Elise Skidmore

 
 Memoirs
 
 
 I read a lot of memoirs,
 interested in other people's lives
 and how they came to be where they are.
 I have no memoir to write.
 I had a happy childhood
 and a loving family.
 The only trauma in my young life  
 was my grandmother's death.
 Like every life, mine's had bumps,
 but I took few chances,
 so my blunders were small ones.
 I am an open book,
 sometimes scribbled in poems
 that few read or care about,
 but I wonder how I loom in the memoirs of others.
 Am I a footnote, barely seen, and skimmed over?
 Or maybe a detailed chapter in someone else's life?
 Perhaps I'd be woven through their story,
 part of their beginning, middle, and end.
 Would I see myself in their memories
 or would I appear a stranger, unrecognizable?
 Would I like the person they portray?
 I cannot know
 and yet
 I long to know
 that I made a difference
 in someone's worlds.
 
 
 ~Elise Skidmore ©2019