My Hope ChestMy hope chest used to be Pandora's box
until I censored my past
with twenty large green garbage bags
and two weeks of sleepless nights.
Whole episodes, painful or embarrassing,
were torn into ever-smaller pieces
and chased by the cat into oblivion,
now to rest uneasily until Judgment Day
in a landfill down south.
If you done me wrong, lover,
I've killed you off for good.
Take that! And that!
And by the way,
I've never been fat
and I look amazingly young for my age.
Copyright © 2001 by Karen Thompson