File Folders
I rummage through old file folders.
Names and stories,
dates and signed documents.
Papers that should’ve been
shredded.
Scribbled notes
that speak unworthiness.
Incomplete dream lists.
Quotes from my enemies.
Scraps of past relationships that broke me and ones I broke up with.
Statements that depict who I used to be.
I keep scenes and scenes keep me.
Like old words stuck on a mirror, I try to scrape off like a stubborn sticker.
Some letters are missing, but the residue from sticky glue keeps the memory new.
The sting stays too.
These are the shelves, the closet,
the space where I hold my wounds.
Where I fold and hang my worth.
tied by the string on masks,
clinging on to pain.
The walls where I display failures
like earned certificates.
I want a new space.
I want new words.
I want the crisp, clean
pages that invite a new way
of thinking,
of being.
A new way of creating.
I want the new.
Not the old ways
that are browned by each dusty swipe of cardboard boxes or
covered in dirt swept up from
my memory’s floor.
The dirty window casts light on
dust floating around like ideas.
It’s beam hits the walls just right.
Enough to see, it’s time.
It’s time to retire these tattered pages.
I’ll keep the folders, though.
The folders I’ll repurpose.
To store pure joy that comes at the end of a dark day.
To keep intimacy I find in grief.
To hold the moments I felt
air lift me up like a mult-colored balloon — held down by string. Held up by it too.
I’ll write down the time
love held my worth and told it
to come out of hiding.
I’ll hang that on the wall instead.
Prepare for a gallery wall, then.
These moments I will keep forever.
I’ll label the new files. I’ll label the folders in permanent ink and imagination marker.
I’ll label each by name and date.
Days marked by healing.
Days that keep my body alive and my soul breathing.
Days marked by stolen moments given back.
Days that speak of my value in the words of my Savior.
Old files, you’ve done you’re job.
One last sweep to see which ones I need for my future.
Some are worth noting, just to remember.
The pieces that point to kindness, my rescuer.
For the rest of the abused papers.
They are unworthy of my time.
They no longer fit.
There’s no space in my collection.
It’s time to get out the shredder.
I’m making room for new paper.