As I clean out my closet, I come across it. 

Untouched and folded neatly, it sits on the top shelf of my closet. 

I can tell memories have faded it and it sits covered in dust, sending my mind rolling back into the years of my childhood.

The bright purple has dimmed to a silvery, lavender through time and overuse. 

What once was loud has become quiet. 

I grasp the edge, pulling it off the shelf. It falls

falls

    falls 

into my arms. 

It feels cool upon me–as frigid as a time when I would hold it over the floor vents for minutes on end.

I graze the tattered, torn edges and corners–

I reminisce on the feeling of these same corners I used to pull on walking through the hallway on Christmas morning.

When I wrap it around my shoulder, it calms me–the same way it used to comfort me as a sleeping child.

I hear the sounds of my mom singing lullabies, and they feel soft as a bunny’s fur.

“My bunny,” she says

and I crave the feeling of childhood again.

I came across the faded tag, barely able to read the faint tiny words.

Though the condition it’s in brings me sadness, I know that it has been tattered by love, worn out by the memories. 

It holds happiness and sadness within my life

the laughter laughed and the tears shed.

I come back to the present

And fold it back up once more. 

I sit it on the high shelf, where it has always sat for several years.

My blankey, a symbol of my childhood

the symbol of the end of my childhood.

Putting it away, I lock away those childhood memories

yet they will always be rekindled when that blanket is taken out of the closet again.

I know that because of this connection

I will always continue to carry those memories

even when the blanket is no more, shriveled to threads

My blankey

my comforter as an infant

my best friend as a child

now physically confined to the top shelf

but my affection for it always forever held in my heart.