Poem — Schrodinger’s Box of Memories

Hello, everyone!

Sorry for taking most of the month off. Job hunting has been more involved than I thought and despite this…I am still unemployed. Sigh. A position that I thought would be pretty easy to get ended up not working out despite going through two interviews and being more qualified than their previous hire. It be like that sometimes, though. While I try and find the motivation to actually work on my chapbook, here’s something my brain cooked up last week.

It is a Saturday afternoon, and I have decided
that now is a good time 
to scour that bin full of memories
under my bed.
As I reach for it, 
images of our conversations 
in your lipstick red honda 
fire inside my barely functioning neurons
It slides on the floor,
a tinny gray as the headlights strike
and now I am stuck. 
It is possible this just another
can of worms better left sealed, 
for fear of vulturing my past
for scraps of those feelings.
The problem of whether or not to open it
has come front and center. 
A paradox in which there are only two answers, 
both of which mean the same thing.
The first involves opening the box, 
confirming all of the things you gave me are real:
a keychain you made me of one of our favorite characters,
the cd mixtape of all your favorite bands I never listened to, 
pictures of your hair draped over a cardboard cut out
of Barak Obama because high school was stupid like that. 
The second involves a quiet resignation,
knowledge that leaving the box closed carries 
the same pain, only without absolute knowledge.
I am tired of closed boxes,
of non-confirmation,
of half-dead, half-alive cats
of romantic feelings compartmentalized and stored under my bed,
of regret about not telling you at all and wondering if ghosting me 
was your best goodbye, your way of telling me 
whatever ends up in the box doesn’t even matter.

Originally published at http://jackscheibelein.wordpress.com on March 25, 2023.