The Story You Keep Telling

You think your memory is a video, filed away Press play, and it shows you exactly how the day Actually went, word for word, frame for frame But every time you play it, a little of it changes shape

That's the story you keep telling, the one you call yourself Edited a little every time it's taken off the shelf Just an ordinary habit that memory has always kept Rewritten a little each time, no malice, no guilt

The story you keep telling isn't fixed in stone It's a draft that gets revised each time it's shown To yourself, to someone else, across the years you've grown The facts stay close to true, but the shape is your own

There's a name for the self that carries all this weight A narrative, a thread you keep stitching straight More than a recording of everything you've done A story you're still writing, chapter after chapter, one by one

The story you keep telling, the one you call yourself Edited a little every time it's taken off the shelf Some people tell it as a rise, a steady climb toward the light Some tell it as a fall, some tell it as a fight

Neither version is exactly lying to your face Both are honest choices about the same set of days The events don't change, the facts still hold their ground The meaning that connects them is always a choice you make

The story you keep telling, the one you call yourself Edited a little every time it's taken off the shelf Some people get stuck retelling one hard chapter on repeat Until the whole book shrinks down to just that single street

But a life is longer than its worst remembered scene A story can be widened, given room to breathe between The chapters you got stuck on and the ones still left to write You're the narrator and the author, both, tonight

The story you keep telling, the one you call yourself Edited a little every time it's taken off the shelf Pick the book back up, add a page the old draft never had You're allowed to keep revising who you are, and what you had