I used to have so many things.

I used to collect and consume pop culture like a ravenous beast, leaping from one steaming carcass to the other in the wake of "true fans", snatching the scraps that the vultures of corporate marketing schemes and brand-erasing companies tossed my way. I reveled in the pursuit of this weeks "Joy".

But, we've all been small children at one time or another, haven't we?

I have grown since my obsessive-compulsive parasitic consumer days (physically if not mentally) and decided it was time to do away with the paraphernalia of my youth. I spent days removing boxes, bags, and crates of toys, games, and old photograph albums from my room, sending them all to the curb to be scavenged by my former peers.

I did, though, set aside every photo of my father, every ribbon I ever "earned" for participation alone, every stuffed animal, security blanket, scrap of BSOA badge and banner, every bird house, baseball, and remnant of my half fulfilled child hood. I put all of these things inside a wooden box my father crafted for me with my name on the front; a finely finished, painted, and sticker-covered piece of carpentry.I then carried it into the forests of suburbia with my fellow C.L.O.W.N.S., doused it in Bacardi, and burned the whole damned thing until it wouldn't burn anymore.



I had a few wonderful pictures of me stuffing the box, but if I left those photos around, or a list of the box's contents, or anything like that I would individually remember those items and they wouldn't be very well destroyed. I even waited several weeks before posting this praxis to allow my memories to soften around the edges.

The only things that remain are the faint recollections of a father who wasn't there and the brilliant pictures of a blazing memory in the dark forest at midnight.