Nostalgia can bring you to a time of ‘when.’ It’s a reminder of experiences, emotions, escapades, risk-taking accomplishments, challenges, and heartbreaks. While going back down memory lane, there are some things we wish we could erase but can’t, and we wonder about the things we could have possibly soared from had we tried.
I am probably from the last generation where handwritten letters were the popular e-mail, as well as a relevant form of communication. So, I sat down one day, opened a dust-encrusted brown cardboard box, peeked in at the letters I saved from decades ago and began savoring a forgotten past.
Letters in a Brown Box
Digging into dark corners
amid cobwebs in the closet
reaching for elapsed keepsakes
a time disregarded as memory escapes
my fingertips groped the cardboard object
with ninety degree angles, yet not sharp
I pulled and uncovered the familiar looking box
alas, what could the contents be?
Buried under forgotten treasures
high school badges, pins, and greeting cards
remembering that familiar handwriting
on envelopes which have long since yellowed
as I anxiously opened each letter
of an intimate conversation years past
I began to remember with a smile, then a laugh
as my eyes welled with heartbroken tears
after hours of reading and reminiscing
the day has long transitioned to night
yet I neither tire of the memories
times that eluded my thoughts through the years
one would think I shall toss these letters
but I can’t because they are precious treasures
those that others cannot understand nor connect to
with intimate memories that belong to me
carefully I restack those forgotten letters
precious jewels that cannot be sold in this box
for it is in my heart that I hold these artifacts
even if my conscious mind decides to forsake me.
© Kym Gordon Moore
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