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Childhood memorabilia organized like books in a library

categorized by time periods of life, as nonchalant as a history book:

memorable blankies, halloween costumes and Disney caps

all trapped in dusty plastic bins, the silence of their existence deafening

But, if you get close enough, they are loud in there

cries come from tomato sauce-stained onesies on the top shelf and

miniature sweatshirts so over worn that the material is raising at the armpits

You take the bin down and open the lid, picking up a white patent leather mary jane

shoe that is as long as the length of half your hand

this was yours.

But it can’t be. 

And yet it was.

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Time betrays memory, puts holes in it that once weren’t there –

so many holes that early childhood is a white blur of scenes from what seems like an

alternate universe,

locked away in the depths of the subconscious, no longer accesible to the mortal mind

and those little shoes you wore everyday

that protected your toddler feet from shards of glass in the grass

that shielded them from spilled ice cream

and athlete’s foot–ridden jungle gyms are

Stored away

because the shoe no longer fits.

and so you look at your life

that past life you can’t remember even though it sits before you in those plastic bins,

and once you’ve had your fill

and buried the nostalgia deep down inside from a world you can’t remember

you shut the light off and leave

and return back in five years

in another attempt

to remember

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