false memory

i remember it vividly.

it is like yesterday.

i know the dress i chose to wear.

i remember the books i carried with me.

i cannot forget the way i felt.

but you tell me, it never happened?

you tell me, i dreamt the whole episode?

i could not have imagined every detail,

from the sun's slant rays on my skin

to the parking lot i was forced into.

i remember dickinson smiling at me

from a poster on a wall of a bookstore.

i recall seeing shakespeare bust on a display

and complaining about commercialization.

i could not have imagined it so lively,

the way a random child smiled at me

when i walked out of the lift.

i swear i was with a friend 

who loves hemingway.

i persuaded him to buy me, 

'a moveable feast', which he did.

but you tell me, it was all false?

i feel like i went just yesterday.

but you tell me, it never happened.

i remember it too vividly.

there's no denying it.

except that i don't know 

where my copy of 'a moveable feast' is

and that you are me in the mirror.

i don't remember losing my book. also,

i don't remember forgetting a day like that.

Gayathri Tamilselvan

April 08