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