Even When I'm 80, I'll Try to Remember Your Name

Do you know what hurt me more than goodbye?
My self-defense mechanism.

It's like my entire body, every single molecule inside it unconsciously trying to refrain from the pain caused by it, by slowly forgetting… everything.

Repeatedly assuring myself that it never happened, so there's nothing to look back to or cry for. It's trying to assure me that those feelings of freedom, youth, love, loneliness, and loss had never felt. The more I push those memories away, the more I realize how much I miss them.

You know, I daydream a lot. Sometimes I don't pay much attention to my surroundings; I even can't remember all the streets I've passed a thousand times in my hometown. But this city, the one whose name was just another random word just two years ago, is different.

I knew nothing about this city until I moved in there.
I learned about their writings.
I learned about their pronunciations.
I was amazed by how cold it was in February.
I was amazed by how the metro system works very well.
I got lost many times, but there was always someone to help,

some strangers.

I learned about how different the city is, compared to other ones in the country.
I learned how imperfect it is. That's why it's so special.
I observed the citizens, the most essential aspect of a city in my opinion.
Then I'm used to the smell it makes,

a mixture of garlic and an air conditioner when you first turn it on.
It was awful, to be honest.

I found many missing parts of myself,

and I gladly lost some of them.

I no longer needed a map or an app for the metro routes.
I no longer had to spend minutes just to figure out which coins I should give when the cashier said 450 cents.
I no longer had to make efforts to have friends,

they were already there.
But of course, as life has always been, as I got comfortable, it forced me to leave.

To forget.

'It never happened', says my unconscious mind.