Cardboard Echo

Another box unpacked,

the familiar scent of cardboard dust

and something old, something stuck.

It's all here again, in my parents' garage,

the bare bulb swinging,

casting long, unsteady shadows.

'Childhood Misc.,' my mother's neat hand.

Inside, a report card, a C in math,

a flattened corsage from prom night,

and the mug I made, lopsided,

clay smeared with faded blue paint.

I touch the chipped rim, remember

the way the kiln fired, the glaze

bright then, before years of storage.

It sits among their tools, their old cans

of paint, a silent rebuke.

Everything I tried to outrun,

it all just waited.