For me, I find it extremely difficult to remove associations,
especially with places-and people. Scenarios, memories,
all lost in a haze of emotion and the contour of rampant anger.
How could you possibly despise, or fear, the town in which
you and your cousin Julie took baths in the same bucket
of a sink. Where all of your cousins congregated for Fish
Fests, and birthdays. Many, many birthdays. Where your
grandfather is situated, a marvel of a man in his beachfront
home. A place you will never, ever let fall into a lapse of
memory. I have so, so many fantastic reminiscences of the
place that now brings me so much discomfort, and unease.
I wish I had never tainted it's sand-swept streets with your
image. I wish that, perhaps, someday it will all become a
blur. Suddenly, heroin hill won't outshine the magnificence
I saw in Hull as a child. Yet, I know a scene is what I make of
it. You won't be there If I don't wish you to be-- I've already
washed away the stains into a mental trash-can. It was a
simple, facile notion. Memory is nothing once you've accepted
your past, disassociating the present from what was.
