One Day I Will Die

One day I will die.  This is a certainty.

And when I die, my life will be boxes.  Boxes of things to be gone through.

Some of those things that will have no meaning to those going through them.

Those items will likely be sold in an auction sale, given to someone, or thrown away.  Things- just things to them.

The small pair of clippers are easy; I cut my children's nails with them - sentiment.

But the memories are mine alone; my children will not see through my eyes as they hold those clippers.

They will just figure I kept them because of the memories; memories they cannot see but only guess.

The box containing my childhood will mean nothing to them.

They will identify with the idea that their mother went to school, but not the memories attached to the things.

They will see the old crown but not know how every six months for five years I would sit in that fucking dentist's chair while he glued it back into place (always on a Monday because it nearly always fell off Friday night or Saturday), nor how big of a dick he was when I would go in and would grind my bottom teeth level that time he got pissed at my mom.

They will see one of the Autograph albums but not know that Laura would eat her Twix layer by layer in the lunchroom three days a week, or that Randy's "Stay weird" meant the world to me because I had a small crush on him.  They won't know that my one true love, the one I still pine for which was and is unrequited but stand in my deepest of hearts has signed as well.  They will see his signature and have no clue what it meant for me to actually walk to him and ask for it, how my heart pounded in my chest and I was absolutely panic-stricken but knew I had to have this one small thing since nothing else would be mine, not the smallest touch or look of anything other than polite distance.

Pulling out the grade report cards from Endsley elementary, Alcott Elementary, Sequoyah Elementary, Washington Elementary, Junior High and finally high school will show them I was an underachiever but they won't understand it was to protect myself.  They won't see the teasing, the rumors all at a time when I was discovering that what people had done to me before had a name - molestation and rape and emotional abuse and mental abuse.  They won't know about how long I pondered whether to run away; how I figured out that it would do no good to run and that staying meant three times walking up to that edge of suicide and twice deciding to walk away with the third time a sorry attempt and two solid days of deciding to shit or get off the pot with no look back this last time.  That I chose to live for my sister because I could not do it for myself then and knowing I would walk Hell's paths and woods when I chose to stay and doing it anyway because to live my sister alone with my family meant she was next and she was not strong like I was.

The map of Shawnee shows the streets but not me riding my bike unhanded through the Shawnee streets, hair pulled up in a ponytail and feeling sweat dry on my face, arms, and underarms as it broke through my deodorant while I felt one of those rare moments of peace.

The map also won't show the hundreds of nights of me driving with my sister on a Friday or Saturday night through the streets of Shawnee because we were to stay in the city limits; we broke that once and came up to the city to drive along Air Depot to see why it was such a big deal and wound up nearly missing curfew because of all the traffic.

The things in boxes they will see, but the knowing of the memories - that is mine and comes with me when I go.

My things - no more.