The Box Marked MISC.

Everything I used to own in a box to the left.

Everyone owns a box
that has survived three apartments, at least
without being opened once.
The tape has gone amber.
The label just says MISC.

Mine has a whole era of life in it.
At least 10 years of memories
I don’t care to remember anyway.
But it’s been cheaper
to keep paying to move it
than to spend one afternoon
remembering what I don’t want to remember.

So when I blew up my life
I blew up the box like Crash Bandicoot.
With TNT thinking it’d be full of monsters.

But no monsters. Mostly paper.
A girl in the photographs
doing her absolute best
with what she had not yet learned.

So I’ve kept two things and thanked the rest.
The box went out flat, folded,
lighter than the stories it once held.

Turns out it the paper I kept paying to move it
weighed more than the paper I needed to keep.
I got tired of carrying it,
So to to left it goes.