number 1

prompt: close your eyes briefly. think of one object that's in the room and focus on it. without opening your eyes, recall as much detail as you can about it. after about 3 minutes or so, open your eyes and write about that object without looking at it.


there is a bookshelf in my bedroom. well, actually, there are four, but the one i'm thinking of is my least favorite bookshelf. made of thin, manufactured wood, its three shelves are stuffed predominantly with books that i haven't read.

my mother bought me a set of textbooks when i was eleven. the salesman said that they would help me in every subject in school for the rest of my life. at the time, i was so excited to have all of that information right at my fingertips but, now, i can count the number of times i used them on one hand. which makes sense, i guess, because we didn't get internet in my house until i was fifteen. now the leather-colored, paper-bound books take up the first shelf and half of the second, except for where there are two very noticeable book-sized holes.

the other shelf and a half is filled with books i didn't return to my high school, books i received at honor society award ceremonies, books that i bought at book sales and at garage sales because "they are so cheap and i will read them eventually!" and books that i bought because i thought i was artsy and into extensive, unabridged journaling. these books, like the textbooks, have never been read. some of them i began reading with the best of intentions but abandoned part-way through. the scarlet letter, little women, emma, the unabridged journals of sylvia plath. some just sit there, their covers never having been cracked (save for those book sale and garage sale books; their covers having been cracked but never by me). one flew over the cuckoo's nest, anna karenina, jane eyre. all classics. all things i should have read but haven't.

the transition between the two sections is jarring. textbooks, all uniform in color, label, and height, switch suddenly to books mismatching in everything. some are warped to the point of illegibility, some are brand new, but all are unread.

at the very top of the bookshelf sit four picture frames. each one holds shots from a trip i took to europe when i was fourteen. typical tourist kind of stuff. a photo of the eiffel tower is next to the leaning tower of pisa; an austrian goat is frozen in time above a picture of a swiss mill and across from a snapshot of the mediterranean sea. my dad bought my a rebel canon for $100 on ebay before i left for the trip and i had no idea how to use it. i had it set on "automatic" the entire time and couldn't figure out how to take non-blurry photos without flash. i remember being so proud of the pictures when i finally got them developed; i had such a hard time choosing which ones to frame. i'm not proud of them anymore. i'm proud of what they represent, and i'm proud of how i felt about them when i first saw them, but i can't help but wonder how much better they would be if i took them now.

there's still time.