Writers Jam

I think I might have a hoarding problem. I like to keep what is, ostensibly, trash around.

People who visit often wonder why I keep a drained disposable lighter, an old t-shirt full of holes, an empty 90ml bottle of cheap whiskey. A tired scrunchie, or a near-empty tube of hand cream.

But how am I to explain that these are inextricably linked to moments of my life? A sniff of the hand cream takes me back to twelfth grade, because it smells exactly like the perfume of the girl I was crushing on. The empty lighter and its twin I bought when a friend was leaving Chennai, one for her and one for me. The whiskey is a souvenir from a trip to meet a lover – the cop who checked my bag at the train station commented on it.

The scrunchie is from a love that didn't get to blossom, and the t-shirt is from my girlfriend back in high school.

The objects in my room aren't really objects so much as they are memories. Each one is a window to a brief past, a life that I used to live.

Would you still toss them out?