My Pandora's Box

I keep trying to churn the memories

hoping they will solidify into something

smoother

more easily digested

forgetting that they've soured long ago

I dumped most of them down the drain myself

letting the hot water run to cover up the

stench

wanting never to see them again

+++

It seems I kept them a bit too long

past their expiration date

tucking them behind the cream cheese

on the top shelf- just out of view

thinking they'd be safe there,

protected

I wanted to keep them to myself

take them out for a small taste

once in a while

like dark chocolate in a secret drawer

simultaneously sweet and bitter

+++

Instead, they infected all that was good

leaking in through the crack of the cheese drawer

staining the cruciferous vegetables

pooling into a sticky goo on the sourdough heel

nothing was left unsoiled

not even the milk in its porous carton

now only a guise of white

+++

Yet still, I tried to salvage the smallest portion

sealing it in a tight-lidded jar for "later"

and there it has remained

a useless frozen fixture

every now and then, I take it carefully out

shake it and turn it around in my hands

peering into the smoky glass

trying to catch a glimpse of the past

as if to prove that it's real

(that you were real)

I've been too scared to open the vial

to look underneath the lid

(I might find a piece of me there)