Simulacrum

Old messages, saved conversations, images and writings... Much of it almost 20 years old. I don't know why I kept it, and keep on doing so. Right there on my computers desktop, in the same folder they were always in. Copied and pasted from one hard drive to the next, every single time I get a new device. I never look at it, yet still I remember pretty much every single item in there. It's like a memory in digital form. I'm afraid of loosing it, and at the same time I'm afraid of opening it. I tell myself I'll do it one day. Read through it. Some night when I'm alone. Sit in the dark and remember. Will it open old wounds? I know it will... Somehow that folder is like a scar. The digital simulacrum of a wound that never really healed. Afraid of the memory. The longing I spend so much time trying to burrow. At the time I told myself that it couldn't have been any other way. But I know it could. I know I hurt people. Not on purpose or by choice, but through doing nothing. Through silence. I miss them, so why did I do it? Maybe if I read through it, I will know. I cared about them. Deeply. And still I disappeared. I still care about them. But they are gone. And now the only thing that is left is that lonely folder.