Memories for Sale

Last week I sold a bunch of my memories

to help pay the rent.  It was either that or my car.

I gave them 146  rarely used memories, they gave me $40.88…

I thought it was a fair deal. I mean, I wasn’t using them…

A couple weeks later I was curious

to see how they were selling, so I walked to the second-hand shop

that had made the deal with me.  I saw an elderly woman looking

at my memories.  She picked one up, stared at it disapprovingly, then

tossed it casually back in the pile.  She did this a couple more times, 

then walked away.  

I waited until she had left, then walked up and picked up the one she was looking at.  

It was a memory of kissing and elbows.

Whispers and smiles.

I stood perplexed with the memory in my hands, wondering to myself 

what brought about the look of disapproval.  

To each their own, I suppose…

I hung around that day, trying to get into the heads of those 

who were looking into mine…

with little success.

There were laughs, tears, and the occasional snarky comment.  

I watched a memory of driving down an empty interstate 

with the windows down on an exquisite summer day sell for 28 cents. 

 I saw a memory of climbing trees and rope swings leave with an old man who wanted to remember youth.   

A girl with dreadlocks in her twenties took a fuzzy memory

of less than legal implications.

I came by every day until they were all but gone, only a few stragglers here and there;  One of a hospital bed,

another of a meatloaf dinner in January.

I really don’t like meatloaf.

Author's Note

Originally Written: Sometime in 2010