Memory Games

Memory games have a lot of rules.
Depending on how you play.

You always preferred.
The Linear Approach.
To begin with.
The Memory Game.
Matching.

Lining up the cheap card
Rows of battleships,
Ranks of soldiers,
All waiting to be matched.
Endless memory.
Which of course,
I won.

Me being 6, you being Captain
I never questioned your ruling.
You accused me of cheating,
Joking,
Of course,
Face it, I was just better at matching,
A game you had taught me.
A better memory.

The Memory Game changed.

I grew up.
You grew older.
Still you were Captain, I was the sailor.
The cheap cartoon card was soon packed away.
A new, serious game started.

No longer ranks of card
But dark pain
You grew even older, changed.
Then I was told
What was making you cold
Was the slow steady march of the new Memory Game

It invaded your head, and turned you half mad.
Yet you still spoke to me
Like we sometimes, once, had.

The Navy, you said.
Jungle Book, you said.
Alec Two-Soups, you said.

Said the Memory Game in your head.

I heard afterwards
From one who was there.

The Memory Game finally granted your freedom.
The matching mad memories in yours and my breath,
Kept you warm.

Even in death.