Day 5

Day 5: What do you collect?

Hoard

You could make a military obstacle of my room some days;
it’s just missing the smoke and mud and gunfire.
I’m getting better, but this, I believe, will be a lifelong struggle.
I want to keep everything because it helps me remember,
even though they say that objects are not memories.
Declutter. Purge. Donate and throw away.
But what about my undecipherable childhood drawings?
What about the hospital bracelets from kindergarten?
What about the genius ideas scrawled on papers?
And what about my life that’s been lived with these things?
I feel less-stressed when I have more space,
but I hesitate to toss something I might have a use for one day.
I have stacks of boxes filled with projects I want to do.
They are uncompleted and wait, unopened potential.
Will I wake up 50 years from now, a hermit in a wasteland?
I want to live my life in the experiences,
not in the things that I accumulate.
So I am changing. Slowly. But yes, surely.