Memory Collector

Nothing stays the same, I've found.
Mourning the passage of eras
And friendships
Seems to appear as childish tantrums
When parts of me cannot accept
Things that hurt my heart.

I bind my loved ones in invisible chains
That only I can see
Yet I hold on to petty memories,
Some that feel like sin to remember fondly.
I keep notes, pictures, jewelry, and other trinkets
Hidden away like contraband,
Things I should have burned or thrown away.

I sit and collect inventory in my thoughts of things that people left with me—
Often mismatched lingo and terrible jokes.
Sometimes it is strange habits,
Like cooking ramen in a skillet,
Mixing plain FunYuns with Hot Cheetos together,
Or the way I arrange my dishes before washing.

I assign ex lovers each their own force of nature
Like thunder, fire, and tsunami
As if I could feel the power of it in my veins
When we touched skin to skin.
Thunder was an earth shaking taste of heaven that rocked me
Deep down in my bones,
And I often imagined fire as a searing pain come to cleanse and release.
The tsunami was the water that nourishes my soul
Become an unbridled instant of chaos
That both crushed and drowned me
 
I am made of endless puzzle pieces
Held together in the blank spots
By a sense of wonder
And an aching to find more memories to hand pick and tuck away in a box.

Nothing stays the same.
Some days that means pride looking back at where I've been.
Sometimes that means sitting with nothing but memories left
And crying ugly tears.

Life goes on.