They told me the pain would soften
That time despite the ash in its breath—was kind
But years passed like strangers
And I remained haunted
By ghosts that wore familiar eyes.
The Solace Centre rose from ruin
A steel cathedral in a wasteland of forgetting
For a price, you could store joy in crystal
Relive a lover’s laugh
Or drown yesterday
Beneath the blue of engineered amnesia.
I chose the Omega Package
Not just a memory
But all of me.
The receptionist’s voice was silver smooth
\"Any last memory you’d like to preserve?\"
I said her name just once
It cracked in my throat
like glass under frost.
She wasn\'t cruel
She wasn\'t kind
She was indifferent
She wasn\'t mine
Her silence louder
Than any war this world had fought.
I tried to love again
I learned new smiles
Slept in borrowed arms
But her absence
Was a language the world kept speaking
And I had yet to learn.
In the waiting room
A child laughed through a headset
Watching his lost dog run again
An old man hummed
As his wife danced forever in loops of light.
But I had nothing worth keeping
Not the city’s neon dusk
Not the friends who forgot how to ask if I was okay
Not the mirror that no longer recognized me.
They strapped me into the chair
Chrome fingers resting on temples worn thin
The surgeon’s eyes were kind
He asked
“Ready?”
I wanted to say no
But my heart had packed its bags
Long before my body ever walked in.
And just before the light
Flooded everything white
My memories start to fade away
Now I can\'t remember her face
Now I can\'t remember her name
Hoping this gives me the solace
I\'m seeking to have one day.