Down the back of the sofa

A prose poem

They said you had lost your memory, although I cannot recall the they who divulged the information. I was only young, after all, and my memories were jumbled, scrambled, slow to imbed into the folds of my brain. My recollections tripped and stumbled when expected to walk in a straight line.

Where do memories go when they are lost, anyway? I might have enquired. Perhaps down the back of the sofa with the remote control and the small change that slips effortlessly from pockets. Biscuit crumbs and dried spider husks. Have those memories slipped beneath the cushions, Greek holidays pressed tightly between soft furnishings? If I were to look, I might find many misplaced memories, like the day my mother forgot who I was.

Slowly those memories crept back, like the returning scolded child, meek and uncertain, seeking redemption. The recognition returning to her eyes, the once lost knowledge that she knew me as the child she birthed. But what happened to strip those days forever from her mind? Perhaps just the unpredictable mechanisms of our brains, with a texture like a mushroom, weighing around the same as a bag of sugar.

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