Do you think of me? (Poem)

Is it hate or is it disgust when you think of me? If you think of me at all. I wonder if the past still lives in you—the way it grips in me. Or did it die, forever long? And, if so, did anyone take time to grieve?

I hate the way you treat my memory. The way I fear you treat my memory, to be fair. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Strangers now across state lines. Across strange lives. Pendicular per the fact that once we crossed and never more shall meet.

But you did know me once. You knew a better me. The best me. You must have. That truth must be.

Because once, long ago, you fell in love with me.

And who could love me now. This shattered broken thing.

But you knew her, knew him. Knew a smile so pure, a warmth so free, that I can scarcely picture it when the reflection stares back at me.

There’s nothing left here now of they who once belonged. But perchance they might still live inside your memory.

But that’s silly isn’t it? They must have died too. Before they died in me, they died in you.

So is it hate or disgust when you think of me? Sans the person we once knew?