Memories

Today I threw out Memories,
In the alley behind my house
Under the California sun
where they can decompose.

The number for a
Jerusalem hotel
(1 year after the 2nd Intifada).
The nervous, prolix prose
of a 10th-grade writing assignment
(a shameless parade of knowledge).
The graduate school acceptance letter
(the moment when you still believed...).

All that is joyous, painful, history
ensconced in your identity
Once banal tidbits of yore
Now bring a heavy heart

Why do you yearn for the past
when your life stretched farther ahead
but you had less freedom?
What point are years without experience
of GIS or innumerable foreign cuisines?

Or was it that your creativity has lingered
your indolence (after completion of the bare minimum) grown,
Your desire to harmony
(with your boss)
Impeding (even) bullshit originality.

Your years are yours,
Don't just sit on them,


until they disappear.