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40 Days of Living Like a Poet, Day 4: Found Poetry in a Box of Junk
40 days of living like a poet
The phases of a box of junk are apparent before you even lift the lid. The child-like KEEP OUT scrawled in marker on the side, or maybe you are more classy and it just says the word PRIVATE. Either way, the box itself doesn’t begin to speak on the treasures that hide inside.
There’s the cereal box toys all plastic and fifty percent smaller than pictured on the box, but you held onto it anyway, because prizes are not common, and even if all you had to do was eat to get it, it was still an achievement in your eyes.
You are careful not to poke a finger with the toothpick flag that came on top of a burger, maybe from a place you’ve only been to once, and in that moment, junk journals weren’t a thing and you had the feeling you would never be back there, so you pocketed it to remember. But you still wouldn’t forget, even if you could no longer hold it in your hands.
And in the corner of the box, there lies the first bottle cap from the first drink at the first bar, and you were once devoted to the idea of making a real bottle cap belt, not like the ones they sold at the mall for fifty dollars, and this one would be the start. But there were no more bottle caps, and little more adventure because beer-slicked bar tops and sticky…
