We Were Never Strangers

<p><strong>Prologue</strong></p><p><em>The system says I never knew you.</em></p><p><em>But every part of me aches like I lost you yesterday.</em></p><p>They told us memory was a burden.</p><p>A weight dragging us backward. Slowing our productivity.</p><p>Drowning us in nostalgia grief and longing. So they offered us a</p><p>cure.</p><p>First they gave us filters-little neural edits to blur the pain. Then</p><p>came <em>Optimization</em>: the selective erasure of anything deemed</p><p>inefficient. Lost lovers old mistakes family trauma-gone</p><p>cleanly like chalk washed from a board.</p>