I should stop this fruitless job
‎of keeping obsolete little things
‎that never did
‎anything good for me.
‎Maybe i should start
‎by unfolding old unsent letters
‎bare from the enthusiasm i used to
‎envelope them in.
‎Then, i'll throw away pretty glass bottles,
emptied by their contents
‎of sweet perfumes and wild dreams.
‎Pick up plastic beads ,
‎loose from the strings tied
by friendships
‎i used to wrap around my wrists.
‎I should discard useless trinkets,
‎cute nothings and dead mementos.
‎Declutter and make room-
‎for other things ,
‎like self-appreciation,
‎growth,love
  and
‎maybe a pen
‎ or two.

i've kept every
sticky note,
letter,
mindless, simple gift
ever given to me by a friend.
every memory,
from valentine's day cards to ticket stubs.
i'm a hoarder, but of a very specific breed:
a scrapbook's worth of paper with no home and no purpose.
more akin to an archivist for no one.
i started crying yesterday
because i couldn't find my
memory box,
the shoebox i've stuffed all of my
sentimental nothing into.
i still can't find it.
i'm afraid someone threw it away.
(the box is full of letters and notes from my friends, starting from 8th grade. i go off to college in a week.)
but if that someone saw it as trash, they were probably right.
i have old letters from people i haven't talked to in years, that hate me now,
all crammed in this little shoebox
because i could never bring myself to throw them away.
my own personal museum of all the relationships i've let die of starvation,
hung taxidermic and pointless
within the walls of my heart and
cluttering the floors of my room.
exhibit a:
when i broke up with my first girlfriend,
i opened my memory box and burned the letters she'd given me.
but,
i went through them first
so i could keep the ones i couldn't bear to get rid of.
i'm a hoarder. i latch onto every crumb of affection i've ever been given and never throw it away.
wouldn't you?
exhibit b:
i was an angry child
i am an angry adult
i have spent my life roaming the desert of a lonely god,
and finding people willing to love me is a long and empty walk from one
oasis to another,
with nothing to show for it
but a shrine made up of
immortal-dead remnants of
every person i've ever known.
i have been alone before
and i never know if i'll be alone again.
experience hath granted me the wisdom
to hold onto, dig my claws into what is not guaranteed.
so yes, i am a hoarder,
and, exhibit c:
one day i will die alone
surrounded by garbage and words that some person out in the world doesn't even remember writing,
and i won't be able to bring it with me
into the black abyss of wherever else
and they will clean out my house
after i am dead
and throw it all away.
but for now
i'll keep looking for my memory box,
because it's gotta be around here somewhere.
i really do hope
it's around here somewhere.

they are selling sunshine
on these ***** streets
offering escape
at bus stops
beyond the ride home
with hoarding speak
dreams, new worlds
new life, new you
away from this ****** existence
we all perceive
step into
the advertiser's dream

There once was a tiny dragon,
No larger than the palm of my hand.
She burned no village, stole no princess,
Her name not spoken in fear throughout the land.
She hoarded not gold, not jewels,
Cared not for such frivolous things.
It was memories she kept in her miniscule cave
She guarded with flickering fire and scrap wings.

I went to her cave in the mountains.
Stumbled on it, by mistake;
As I lay down my head at the roots of a tree,
By an obscure and secluded lake.
She emerged in her miniature splendour,
From beneath a nearby rock.
She let out a yawn of fire;
And I froze: in awe, in shock.
She grinned a needlepoint grin,
Beckoned with one curved claw
Into her miniscule cave,
I followed: in shock, in awe.

I peered through the half-hidden opening,
Only inches larger than my head.
The dragon spoke soft but thunderous,
And this is what was said:
“This is my hoard, young human.
This is all I hold dear in the world.”
And she handed to me a birthday card -
Some edges singed, some curled.

It had writing in a swirling foreign script
That seemed to be etched, not written.
“This is the love of my first ever crush,
In the days when we were still smitten.”
“Is this all?” I scoffed, “Just pieces of paper,
and wrappers and old useless things?”
Her doll-sized body began to shudder
With a judder of claws and a flutter of wings.

No larger than my littlest finger,
She was a smaller version of herself;
But still I froze as she perched on my nose,
To her, a sizeable shelf.
“You hold no value to memories?
Then why don’t you leave yours behind?
Since they strike you as being so useless,
I’m certain you wouldn’t mind.”

Now all my memories are scraps,
Shadows of what they once were.
I wonder if she kept them somewhere,
In that diminutive cave with her.
Notes from a wife I think I had:
About the shopping, the kids? The car?
A card from my parents, a gift from a friend,
A reason for this faint lip scar.
I try to keep letters, tickets, receipts,
Compulsively, I feel I must.
But whenever I reach for that link to my past,
It is nothing but ash, but dust.

I’m a hoarder
I keep letters of sorrow and happiness,
Getting high off of borrowed moments from the past that I know won’t last.
My tolerance will grow,
And I won’t get the same high that I now know.
But I keep them anyway, all the momentos from my childhood that cling on to the last hope I carry in my heart from times that were better.
Letter by letter I read them and try not to realize what I’ve lost,
But instead realize what I had.
And even though it’s not the same as it was before the memories bring a smile to my face that I try to keep as long as I can before it melts into a much more depressed state.
Because you can’t think about what you’ve had before without realizing what you lost as well, they’re hand in hand.
I don’t want to be a hoarder anymore.

1.  Inability to throw away possessions


ive never been able to get rid of the bracelet you gave me. my cat broke it the first week i had it, but something about throwing it away wraps my wrist with a sensation of betrayal- like im throwing away your company with it. the string still sits on my nightstand.


2. Severe anxiety when attempting to discard items


even though i’ve never worn them, your jackets and shirts outline my bedroom- curtains that block the clarity of what once was with a dressed up version of you i’ve never been able to tear down.

3. Great difficulty categorizing or organizing possessions


it was when i began to leave my thank you notes beside screws, and love letters near lighters, that i realized i’d forgotten how to feel the differences between them.

4. Indecision about what to keep or where to put things


disregarding the good because of the bad feels like an admission of defeat to a ruler i never knew was in charge. when i pick up the way you held my hand, i dont mean to put down the way you wrapped yours around my neck- but i only have one drawer and its not big enough for the two of them.

5. Distress, such as feeling overwhelmed or embarrassed by possessions


when i offer an apology, it is because the amount of landlords that have evicted me for having too much inside myself is more than i ever learned to count. im afraid that i will never stop living in someone else's home, loving in someone else's heart, before i learn to build my own.

6. Suspicion of other people touching items


each day feels a little lighter- as though someone is removing a stone from a bag i didn’t realize i had been forced to carry. ive yet to understand if this ease is unwelcome.

7. Obsessive thoughts and actions: fear of running out of an item or of needing it in the future; checking the trash for accidentally discarded objects


you’ve not read a book in ten years. your novel still lays on my nightstand.

8. Functional impairments, including loss of living space, social isolation, family or marital discord, financial difficulties, health hazards


i havent been able to bring another person to visit the garden i spent years tending to. when the water stopped coming in, i’d no choice but to begin withering- and i’d rather go peacefully than to be let down again because i trusted you to end the drought.