual to cast the past in stones not to remember, but lest we keep remembering and choose to linger there. Poetry has got to be one of the greatest discoveries ever, even more so than music, I think. Where music came to seduce the heart, poetry entered to save the soul from the aftermath of a fading melody. Music is the passionate Casanova, earnest to please. Poetry the compassionate Christ, able to heal. A broken-hearted lover could turn her tears into wine by making poetry out of nauseated pleasure, and then live – not as if the heartache never happened but in spite of it. By letting go of what's out of our hands anyway, we set ourselves free to feast on life's grand mysteries, and to regenerate the spirit and courage to take on life again at all costs.

We write to forget.