Thursday, June 7, 2012

Sure. Guard.

Three years ago the boxes were packed, their contents sealed in an airtight crate and locked away in a dark storage hall for unknown hours to come. Opening them up today was not so much a trip down memory lane  (old yearbooks, pictures of youth, favorite items of decoration) as a reminder of what a proper life I left behind. Little jars of paper clips, innumerable boxes of a fully supplied kitchen, different sets of bedding for different seasons, and matching curtains for every window. I was not always this bum in the street. I had a proper life, paid bills on time, stored preserved fruit in the pantry for winter.

An instinctual part in me wanted to put everything straight in the car and ship it to Stockholm, make my life there what is once was here, allow myself to rely on that everything I could possibly need could be found in that spare drawer, that attic space. But the more I contemplated it, the more it heavied me, so that even the lightest pillow sham cemented me into the city streets, tied me to a future I cannot bear. When I left those things, and moved with suitcases, I became free. I forget to love that, sometimes.

I need something to make me stay, he said, and I remember how the words attached themselves to me despite the wine fog, I saw them clearly. I built that home to make me stay, once. Now I don't know what could.

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