I use to love to go over to my grandparents house when I was kid
I remember how their backyard felt to be a mile wide
Its where I learned to play baseball
my grandpa would teach me
I remember running around the bases
and how I would never settle for anything less than to make it home
I remember how my uncle and I would try to hit the cars
driving by as we practiced golf
I remember how my sister and I would play in the dollhouse
our mom used to
the way we played out our futures
the same way our mom did twenty years earlier
I remember drawing on the kitchen counter
while my grandma would make dinner
I remember the smell of the cigarettes filling the air
and how ever since it has reminded me of their house
I remember my grandma marking my height up against the wall
and the way her unsteady hands would mark my growth
I remember her walking me to the basement showing
me her artwork from when she was younger
I remember how my aunt would take me up to my moms old room
showing me
her old clothes
her old brush
her old mirror
her old pictures
her old books
her old life
I remember the day they told me how much I was like my mom
telling me about her old life
making me remember how she isn’t around anymore
I remember how I cried to have her back
I remember how they told me to be like my mom
I remember when they told me my step mom wasn’t my mom
I remember when they got mad at me because I didn’t want
to talk about my mom
about my old life
about what I remembered
I remember saying I’d never go back there
How it hurts to remember
How I didn’t want to live my old life
I remember running from these memories
I don’t love to go over to my grandparents house anymore
But these memories aren’t my old life
They are who I am