Emotions

You can pick the last few pieces,

on sale at the neighborhood goodwill store,

Next to the tie-die shirts and clogs;

that nobody has any use for anymore.

I ran my fingers over the frayed material

as if to bid one last good-bye,

You could see they were worn out.

Life has a way of wearing out

delicate material like this. That is…

if you are hackneyed enough to carry

such old styles in your wardrobe in the first place.

My mother passed them on to me,

suitcases and suitcases of emotions.

They run thick in our family.

And I foolishly carried them on with me hoping

to pass them on to my kids.

But kids these days have such little patience for gibberish.

So I emptied the suitcases of emotions

and folded them into a neat pile

to be donated to goodwill

with the rest of the “old and no longer used”.