It’s an interesting thing; to contemplate what’s on the inside of someone’s mind. Are the thoughts and memories all filed neatly away in economy-sized folders, with colored labels for easy access and organization? Are there aisles and aisles of cabinets filled to the brim with inside jokes and nights to remember? Is there a drawer specially delegated to information used daily, a drawer for important dates and times, a drawer for grandma’s 80th birthday? Or does the inside of someone’s mind resemble a weekend flea market, with information haphazardly strewn about?

I’d like to think I fall in the first category, but it just isn’t true. If you were to take a trip inside my head, you’d have to wear galoshes to avoid the thick mud that clogs my conscience. You’d trip and fall over disorganized piles of long-forgotten memories, information once learned but immediately disregarded, names of people who can’t be paired with faces, ideas collecting dust, dates-to-remember, and imaginary friends. You’d have to dodge recycled paper airplanes armed with distracting nostalgia-bombs and leap over canyons carved from nights I can’t remember.

If you’re brave enough to battle your way through the chaos and venture to the back of my mind, you wouldn’t find cherished love notes or canepole dreams. No, you’d be astonished at the sudden clinical sterility in comparison to the rest of my mind. The neatly stacked boxes that would stand before you are heavy and ominous. Meticulously labeled and wrapped in layers of caution tape like crime-scene microcosms, they would intrigue you. There are small boxes, large boxes; ring boxes, fridge boxes. Boxes with their flaps folded shut, boxes with surfaces completely covered in heavy chains and padlocks. There would be shiny boxes recently stacked with the others, and boxes with so much dust on them that their labels are indiscernible. You would wonder at their assorted sizes, their varied levels of security, what could be so precious as to require such heavy protection.

Consumed by your human sense of curiosity, you’d reach out to touch one of the boxes, and find yourself immediately placed in one. You’d try to scramble out of the box as fast as you could, regretting your decision to investigate. But the click of the padlock would forever seal your fate.