Sears

She told me the old Sears store on Bedford--

that proud art deco pigeon with all its doors

walled up; awkward, lonely, menacing 

the corner around from where she lived back 

when we were dating--was going to be turned 

into self-storage units. This felt fitting:

first they sell it to you, then they charge you

a monthly fee for the rest of your life

to warehouse the stuff there on the same site

where you found it. That is, first 

you swipe on someone, then you spend 

the rest of your life carefully cramming 

all the crap you accumulated--names, 

associations, pet peeves, preferences--

into the industrial labyrinth of your mind,

hoping to forget it’s in there, knowing you’ll never 

get around to sorting through it all. 

In that sense, “sears” is a pretty good word 

for what we put ourselves through.