leftovers

cleaning out my desk
long past my bedtime
i discover
fifteen city maps

marked up,
with circled addresses,
highlighted streets
and creased corners,
the impossibly named streets
dash impatiently
off the edges,
disregarding my
inability to pronounce
their strange combination
of letters and accents

mingled amongst them,
the detritus of memories:

ticket stubs,
museum admissions,
a sugar packet,
the label of a spanish painkiller
obtained through a grilled doorway
at an ungodly hour of morning,
a railpass,
a credencial:
the paper trail
of three weeks of beauty
and one foot before the other,
several photos,
a handwritten email address
who is isabel678@moroc.es?,
train times scratched onto the back
of a receipt
for two cola caos,
and lists of groceries,
sayings,
directions.

how do you dispose of
the leftovers
of adventure?
how do you throw away
a piece of paper
that holds a history
you are terrified of forgetting?