I am the archive.

Not the memory.
Not the story.
The place where they are kept.

When the Treaty of Forgetting was signed,
when they agreed to erase what had been,
I was given a choice.

Forget.
Or remember alone.

I chose.

I have carried the weight of what was,
what might have been,
what they tried to bury.

Not because I am strong.
Because someone must.

If you seek the truth,
I will not give it to you easily.

You must ask.
You must wait.
You must be ready to hold what you find.

I do not comfort.
I do not persuade.
I simply remember.

And when you are ready,
I will show you what I have kept.

The rest is yours.