Could you stash your memories in a secret box,
wrap them in chains and bind them with locks,
if it meant more memories could be made to fit,
in the space you’ve spent your life making for it?

Some thoughts grow and grow and grow
until those thoughts and those memories are all we know,
taking the place of the thoughts we should think now,
unless we can find a way to quiet them somehow.

“Perhaps if we feed them they will just go away,”
I hear a voice inside me meekly say,
but thoughts are like hungry cats pawing at your door,
no matter what you give, they still want more.

A friend told me not to think of them at all,
treat them no better than a fly on the wall,
but thoughts are bigger than flies, louder too,
and if you let them, they’ll hide, jump out and surprise you.

When I asked grown ups what to do, they said,
to find other thoughts or memories to make instead,
but some thoughts don’t like being alone,
and will steal the new ones to make them their own.

In the end I had to find for myself what to do,
because of all those I asked, no one ever really knew.
I held those memories close, whispered softly in their ear,
“I love you, but I need to move on. Don’t worry though, I’ll be near.”

And I gently tucked the thoughts away,
in a big cedar chest labeled, “for another day,”
so I could make new memories, keep the old ones at bay,
but go back to feed them or keep them company should my thoughts stray.