KidSpirit

Forgetting Me

HeritagePoetry

Fajr Alam

I have forgotten.
Forgotten the best part of me.
Inside I can feel it,
but I can neither see nor hear
what life before me was.

What did I do when I was young?
What did I smell?
Why can’t I remember
the first four years
of my tiny life?

Unknown shapes and dull colors
flash before me.
Old smells of spices and memories
clog my brain.
I stifle back a tear
As I try to remember.

What did I do?
What did I say?
What did I smell?
Why did my toddler life go away?

What have I done?
What have I thought?
Why have I forgotten my past?

Somewhere deep inside
the faded life is still alive.
All I have to do is dig it out
but will I ever find it?

From the moment the officer found me
at the station in Mumbai
to the day at the packed adoption center
where my new life was chosen,
I have forgotten it all.
Lost in the corner of my mind,
dusted and rotted to the inside,
left, discarded, thrown about,

unknown,
lost in me,
forever.

Why did my childhood memories decide to disappear?

Anushka Canfield is a seventh grader from Yarmouth, Maine.

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Art by Jaden Flach, Brooklyn