Forget Me Not

They are fighting again.

Not like they didn’t fight all the time

I had grown up watching them fight

Years ago, it used to scare me

But I learnt from friends that all parents fight

So I felt I was in good company

Little did I know that this fight would change everything

I had a bad feeling

But I waved it off

I had mastered the art of silencing those thoughts in my head

My father wasn’t a monster

My mother wasn’t a saint either

I didn’t expect them to make up

But they would move past it

As always.

This fight was different.

She left the house in a hurry

He warned her about taking any of his cars

The subject of their recent fights came to pick her up

That was the last time I saw her alive

I still remember her low-rise jeans that seemed inappropriate for her age

And the crew cut she sported with its red tint slowly fading

I should have done something

I saw her lying on the back seat of the car

Eyeballs still as glass

Body cold as snow

Her limp arms said all I needed to know

The stories started shortly after

Murder

Suicide

Drug overdose

Did any of it matter?

She was gone.

People wanted to point fingers

They pointed them everywhere but at her

I carried questions without answers in my heart as I watched her body go into the earth

She looked at peace

The ghosts had stopped hunting her

Now they came after me

People whispered when I walked past

The calls from friends reduced as the stories spread

I didn’t get to tell my side

My story had been written for me by people who knew nothing about me

The bad dreams kept me up at night

The gossips kept me in isolation

One night I decided to end it all

Nothing was worth living for

Nobody would miss me because nobody cared

I had the perfect plan

Before help came, I would have been long gone

The stage was set

I contemplated leaving a letter

But the only person I cared to write to

Didn’t need one

I ingested the poison and lay down to sleep

Hoping to wake up at the other side

“Ropo,

I am sorry.

Stay for me.”

I woke up startled,

Tubes attached to every part of me

I blinked twice before the faces in the room took shape

My father,

My sister,

My aunt,

My mother.

She stood far away from them but close enough for me to feel her presence

She begged me with her eyes

I gave a silent nod

I forgive you

They flustered around me like a new born

I felt like a new born

I had been given a second chance to tell my story

A story no one would forget.