Reflection

A Poem by Kit Willett

Photo by Rhett Noonan

Reflection

It is below my bed where I lay it, hidden away 
every time we move: a box of my teenage years. 
Layered inside is music I heard and poems I wrote, 
tickets and trinkets I barely remember. I leave them aside.

Below the heavy shame of how I treated my ex
and the terrible first time with a girl, I catch his scent, 
seeping through the thin, clear walls of a locked vial. 
I see an image of his hand on my knee in music class, 
and buried with it, a dream of how life would have been. 
I find transcripts on yellowed paper of conversations 
had in secret, and—tied with a ribbon—
a bundle of the coarse wool of his embrace.

Below it all, I find a simple badge—I stare for a while—
It is new to me—or perhaps I never thought it mine. 
It is three bands of color—the colors of my hair—
and I attach it to my chest, leaving my box of memories 
open on my bed to revisit another day.

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Kit Willett is a bisexual poet, English teacher, and executive editor of the Aotearoa poetry journal Tarot. His debut poetry collection, Dying of the Light, was published by Wipf and Stock imprint Resource Publications in 2022.