Traces Left Behind

 We leave traces of ourselves
Wherever we go,
And on everything we touch...
A trail of breadcrumbs
Leading from each moment
To the next
And, finally,
Back to us...
The past is the past,
But it's the foundation
Of the now and of the future...
Memory
Isn't history,
And not even history
Can be irrefutably counted on 
To be fact...
Both, however,
Depend upon
Who recorded the events in question...
How they perceived 
The facts presented...
A bit of good detective work
Can come close
To finding the origin story,
Eventually...
A healthy bloodhound
Can find us
By those little bits
That we unintentionally 
Leave behind...
Tracing our steps
Print by print...
Letter by letter...
Noticing the changes
In others
That we have caused...
We don't always
Notice these things ourselves,
On our own...
An outside observer
Is often necessary
Since much of who we are
Lives in the subconscious
And unconscious mind...
Our conscious perceptions 
Exist in a liminal space,
That space between
Self and Other...
Therefore,
Perception can be a
Misinterpreted,
Or, even, un-interpreted,
Line of text...
Sometimes what we see,
Feel, hear, taste, or touch
About our own
Understanding of ourselves
Remains a mystery...
Imagine the difficulty
Of attempting to decipher 
Someone else 
Under these conditions...
Other times
We can gain insight
That approaches truth...
But truth and facts
Can be separate things...
They often are...
Objective vs. subjective,
And vice versa...
Memories can be created
Of things that never were -
A suspect manipulated
Into confessing to a crime
They never committed,
Or a witness 
Convinced by clever words 
Of seeing someone
Who was never there...
Our brain reconstructs moments
From the past when we
"Remember"...
Unfortunately,
Or fortunately,
It doesn't actually
Replay the reality
Like a camera records light,
Or a microphone records sound,
For playback...
Even eidetic memory
Has its limitations...
A multitude of those little breadcrumbs
That it would take
An outside observer
To verify
Remain unrecorded by mind,
But they exist...
Are we using an iPhone 
Or an android?
PC or laptop? 
What scents do we wear
Versus only that
Which our flesh produces naturally?
How do we sound
While we sleep?
What happens once you
Leave one space in time
And move on to the next?
There are traces left behind...
Always a path 
Unique to each individual
That can be identified
And followed
Deductively, inductively, or abductively...
We can recurse these methods
On ourselves 
If we choose,
When we aren't
Fighting for survival,
Or soothing ourselves with distractions...
Little bits of us 
Get scattered over 
Thousands of miles,
Physically, fiber optically, 
And all manner of ways...
How often do we find ourselves? 
How often do we search in earnest
For that gold?
It's easier to shine the light on
The path, 
On someone or something else,
Because that light can be blinding
When we shine it on ourselves...
Allow your inner eye to adjust,
And shine
like stained glass
inviting the sun...