Memory is a quiet thief,
slipping through the halls of my mind
collecting pieces of who I was
and leaving them in places
I can’t always reach.
Some nights they return—
soft as dust,
sharp as glass—
faces I loved,
moments I meant to keep,
the echoes of laughter
that no longer belongs to now.
I touch them carefully,
afraid they’ll fade again
if I breathe too deep.
But memories never stay
the way you saved them.
They shift,
they dim,
they soften at the edges
until they’re more feeling than fact,
more ache than image.
Still—
I hold them close,
these fragments that made me,
these ghosts of gentler days.
Because even when they hurt,
they remind me
that I lived.
And that I loved
hard enough
to remember.
Through the Fog 