Never Forget

So I wrote this a few years ago. Every once in awhile I'll sort through my documents and see the title and think oh what did I forget and then read it and be amazed that I never took this piece of writing anywhere.

“Never forget,” she said to me through cracked bleeding lips and broken teeth. Blood matted her long hair and dripped in a staccato to the cold stone floor below. I held her head in my hands her limp and broken body sprawled against the smooth concrete of the tiny cell. Her wounds no longer bled but oozed blood creating a grisly snow angel around her twisted limbs. I held my ear closer to her lips to catch her last few words. Blood from the fracture in her skull pooled in the palms of my hands as I tried to hold her closer without causing her anymore pain. Her left arm was broken. There were cuts and bruises all across her still saintly face. Her back was twisted and I'm sure even speaking she was in intense agony. “Never forget, today” And there I promised her I would always remember taking her small limp, bloodstained hand in my own I promised her that I would never forget what had happened here today. I whispered empty words of comfort and safety of a warm home and skilled doctors. Her cut lips turned up at the corners, attempting to smile. Tears fell from my eyes onto hers. Tiny rivulets ran down her cheeks. I can only try to imagine the pain she was feeling right now but I couldn't. I could only hope for her recovery. Thinking only on how I would protect her. How I could make her well. “Please remember...” she said. The last ounce of her strength followed those two words. I'd like to think I could see the light leaving her eyes but I know that's not true. I know the lights around us hadn't changed but I could sense in some part of me that she was dead.

“Never forget today,” her last words on this earth were to tell me to always remember what had happened. Not a final poetic declaration of love or a summation of her life. The worst part is I have forgotten. Those last moments with her I will always know as if they had happened yesterday. Awake and asleep I can still see her broken frame and feel the sticky blood in my hands. But I cannot remember. I wake up in the middle of the night hating myself for not remembering. I don't remember what I did afterwards. How she had gotten injured or what my part in it was. I don't know where that cell was or what I was doing there. I have forgotten that day completely. The next thing I remembered was being home sitting in a dining room chair when the light above me flickered twice and died. I have no idea what happened that day. But the good news is: I aim to find out.