Being forgotten is a different type of pain. Watching you flirt with other men. Hurts. I want you to be happy. And you are. But it still hurts. It hurts to see how quickly you got over us. How quickly you threw me away, Throwing me onto the road, right as a truck drives past. It hurts to see you get into that same truck. The same one that ran me over. __ __ __ It hurts to be forgotten by you. When you still take over my every thought. When you still control my heart. It hurts to be forgotten by you. When I thought you loved me too?

             __________________


                      💔

I was forgotten again. I was left again.

I should’ve known This was bound to happen; He lead me into false happiness And then cloaked himself in disappearance.

I was naive again. I was starstruck again.

My heart is again pierced with The small knife of hope. Forgotten, I will be, bleeding Away a stream of unrequited love.

I remember when you loved me. It was just a few short years ago. You used to hold me tight underneath your threadbare patchwork blanket while you slept, the sound of your gentle breath echoing in my ear. We were both so new, so small, so foolish, our untouched hearts only just starting to spread their roots into the ground. Promises still felt binding and friendships still felt true. A year was an infinity and every day was extraordinary and I still really believed that you would never let me go.

Life was easier then. It was just us, running through sunny fields of daffodils with their mouths open to the sun, climbing the hunchbacked willow tree in the backyard, sipping steaming hot chocolate by the crackling fire.
Back then, when life was simple, it was easier to love. There were no complications, no misunderstandings. Just a single, juvenile sentiment, openly expressed by your wide eyes peering into mine.

But time, as it does, robs its young of their loving innocence. I watched powerless as you began to leave our home early each morning, only to come back after the sun had gone to sleep. Years passed, and your arms that once hugged me now brushed me aside. You spent more and more time at your desk, at Matthew’s house, then Jacob’s, then Tiffany’s. Our adventures became mere memories, and our friendship slowly buried itself in the ground.

One stormy night, I slipped underneath your bed; you didn’t even stir. I lay there in a crumple for a week, collecting dust along with your extra bedding and seasonal clothing, before your mother found me and swept me away in a storage box without a second thought. Did she remember the significance I once held in your life? Did she care?

I have not left the box since. In fact, more boxes now accompany mine, darkening my view of this cobwebbed corner of the basement. Still, my little button eyes remain as unblinking as my matted fur is untouched. I believe you have forgotten me, your beloved toy, your Bunny Blue. But don’t worry, little one. I am not sullen or angry in the slightest bit.

After all, I cannot even feel.

I watch as the world spins.

Lisa is setting up the dining table, a pudgy baby with pink cheeks resting on her hip. My niece has her mothers eyes; big, blue and inquisitive, and her father’s black hair, growing in tufts on the top of her soft skull.

They asked me to hold her, once. I kept thinking about her unformed bones- that self destruct button atop her head- that I would somehow find a way to push. Or I would hold her wrong, and her skin would pinch, and she would cry, and I would get it in my head that somehow she knew that I wasn’t equipped for something like this. That I wasn’t designed to have a baby, or family at all, and my bi-annual appearances at family events weren’t fooling anybody.

“Can you pass me the tongs, please?” Lisa asks, her free hand outstretched behind her as she coos to the baby. “Babe? The tongs?”

My brother-in-law slinks past me into the kitchen, and I’m engulfed in his beer and cigarette breath, “No worries.”

John makes his way to the dining table, placing the tongs carelessly on the wooden top. Predictably, Lisa grabs the tongs and puts them in a perfectly spaced line with the wooden spoon and the carving knife already laid out.

There’s four places set, each adorned with personalised plates on top of vintage doilys; even the babies high chair, with its white legs wrapped with green and red tinsel, has its own matching set.

I used to have one of those plates. Our mother had made them herself and we each glazed our own. I remember thinking Lisa’s was so much better than mine, with her name written in perfect cursive and little cartoon elves that looked like they jumped from a children’s movie drawn around the rim. Mine was a mess of block letters and poorly drawn Christmas trees, the type of thing my mother would lie about and say ‘has a lot of potential’, all while displaying Lisa’s as though it belonged in a museum and hiding mine at the bottom of the cupboard.

Now it lies in pieces somewhere, shrapnel of it still crushed underneath the dining room rug. Remnants of a fight long forgotten by everyone else and rotting within me.

I watch as John takes baby Susie out of Lisa’s arm, and hoists her into the air above his head. He blows raspberries against her stomach, and her face lights up and she giggles and giggles as though it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened. Susie smacks around her fathers head, pulling at strands of hair and scratching the lines around his eyes- completely free of the concept of malice or consequence.

I watch a little girl, who’s whole world is the people in front of her. Who’s yet to taste the bitterness of the outside air, the sour curdles of rejection, the sweet familiarity of loneliness.

Who doesn’t yet have that sinking feeling in her gut, that if she were to slip away no one would feel her absence.

“Don’t get her too excited before dinner!” Lisa scolds.

I say, “Yes, because god forbid anyone actually has fun on Christmas Day,” but it goes unheard.

My father takes his seat at the head of the table, rubbing his liver-spotted hands together at the sight of the feast before him. My mother sits diagonally from him, prim and proper in every way, preparing for everyone to sit down so she can start saying Grace. I check to make sure that there’s still light in her eyes. She sees right through me, and I realise that she looks younger than she ever has.

Lisa is next to take her seat. Quickly followed by baby Susie, as John tucks her into her high chair so he can start carving the Christmas ham.

Four adult sized pieces are placed on each adult sized plate. Tiny chunks are sliced and dropped onto Susie’s.

