TO FORGET YOU

To forget you quickly, I must first make a list of all the things I do not like about you. Then I will begin crossing them out, one by one, because they will gradually be forgotten.

To forget me, you should do the same. Make a long list of all the things you do not like about me, and then boldly begin crossing out everything you will no longer miss.

To forget you, I will also need a second list of all the things I like about you.

To forget me quickly, you will have to make a second list as well—of all those little, silly things you like about me.

To forget you quickly, I will need all the space and time in the universe, because that is my idea of forgetting quickly. The Sun will have to shine not only for another four billion years, but for twice as long. The Earth will have to complete countless revolutions around the Sun. The Moon will have to continue dancing naked and lonely around the Earth, never to be embraced by it. Millions more springs, summers, autumns and snowy winters will have to pass. Then I will forget.

To forget me quickly, you must imagine that I am the most distant uninhabited planet, where there is no life and whose atmosphere is dangerous to the life you carry within you. Because on that planet it is hot—too hot for your northern blood. Because I am closer to the Sun and reflect its energy a hundredfold. Can you bear so much heat and light?

To forget you quickly, I must concentrate on the first list. But will I find enough words among all the words in the world to describe everything I do not like about you, and all the reasons why I have to forget you?

To forget me quickly, please do not make the second list, because it will shorten the distance between us. Do not think about why you were so madly in love with me. Do not search for words to describe it. That will only increase the pain and the suffering. Suffering does not need words. It lives in my eyes. Look into my eyes. See your suffering reflected there. Then return to the first list—the things you do not like about me and all the reasons why you must forget me. Make the list longer. Multiply each of my faults by two. It will make it easier for you to forget me and stop thinking about me.

To forget me, do not look for me and do not follow me. Otherwise, you will not forget me. You will remember me. You will love me. To forget me, lock your body away from me. Lock your heart and your soul as well. Throw away every thought of me and replace it with something empty and meaningless.

To help you forget me, I will become unbearable—disgusting and cruel. I will pretend that you do not exist. You should do the same. Let us pretend that gravity does not pull us so irresistibly towards one another. Because if we manage to forget each other, perhaps we will suffer less than by living with the knowledge that we cannot be together. Let us be brave enough to forget one another.

To forget me, do not think about me. Think instead about the limitations and prisons in which you live, the ones that prevent you from looking for me. Listen to those who tell you that I am not meant for you. Listen to your doubts. Guard the keys to your prisons carefully, so that you will never become free enough to come and see me.

To forget you, I will think about the cages in which I live. I will lock myself inside with nine padlocks and throw the keys from the window of my tower so that the river may carry them far away. Then there really will be no hope of seeing you again.

To forget me, do not listen to those who say that opposites attract. That is a terrible mistake. I am a mistake that should never be repeated. Be strong. Resist the temptation to see me, so that you may no longer suffer.

To forget you, I will think about how unbearably cruel and cold you can be. I will repeat to myself day and night that I am neither your first choice nor even your second. I am only a mistake, a chain of circumstances, a cruel irony of gravity taking revenge for something ancient and personal. I will tell myself that you are afraid because you have become accustomed to living inside your prisons and limitations. I am a proud and free bird.

To forget you, I must accept your reality—that the status quo cannot be changed. That will make me passive.

To forget me, think of me as something dangerous, foreign, alien—something that has come to destroy your peaceful world, to change you and steal you away from yourself. Do you really want me to steal you? Stay away from me.

To forget you, I will try not to think about our first meeting, or about how I began to fly the moment our eyes met. About how, every single time, I willingly walked closer to my own guillotine. Because somewhere deep inside, I already knew that it would end this way.

You, too, should forget that you ever met me. Forget that a choir of heavenly angels sang inside your soul every time you saw me. But can you truly pretend that you do not remember our first meeting? Are you strong enough to convince yourself that you were indifferent to me?

Why is it that, even locked inside such distant towers, we are closer than ever? Closer even than longing itself. Because we are each other's dream.

In the name of the pain of your soul and the pain of my heart, because of all the suffering and all the tears, He, our merciful Creator, commands you to remember me. Remember me as I am for you—distant, unreachable, untouched and unkissed, suffering because of you. And I will remember you as you are—suffering because of me, longing for me.

Unlock your heart and listen to our Creator. Do not pretend that you do not understand what He is telling you. He wants us to stop hurting each other with silence. He wants you to love me. Do not pretend that this is not happening to you. Do not be blind. Do not resist gravity. Destroy your prisons. Come and find me. Love me.

He does not want me to forget you.

(Elena S. Lyubenova)