I Remember

I remember the moment I witnessed
how shopping carts stack together.
Until that moment, when I saw
someone push a cart into another cart,
the metal flap raising like a secret door,
a chain of shopping carts was a complete mystery
to me. A single cart meant something entirely different
when it stood alone, before you pushed them together.
Sometimes I still feel this way
about words and sentences
and people

I remember what it was like to admire someone,
to harbor a profound respect,
to hold in such high esteem. Sometimes
I wonder where my heroes went, but I know
they're still there
then or now, sometimes I wonder
which is better

I remember things I shouldn't remember,
things I should have never known, things
no one should ever know. These are the things
that bring me to my knees, to laugh until I cry
or cry until I laugh, it works both ways
and to give thanks, for the impossibility of it all,
for a life unlike any other.


A poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo