Saturday, January 18, 2025

You Can’t Erase Bad Memories

 
Pencil erasing part of brain.

 "Memory Erase" - Bahamas AI Art
 ©A. Derek Catalano
 
 

You Can’t Erase Bad Memories

You can’t erase bad memories,
They linger in the halls of thought,
Where echoes of old agonies
Whisper lessons pain has taught.
They settle deep, like ink in skin,
Their permanence, a quiet truth,
Carved where hidden scars begin,
Etching shadows over youth.

You can’t erase the haunted nights,
When silence screamed too loud to bear,
Or banish those relentless sights
That stung your soul and left it bare.
The moments etched in bitter flame,
Unyielding to the winds of time,
Revisit you and call your name,
A melancholy pantomime.

You can’t unlive the shattered trust,
The words that cut, the doors that slammed,
The love turned cold, reduced to dust,
The dreams abandoned, hopes unmanned.
Each fragment sharp, each shard unkind,
A splinter lodged within the heart,
A relic that reminds the mind
How easily we fall apart.

But though you can’t erase the pain,
It does not mean you’re chained to grief.
Through storms endured, through loss, through rain,
Each trial brings its own relief.
The past may bruise, the past may bind,
Yet still, the future softly calls,
And strength emerges, redefined,
When we rise from where we fall.

No, you can’t erase bad memories,
But you can write new chapters yet.
Let scars become your symphonies,
Composed of what you won’t forget.
For even in the darkest hour,
When shadows stretch and linger long,
The seeds of hope, of growth, of power,
Will sprout where once the pain was strong.

You can’t erase what shaped your soul,
But nor should you erase your fight.
The darkness once beyond control
Now magnifies your inner light.
So bear the memories, keep them near,
Not as burdens, but as keys—
To learn, to heal, to persevere,
To craft your own redemptive seas.

 
©A. Derek Catalano/ChatGPT