Faded Too Far

You found it on the pavement next to your car.
Pot metal and red and white plastic, someone’s medal,
real or imagined, worn thin and broken,
and yet, for some reason, real or imagined,
held on, kept long past its expiration date.

This kind of wear and tear doesn’t come in a flash.
No, it takes time, years in the weather,
never quite released. Never quite thrown away.
A strange kind of keeping, a willingness to abandon
it until the last of it is broken and faded too far

and then discarded.

There is something wrong with you and your love
of the broken and abandoned. You cannot leave it
though it serves no purpose, has no memories for you.
Its value is in its story,
and you do not know what that might be.
But you pick it up and keep it anyway
because it reminds you
of your own.

About this poem

The picture is just a broken, faded trinket I found next to my car at my favorite diner. I picked it up and slipped it in my pocket, sure there was a poem in there somewhere. And finally, here it is.

Tom