I went a little storm crazy,
spurred on by the fears felt by my dad
and mom.
"You’ll have to go inside at one,
that’s safest."

To shed some light on this,
give a little more context,
I live in a shed in the garden,
it’s idyllic.

They got to me
and Twister has always been one of my favourite films
and I used to love reading about storms and hurricanes as a child,
I have only myself to blame really.

I started packing things that were
most important to me; the home videos
of my sister and me, I’d brought my photo books back inside
a long time ago,
and I brought the USB-stick on which one of my stories still existed,
sadly deleted from all other devices when said devices broke down,
I took my birth announcement card in its pretty frame and left the pacifiers
even though I would mourn them if I’d lost them,
I took my notebooks filled with poetry and left the many gaming devices I grew up with,
thought I’d be sad to lose them.
I left the Barbie doll of Little Bo Peep from Toy Story, which my mother adores so
because I might damage it in my bag,
but I would feel eternal guilt if that was lost.
One part of me could let things go
realized their material worth
the other saw all the times I used them
or all the times and days I was going to use them.

I packed my stuffed animals,
them being almost as old as I am
and having gotten me through a great number of bad dreams
and painful sleep.

But with a heavy heart I left Blub Nemo Rex (or Bruce)
the stuffed animal shark my sister gave to me once I’d passed
all of my first year classes at the university, like she had promised she would
if I kept up my end of the deal, because it was too big.

I grabbed my laptop because if ****
did inevitably, or so it would accordingly
to the latest forecast,
hit the fan,
I’d at least have the stories and other snippets
of earlier writing present with me.
Of course, it is also the mature and responsible
thing to do: take your laptop with you
so you can at least do your homework
for next week’s classes.

I don’t have to tell you about my id
or my student id cards or things like that,
they are always in my bag,
tucked away behind a zipper.

I would miss all of my books so gravely,
it was painful to have to force myself to
think “oh I wouldn’t miss you when you were gone”
which was a lie, even those I haven’t read,
I’d miss, and the ones I hated, too.
I suppose I am far too sentimental at times.

Then when I had come to this selection of things
I very well couldn’t do without,
I walked into the garden, my dad was
storm-proofing his plants and garden, his greatest pride,
and I felt guilty because I hadn’t even stopped to think
about the five plants in my room, Sancho Panza, Streep, Doris,
Diederik de Droogbloem, Baby and the one
that my mother named but I always fail to recall.

My dad looked at me and said
“it isn’t until five that Eunice becomes cumbersome”
and I was relieved
“And you can stay in your room until then, no harm done.”
so here I am sat,
back in my room in the shed in the garden again,
realizing that I was over-reacting
and far too materialistic.

Just to be safe,
I did return my mother’s stuffed animal to her bed
and gave my sister back her Winnie The Pooh teddy bear
which my mother got her (I got a beautiful stuffed animal version of Piglet)
when we were at the Victoria and Albert Museum, my sister’s
favourite museum she hopes possibly to work at one day,
back in two thousand and eighteen.

I also briefly considered
all the diaries and letters
I had written to myself when I was younger
and if I should take them inside
in case something completely terrible happened
(Eunice had turned into Eunicezilla in my mind and I’d already imagined that my lovely little shed would be as wrecked by this storm as Aunt Maggie’s house was and everything would be ruined beyond retrieval)
but I decided not to, to leave them in my room
because I don’t know if I am as attached to them
as I would like to think I am.
after all, what’s a few scribbles from ages
nine to twenty-one when they’re all mostly
just thoughts about insecurity, puberty and anxiety?