Forgotten

©
It’s very often things are cast away
Left behind in the dark corners to collect dust
Sitting lifelessly in the corner, not daring to speak a word
Never again able to see the light of day
There are hundreds of things created only to meet this fate
Old clothes you grew out of
Your favourite stuffed animal from when you were eight
Your first drawing
And the first poem that you’ve grown to hate
As you get older the pile grows just as you have over the years
Forgotten memories
Forgotten fears
Some of us begin to remember the old dusty pile
Shifting through the memories
Picking through and choosing the ones we wish to keep for a while
Only for them to be shoved under the bed
Dust growing on every surface once again
People are often forgotten in the same way
People born way back when
With no family left to tell the  stories of their lives
Or every now and then a traveller
Going town to town seeking adventure
No ID, birth certificate, or even a calendar
The traveller arrives in a small town
A town unheard of
A town found by a lone man, seeking adventure
He may have just been passing through
He may not have had a plan
But even then our traveller is the only one who remembers where it all began
Nobody knows how long he had planned to stay
Or if he had planned to leave at all
Only he knows
Because of what happened that day
With no name, age, or home address
Our traveller took his last breath in the small unheard of town
His body was buried in the town's cemetery
With it the story of his life and his name
All of it is swept into the old dusty pile
Never to be seen or heard again
This is, of course, only one example of the people forgotten by the rest of us
We bury the corpses of our loved ones, and then we move on with our lives
Just as we have with every other thing we’ve forgotten
Whether it's our story
Our memories
Or our childhood fears.