Rewind Poem by Maya Hanson

I don't want to unsee you
but I want to unlearn you.

I want to unlearn
the way the skin around your eyes
reaches toward me when you smile.

You slip past me without a sound
and it feels like a rug burn.

You emerge from behind the curtain
laughing as hard as you ever have
and it feels like I'm missing
something as fleeting as a shooting star or
the moment I fell in love with you.

I want to unlearn this ache,
throw strangers into a mixing bowl
till I can't remember the difference
between his laugh and yours,
I want to pour them all over forgiveness
and smile until all my face muscles crack.

This is not something I can say at five in the morning
after a night of rewinding
your gazes and fleeting realness in the chorus of laughter stepping toward insanity,
playing you back over and over and over again

This is not something I can say
after I've watched you flinch when I shift toward you,
this is something I'll have to leave behind.

Stirring up peace beyond the shadows,
after all this magic
I'll turn back the dial to the normal sparks,
I'll rewind the story to the part where we were unsure
you know I'd rather be skimmed over than forgotten,
I'd rather be curled up a lightyear behind you than alone,
I'd rather stretch my fingers toward you even though I'll never reach
than use them like splintering revivals to stir up all these pasts.