Receipts from Another Life

I found a shoebox in the dark behind a winter coat.

Its cardboard spine is still whispering like a paper-throated throat.

Inside: thin flags of afternoons we thought would never fade—

receipts from other lives we lived before the reckoning was made.

~•~•~

A diner slip with coffee rings—two mugs, one slice to share;

a matinee with aisle seats where your knees learned my care.

A toll road ticket, half a map, my name in penciled haste;

a bookstore barcode blessing us with paper, glue, and taste.

~•~•~

They itemize what doesn’t bill, the tender, hidden debt:

the change we didn’t pocket and the promises unmet.

A crumpled proof from midnight gas that smelled of rain and tin,

The number where you said to call and taught my doubts to spin.

~•~•~

Return policy: thirty days—we missed it by a year;

warranty on something small we wore down out of fear.

A grocery full of pears and stubborn honey jars,

The night we budgeted for bread and accidentally bought stars.

~•~•~

I read the ink like tea leaves burned into a checkout song,

the tax of being almost right, the discount on “I’m wrong.”

“Keep this receipt”—the register insists we save the past,

But paper fades; the heat of hands unprints what couldn’t last.

~•~•~

I sort them by their flavors now: the sweet, the salt, the ache—

The tender subtotal of the days the heart refused to fake.

Then one by one I stamp them paid, with breath I didn’t owe,

and file them under “Learned Enough,” then let the lid —let go.

~•~•~

I’ll keep just three: a porchlight proof, a bakery at dawn,

The cinema where quiet held the scene we never saw.

Not trophies, love—just markers for the roads I will not drive.

Receipts I won’t present again to prove I was alive.

~•~•~

Because the ledger no one sees is written in my stride,

in how I tip the world for grace and leave the shame outside.

And if I need a proof of love no paper can provide,

I’ll pay in the present tense and let the past stop being tried.