I’d be hurt but I’m not, so you’re lucky and so am I.

I am opposite. I do not burn old photos in a rite of rebirth, I do not squirrel away my most shamefulls in the root system of an old oak. For some reason I romanticize all goings on back there, be they mine or others. I dream of nice clothes and well written letters, of horses in the streets and good ol' fashion duels. I'd see that burning visage of a past love and know that the acrid smell of sulfur and burning photostock would not absolve me of anything. My fondest and not so fond memories intermingle in warm pool of something in my mind highdiving and cannonballing, drowning and peeing. Even the villains of my life are there like a funny rogue's gallery (they are usually peeing) and are harmless enough. I like not understanding why. I like having all those old letters and knick knacks cluttering my shelves, each one a touchstone of some instance or occasion begging me remember. I do remember and cherish.
But I fear the future.

Mall

It was the one before the last. I don't get bothered as I pass the makeup counters on my way up. I am not accosted by fragrance or samplers as women in white smocks bump into one another smearing colors on each other in the resulting melees. My crows feet don't catch their eye, my poor complexion isn't caught in their mirrors. I am the hard sell. I am on the ninth floor walking past graveyards of mannequins moth balled before the coming war. My feet preceed me in echoes rattling off the stairs. I am a bat finding my way by radar. And up here in a place between places not quite heaven but nine up from hell I am reminded of a familiar but not so feeling. It is the biggest trigger, or so I have been told. The sense of smell can jostle loose fragments of pieces stuck in a belfry far too long unkempt. What do I do? Chase it? Up one flight (what's one more?) and into Minos' labyrinth of clothes and cubicles a bazaar of fashion and memory. Now I have been here before and found the corridors confusing and serendipitous but I have a golden thread with me leading towards whatever is on the other end.. I am at a crossroads at what I believe to be the very spot. It(he) smells just as I remember and he has to be at the most two corners from where I stand. This is the moment, yes here among a clutter of designer skirts and fall fashion, mens apparel and back to school kids wear. I can't even remember who I am and no one here thinks to ask. In my awkward way I turn about to find my way back and I am confronted by some dweller of this place. May I help you,who are you looking for, who are you? No, I'm not sure, Theseus.