The shoe on the roof of the house, a red Keds sneaker, girl-size, laces rotted.
The crawlspace, where you descended like a deep-sea diver when your boyfriend wouldn't, one of you had to rescue the phone, knocked under the house, you buttoned your sleeves and pulled your hoodie over your head and wrapped a bandana around your nose and mouth and bulled through the webs and creatures into that other world that always lives just under your feet.
The piece of paper with someone's name and phone number, someone you don't remember, can't place, a person you met the last time you wore that jacket, but there was a reason you wrote it down, folded it carefully into your pocket.
The coffee cup with milk scum making waves around the inside, imprinted foam bubbles.
Your favorite sweater, empty sleeves hanging bodiless from the back of a chair. The credit card bill. The dried flowers hung against your wall that send up a fluff of dust when you move them.
If you died today, slipped quietly out the back door of this world, this is what will be left.
Your mother's shoes in a paper bag, your ten-year-old lipstick, the Ramones t-shirt streaked with paint, the ninety-nine cent prayer candle, the drawing magneted to your fridge, your toothbrush, bristles blown out in surprise.
The crawlspace, where you descended like a deep-sea diver when your boyfriend wouldn't, one of you had to rescue the phone, knocked under the house, you buttoned your sleeves and pulled your hoodie over your head and wrapped a bandana around your nose and mouth and bulled through the webs and creatures into that other world that always lives just under your feet.
The piece of paper with someone's name and phone number, someone you don't remember, can't place, a person you met the last time you wore that jacket, but there was a reason you wrote it down, folded it carefully into your pocket.
The coffee cup with milk scum making waves around the inside, imprinted foam bubbles.
Your favorite sweater, empty sleeves hanging bodiless from the back of a chair. The credit card bill. The dried flowers hung against your wall that send up a fluff of dust when you move them.
If you died today, slipped quietly out the back door of this world, this is what will be left.
Your mother's shoes in a paper bag, your ten-year-old lipstick, the Ramones t-shirt streaked with paint, the ninety-nine cent prayer candle, the drawing magneted to your fridge, your toothbrush, bristles blown out in surprise.
