becca starkes

ten thousand emails in my inbox
and I’m in the mood for spring cleaning.
I want to be ruthless
but I find myself hesitating to delete messages
with subject lines like
“did you get your coffee maker?”
a receipt for when we saw Lady Bird
at a tiny old movie theater,
concert tickets to see a band I loved
till the lead singer turned out to be a creep,
(I shouldn’t be surprised—
they’re all creeps)
noise complaints about our dog
when we lived in our first apartment,
a flight confirmation where I accidentally 
wrote my name as Rebecva,
reservations from restaurants that closed
years ago.

I don’t know when I became so sentimental,
or maybe I always was.
the older I get,
the more I worry about forgetting—
not the big stuff—
the insignificant details,
the days that blur together,
and the nights that feel the same.
the tiny moments 
that are all we have
when the people are gone,
and the chapters are closed,
and the time has passed.
if I save everything,
document it all,
then nothing is lost.

but I don’t hold onto everything.
I save the miscellaneous memories
that seem worth saving—
and some that don’t,
because sometimes I can’t let go.

how does anyone live a whole life
under the weight 
of all those faded memories?
I can’t see them clearly anymore,
but I feel them. 
they’re there,
lurking in the shadows of the past,
reminding me of what I’ve lost
and what I still can lose.

we lose it all, eventually.
and what’s left then?