I struggle with the prevailing desire of creating a memory that is truly untouched by past attachments. Something new. Something sacred. Something mine.

A moment in time unshadowed by the echoes of the ghosts that came before. The phantoms that continue to lurk, and plague, and haunt. The tormenting spirits that lay waste to my psyche in the night and feed veraciously off my waking thoughts.

I want purity. I want ownership. I want to leave my mark on a memory that has never been tainted by another’s fingerprints. I should not have to cover theirs with mine; or worse, to waste time searching for an empty spot for my hands – only to find that there is barely enough room for half of my pinky finger. I should not like to feel so insignificant a presence.

I want to make the first footprint on a patch of fresh snow. I want to mar a smooth beach with the imprints of my toes. I don’t want to recycle old magic. I want enough space to generate my own. One could never compare the beauty of a sunset to the beauty of a wildflower meadow; they do not compete. The beauty of one does not dismiss or discount the beauty of the other, and yet…

I don’t want to be a wildflower meadow in a room that only desires the soft light of a sunset. I don’t want to take the last open seat at a table and wonder if the other guests wish that it had been occupied by an alternate attendant. I don’t want to slip into shoes that have already been worn, and are still warm from the heat of its original denizen. I don’t want to be the looking glass or the magic mirror. I want to be the rose, encased and protected. I don’t want to occupy the space of another but rather have a new space carved out for me. One devoid of competition. One devoid of another’s memory.

I don’t want to fear, constantly, that my magic, my flowers, my light… are disappointments. Stand-ins. I don’t want to fight the phantoms whispering in my ear that I am merely filling a role that belongs to another. An understudy. A stunt double. That specter that sings to me that I could never hold a torch. That I will be retired when the soprano returns. I am only recycling their lines, their costumes, their spotlight. I will never have ones to call my own.

I fear that I myself am the ghost. The haunting, lurking, plaguing phantom. Damned to filter in and out of the world; never given the opportunity to materialize and claim space. Spectral fingers grasping at hands already clasped in an embrace. Reaching, and grabbing nothing.

I fear that I will never have the opportunity to truly manifest. That there will never be a space carved out for my soul. That I will be damned to be forced into the place of another, and wield their recycled magic at the cost of my own… and that my magic will never be held softly, sacredly, apart from that of others.

I fear that I will never hold a memory that is truly only mine. At least, not one that cannot be easily overshadowed by the memory of a ghost.

I wish my memories were fresh. I wish my fingerprints were the first. I wish my magic was enough. I wish I was held above, and apart. I wish my presence and my influence was sacred. Enough to warrant its own space, its own adventure. One not so easily, or quickly, replaced. I have never wanted to re-write a story that has already been completed.

But all I receive is recycled memories, and I cannot seem to find a place to put my hands.