Memory in a Box
Reams of suitcases stand in line
Brown and black
Red and blue
Short and tall
Wide and long
Everywhere within range of sight
Packed with everything we think we need
Our lives compressed into tiny stacks in rectangular containers
That not only carry our belongings
but ground us to where we plan to return
The funny thing about being in a crowded place
Is the complete silence
Mere inches between people that magnify to miles
Intent on not letting a word cross that gap
A place where the sheer monotony of our lives start to step in
Window-shopping for snacks and overpriced T-shirts
Because time stretches to eternity
Everyone united by the fact of waiting
Of having nowhere to go and nothing to do
But wait to go somewhere else
Our lives are like airports
always hoping or waiting to fly somewhere novel
Escaping the constraints of the familiar for just an instant
Where we hold the clouds up and dance
But when we reach that place
Everything boring about home
Just echoes into the space
Tinging the new with lonely longing
At the same time, the world spills out into your eyes
Lens widening and opening
The moments not captured in a camera lens
Little places where we touch each other’s lives
With a small moment of eye contact
To pay notice to our tenuous connection
Not many such places where the longing fills the air
And hope is all we have
Yet sometimes we need to wait in the middle
To appreciate the end result is to understand what
had to be done to reach there
And knowing that the waiting has its own reward
Of being in a place where there’s nothing to escape to
But your mind
And the quiet of listening to your soul
Away from the buzzing bustling universe