My mother takes every ones hands and says her Grace. If I imagine hard enough, I can almost feel the softness of her palm against mine again; the slickness of her baby pink nail polish as I stroke her thumbnail the way I used to. I can feel our elbows bump together, as they did every Christmas, as we both dug into whatever roast was on that year.

I wonder if she thinks about it too.

They each devour their first servings within minutes, and serve themselves another.

No one cries, no one argues, no one really speaks at all.

I watch as the world still spins.

I erased myself from the frame, and the scene continues to play out as though I was never scripted into it.

No one leaves the porch light on anymore. No one listens to old voicemails, just to hear me say their name.

There is no place for me at the table.

You’d think being forgotten is this horrible nightmare. One day you wake up and people want to hang out with you and talk to you all day. The next day you wake up, get in the pool and float for four hours without getting a single text.

I used to have this fear of missing out and I think I still do on some level but let me tell you, the wonderful silence of floating in a pool on a sunny day [speaking as someone who hates the sun] is mood changing. I mean it. All that talk about sun being good for depression, it’s really true in my opinion.

Being forgotten by people can be sad and lonely but sometimes all you need are your dogs and a pool.

[I’m writing this on August 9th, 2024 incase a day comes when I have too much on my plate to write. Yes, I am in my pool while writing this. Yes, it’s a piece of crap. I don’t hate it]

[yeah so it’s August 17th and somehow I got banned. I think it’s because I was venting about my ex. Totally my bad, I need therapy and this isn’t that 😅 anyways I’ll get back to proper writing soon.]

When One was born, One was praised, for One was their parents’ pride and joy.

But then Two came along, then Three. Four. Five.

One suddenly seemed to be forgotten in the shadows of their younger siblings.

One, at school, was mildly popular. One had many friends, who all seemed to care about them.

But then One’s parents died. Then Two, Three, Four, and Five.

One’s friends didn’t want to have anything to do with One anymore. They avoided One like the plague, afraid they would catch the sickness of death that loomed over One.

One then went to live with their uncle. One’s uncle ignored One all during the day. One had to do school at home with textbooks because One’s uncle never dropped him off at the public school. One was too young to go themselves.

But at night…One’s uncle payed One all of his attention.

One didn’t like this attention. One didn’t like the smell of their uncle’s glass bottled drinks, or his grimy hands.

One didn’t like this at all, they wanted to be forgotten like in the day.

But One’s uncle didn’t wish for himself to be forgotten. He wanted to be remembered.

In whatever form he could be.

Over time, One felt…distant from his reality. Their brain isolated them, made them mute and numb to all connections.

Even after One grew into an adult and took their uncle permanently out of their life. They felt…off.

Wherever they went, no one looked at them, spoke to them, even when they bumped into them.

One worked alone. Society had found their existence…pitiful. That had to be why.

So One played into their role. Day, after day, after day, after day, after day….

One soon grew old and weak. They knew death was coming. Though they were not afraid. Maybe death had forgotten about them as well.

That was untrue, though death found no favor in ending such a small, weak creature.

One had died in their bed, staring into the ceiling.

Alone.

Extra, because I hate a bad ending.

---

A Few Years Later…

“Ugh, what is that rotten smell?” Kain covers his mouth at the stench overflowing the air as his partner, Brantley, kicks open the door connecting to the bedroom.

“Looks like this place hasn’t been used in a looong time,” Brantley says, “Don’t know why we gotta go and clean it though.”

“Shut up, man,” Kain growls, words muffed as he still covers his nose, “Let’s just get this over with.”

They enter the room, flashlights in a hand and a trash bag in another.

Brantley flashes his light around, stopping on the bed.

“Holy—!!”

A body is there, skin reduced to bones and a bubbling matter of red tissue. Flies and maggots cover the body from head to toe, eating, sucking the rest of the matter off the body. Leaving nothing behind. The eyes are gone, only black holes left behind in their wake.

Kain gags at the sight, moving backwards toward to door. “Oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH!”

The two men leave after that, rushing to tell their business partners what they saw.

One watches, smiling. He had been forgotten for so long; someone has finally found him.

They say you have two lives; the second lasts until you're forgotten.

But if you were never known in the first place, then you don't quite get that second chance.

After you die, you just sort of... fade away.

No memory; not even a name on a gravestone.

The only thing left of you is your ashes, floating in the air.

Who knows where the wind will take you.

(sorry for the lack of writing, i've been trying to work on my novel; if you want to see more abt my WIP, feel free to check my insta in my bio)

In the stillness of the dawn Nature's beauty unfolds A symphony of colors drawn By the hands of gods untold

The gentle rustle of the trees A lullaby to the soul A dance of leaves in the breeze A sight that makes us whole

The beauty of a flower in bloom A testament to life's grace A fragrant perfume That time cannot erase

In the beauty of nature We find peace and serenity A reminder of our true stature In this world of divinity

I’m insignificant! Cried the wee grain of sand; Gather all my numbers, Spanning deserts and coasts, Count us all! Look up at the sky; Look past it! The stars outshine the sand.

I’m insignificant! Cried the star we call a sun; One hundred thousand light years, One hundred billion stars, The Milky Way! Watch as we churn; And me- An average star among brighter.

I’m significant! A speck of dust suspended in sun; This planet you call Earth. Where we look up at the sky, And are scared by it’s vastness; Our smallness. And forget that we too Have significance.

---

“I’M SIGNIFICANT! (screamed the dust speck.)” -Calvin, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes

I’m so tired

So drained

And empty

Like all the light’s been sucked out of me

Last year these things meant the world to me

Now I couldn’t care less

I couldn’t care less about these fake friends

And I try and try

Not to be so tired

And useless

But nothing works

I guess that’s my purpose

Being used and forgotten

Just like a child’s toy