I am the voice

In the back of your mind

Telling you to make a mental note

Of how your first sip of coffee tastes

The morning before your first day at a new job.

I am the friend

Standing on the outskirts of the group

Relentlessly taking photographs

Of the people she loves too much

Doing what they’ve done every day prior.

I am the tattered cardboard box

With a halo of glowing dust

Sitting in the attic alone

With nothing but its memories

Filling it up as the days go by.

When I think of who I am and

Who I have become after a journey of

Only 18 years

I look at my pile of souvenirs

My every day treasures

That I’ve collected as time went on

That remind me of who I was at different times

And who I called home.

I am the closet full of photo albums

With jars of odds and ends

That all together,

Tell the stories of who I am

That words cannot.